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The "New Way Forward" strategy to be implemented by the Bush administration is a new way forward to regional chaos. The policy claims to unite Iraq's fractious and troublesome sectarian entities and defang Iraq's more radical Sunni and Shi'ite sectarian militias. The goal is stability, but has the assured cost of a deadly boomerang in one form or another.
Notably, the Bush administration is likely to get a deadly form of tactical "unity" among Iraq's diverse factions that will include a newborn cohesion among Shi'ite and Sunni militias arising out of their impending joint struggle against a desperate and dangerous common foe - the foreign occupiers.
If the US and Britain are perceived by Iraq's Shi'ites as excessively targeting Shi'ite militias, they risk mobilizing the entire body of Iraq's Shi'ite population against the continued presence of foreign forces, with catastrophic results.
Repercussions inside Iraq
Iraq's heavily armed and all-pervasive sectarian militias do not wish to lay down their arms and will fight the US and Britain to retain their hard-won power.
Additionally, the majority of the nation's peoples, who have come to rely on their respective militias for safety and security do not wish to see their favored militias weakened or defanged. Hence they will deny all meaningful support to the US and Britain thereby dooming the entire effort to failure.
While the occupying powers have been focused for years on the surreal, castle-in-the-sky political process in Iraq, Iraq's Shi'ite and Sunni neighbors have been constructing genuine power bases across the country via the sectarian militias. They have been entirely pleased to let the occupiers be distracted by their democratic dreams.
Iran, especially, has adroitly succeeded in pulling levers to genuinely obtain influence and power within Iraq. Saudi intelligence recently declared, correctly, that Iran had succeeded in creating a Shi'ite state-within-a-state. But neighboring Sunni regimes have also achieved considerable success in their respective regions of Iraq, which is, in reality, already fundamentally divided into two parts, with a third part in the north inhabited by Sunni Kurds.
Iraq has become the main focal point of intensifying regional Shi'ite-Sunni sectarian rivalries in which all of Iraq's neighbors have enormous stakes.
Insurrection to expel the occupiers
Inside Iraq, the rival militant Shi'ite and Sunni factions, both facing a renewed US assaults, will be obliged to unite on a purely tactical basis against their common foe.
Under such a threat, the "sovereign" Maliki government is likely to abandon the US and Britain, aligning with Iraq's militant factions and demanding an emergency withdrawal of all foreign forces from Iraq, thereby creating a crisis of immeasurable consequences for the US.
Repercussions beyond Iraq
Outside Iraq's borders, as a unified insurrection takes hold within Iraq, both moderate and radical Shi'ite and Sunni governments and factions across the Middle East region will step forward.
Importantly, the oil-rich Sunni Arab regimes won't lend support to bolster Iraq's Shi'ite-dominated government as they believe that both Iran and Iraq's Shi'ites have already advanced too far.
The Middle East is already like a sectarian tinderbox waiting for a spark to ignite its multiple civil wars-in-waiting. The United States' additional 21,500 new troops will be like a desperate roving band of flamethrowers let loose on the entire region, from Saudi Arabia to Iran.
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And then there's Iran ...
Kuwaiti media reports in the Arab Times on January 14, written by the Times' editor-in-chief Ahmed al-Jarallah and based on a "reliable source", relay that the US/British naval buildup underway in and around the Persian Gulf is designed, not merely to "send Iran a signal", but to put in place all assets necessary for a massive air strike on Iran, likely by April.
And according to reports from the Chinese news agency Xinhua, the US and Britain "believe that attacking Iran will create a new power balance in the region, calming down the situation in Iraq and paving the way for their democratic project".
Obviously, the US and Britain wish to roll back Iran's regional advances and restore the rough balance of power that existed between Iran and the region's Sunni regimes prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The West has had no success in using United Nations sanctions and diplomatic/political means to contain or constrain Iran. Therefore, the military options are rapidly coming to the fore. The US hopes to insulate the oil-rich Sunni regimes from Iranian missile retaliation by putting in place Patriot anti-missile batteries. And US and British ships will be used to keep Iran from stopping the flow of oil through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
One has to ask, though: are their preparations, plans and strategies any better than the ones they put in place in 2003 before they invaded Iraq? Is it possible that an attack on Iran could become the great equalizer, restoring the balance of power in the region? Or will the US and Britain achieve an early but short-lived victory over Iran, only to massively lose the longer war, just as happened in Iraq?
Iran's ability, and that of its regional proxies, to retaliate and plunge the region into chaos that will threaten the very existence of the oil-rich Sunni regimes in the Gulf, is not limited to missile strikes.
The US can do little to prevent Iran and its proxies from inflaming the region, all the way from Iraq to Saudi Arabia, including Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
Added to the mix is the fact that Shi'ites and Shi'ite-sympathetic entities exist in significant numbers throughout the region, including within the domain of each of the oil-rich Sunni regimes. The US and Britain seriously risk the instigation of significant Islamic outrage and unity in opposition to the US and to the US-friendly Sunni regimes. Thus the toppling of, or else the forced radicalization of, the oil-rich Sunni regimes in the direct aftermath of a strike on Iran is probable.
Iran's quick recovery from any attacks, with the help of Russia, China and other key energy-exporting and consuming regimes around the globe, is assured.
So a strike on Iraq would not create a new balance of power in the region, it would further tip the balance in Iran's favor. Pitted against one another would be Iran's many deeply entrenched and potent power bases and the ever-more precariously perched oil-rich Sunni regimes that are seen as puppets of the US.
Western interests harmed
By unintentionally shoving the entire oil-and-gas-rich Middle East on to a fast track to chaos, the US will empower Russia as the immovable global energy kingpin. Already, Europe and Asia are being forced to reconsider placing too much reliance on the region for energy imports, opening the way for Russia.
Africa and Latin America come a distant second for the simple reasons of their strategic instability and long distances to their resources, respectively.
Also, Iran is on good terms with Russia and China, and the three powers could form a global energy axis that is distinctly opposed to US power.
W Joseph Stroupe is author of the new book entitled Russian Rubicon: Impending Checkmate of the West and editor of Global Events Magazine online at www.GeoStrategyMap.com.
(Copyright 2004-2007 GeoStrategyMap.com & W Joseph Stroupe.)
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http://zfacts.com/p/707.html | 01/18/12 07:19 GMT
Modified: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 04:08:30 GMT
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