The Crisis of the Arab World: The False Answers of Saddam Hussein

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Fred Halliday

          The Crisis of the Arab World: The
          False Answers of Saddam Hussein

The crisis following upon Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait is unique in the
contemporary world, above all because of the multiple levels upon
which it is being played out. In international terms, it is comparable
to the major crises of the post-1945 period—Berlin 1948, Korea 1950,
Suez 1956, Cuba 1962, the Arab–Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973. Yet it
is distinct from, and more complex than, any of these. It is distinct
because this crisis does not assume an East–West form, one of Soviet–
American antagonism, and has in fact involved a significant degree of
Soviet–American cooperation, if not complete agreement. It is more
complex because in addition to its world dimension it has several
other ones: it has provoked a crisis within the Arab world, between
the bloc led by Iraq and that led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt; it
involves to a degree never seen in modern times all three of the non-
Arab states in the Middle East—Iran, Turkey, Israel; it is a crisis
within the US alliance, over the degree of military and financial
support being given to the USA in the Gulf; it is also a crisis of the
international economic system, given the importance of oil and the
inflationary pressures which higher oil prices and increased military
expenditures in the developed capitalist states have brought; finally, it
is a crisis of the global political system, as reflected in the question of
whether the United Nations can, or cannot, act to prevent evident
breaches of its Charter.
For the Arab world, in particular, this crisis marks a decisive
moment, however the confrontation between Iraq and the West
resolves itself. The Arab states have divided strongly in the past, as
after the 1962 revolution in Yemen, and Sadat’s visit to Israel in 1977.
But this division gives the appearance of being deeper than any
previous one: the invitation to Western armies by Saudi Arabia, and
the alliance of several Arab states against Iraq, promises to strengthen
the disunity of the Arab world. At the same time, the Iraqi action
against Kuwait poses more clearly than at any time for nearly thirty
years the question of Arab unity and of the unity of Arab politics in
general. Iraq has captured Kuwait in the name of Arab unity, and no
Arab state can be neutral or indifferent to this crisis.
This re-posing of the issue of the unity of the Arab world is evident in
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two respects. First, Saddam Hussein has revived the dynamic of secu-
lar Arab nationalism, with at its core the goals of Arab political unity
and the redistribution of Arab oil wealth. For twenty years or more it
has been widely assumed that this political programme, which Nasser
promoted in the 1950s and early 1960s, has failed: its defeat was sealed
in the defeat of 1967. Since the Iranian revolution it appeared that the
initiative throughout the Middle East, including the Arab world, was
in the hands of Islamist forces: they were the ones challenging imper-
ialism, attacking established regimes, calling for the distribution of
wealth, organizing the oppressed. Now the initiative has been retaken
by the secular nationalists. Of course, Saddam uses Islamic language
and poses as the champion of Islam. But everyone knows this is
appearance only, a political camouflage. Saddam has been militantly
opposed to Islamist politics within Iraq and outside. What he has
effectively done by his action on 2 August is to steal their clothes and
regain the leadership of radical politics in the region. This is one
reason why Iran is so worried—it has lost the radical leadership.
The issue of unity is posed in a second respect, namely that of front-
iers. One of the distinctive features of the Middle East as a whole—Arab
and non-Arab—is the degree to which frontiers are regarded as irrele-
vant. Arab nationalists say the frontiers of the region are temporary
and artificial creations. This is of course true, in that most of the boun-
daries were created by administrative decision, and usually under
colonial rule, in the early part of this century. But in itself this is not
specific to the Middle East: most of the frontiers in Europe and Africa
are equally arbitrary and equally recent. What is at stake is not the
issue of boundary definition—where geographically the frontier lies
—but rather the question of whether the delimitation of states should
be respected at all. What is distinctive about the Middle East, then, is the
refusal of states to accept this delimitation. Interference in the inter-
nal affairs of other states is more pervasive in the region than anywhere
else. Indeed, it follows from the logic of Arab nationalism that front-
iers merely divide a political community that should be united.
This argument has been heard many times before: in the union of
Syria and Egypt in 1958; in the various Libyan attempts at union; in
the Syrian claim that it has a right to intervene in Lebanon; in the—
ultimately successful—drive for Yemeni unity. What Saddam has
done is to restate this case in a singularly stark way. Yet his ability to
do so probably results from another more immediate trend, namely
the questioning of frontiers in the aftermath of cold war. When the
Communist regimes fell in Eastern Europe last year, lessons were
quickly drawn: it was widely believed that dictatorships in the Middle
East would also be vulnerable—and in particular Iraq. Many thought
Saddam would share the fate of Ceausescu. But the fall of Commun-
ism had another consequence, one that will take much longer to work
itself through: namely, the revision on an international scale of front-
iers for the first time since the end of World War II. Everyone knew
that the division of the world into the existing system of 170 states was
arbitrary, but since 1945 it has more or less been accepted. Until this
year, there had been only one case of successful secession—Bangla-
desh in 1971—and only one of fusion—Vietnam in 1975.
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A Global Trend

