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Dear list members,
FYI.
Best
andreas
A N U
Assyrian News Watch
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Assyrian Chaldean Syriac
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Asia Times
July 20, 2002
THE ROVING EYE
Bring on the Hashemites
By Pepe Escobar
PARIS - Relatively subdued but still defiant, Saddam Hussein showed up
wearing a neat suit on Iraqi television to celebrate the 34th anniversary
of the Baath Party's grip on power - and to reassure Iraqis in no uncertain
terms that he does not fear the "evil forces" trying to unsettle him (you
can only answer American-made demonology with Iraqi-made demonology).
Meanwhile, in London, notorious rhetoric contortionist Tony Blair was
telling Parliament there's no need for a United Nations resolution to
justify an attack on Iraq - although the operation must be in accordance
with international law. This obviously means once again that the UN is
worth nothing. So why should Saddam listen to it?
Anyway, a much more fascinating gathering - also in London, and also
concerning Iraq - took place last Sunday. About 60 former Iraqi generals
and senior military officers in exile, plus the main Iraqi opposition
leaders, mustered in Kensington's town hall to create a so-called military
council that will be engaged in toppling Saddam. According to General
Taufik Al-Yassiri, "The main objective of this military council is to
coordinate the military aspect in the process of change." A "change of
regime" is how the US is officially defining the whole operation to get rid
of Saddam.
Al-Yassiri is very close to Ahmad Chalabi, the less than pristine leader of
the Iraqi National Congress (INC) - the opposition coalition supported by
the US. The INC supervised the London meeting - attended by a smattering of
Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds. The only point that they seem to agree on is to
boost all their anti-Saddam connections inside the Iraqi army - and hope
that these insiders can accelerate Saddam's downfall.
Easier said - in these cozy London fields - than done. Asia Times Online
learned from Republican Guard sources in Iraq in April that an extremely
paranoid Saddam carries out a mini-pogrom in the army and security services
practically on an daily basis. He fears a coup as much as he fears an
American attack.
The Americans - the Pentagon and State Department - were at the London
meeting in full force. It is heavily ironic that despite a lot of contrary
advice, the US insists on preparing the post-Saddam political environment
by applying the same formula that has already backfired in Afghanistan.
The most intriguing character at the London meeting was undoubtedly
Jordan's Prince Hasan. He is reigning King Abdullah's uncle. And most of
all he was supposed to be the heir of the Hashemite crown - but he was
sidelined at the last moment by his brother, the late King Hussein.
Following a carefully prepared script, he behaved in London as just an
innocent bystander: "I don't have a program. I am not qualified to comment
on questions regarding Iraq's future. This question depends entirely on the
Iraqi people. I don't have any message. I am not a member of the Iraqi
government." Adding to all the negatives, Amman felt obliged to distribute
a note stating that the prince was not an official Jordanian envoy to the
meeting.
Everybody in the Arab world knows - and fears - that Washington's game
involves using Jordan as one of its military bases for a strike against
Iraq. Amman - as well as Ankara - keep saying almost on a weekly basis that
they are not part of the plan.
Prince Hasan is the cousin of Al-Sharif Ali Ben Hussein, the president of
the Constitutional Monarchy Movement (CMM) for Iraq, created after the
invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990. Ben Hussein is the maternal cousin of
former King Faisal - the last Iraqi king, deposed and assassinated on July
14, 1958 by General Abdel Karim Kassem. Prince Hasan may have taken a lot
of pain to brush off any suggestions of a restoration of the monarchy in
Iraq - but he also emphasized the "common roots" between the Jordanian and
Iraqi branches of the Hashemite dynasty, direct descendants from the Holy
Prophet Mohammed.
Prince Hasan may be playing the American card, as well as that of the shaky
opposition coalition. But there are no assurances that conflicting,
power-hungry opposition factions will be capable of uniting. Monarchists -
supporters of Prince Hasan - are in favor of a heavily-centralized
government. Kurds are in favor of a federation, totally decentralized. Most
of all there's absolutely no assurances that the exiled Iraqi military
would follow a code of honor and restore power to civilians after Saddam's
departure. And it's impossible to forget history and underestimate the
fighting spirit of the people of Mesopotamia: it's extremely unlikely that
an Iraqi opposition installed by American missiles would be able to hold
onto power in Baghdad.
Saddam may be consuming planeloads of sleeping pills because to counter all
these foreign machinations he can rely on absolutely no friends in the Arab
world. Middle East diplomats say in private his newfound cozy relationship
with Syria's Bashar Assad is not really meaningful. His only real ally -
since the Lebanese civil war - is a beleaguered Yasser Arafat. The Bedouins
of the Arab peninsula hate Saddam. Iranian Shi'ites - as well as Arabs -
simply do not forgive him for the massacres in southern Iraq in early 1991.
And Turkey fears a strong Iraq capable of attacking the Kurdish autonomous
zone in the north.
Saddam's inscrutable mind may be calculating that the pathological American
obsession on getting rid of him may be America's nemesis. The possibility
of a political debacle is immense. There are signs everywhere pointing to
the emergence of an Arab anti-American bloc. In the event of an attack
against Iraq, Hosni Mubarak's repressive regime in Egypt may be facing the
abyss. Al-Qaeda will be handed over a priceless public relations coup - and
pro-Osama bin Laden sentiment will reach the sky all over the Gulf
countries and even in Saudi Arabia. More suicide bombers will be even more
resolute in their strikes against Israel. Not to mention the serious
possibility of a revolution in Yemen. In the end, Saddam's best allies may
be US arrogance and supreme indifference to the highly sensitive regional
context - and not a Hashemite has-been and a ragtag, corrupt opposition in
exile.
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