It is no longer a question of whether, but when. The consensus
in what are usually referred to as well-informed circles, in
Washington and abroad, is that the U.S. will invade Iraq; it is
only a matter of time. Indeed one question that occupies the Bush
Administration now is what Iraq will look like after Saddam Hussein
is gone. On Monday the New York Times reported that the
administration was forging a political alliance with Ayatollah
Muhammad Bakir al-Hakim, a prominent Iraqi Shiite who has lived in
Iran for the last 20 years. Presumably he would call on the Shiites
in Iraq not to resist an invasion if, as the Times
reported, an invasion “enables him to secure a place in a new power
structure in Iraq.”
How that new power structure would operate, though, is
uncertain. The Middle East is what it is, and while the
administration may talk about turning Iraq into a democracy, it
does so mostly for PR purposes. In fact, one possible course of
action now being discussed is not to democratize Iraq, but to
dismember it. The U.S. would preside over an updated version of the
1878 Congress of Berlin. Iraq would be divided into three or more
parts.
Thus the southern region would be handed over to the Shiites.
Iraq has been dominated by a Sunni Muslim minority, although the
Shiites, who have links to Iran, make up some 55 percent of the
Iraqi population. At the same time the Kurds would maintain their
two semi-autonomous areas in the north, although they would “not be
semi-autonomous enough,” as a source said, “to upset the
Turks.”
Meanwhile, if Prowler readers will consult their maps now, they
will find what looks like a Jordan panhandle, extending toward the
east into Iraq, with Syria to the north and Saudi Arabia to the
south. In a post-Saddam Iraq, the panhandle would be extended
further. Jordan, with the blessing of both Israel and the U.S.,
would inherit a piece of Iraq.
But before the map is rearranged, of course, President Bush must
authorize an invasion. So how, and when, is he likely to do it?
“Wargame: Iraq,” a simulated meeting of the National Security
Council, shown as a two-hour program on MSNBC Monday night, tried
to suggest an answer.
The program was a condensed and edited version of an actual
wargame that had been held at the Council on Foreign Relations in
New York. Veterans of previous administrations played the roles of
officials in the current administration. James Woolsey, the former
director of central intelligence, for example, acted as the
secretary of defense. Wendy Sherman, once the counselor to the
State Department, as well as special adviser on North Korea, was
the secretary of state. All the participants, meanwhile, were
supposed to respond to the events in the wargame the same way they
thought their counterparts in the Bush Administration would respond
if the events took place in real life.
And, more or less, that’s what they did. Ms. Sherman, for
instance, did not oppose war with Iraq, but she did not want the
U.S. to act in haste, or to go to war without allies. This seems to
be Colin Powell’s position, too. Similarly, Woolsey did a fair
representation of Donald Rumsfeld; he praised smart bombs, was
critical of Hans Blix, and said the U.S. must act “decisively.”
Obviously there was nothing new in most of this. If you read the
papers at all these days, you pretty much know what the players in
the Bush Administration think. On the other hand, Youssef Ibrahim,
a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who took the
role of the secretary of energy, seemed to be reflecting his own
views more than he did those of Spencer Abraham, and this was all
to the good. Ibrahim, once a foreign correspondent for the
Times, actually knows something about the Middle East.
When Woolsey-Rumsfeld worried, for example, that Qatar might
become unsettled, Ibrahim said no matter: “Qatar is a Mickey Mouse
country.” When Woolsey-Rumsfeld said something pious about bringing
democracy to Arab countries, Ibrahim countered with, “We’re not in
the business of creating democracy.” Ibrahim also had the audacity
to mention oil. It is a principal determinative of American foreign
policy, even though there seem to be strictures against admitting
it.
In the end, however, the wargame did not offer a definitive
answer on what Bush will do, or when he will do it. But rightly or
wrongly, it made clear, he was headed toward war.