The collapse of Communism has altered this: as a result of the retreat
of Soviet power, at least three states seem fated to disappear—East
Germany and South Yemen have already done so, and it is probable
that the third, North Korea, will in time be absorbed by a much
stronger and more populous South Korea. At the same time, the pos-
sibility of secession, and of the emergence of new states, is also posed:
in the USSR, where several of the fifteen republics are moving towards
independence, and in some countries of Eastern Europe, most
obviously Yugoslavia. In this perspective, the annexation of Kuwait
to Iraq is not only an Arab matter but part of a broader global trend:
it represents the coming together of a long-standing Arab drive for the
fusion of states with the contemporary questioning of state frontiers
derived from the end of cold war.
If the Iraqi action against Kuwait therefore represents a revival of
political goals present in the earlier period of Arab nationalism, it
raises at the same time a number of difficulties for the Arab world as
a whole, ones that will persist however the crisis is resolved. If Iraq
survives the crisis, it will continue to promote these policies in the
name of Arab nationalism. If Iraq suffers military defeat, there will be
many in the Arab world who will continue to support the goals which
Saddam has proclaimed. It is for this reason that the Iraqi action has
aroused considerable support within Arab countries, many of whom,
while disliking Iraq’s internal and international policies, feel that Iraq
embodies some of the goals of the revolutionary and radical national-
ist movement so long kept on the defensive in the Arab world.
Four issues in particular appear to be central to the Iraqi appeal in
the Arab world: unification, redistribution of oil wealth, liberation of
Palestine, resistance to imperialism. Amongst much of the population
of the Arab world and amongst some of the intelligentsia, Saddam
Hussein has found support because of his stand on these issues. The
fusion of Kuwait with Iraq marks a step in the direction of Arab
unity, with the removal of a boundary many regard as artificial and a
colonial creation. The call for equal distribution of the oil revenues is
an apparent attempt to resolve the fact that most Arab oil is found in
countries with small populations, where conservative monarchies
hold sway, and to reallocate this to the much larger oil-free countries.
Saddam’s stand on Palestine represents a break with the conciliation
of much of the Arab world over recent years, a policy that seems to
have done nothing to help weaken the Israeli position. As for external
influence, the response of the West to the occupation of Kuwait seems
to confirm that this remains a danger to all Arabs.
No one can doubt that the issues which Saddam is claiming to con-
front are real issues. The question is, rather, whether his solutions are
the right ones, and whether they are likely to help to resolve these
issues. Here there is room for considerable doubt, especially if the
nature of Saddam’s regime is taken into account. The Arab nationalist
programme of unity was linked, as in the time of Nasser, to the ques-
tion of popular control and of democracy. In the case of Ba⬘thist Iraq,
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these considerations are absent. Ba⬘thist Iraq is a ferocious dictator-
ship, marked by terror and coercion unparalleled within the Arab
world. Ba⬘thist ideology is overtly racist—towards Persians, Jews,
Kurds. It is a regime that bears more resemblance to European fas-
cism, in ideology and in its mechanisms of staying in power, than to a
democratic or popular nationalist model. The internal character of
Ba⬘thist Iraq affects any judgement of the kind of unity that regime
achieves. There is all the world of difference between unity that comes
about as a response to popular will and one that is imposed by mili-
tary force: the recent instances of union in Yemen and in Germany
are, for all their difficulties, democratic ones. That of Kuwait with
Iraq is coercive, as is evident in the fact that no Kuwaiti support for it
could be mobilized, not even from Kuwait Ba⬘thists.
