Iraq-Today Editorial: Iraq come first

[Alex Moon]

http://www.iraq-today.com/news/editorial/00009.html

It is now more than likely that a United Nations force will join Spanish and Polish troops to take some of the responsibility of policing Iraq from the workhorses of the "coalition of the willing"; Britain and the United States.

After more than four months of liberation duty, UK and US troops need some relief from the day-to-day grind. In the midst of all of this, the choice made by many Arab countries not to participate in the US-led invasion still frustrates, particularly in light of the quick end to the war.

The political decision taken by Arab leaders to deny the US their public support for the war, has so far left Iraq with no Arab help in the peace. In effect, the Arab world has sidelined itself regarding a role in Iraq's future, which is being shaped by the Coalition. This new development, seemingly triggered by a change of policy in Washington could open a door for Arab nations to finally get involved.

On the face of it, wouldn't it have been better from the beginning to have Arabic speaking soldiers in Baghdad, who can relate to the local culture in a way a Westerner can only dream of? How much easier would it have been for the CPA to win hearts and minds, if they had more Arabs delivering their message? Having Muslim troops stationed in a Muslim country makes sense, doesn't it? A Saudi Arabian officer, or a Jordanian trooper would be much easier to trust than one with the Stars and Stripes on his uniform, right?

Wrong. Evidence on the ground suggests that the absence of Arab involvement in Iraq is actually not a bad thing at all. The truth is that most Iraqis would rather have an American dominated force here, than an Arab one.

The grim reality, particularly hard to hear for all those Arabs that felt they were supporting their Iraqi brethren when demonstrating to stop the war, is that most people here don't want anything to do with them.

On the walls of Mosul University, one of Iraq's oldest, warning signs are clearly displayed; "No Jordanians, No Palestinians". Iraqis are clearly still upset that other Arabs were able to study in Iraq, effectively on Saddam's payroll. Iraqis have had enough of seeing their own lives compromised for the benefit of Arabs from neighbouring countries.

Saddam Hussein played the Palestinian card to the max. It's widely believed that the support, both vocal and financial, he gave to the suicide bombers, are the reason behind the wrath of the "Zionists" in Tel Aviv and Washington. Whether that is true or not is beside the point - Iraqis saw other Arabs benefit from Saddam's regime while they were left to suffer.

In contrast, the US spilled the blood of its own people to liberate them from Saddam's tyranny. No matter how bad things are here right now, friends, colleagues and relatives assure me that with the pressure of living under the old regime gone, life is one hundred percent better.

The deal on oil between Saddam and countries like Syria and Jordan, affectionately known as memorandums of understanding, irked the population. Even now, in a country that has the world's second largest reserves of crude, Iraqis must go begging to Syria, Turkey and Jordan for fuel imports to meet consumption. It's not an easy pill for the average Iraqi to swallow.

Stories doing the rounds, tell of how even Kuwaitis profited from Saddam after 1991. Iraqis are incensed that people from a country supposed to be their enemy were treated better by their leader than they were.

"Foreigners had more rights in Iraq than Iraqis did under Saddam," is not an uncommon complaint to be heard here. There is a lot of animosity towards those countries that managed to gain from Saddam's thirst for international recognition and popularity. In this light, the bombing of the Jordanian embassy in August is not difficult to comprehend. It was even more tragic and disgusting an act if you consider that it was mainly Iraqis that died in the blast.

Pan-Arab nationalists will find that their dreams have died in the dusty streets of Baghdad, and the narrow lanes of Fallujah. Iraqis just aren't interested. They have enough problems of their own and just want to get back on an even keel, to enjoy their country as they hoped they were always supposed to.

In Jordan, King Abdullah champions his "Jordan First" campaign, struggling to get the message through to his people. Iraqis have learnt their lessons - Iraq comes first, there is no second place.

[Companion Cube]

Hmm, fair enough.

The grim reality, particularly hard to hear for all those Arabs that felt they were supporting their Iraqi brethren when demonstrating to stop the war, is that most people here don't want anything to do with them.

I have to admit that the inspires a certain amount of satisfaction.

[Alex Moon]

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/09/18/090013.php

"No desire to see the US go."

My friend Stephen is on tour playing music in Syria, Kuwait, Lebanon. He had a hell of a time emailing from Syria - this report comes from Kuwait:

I'm now in Kuwait where mercifully the internet is not (as) censored!!! I can't imagine how much effort those guys go to to keep you from...Yahoo Mail! After the one trip to the US Embassy to do e-mail, we didn't go there again, and the Syrian internet "cafes" we went to would not allow you to surf outside Syrian or other approved Arab sites! Amazing what a waste of time the censors have created. Any smart kid over there can set up a proxy server anyway.

