[Mb-civic] A War Without Winners

[William Swiggard]

A War Without Winners

By Richard Cohen
Thursday, November 3, 2005; Page A21

AMMAN, Jordan -- In some respects, Jordan is not having a bad war. 
Emigre Iraqis are buying real estate here, the high-tech sector is 
booming, the port of Aqaba is busier than ever, contractors of all sorts 
stay in the hotels, and a lot of what the military needs in Iraq comes 
through Jordan. This country is one big supply base.

In some other respects, the war is not going well at all. The 
neighborhood -- one of the worst in the world for a small country -- has 
gotten considerably less stable since the war began. It is true, of 
course, that Saddam Hussein, the mad bully of the region, is locked up 
-- and that is not an inconsiderable achievement. Although it is often 
overlooked, ridding this area and the world of a dictator who started 
two wars and savaged his own people has to be cause for a certain amount 
of cheer.

But from there, things go rapidly downhill. A Jordanian looking around 
the region would see some ominous developments in neighboring countries. 
The most important is the extension of Iranian influence, if not 
outright control, into southern Iraq, where Shiites are predominant and 
oil is found in abundance. The north of Iraq is already a functional 
Kurdish republic. It, too, has oil. That leaves the Sunni middle around 
Baghdad. It has no oil but will be rich in aggrieved people -- a vast 
recruiting ground for al Qaeda. It is not the sort of neighbor Jordan 
would want.

To the south is Saudi Arabia, where al Qaeda's influence may be growing 
and where some recent terrorist attacks seemed to have been inside jobs 
-- someone in the military or the police was in on it. Whatever the 
case, the Saudis, too, have a Shiite minority, and their country is in 
the oil-rich northeast, right next to Iraq and Iran. The Saudis are not 
happy with how the war in Iraq has made their lives even more difficult. 
It is impossible for Jordan, a country with a population of a mere 6 
million, not to worry about the potential instability of a neighbor. It 
is also impossible for an oil-dependent America not to worry about Saudi 
Arabia.

Now we come to Syria, another of Jordan's problematic neighbors. The 
dictator there, Bashar Assad, is under great pressure to produce the 
killer or killers of Rafiq Hariri, a former Lebanese prime minister. 
Trouble is, some of the culprits might be in Assad's own family -- if 
not the president himself. Since he is not likely to arrest his brother 
or his brother-in-law (not to mention himself), it's hard to see what 
the outcome to this mess may be: perhaps sanctions imposed by the United 
Nations. However nice it would be for Assad to be among the unemployed, 
Washington's primary concern is not strictly law and order but the 
willingness of Assad to allow terrorists to cross into Iraq from his 
country -- another repercussion of the war and Syria's fear that it 
might be next.

The United States would love for the Assad regime to go. But what would 
replace it? It's hard to imagine, but it could be something worse: the 
radical Muslim Brotherhood, for instance. It is about the closest thing 
Assad and his clique have to an organized opposition. Replacing a 
secular dictatorship with a radically religious one is not what 
Washington would call progress.

In short, and not taking into account the stalled Israeli-Palestinian 
peace plan, the war in Iraq has hardly made this area more stable. It's 
true, of course, that nothing catastrophic has yet occurred in the 
region, but the casual assurance that nothing will happen must now be 
held to a new post-Iraq standard: Just about everything Washington said 
was happening (weapons of mass destruction) and would happen (an easy 
occupation) has turned out to be utterly false.

One could almost forgive President Bush for waging war under false or 
mistaken pretenses had a better, more democratic Middle East come out of 
it. But just as the 1991 Persian Gulf War introduced an element of 
instability in the region -- the rise of al Qaeda in response to the 
stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia -- so might this one do 
something similar. A Shiite arc is forming, Iraq is infested with 
terrorists and coming apart, Syria might be going from bad to worse, and 
Saudi Arabia is complaining loudly that the war's only winners are the 
Shiites and Iran. From here, it looks like a war that is already going 
badly for America could go even worse for much of the Middle East.

Mission accomplished?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/02/AR2005110202123.html?nav=hcmodule
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