Foreign Policy Magazine's March/April issue asked the question: who has come out ahead in Iraq? For their ten answers. the magazine contacted ten scholars to write a short essay. The results were engaging and informative. A few of the essays are available on the FP Magazine website, while others are restricted to subscribers. Excerpts are reproduced below along with my own thoughts on them.
#1: Iran, by Vali Nasr of the Council on Foreign Relations:
In the political vacuum that followed Saddam's fall, Iranian influence quickly spread into southern Iraq on the back of commercial connections ... and burgeoning intelligence and political ties. Iran's influence quickly extended to every level if Iraq's bureaucracy, Shiite clerical and tribal establishments, and security and political apparatuses.
As Nasr notes, the neoconservative plan for the prestige of a secular democratic Iraq to weaken Iran's Islamic republic is not turning out so well. Instead, pro-Iran sentiment among the Shiite population is much stronger after the war than it was before, and the Sunnis are simply getting pushed out of the way by Shiite gangs. People increasingly look to the priest-dominated Iranian republic as a model of Middle East democracy rather than a problem with it.
Iran is one of America's bogeymen, at least when Dick Cheney isn't selling them nuclear technology. In the parlance of Iran's leaders, the United States of America is the "Great Satan", the source of all evil in the world. Iran has been a declared enemy of the US since the overthrow of the US-installed Shah in 1979. As part of the revolution, Iran invaded the US Embassy in Teheran and seized the staff as hostages for over a year. One of the most conciliatory negotiators of our time, Jimmy Carter, was unable to resolve the situation. If such an intractable enemy of the US is coming out ahead in the Iraq war, it speaks to the bungling nature of Bush's foreign policy.
#2: Moqtada al-Sadr, by Dexter Filkins of the New York Times:
Moqtada al-Sadr, the young, rabble-rousing cleric few people had even heard of before the invasion began, can now plausibly claim to be the most powerful man in the whole country ... He commands as many allies in the Iraqi Parliament as any single party, and his armed followers permeate Iraq's security forces ... and fill the ranks of many of the death squads that terrorize the country's Sunni minority.
Some might include this as part of "#1: Iran", but the claims that Moqtada is an Iranian operative (which spread after his relationship with the coalition government went on the rocks) were never quite confirmed to my knowledge (although I was quick to believe them at the time). He did find a safe haven in Iran after Saddam killed his father, and he does seem to have similar political ideals as the mullahs.
When Moqtada came to Iraq, he started at the top by riding on the reputation of his father who had been a leader of the "Marsh Arab" tribes. He also started at the top by attacking Ayatollah Ali Sistani and other Iraqi Shiite leaders. He followed that up by marching his troops into the holiest Shiite cathedrals and daring anyone to try to push him out. Since the traditional Shia authorities did not want to see bloodshed and the US feared a public relations backlash from attacking these shrines, he still controls them.
Sadr has shown himself to be an excellent politician and strategist and has escaped unscathed from situations that should have ended his career, including the face of US guns and a murder trial. Since coming to ceasefire terms with the US and the Iraqi government, he has promoted himself as a leader to unite the country against the United States. Examples of his public relations efforts include pushing major Iraqi politicians to sign a 14-point code of honor and recently calling for unity between Sunni and Shia militias against the United States. Unless someone offs him, we are probably looking at the future leader of Iraq being a terrorist mastermind who pretends to oppose terrorism, a friend of Iran, and an enemy of the US.
#3: al-Qaeda, by Daniel Byman of Georgetown University:
Politically, Iraq vindicated bin Laden's argument that the primary enemy of the Muslim world was not the local Muslim aristocrats, but the "faraway enemy", the United States. The Iraq invasion has inspired a new generations of young Muslims around the world.
I presume Byman meant that it inspired them to support al-Qaeda, not to Islam, but the editing leaves room for reader confusion. Osama bin Laden has a shockingly high level of support in Muslim majority countries around the world except for traditional US allies. The invasion of Iraq and the various atrocities the US has commited there have made the US look bad, and since al Qaeda is positioned in the mind as the diametric enemy of the US, this makes al Qaeda look better by default.
al Qaeda has now become such a popular brand that it is franchising itself out. What is called "al Qaeda in Iraq" started out as Ansar al Islam, a different can of nuts. In a more worrying trend, Islamic extremists everywhere are becoming more successful in their attempts to merge the concepts of Islam and terrorism by portraying the non-Muslim world as a threat to Islam and portraying terrorism as Islam's only defense. Call the winner here not just al Qaeda, but The Terrorists™ in general.
Now Iraq, as poor as it is, is being described as "a big moneymaker" for al Qaeda. The group we're supposed to be fighting is not only gaining mindshare from the Iraq war, they're making a profit from it. In case there were any doubts that Bush screwed this one up, that should end them.
#4: Samuel Huntington, by David Frum of the American Enterprise Institute:
Bush argued that terrorism was the work of a tiny handful of extremists, repudiated by the vast majority of Middle Easterners. His fellow Americans no longer believe him. More and more are coming to believe that Islam really is inherently hostile to democracy and the West.
