THE INVASION OF IRAQ WAS NOT AN ISRAELI PLOT

Hamas salutes peace.

Hezbollah salutes peace.

THE INVASION OF IRAQ WAS NOT AN ISRAELI PLOT

by Eugene Girin

A dangerous canard is circulating in the world of American politics: a group of mostly Jewish neoconservatives dragged this nation into a war with Iraq primarily because the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime and the occupation of Iraq would benefit Israel. People who launched and continue to spread this canard have demonstrated their ignorance of the geopolitics of the Middle East.

If the accusation is true, some of our highest officials are traitors, our president is a gullible imbecile, and one of our closest allies manipulated Americans into dying for its own interests. Therefore, it is essential to dispose of this accusation forthwith. The fundamental problem with this charge is simple: Israel did not get much, if anything out of this war. The real beneficiaries are Iran and the mujahadeen groups that have sprung up in Iraq.

The foundation of this myth is the claim that neoconservative ideologues who have planned this war are Zionist fanatics. But this is simply not so. Paul Wolfowitz, the most powerful and visible neo-conservative is seen by the anti-war Right and Left as an ultra-Zionist mastermind who will do anything to bring about a Greater Israel. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wolfowitz is a messianic imperialist whose goal is to bring about an American Empire through the forced democratization of the Middle East and Israel is merely a staging area for that democratization.

Paul Wolfowitz was never a true Zionist. He backed the suicidal Oslo Accords and its subsequent spin-offs that led directly to the explosion of Palestinian terrorism and the deaths of thousands of Israelis. Wolfowitz consistently supported the "two-state solution", which would rob Israel of its rightful capital and spiritual center, Jerusalem; would hand over Jewish land in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza to the Palestinians; and would establish a second Palestinian state (the first being Jordan), a malevolent and permanently belligerent entity.

Wolfowitz's poor reception by real, hard-core Zionists makes it clear he is not one of them. At a massive pro-Israel rally held on April 16, 2002 in Washington, Wolfowitz was shouted down by angry demonstrators after he started mumbling incoherencies about the "hard decisions [that] must be made by both sides to achieve a lasting peace". And people persist in calling him a Zionist?

Commentators mistake for genuine Zionism the neocons' neo-Jacobin zeal for exporting democracy and their messianic desire to use the Iraq War as a stepping-stone to an American Empire. Israel is a pawn for the neocons and any loyalty to it is merely instrumental.

Iran, on the other hand, gained enormously from the Iraq War. Its principal enemy, Saddam Hussein, was removed from power, while his country, which waged a bloody decade-long war with Iran, has descended into violent chaos.

The mullahs are now completely uninhibited from pulling the Iraqi Shiites into Teheran's orbit. Iran's support for the Al Sadr uprising and the presence in Iraq of numerous Iranian Revolutionary Guards and intelligence operatives (Iranian Arabs from the province of Khuzestan) serve as proof that Teheran is aggressively asserting its control over the Shiite areas of Iraq. Teheran's strategy is to use the current chaos to step in and establish an Iraqi version of the Hizbullah that will allow total Iranian control over Iraqi Shiites and will ensure that, as in Lebanon, the Shiites will become a powerful and feared political force that other ethnic and religious groups are forced to reckon with. Even somewhat moderate clerics like Sistani are wary of openly confronting the Iranian encroachment on their country because to do so would be acting as an American or Sunni puppet in the eyes of Iraqi Shiites. One thing is certain about the outcome of the Iraqi elections: the winner will be either heavily influenced or openly controlled by Iran. Based on the current situation, the prospect of an independent Iraqi government after this election is as realistic as a fairy tale.

As a result of the U.S. conquest of Iraq and its severely flawed attempt to "democratize" it, a contained and severely weakened tyranny with no religious and very little political influence in the Middle East was destroyed while Iran gained enormous power. Iran is a soon-to-be nuclear armed nation that has a population three times that of Iraq, a relatively strong military, a fanatic zeal to destroy Israel, a fairly strong economy by Middle Eastern standards, and a tremendous political and religious influence in the Middle East from Lebanon to Afghanistan. In sum, Iran was always a bigger threat than Hussein's Iraq and our invasion of the latter has substantially strengthened the former.

An equally grim prospect for both America and Israel is the emergence of Iraq as an uncontrollable Islamist swamp teeming with jihadis and mujahadeen from around the world. If the current jihadi uprisings are not put down quickly and ruthlessly, there is a big chance that Iraq will turn into a giant terrorist camp like Jordan in the 1960s and Lebanon in the 1970s. Of course, as in Lebanon, there will be a nominal government that will make noises about keeping order, but it will be too weak and intimidated to confront the terrorists. The last thing Israel needs is some Islamist group launching Scuds into Tel Aviv from camps in Iraq and smuggling suicide bombers into Israel via Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

The most Israel got out of the invasion is an Iraq that is neutralized for as long as the American occupation lasts. Once the American occupation ends, it is back to business-as-usual. And things may be worse then, given that Saddam was an extinct volcano before the invasion and may be replaced by a regime that can more effectively mobilize hostility to Israel as it will not be the international pariah Saddam was. Furthermore, the Iraq War has caused an upsurge in volatile hostility to the U.S. and Israel in Europe and the Arab world.

That Israel would risk its relationship with the superpower patron upon whom its survival depends in order to win these non-benefits, is utterly implausible. One can only maintain the hypothesis that the Iraq War was an Israeli plot if one assumes Israel's government wholly incompetent at the most basic calculus of national interest.

A somewhat more optimistic scenario is the election of a democratic government in Iraq. However, the chances are that this government will be anti-Israeli. Monarchies like Oman, Tunisia, and Morocco are pragmatic and moderate in their relations with Israel. They are much better for the Jewish state than a "democracy" that elects an Islamist-dominated government, which is a very real possibility in Iraq. Although Jews have lived in Iraq for hundreds of years before the Arabs came, Iraq was the site of some of the worst anti-Jewish violence in the Middle East (about 120 Jews were murdered in a Baghdad pogrom in 1941), and a majority of Iraqis hold strongly anti-Jewish views that were fueled by the decades of Baathist rule. Furthermore, the new Iraqi government will be pressured by other Muslim states like Iran to adopt an anti-Israeli foreign policy. To expect otherwise is simply naïve. Iraq will not go against the ummah on this no matter how much foreign aid the United States will offer it in exchange for normal relations with Israel. In fact, it is unlikely that the United States will force the issue.

Currently, Israel is facing several grim scenarios vis-à-vis Iraq: a Shiite-dominated Iraq under the influence of a strengthened and emboldened Iran; a chaotic Iraq full of terrorist groups and training camps for mujahadeen from around the world; and a stable and independent Iraqi government that is nevertheless hostile toward Israel. These scenarios make the claim that we went to war for Israel's benefit look completely ridiculous.

A few leftwing and paleoconservative polemicists have made the allegation that certain neocons are Israeli spies. Well, if that is the case, their Mossad handlers must be punching their desks in Tel Aviv. If the Iraq War as a whole was an Israeli plot foisted on America then one can conclude that Israel's schemers are the dumbest on earth.

Eugene Girin is 20 years old. He is a political science student and a freelance columnist. Contact him at zhukh84@hotmail.com

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