Possible Scenarios in Mideast After Iraq War
By Bill Straub10 April 2003
James Woolsey, a former CIA director who reportedly is in line for a key position in rebuilding Iraq, said recently that the US is engaged in "the fourth world war," which likely will last longer than either the first world war and the second world war but "hopefully not the full four-plus decades of the cold war."
With the events in Iraq storming toward a conclusion, the Bush administration is contemplating its next step in reshaping the political map of the Middle East.Advisers are urging president Bush to use diplomatic and, if necessary, military might to bring democracy into a region where it is little more than a theory. With Saddam Hussein out of the picture and Baghdad in hand, they argue that Iran and Syria should not be far behind.
The enunciation last year of the "Bush Doctrine," which dedicates the US to act in pre-emptive fashion if it fears national security is imperiled, provides sufficient cover, these advisers insist, to usurp regimes, like those in Damascus and Tehran, that endanger American interests.
"This is a battle in a longer war," said Michael Ledeen, who was a special adviser to Secretary of State Alexander Haig during the Reagan administration. "Iraq is not the war. And the war is a regional war and we cannot be successful in Iraq if we only do Iraq alone. And I think that the terror countries bordering Iraq - namely, Iran and Syria - know that."
James Woolsey, a former CIA director who reportedly is in line for a key position in rebuilding Iraq, said recently that the US is engaged in "the fourth world war," which likely will last longer than either World War I and World War II but "hopefully not the full four-plus decades of the Cold War."
This war, Woolsey told a student audience at UCLA, is against three enemies - the religious rulers of Iran, the fascists of Iraq and Syria, and Islamic extremists like al Qaeda.
"As we move toward a new Middle East, over the years and, I think, over the decades to come, we will make a lot of people very nervous," Woolsey said.
Some, indeed, already are. Last week, both secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld and secretary of state Colin Powell warned Syria and Iran about the consequences of meddling in the hostilities in Iraq. Syria, in particular, reportedly has been shipping supplies to Baghdad.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the US at this point is unclear about Syrian activities. "But very clear messages have been delivered to the Syrian government that they should not engage in behavior that is anti-coalition and thereby anti-Iraqi people," she said.
Asked in a March 27 interview if Syria is being targeted by the US, Syrian president Bashir Assad responded, "We are not going to wait until they include Syria in the plan. ... Some Arab capitals will stand beside Baghdad. When I talk about some Arab capitals, it does not make sense to exclude Syria."
The origin of the plan to reconfigure the political map of the Middle East can be traced back to 9/11.
Marina Ottaway, a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that shortly after that catastrophic event, the Bush administration began paying "unaccustomed attention to the issue of democracy in the Middle East."
"Following Sept. 11, many US officials have worried that the authoritarianism of most Arab regimes has bred frustration in their countries, and this frustration has in turn favored the growth of terrorist organizations," Ottaway said in a Carnegie report published last month, "Promoting democracy in the Middle East."
Bush and Rice have stated on more than one occasion since the attacks that regime change in Iraq will lead to a far-reaching transformation in the entire region. Rice told the Financial Times on Sept 23, 2002, that the US was committed not only to the removal of Saddam but "the democratization or the march of freedom in the Muslim world."
Last spring, the president began asserting what has become known as the Bush doctrine. In an address at West Point on June 1, Bush said the spread of global terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction present the US with "a threat with no precedent." Since traditional strategies of deterrence and containment no longer worked, he said, the administration was embracing the concept of pre-emption.
"If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long," he said.
With Iraq all but wrapped up, the administration is turning its attention to Syria and Iran, both of whom, according to US intelligence, have closer ties to terrorist organizations that offer a potential threat than Iraq.
Richard Perle, a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board who often is credited with links to the administration's Iraq policy, voiced hope that change will occur in Iran without a shot being fired. After 24 years of the Islamic Revolution, Perle and others believe, Iran is failing, saddled with double-digit unemployment, governmental corruption and increasing repression that has fostered calls for change.
"The people of Iran are understandably unhappy with the Mullah's regime in which every aspect of their lives is dictated by people that they never selected, they never elected and whose policies they largely disapprove," Perle said. "So I think that Iran has a very good chance of taking care of itself - that is to say, the people of Iran demanding regime change."
Regardless, Iran soon will find itself surrounded. After American forces gain full control of Iraq, the US will have a military presence in Afghanistan to the east, Iraq to the west, Central Asia to the north and Saudi Arabia to the south. Perle expressed confidence that regime change will visit Iran "without any use of military power by the US."
Ledeen, meanwhile, argues that the rulers of Syria "can't stand alone against a successful revolution that topples tyrannical regimes in Kabul, Tehran and Iraq."
Others are more cautious about the emerging strategy.
Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president of foreign policy and defense studies at the Cato Institute, said that with the policy glide path taken by the administration, "the chances are very good that we will be at war with Iran two to three years after the war against Iraq."
And if the administration follows the plan for "similar coercion" against Syria, Carpenter said, Bush's doctrine could become "a blueprint for perpetual war."
James Steinberg, director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, said there is little that Syria can do in the face of an American attack. Iran, however, could respond with assaults on US facilities in the Persian Gulf and coalition troops remaining in Iraq.
"It's unlikely any nations in the Gulf that are supporting the US against Iraq would be as accommodating of a strike against Iran," Steinberg said. "And more likely they would feel pressure to end the American presence and distance themselves from the US at the very time when America is seeking to restore its standing and support among the people of the Arab and Islamic world."
The threat of terrorism, Steinberg said, also would rise and the prospect of improving relations with the Iranian people likely would collapse.
Gary Hart, the former Colorado senator thinking about making a third run for the Democratic presidential nomination, said the position being taken by administration hard-liners offers the world its "worst nightmare about the intended misuse of American power and especially American military power."
"Do we then overthrow a popularly elected theocracy?" he asked. "Has Dick Cheney thought this far ahead? And how many other dictatorships ... are we obliged to invade to 'liberate' their people? Where does it all end?"
This article originally appeared on Scripps Howard News Service