Samuel Huntington is the man who, back in the 1990s, put out the idea of a forthcoming "Clash of Civilizations" between Islam and the Western world (and more widely between several different major cultural groups) following the end of US-Soviet dualism. Frum's is the worst of the essays -- it's short and he spends part of it praising the quality of Bush's speechwriters without mentioning that he was one once -- but it brings up a good point. The Terrorists™ mentioned in the last section are successfully pushing a belief that Islam and terrorism must merge to survive the Clash of Civilizations with the West. There are a significant number of people in the West who likewise fail to distinguish between Islam and terrorism (see LGF for examples), and they believe that Islam must be defeated to maintain safety in the West. This is good for Huntington's book sales and speaking fees, and bad for everyone else.
#5: China, by Steve Tsang of Oxford University:
The dramatic fall of American soft power from the post-Cold War high reached just after the Kosovo intervention has produced an international environment conducive to China as it projects its own rise as peaceful, benign, and even constructive.
China has spent the post-Cold War decades going around the world making deals and increasing its influence. While Bush will mumble and threaten to bomb you, China will shake your hand and make a deal to enrich your country. China took control of the Panama Canal during the Clinton administration and they recently formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to stand against the advances of US financial interests into central Asia. China's economy has prospered as much as their diplomatic efforts, with no end in sight to their economic growth unless they pollute themselves to death. China's technology is advancing rapidly due both to industrial espionage and native ingenuity, and they are likely to be even with us within twenty years. As the US falls from power, China is rising up to meet it on the way down, and then what will happen?
#6: Arab Dictators, by Marina Ottaway of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
It's back to Cold War politics in the Middle East. The lofty ideals of democracy promotion may still find their way into the administration's speeches, but when it comes to policy, America's enemies' enemies are its friends.
Long story short, we are not pressuring dictators to turn their countries into democracies anymore. We no longer have the power and they no longer see it as a good thing. Instead, we are left begging them not to go terrorist. Thanks, Bush.
#7: The Price of Oil, by Bill Emmott of the Economist:
The Gulf States are enjoying an economic boon. Why? Because George W. Bush invaded Iraq.
Thanks, Bush. Of course, there is more to it than that. The US oil industry is widely regarded as an oligopolist trust and there have been record profits the past few years. Still, Iraq's oil can't easily get to market when it is being blown up.
#8: The United Nations, by Martin Wolf of the Financial Times:
The UN system brings essential assets to bear on any effort to deal with pressing problems. First and foremost, has the legitimacy that comes from representing the world at large.
The problem with the UN is that last and hindmost, it has the legitimacy that comes from representing the world at large. The United Nations has a history of not doing much about anything unless a superpower provides the majority of manpower and money. It has been used to put an official diplomatic stamp of approval on a powerful nation's military actions, but has not done much in the way of enforcing or maintaining peace in the places a great effort is really needed. The UN's activities in Iraq were limited to running away after still unknown attackers bombed the UN compound and killed the chief diplomat there. Having legitimacy is nice, but you have to be able to do something with it.
#9: Old Europe, by Gianni Riotta of Corriere Della Sera:
With the United States running on empty in the Middle East, Old Europe's ambassadors smoothly crisscross the globe, politely, if somewhat smugly, suggesting in their tailored suits, "Well, we told you so." And Old Europe did tell Washington many things that have been proven to be true: there were no weapons of mass destruction, Iraq's different clans are clashing, and the land will not easily give way to democracy. Old Europe's diplomats should be forgiven if, having been vindicated in the sands of Iraq, they now believe they are correct about many other things as well.
The European nations who took no part in this war -- primarily France and Germany -- benefit in reputation, which might translate into soft power. They also gain by default from the weakening of American diplomacy. However, as Riotta points out, they are not gaining anything tangible from the war. They have even lost from it. The last I heard, the US was not letting France keep their Iraqi oil contracts made under Hussein's rule. Europe also remains weak and still unprepared to extend force across the world if there were ever a need for them to fight a significant war such as the one in Iraq.
#10: Israel, by Amatzia Baram of Haifa University:
The fall of Saddam's regime closed a chapter on Iraqi support for one of the Israeli peoples' most threatening foes. Under the Iraqi dictator, Baghdad paid $25,000 to each Palestinian family whose child performed a suicide terrorist operation against Israeli (almost exclusively civilian) targets. He also paid $10,000 for less spectacular attacks. Now, with a disastrous civil war raging, the suicide bombing mentality Saddam encouraged against Israel has come full circle back to Iraq.
The Intifadah drew down shortly after Bush invaded Iraq. Coincidence or not, the invasion of Iraq took out a long time enemy of Israel and eliminated one source of support for the Palestinian Authority. The future government is likely to be another enemy of Israel, but for the near term they will be too busy trying to stabilize their own country to send any money or support outside.
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So that's FP Magazine's list of ten winners. Notably absent from the list are the United States of America, the Bush administration, the Republicans or the Democrats, and the Iraqi people.