BEIRUT, (RIA Novosti political commentator Marianna Belenkaya)
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jack Straw have made a surprise visit to Baghdad, hoping to accelerate the formation of a national unity government.
Washington and London need stabilization in Iraq more than any other country. But the political process there is taking too long and is not advancing along the path the United States envisioned when it launched the operation to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime three years ago.
Rice said in Britain before going to Baghdad that Americans had made a great number of tactical mistakes in Iraq, but its strategy of toppling the Hussein regime and spreading democracy to the Middle East was correct. The American official said this almost on the eve of the third anniversary of the occupation of Baghdad by the Anglo-American coalition forces. "But when you look back in history, what will be judged is did you make the right strategic decisions," she said.
It is true that the U.S. Middle Eastern policy will be judged only in a few years, but current developments are putting into question the correctness of Washington's choice.
In fact, can it be said that the Bush Administration has a strategy for the Middle East if the U.S. president cannot say when American troops will be pulled out of Iraq? He fears, with good reason, that the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq when the local security forces have not grown sufficiently strong would have tragic consequences for the country, the region and the United States.
But the presence of Americans, both military personnel and diplomats, in Iraq is not promoting stabilization either. Shiite leader Ayatollah Muhammad Yaqubi has demanded that George Bush dismiss his Ambassador to Baghdad, Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad, and this is not the only complaint. Many Shiites are dissatisfied with the ambassador's actions, claiming that he supports their political adversaries in the government formation crisis.
Initially, the Americans put their stake on Shiites, but now they have to promote relations with Sunnis, who became the rejected minority after the fall of Saddam Hussein and mounted serious resistance to foreign troops.
The situation is paradoxical. Americans are trying to help the Iraqi political forces find consensus and form a government because this meets their interests. But their interference is infringing on the interests of one of the sides in the conflict, aggravating tensions between Iraqis and complicating American-Iraqi relations.
The offended believe, possibly reasonably, that without Washington's pressure disputes over the nomination of Ibrahim Jaafari to the post of prime minister would have been settled long ago.
The government crisis in Iraq is a mirror reflection of the situation in the country, which has been deteriorating during the last few years.
The path to democracy shown to Iraqis is leading them not into the future, but back to the past, when clan principles had supremacy over national interests.
Unfortunately, Iraqis could be described as a nation only in terms of their common plight. People are killed and kidnapped there irrespective of clan roots, but frightening security conditions are only strengthening their ties with their clans and tribes. Inter-clan relations still survive in everyday life, but no political solutions suiting all groups are possible. The political process has almost come to a standstill in Iraq and the current crisis is likely to be followed by more problems for Iraqis and Americans. It is extremely difficult to spread democracy in a divided society.
U.S. strategy has misfired not only in Iraq. The future of resistance in the Middle East is one of the most painful issues now. It is associated primarily with the Arab-Israeli conflict and the situation in Iraq. But armed and civil resistance is not limited to the problem of occupation. In a much broader sense, it can be interpreted as resistance to Western, primarily American, interference in the internal affairs of the region, as well as resistance to globalization. In fact, the growing number of Muslim women wearing headscarves is a challenge to Western civilization comparable to the actions of such movements as Hamas and Hezbollah.
The trouble is that external interference in Middle Eastern affairs is strengthening the positions of local resistance and increasing the gap in divided Arab society. It is unlikely that pro-American forces will dominate there, as proved in Iraq. Washington could step up pressure on political forces there and change the situation, but this would be a tactical, not strategic, success.