Syria was pretty strange and surprising in that we never had a SINGLE protest or harsh word or sideways glance-- very different from last year when we had protests at every show. I would watch the CNN reporters describing the Middle East and Iraq and think they must be living in an alternate universe-- which I expect is called the Al-Rashid Hotel Bar.

There simply was no hostility towards us AT ALL, compared to last year. I remember seeing Amanpour on CNN while I was in Aleppo, telling someone she was interviewing (maybe they were interviewing her, given her desire to throw in subjective statements of her own devising) that "The Iraqis just want the U.S. out of there Right Now!" This struck me as odd given that I had just spoken with a guy in the band I was travelling with's mom (an Iraqi) who had come that day from Baghdad, and had been in Erbil and Mosul, and who said that ALL the Iraqis-- while they grumble about things being better under Saddam-- have NO desire to see the US go.

She says because of the heat and the discomfort, for many Iraqis it's a bit like someone going on a camping trip and having it rain-- they'll say they "never" want to go camping ever again or some such thing, but that doesn't mean anything more than that they are just fed up. She said (and she speaks fluent Arabic and is Iraqi by birth) that there are two groups of people-- the people who are glad the US is there, and are mildly optimistic (despite what they tell the reporters who turn up for a day trip), and those who got Mercedes, and jobs, and pensions and villas from Saddam. According to her talks with Iraqis it is ONLY the latter group, and a large smattering of foreign fighters who are doing all the fighting against the US. She drove all the way from Baghdad to Damascus in a single car with just a driver and no bodyguard-- and no problem.

One of the State folks was telling me about that big story early in the war when the Iraqis claimed that the US had blown up a busload of Syrians trying to leave Iraq and get back into Syria. Turns out it was a busload of Syrian fighters trying to get INTO Iraq to fight. She said that she used to walk home at night at 10pm and see them all chanting away, lining up to get on the buses to go to Iraq (the Iraqi embassy is right next to the US one in Damascus). Assad was overjoyed to get rid of these fundamentalists, and Saddam was happy to get them, and throw them all on the front lines. Apparently they are the only ones who did any real fighting and they got totally wiped out. That explains why the Syrians never made much noise about a busload of their "civilians" being killed--
but all the Western media ran the story and never ran the retraction.

Another thing that she said is that ALL the Iraqis are done with the idea of Arab Unity. They hate all the other states except for Syria. They believe Saddam gave so much money to these other states, and none of them offered any support. They are particularly hateful now to the Palestinians; ordinary Iraqis were sometimes moved out of their own homes to house them, and they got jobs and pensions-- and she said that the new Arabic graffiti on the walls of Baghdad University is "Palestinians go home. The free ride is over."

In any case, this tour was a lovefest compared to the last one, so god only knows what the reporters are all going on about. Another thing I heard is that 90% of all the attacks have happened in the Sunni Triangle, which if you look on a map represents all of about 1/8 of Iraq maybe (Ramadi, Fallujah, Baghdad-- I don't have a good map to do the math with), so you have a country 7/8 calm. This guy's Iraqi mom (from Mosul) also said that the power is now on regularly in Baghdad but no one is reporting that.

If CNN hasn't gotten it, it appears that Assad in Syria has. The cabinet change was a big thing even though many hoped/expected that Assad would choose a non-Baathist over Otri. Still, they think a few of the new guys will be non-Baathists which would have been unthinkable before.

They sure need it-- the country is a beautiful basket case full of intelligent, kind people who could do something good if given a chance. On a more superficial, but probably important level as well, the kids military uniforms we saw last year are all gone, and a lot of the militarization you used to see in posters and monuments, etc. seems to have been toned down. The Lebanese paper, The Star, attributes this directly albeit grudgingly to the US being right next door.

The music went over even better, and it now looks like we will be going back next month, and then on to Beirut. Obviously, we have to be careful. But we also have to be careful about what we are being told about this war and its aftermath. It's frightening to me how unrepresentative it is of public opinion in the most hardline of all Arab states!

So the war is a "failure"? A "quagmire"? "Palestinians go home. The free ride is over" - Arab unity isn't what it used to be. The media - including our own media, accused in the world of spreading U.S. propaganda - is in fact misreporting the real mood on the ground. God bless the Internet, even in Syria.