24 April 2003
Saddam's Removal Will Encourage Israeli-Palestinian Talks, Indyk Says
(Says success in postwar Iraq will also promote democracy in Middle
East) (1010)
By Afzal Khan
Washington File Special Correspondent
Washington -- The removal of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq has
created new opportunities for peace between Israelis and Palestinians,
according to Martin Indyk, a former assistant secretary of state for
Near Eastern affairs during the Clinton administration.
Indyk, now the director of the Saban Center on Middle East Policy at
the Brookings Institution, spoke April 23 at a Saban Center briefing,
and said a postwar Iraq with a government more willing to work with
the international community will have permanently removed Israel's
fear of a threat on its eastern front.
Indyk stated his opinion that the power center in the Arab world has
now shifted to those countries more friendly to Israel such as Jordan
and Egypt while diminishing the influence of those most hostile to
Israel such as Syria and Libya. He argued that this shift will
encourage the Israelis to make more concessions to the Palestinians.
Indyk also said the quick and efficient removal of Saddam Hussein has
had "a powerful impact" on Arab society as well.
Citing a recent visit to a business meeting in Doha, Qatar, Indyk said
the Israeli-Palestinian "bubble has been burst" and that instead of
endless and fruitless debate on the issue, the Arab elite are now
examining the failure of their own governments in meeting the needs of
their people. "They are looking forward to more political freedom in
their own societies," he said.
Indyk indicated "a symbiotic relationship" between U.S. success in
building a new Iraq and progress in democracy in other Arab countries
as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In such a scenario, it is time for the United States to take allies
such as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak and "push them forward," Indyk said. The United States
should show Mubarak how to open the way for greater political reform
in Arab countries while at the same time it should take up Sharon's
recent offer to evacuate some settlements, Indyk said.
According to Indyk, the road map for Middle East peace "is a side
issue" and the freezing of settlements and withdrawal of the Israeli
army are of more immediate concern.
Indyk suggested that Sharon should be brought to the table by the Bush
administration to sign an interim agreement of short-to-medium term
duration that would give to the Palestinians 55 percent of the West
Bank and most of Gaza, while freezing all settlements and dismantling
a few that are in the way.
Concerning Iraq, Indyk advised that the United States work only with
Shi'ite clergy that share the goal of a democratic Iraq because of the
clergy's apparently increasing power in the vacuum left behind by the
dismantled Ba'athist regime. Indyk said that in order to avoid another
Iranian type of ayatollah rule in postwar Iraq, the United States
would have to use its resources to win over the Iraqi people. He said
the United States and the Shi'ite clergy would otherwise be
competitors in postwar Iraq because only the Shi'ite clergy are able
to maintain any semblance of order through their mosques.
However, on the issue of working only with selected Shi'ite clergy,
two other scholars on the panel disagreed.
Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland and a
nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, said that Iraq in the short
term needed to go "through a process of pain" and the Iraqis would
need to sort out their own leaders, however imperfectly. Telhami said
he was not sure that the United States had the same staying power as
the British during the post-World War One period. But he agreed with
Indyk that U.S. resources could be used as a lever to influence Iraqi
politics. On the other hand, he cautioned that other Western countries
and "every neighbor of Iraq" were interested in having a stake in the
postwar reshaping of the country.
Telhami suggested a more modest agenda, with local empowerment of
leaders in the absence of a central authority. He discounted elections
as a top priority in the short term.
Seyom Brown, professor of International Cooperation at Brandeis
University, said there are lessons to be learned from the history of
colonialism, and working only with selected leaders is the wrong way
to go in postwar Iraq. Brown said relationships must be built with the
majority of the Shi'ites, and he cautioned that rebuilding Iraq is not
the same as rebuilding Germany and Japan after the Second World War,
Eric Schwartz from the Council on Foreign Relations and Roberta Cohen
from Brookings both agreed that "a multinational presence" will be
needed to stabilize postwar Iraq. The presence of others besides the
conquering armies of the United States and Great Britain will lend
credibility to the reconstruction effort in Iraq, they said.
Schwartz and Cohen also highlighted the lack of public security in
postwar Iraq and how it hampers the distribution of humanitarian
assistance.
Cohen said the other security problem is the prevention of ethnic
conflict, particularly around the city of Kirkuk in the north where
Arabs settled by Saddam and the Turkmen minority are being driven out
by the majority Kurds. Cohen said an official body was urgently needed
to adjudicate claims of the victims.
Schwartz urged the Bush administration to get a multi-billion-dollar
post-conflict aid package endorsed by Congress. Schwartz said such a
package would address the needs for coming years, and the American
public needed to know the enormous costs of rebuilding Iraq. According
to Schwartz, the costs would average $20 billion a year for several
years, and Iraqi oil revenues would not be enough to pay the entire
bill.
Schwartz emphasized the need to remove the Bush administration's
"ambiguity" about the need for United Nations help in the
reconstruction of Iraq. He suggested that Afghanistan could be a
model, where the United Nations and other countries are helping in the
reconstruction with substantial involvement of the United States.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
