Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Tuesday made a wise decision by refusing to send Arab troops to Iraq as part of a stabilizing force. It was a sensible and unanimous resolution absolving their countries from any commitment to sending troops to the troubled country. However, we shouldn’t be surprised if one country or more breaks the consensus and begins sending troops on the pretext of responding to a request from the Iraqi Governing Council. If this happens, these countries will be acting not in response to a request from the Iraqi ruling body but in effect submitting to demands by the actual ruler of Iraq — the United States. That is ostrich politics.
How can anyone convince us that Iraq’s security can only be maintained if a few hundred or a few thousand soldiers are sent to that country? Isn’t this the same Iraq that once had an army of one million soldiers? Why then doesn’t the US reestablish and train the army to take charge of their country’s security. Not all the soldiers are Baathists or supporters of Saddam Hussein. Even if we assume that a quarter, or even half, of them are Baathist or Saddam sympathizers, why not train the other half to take over security? These would be more than enough and far better than any international force assembled to maintain security in Iraq. They would do the job much better than other forces because Iraq is their country and Iraqis are their people. America doesn’t trust the Iraqis, and no one knows for how long the mistrust will continue.
The truth lies not in Washington’s desire to ensure Iraq’s security, but in its desire to have soldiers other than its own killed. Washington wants the soldiers of Arab and other nations to be killed by the Iraqi resistance so that not only US soldiers are targeted. Others have to taste from the cup as well. If troops were indeed sent to Iraq, it would provide some legal cover for the American occupation, an occupation defended by an international force. It would mean more trouble for the shattered country, with crisis after crisis popping up and plunging the world into yet another conflict — and the focus will be on trying to extinguish peripheral fires while ignoring the main inferno. This is the Israeli way of thinking and planning that always fishes in troubled waters and survives only by ensuring a continuous crisis.
Arab public opinion is overwhelmingly against the participation of any Arab troops in a stabilizing force in Iraq. The danger behind sending Arab forces does not lie in the fact that such a move would hurt Arab feelings, since most regimes do not care about such matters. It also does not lie in the fact that the move means providing a free service to the US, with Washington paying Poland and other countries that agreed to commit troops. The danger is that if an Arab soldier acted against the occupation forces such a move could spark a new crisis. We have to remember that before the war on Iraq started, a Kuwaiti soldier opened fire on an American military convoy. Similar incidents have been reported in the past. Arab soldiers sent to Iraq would not be landing in the country from the moon; they are part and parcel of the same Arab social fabric. They followed with broken hearts the defeat and fall of an Arab capital city and fear the same might happen to other cities such as Damascus, Cairo, Riyadh or Amman. Can we expect these soldiers to leave behind their anger and frustration while going to serve in Iraq? Their presence in Iraq would open deep wounds, and any action against the Americans would mean more trouble for Arab countries. The soldiers would find themselves caught between the American hammer and the anvil of Iraqi resistance.
—Muhammad Al-Shibani is a Saudi writer based in Jeddah.
