Is The Arab System Dead?

Patrick Seale     Al-Hayat     2003/10/3

The Arab system has often been pronounced dead - and this time it may indeed be true. What do I mean by the Arab system? Ideally, I mean a reasonably stable regional order, seemingly dedicated to Arab interests, managed by sovereign Arab states, accepted by many of its citizens, and able to keep external enemies at bay, if not defeat them.

No one would recognize this as a description of today's decimated and divided Arab world, bereft of all nationalist pride, lacking any solidarity or self-confidence, more subject to foreign domination than at any time since the Second World War, and at war with its own angry citizens.

The most telling features of the Arab scene are the two colonial occupations - of Iraq by the United States, and of the Palestinian territories by Israel. In the name of the 'security' of the U.S. and Israel - but, in fact, in pursuit of naked strategic and material interests - two Arab societies have been occupied by armed force and brought to total breakdown. Life in the Palestinian territories is now a living hell, and things are hardly more bearable for Iraqis, the unhappy citizens of a broken country, reduced to chaos and penury by the sanctions and the Anglo-American invasion, which was once the richest and most advanced of all Arab states. For both Palestinians and Iraqis, violent death has become a daily occurrence. Their countries have been shattered, joining the lamentable list of earlier casualties of the Arab system, such as Lebanon, Algeria and Sudan.

What is clear is that the Arabs, for all their numbers, their oil wealth, their inflated military budgets, and their large educated elites, have not been able to contain Israel behind its 1967 borders or prevent the invasion and occupation of a major Arab country. They have failed to win protection for themselves by acquiring a credible deterrent capability.

Deterrence means persuading a potential enemy not to attack you because the cost to him would be too high. In crude terms, it means making clear to him that, if he hits you, you have the capability to hit him back - in other words, establishing a balance of power.

In spite of its disastrous economic problems, North Korea has managed to compel the United States to negotiate with it rather than to hit it (perhaps because it has China behind it). Iran, so far at least, seems to have secured a measure of immunity from military attack, if not from political and economic pressure. But not the Arabs. It would seem that anyone who wishes to can now arrest them, imprison them without charge, freeze their funds, disrupt their lives, accuse them of 'terrorism,' invade their countries and kill them.

No official body has even bothered to count the number of Iraqi casualties caused by the invasion, but unofficial estimates put the numbers killed at about 6,000 civilians and 10,000 military personnel, with another 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers and civilians gravely wounded.

The search for deterrence

If one striking feature of the contemporary Arab scene is invasion and occupation by outside powers, another equally striking feature is local resistance to these interventions. Because official Arab armies have for the most part been unable to defend themselves, non-state actors have taken up the task. Movements such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and, in its different way, Al Qaeda, have sought to avenge attacks on Arabs, thus establishing a real form of deterrence.

Of these, Hezbollah has so far been the most successful in that it has not only compelled Israel to leave Lebanon but has managed to restrict and contain Israeli aggression also. Israel knows that if it hits Lebanon, Hezbollah will respond with rocket attacks against its towns and villages. Although Hezbollah's deterrent capability has not established a balance of power with Israel, its achievements have nevertheless been remarkable. Israel's current readiness to negotiate an exchange of prisoners is recognition of Hezbollah's political weight.

Hamas, in turn, has sought to deter Israeli attacks against it and against the civilian population of the Palestinian territories. Some weeks ago Hamas declared a unilateral truce, but this did not last long because Israel refused to reciprocate, continuing its targeted killings of Palestinian activists and its armed incursions into Palestinian towns and villages. Now Hamas is again suggesting a truce - but only if Israel, too, stops its attacks. It wants a mutually agreed truce, binding on both sides. Israel has rejected this offer. To accept it would be to recognize that a system of mutual deterrence has actually been put in place by suicide bombers, a thing Israel hates above all else -- namely that its freedom to strike might be held in check by the deterrent capability of any Arab group or state.

Whatever one might think of Al Qaeda and its terrorist tactics, it too is the sharp end of a broad anti-imperialist movement, determined to avenge what it sees as Western violence against the Arabs, and the stifling of their aspiration for independence, ever since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. Al Qaeda is a threat not only to the United States but also to its client states.

By hitting the United States, Al Qaeda wants to force it to change its policies - to withdraw its troops from Muslim lands, to stop its blind support of Israel, to respect Islam and Arab nationalism. So far, only the contrary has happened. Defying Al Qaeda's challenge, the U.S. launched a global 'war on terror' and invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq, overthrowing their regimes. Instead of addressing Arab and Muslim grievances and aspirations, the U.S. has sought to impose itself on the region more forcefully than ever, and reshape its geopolitics by military means to suit its own interests and those of its Israeli ally.

In dealing with Europe during the crisis over Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sought to distinguish between 'old Europe', meaning countries like France and Germany which opposed American policies, and 'new Europe', that is to say former communist states like Poland and the Czech Republic, that had popular support for the U.S. for having freed them from Soviet domination.

In the Middle East, a similar division is taking place, which the United States has been able to exploit. The 'Old Arab world' consists of the traditional centers of Arab power - Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, Riyadh - all resentful in their different ways of American heavy-handed intervention. In contrast, the members of the 'New Arab world', that is to say the prosperous sheikhdoms of the Gulf, have welcomed American troops on their territory and seem happy to live under the protective umbrella of American power, with its corresponding loss of real independence. Undoubtedly, the rich, technocratic, Western-oriented Gulf, eager to modernize and develop, sees its alliance with the United States as crucial in helping it grow into a regional strategic pole, free from the demands, dictates and miseries of the 'old Arab world'.

The cost of intervention

No imperial policy is cost free. The U.S. and Israel are both paying a heavy price for their colonial wars. In the United States, it is no exaggeration to say that the Bush presidency is unraveling under the strain of the war in Iraq - its soaring costs, its casualties and the many unsavory scandals it has brought to the surface. Bush's popularity is in decline as his administration faces growing criticism over its handling of the war and its aftermath. His re-election next year now seems very much in doubt.

The latest episode in the unfolding drama is the launch of a criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department to find out who leaked to the media the fact that the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who happened to oppose Bush's war, was a secret CIA operative. The White House may have leaked the name of Wilson's wife in revenge, since he was the man who had debunked Bush's claim that Iraq had imported uranium from Niger.

Unrestrained by a U.S. which is now acting as brutally in Iraq, Israel continues its horrifying oppression of Palestinians and its seizure of their land. Can it be unaware that the hate it is generating among the Arabs, and the wounds it is inflicting on its own society, must inevitably threaten its long-term survival?