July 1, 2004
Immanuel Wallerstein
Iraqi sovereignty has been "returned" to the Iraqi people, more or less. What now? Everyone is waiting to see if the guerilla war against the United States will now abate. It seems most unlikely. If not, what can we expect - in the next six months, in the next five years? There are four crucial, interrelated loci of instability and possibility of significant change. The first question is whether a stable Iraqi government can be created. It seems clear as of now that Iraqi nationalism is back on the front burner of Iraqi politics. The one thing on which the Shia and the Sunni, their clerics and their secular forces, can agree is that Iraq should reestablish itself as a unified state, regain its economic strength, and reassert its political role as a major power in the Arab world. Very few Shia or Sunni leaders are interested in establishing a multiparty system, with alternating governments and extensive civil liberties. Quite the contrary. They want a strong state. What is most probable is that we shall see a neo-Baathist state, with three differences from the previous one. It will be a joint operation of Shia and Sunni elites, not just Sunni. It will have a strong Islamist component, unlike the classic secular Baathist regime, women being the first to suffer from this difference.And Iyad Allawi is positioning himself to be the new Saddam, after he liquidates Saddam in a swift trial, probably not public. Will this be better for either the Iraqi people or the United States government? This is doubtful. For the moment, the current Iraqi leadership is no doubt afraid to cut its dependence on American forces too quickly, and the U.S. will continue to occupy Iraq for the time being. But the advantage to the Iraqi government from these forces is draining away, and the disadvantage of being linked to them is daily increasing. So, probably within 6-12 months, the Iraqi government (whichever one we have) will request a withdrawal of these forces, to which the U.S. government will be overjoyed to accede. Will we have elections? Maybe. The fate of the Kurds is the next locus of instability. The new Iraqi government harbors no sympathy for Kurdish desires for a federal regime, and the Kurds are not ready to recognize the legitimacy of any government that does not concede to them what they feel is their fair place. The Kurds are a very large people. They are mostly Sunni Muslims, but up to now Islamist tendencies have been rather weak among them. Collectively, the Kurds present the classic face of a nationalist movement. The Kurds have an unhappy history. The moment for them to have been established as a sovereign state was after the First World War, in the wake of the breakdown of the Ottoman Empire. But they were neither organized enough at that time nor useful enough to any world power to accomplish this. So they remain divided up among many sovereign states - notably Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran - and are well treated in none of them. Consequently, for quite some time now, they have been pursuing the path of nationalist rebellion, and casting about for allies wherever they could find them. They haven't had too much luck over the past thirty years. In the last decade, they tried the American card, presenting themselves as the most faithful ally of the U.S. in the region. Never mind that the U.S. more or less betrayed them in 1991; they tried again in 2003. Danielle Mitterand, an ardent supporter, warned them then that the U.S. would be an unreliable pillar on which to build their strategy. And she seems to have been proven right. While the U.S. no doubt would like to maintain Kurdish support, the Bush administration has clearly decided that Kurds matter less than the Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and that if they have to choose, they'll go with the Ayatollah. In any case, the U.S.has little choice. The U.S. can scarcely continue the overflight protection it gave the Kurds in the 1990s against Saddam Hussein. The Kurds realize all this. They seem to be turning towards the other friendless group in the Middle East, Israel. And Israel is happy to comply. But while Israel can offer important technical support and political connections, it cannot send an army, and this is what the Kurds may need. Besides, Israel may soon find it has big problems of its own. Sharon's government is in ever greater difficulty. While the Gaza withdrawal plan is a scam, it is still more than Sharon may be able to implement, given the fanatic resistance of the pro-settler forces. The real problem is not there, however. Palestinian resistance remains unabated. And the Sharon anti-Arafat folly seems to be guaranteeing that the resistance will take on an ever more Islamist flavor, and therefore an ever more uncompromising one. Israel's steady move to the right has created an impasse from which there may be no political way out. Sharon (but also Peres and Barak) have all seemed to think that time is on the Israeli side. Create a fait accompli and sooner or later the world will legitimate it. But, on the contrary, time is very much against Israel. For thirty years at least, Israel has counted on the unstinting diplomatic, economic, and military support of the United States. And the ties have gotten ever closer. Under the present Bush administration, it is hard to discern any distance whatsoever between the two governments. Israel has become the untouchable taboo in American politics. All politicians support Israel, virtually in all circumstances. But can this last? The problem for Israel today is the Bush invasion of Iraq. It is a fiasco. And the American public is turning against it, each day more. The latest poll shows that for the first time a majority of the American public believe that the invasion was a mistake. And members of the Establishment like Sen. Fritz Hollings are now ready to write op-ed pieces saying that "the United States has lost its moral authority." As the U.S. reconsiders fundamentally what it has done in Iraq, it will not be too long after that the public will start to reconsider the unconditional support of Israel. And when that collapses, as it has in the last decade in western Europe, Israel will be in real trouble. This brings us to locus number four of great change - Iran. Iran is a major "middle power" in the world-system. It has a large population. It has wealth. It has highly-educated cadres. It is heir to a very ancient civilization. And it is the principal locus, along with southern Iraq, of Shi'ism. True, it has internal problems in that its clerical regime is authoritarian and much contested by a large part of the population. But this may not affect its geopolitical strength any more than China's tight internal political regime affects its geopolitical strength. The immediate question for the world's powers about Iran at the moment is nuclear proliferation. I agree with those who say that the Iranian government is not forthright on this issue. I have no doubt that they are pursuing nuclear development. I also have no doubt that, within three years or so at the most, they will explode a nuclear device, and will thereby join the "nuclear club," as one of their officials put it recently. There are several reasons for this. First, Iran cannot be bribed out of it. This may be a remote possibility in the case of North Korea, but it is a non-starter for Iran. Furthermore, it seems that Iran really needs the nuclear energy, if it is to achieve the kind of major industrial development it has in mind. But most of all, Iran is surrounded by nuclear powers - India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Israel, and of course the United States. Any Iranian leader who did not seek nuclear weapons would be out of his mind. Furthermore, Iran cannot see why it is all right for India, Pakistan, and above all Israel to be members of the club, but not for Iran. There is one danger Iran faces. This is not an invasion by the United States, which simply doesn't have the military strength, not to speak of the political strength, to pull it off, no matter how many nuclear bombs Iran will produce. The danger it faces is an Israeli air strike to take out their nuclear facilities the way Israel did with Iraq on June 7, 1981. The Israelis would certainly consider this very seriously. The problem is that the world has changed since 1981. In 1981, Israel was slapped on the wrist for its gross violation of international law. Today, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the world would be less tolerant. Indeed, it would be in an uproar. And the backlash against Israel would be enormous, including in the United States. Very few people, in either the U.S. or Europe, would appreciate being dragged into a military strike against Iran.And Iran could and would use it to enhance its already considerable clout in the region, including in Iraq. The Bush administration has created a firestorm, and both the U.S. and Israel will pay the price, which is scarcely the scenario the neo-cons had envisaged.
Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University
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