The Inevitable Aftermath?  Radicalism's New Foothold in the Middle East

June 4, 2003
By Martin Sieff

The idealistic, optimistic and democratic rhetoric of the Bush Administration has collided head-on with the consequences of its policies in Iraq . Administration policymakers are all too belatedly coming to recognize that if they fulfill their pledges to turn control of Iraq over to its own democratically-elected representatives, they are almost certain to hand that state and its vast oil wealth into the hands of America's most implacable and unpredictable enemies. 

And they have yet to realize that all the loose talk by their supporters about regime change in Syria and Saudi Arabia , as well as plans to destabilize Iran , will not benefit U.S. national security interests at all--but instead embolden the extremists who pose the greatest threat to them.  

The Administration seems caught up in an almost eschatological vision of remaking the Middle East in the American image. It is revealed in a phrase that has become beloved by neo-conservatives and those who fancy themselves "tough" and "ruthless" realpolitik analysts of the post 9/11 world. That phrase is "draining the swamp." The predominantly Muslim Arab nations of the Middle East must be remade as democracies to "drain the swamp" of anti-Western, especially anti-American and anti-Israeli hatreds that seethe within them. Only this way will the enormous and rapidly growing popular reservoir of support for Osama bin Laden and his heirs be drained--at least that is how the argument goes.  

But like so many such simplistic and sweeping general explanations for far more complex processes, this policy is not only plain wrong, it is also guaranteed to produce the exact opposite of what it promises. Far from "draining the swamp", it is systematically demolishing the floodgates that have held back the most extreme, ferocious and exceptionally dangerous passions of anti-Western extremism that otherwise would remain bottled up. 

For Islamic fundamentalism is a far vaster and formidable phenomenon than our concept of a band of a few hundred Al-Qaeda fanatics operating alone on the fringes of society.  In the months after 9/11, reports from Saudi Arabia reported that the most popular name for new male babies born was Osama. Al-Qaeda is only the top of a vast iceberg of activism and idealism aimed at toppling every secular regime in the Muslim world and replacing it with a restored, unified Caliphate capable of waging effective aggressive war against the West. 

Like the Bolshevik revolutionaries in pre-World War I Czarist Russia, these groups are incapable of gaining more than a foothold against long-established governments supported by the international community.  These organizations, however, flower when presented with the right conditions of lawlessness and anarchy.  So when the dominant military power in the world, the United States, knocks out a secular tyranny by force and fails to rapidly impose curfews, martial law and restore essential services, it cannot be surprised that Shia - and, as we will soon, no doubt, see, Sunni - extremists rush to fill the gap. 

And the more the U.S. government destabilizes and delegitimizes other established governments in the region such as those of Saudi Arabia , Syria and Egypt , the more it runs the risk of delivering those countries into the hands of not just of Al-Qaeda but of the entire complex of fanatical forces from which that group sprang.  

The evidence for this is already crystal clear in Iraq , only weeks after the toppling of President Saddam Hussein and his regime.  The U.S. liberators, true to their idealistically-defined mission, removed the Ba'ath party and closed down existing institutions, and the only thing left open now is the mosque. 

The Washington Post correctly noted in a Page A1 story on April 23 that both State Department and Department of Defense officials were astonished at the vast popularity, passions and degree of organization the Shiite majority in southern Iraq had already exhibited less than three weeks after the collapse of the Baath government. The story by Glenn Kessler and Dana Priest carried the all too revealing title "U.S. Planners Surprised by Strength of Iraqi Shiites." The authors began by reporting, "Bush administration officials say they underestimated the Shiites’ organizational strength and are unprepared to prevent the rise of an anti-American Islamic fundamentalist government in the country."  

"Surprised"? "Underestimated"? "Unprepared"? It was not for lack of evidence.  No, these warning signs were ignored.  None of this fit their vision of what they wanted to happen, so they simply did not consciously acknowledge that this was a possibility.   

In the month since that story, the evidence that fiercely anti-American, Iran-backed Shia clerics have established themselves as a leading force in Iraq has mounted like a tidal wave. With lightning speed, " Saddam City ", a working-class development of two million people in Baghdad , was renamed " Sadr City ." And as Anthony Shadid reported in another Page A1 story in the May 29 edition of the Washington Post, Islamic justice is already firmly in the saddle there. The entire, vast development is now being run by the local Shiite clergy out of the Hikma Mosque, he reported. Indeed, throughout Baghdad , a city of more than five million people, the Shiite clergy is now "perhaps the best-organized force in the unsettled capital besides the U.S. occupation," Shadid reported.  

What is the new neo-conservative prescription to this phenomenon that none of them appear to have anticipated - though many others clearly did? True believing neo-cons still recite the mantra of true democracy in Iraq . However, it is striking that, faced with the continuing chaos and growing evidence of mass, organized Shia militancy in Iraq, some neo-cons have come full circle, wanting to see a "Saddam-like" figure put into power rather than risk losing the gains of the war to a democracy that looks increasingly capable of transforming itself within weeks into an Islamic republic on the 1979 Iranian model.  

Yet, despite the warning signs from Iraq , the great ideologically-driven, neo-conservative crusade of "draining the swamp" in the Middle East by pursuing regime change throughout it shows no sign of diminishing. Who, then is in position to truly benefit from this relentless, consistent destruction of all secular or moderate governments throughout the region? Not the American people or the national interests of the United States .  

Israel doesn't benefit either. It is notable that Israeli officials have been signaling strongly in recent weeks they do not favor "regime change" in Syria since they recognize that the only credible alternative government there comes from the extreme Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. This assessment is consistent with traditional Israeli policy under both Likud and Labor-led governments for many decades. Israel has never seriously pressed for democracy in Egypt or Jordan either, recognizing that authoritarian governments insulated from popular pressures are better peace partners.  

Who then stands to benefit from current U.S. policy as urged on by our dominant neo-conservatives? Who else but the man who above all others wants to see the current traditional secular socialist or moderate conservative governments of the regime weakened and destroyed? None other than bin Laden himself.  

The evidence for this is now in front of our eyes throughout Iraq . There, we already all too clearly see that the toppling of Saddam - for so long relentlessly urged by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and their fellow neo-conservatives -has only served to lift the lid off extreme fundamentalist Islamist passions throughout Iraq . And there is no reason to doubt that the weakening, discrediting or eventual toppling of the governments of Syria and Saudi Arabia will do exactly the same thing.   

They are repeating the catastrophic error of Jimmy Carter a quarter century ago, when he relentlessly undermined the Shah of Iran, ceaselessly urging democratization on him, only to end up not with a liberal democrat in power but something far worse than the Shah ever was--Ayatollah Khomeini.  

The greatest catastrophe imaginable to the national interests of the United States , to the American people and to the Western world - and to the state of Israel too, for that matter - would be for the current weak, insecure, ineffectual, corrupt and fearful governments that run most of the Middle East to be toppled or mortally weakened. For it is bin Laden and his heirs who would immediately sweep in to reap the whirlwind, just as they are already starting to do in Iraq .  

This cannot happen, unless the power of the United States is deliberately mobilized to threaten and undermine the region’s current major governments. Yet that is exactly what is now happening before our eyes. The Middle East is being made safe all right. But not for us.

Martin Sieff is chief news analyst for United Press International.  An earlier version of this essay appeared in the May 19, 2003 issue of The American Conservative (www.amconmag.com).