The redistribution of oil revenues within the Arab world is a priority,
but not one that Iraq’s action against Kuwait can solve. First, Iraq
itself is not a poor country but has some of the largest oil reserves in
the region. There is little justification for Iraq seizing the oil resources
of Kuwait. Moreover, if economic benefit is the criterion, then the
action itself has caused immense economic loss. Kuwait has, for the
time being at least, been destroyed as a functioning economic entity,
and hundreds of thousands of foreign workers and professional
migrants have been driven out. Iraq itself has had to divert enormous
resources to maintain its military machine. The boycott aside, it has
to be imagined what is involved in keeping over one million men
under arms in a country of seventeen million. If there is war, for
which Iraq will be to a considerable extent responsible, then the
economic costs will be even greater.
The question of Palestine explains much of Saddam’s appeal but also
contains the most cruel deceptions. Support for Palestine rests upon
the argument that the Palestinian people are oppressed by Israel and
denied the right to their own states. But Iraq has no right to claim to
support the rights of any oppressed people, since it has treated the
Kurdish minority within its own borders in a way similar to the Israeli
treatment of the Palestinians. As violators of the rights of oppressed
peoples, Iraq and Israel are comparable. Moreover, even in a strictly
Arab context, Iraq’s policy on Palestine has long been a two-faced one
—promotion of division amongst Palestinian forces and inaction in
practice, covered by demagogic militancy in words. Iraq, in common
with Syria and Libya, has used its radical image to divide and weaken
the Palestinians. Many of those Palestinians assassinated after calling
for Arab–Israeli dialogue have been killed by Iraqi agents. Indeed one
can conclude from past behaviour that neither Iraq nor Syria would
want to see an independent Palestinian state, unless they controlled it.
Iraq has also pushed the Palestinians into a maximalist isolation, one
that denies the possibility of a two-state solution—the creation of a
Palestinian state side by side with an Israeli one—and has under-
mined, by its recent actions, the creation of any significant links
between Palestinian and opposition forces within Israel. The militar-
istic and chauvinist statements issued by Baghdad have only rein-
forced the most extreme Zionist sentiment within Israel and within
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the West. The end result is only too clear: if there is war in the region,
and if Israel becomes involved, then there will be a new and final trag-
edy for the Palestinians. As in 1948 and 1967, Zionist militants may
well use the occasion of an inter-state war to drive out the Palestin-
ians, to effect what in Israel is evasively referred to as ‘transfer’. If this
occurs, there may be forced deportations from Jerusalem, the West
Bank and Gaza. A million people may be thrown into Lebanon and
Jordan. Iraq, far from assisting the Palestinians, is in fact acting as
their greatest enemy, and is objectively an accomplice of the most
expansionist forces in Israel.
On Imperialism

Iraq’s claim to be ‘confronting’ imperialism has no more validity.
Some of the supposed links between Iraq and the West are dubious:
there is no evidence, despite Iranian claims, that Washington encour-
aged Iraq to invade Iran in 1980; nor is it sensible to argue that Iraq
and the USA have colluded to divide up the Arab world between them
through manipulation of this crisis. However, for all its anti-imperialist
rhetoric, the Ba⬘thist regime in Baghdad has benefited on many
occasions from the help of the USA. This was most obviously the case,
in 1987 and 1988, in the latter stages of the war with Iran, when the US
navy entered the Gulf and acted as an ally of Iraq. The USA also pro-
vided Iraq with military intelligence about Iran, derived from satellite
photographs. Iraq now claims that prior to its occupation of Kuwait
the USA was planning to attack it, and that US diplomats encouraged
Iraq to invade and so laid a trap for it. These are specious arguments.
Most importantly, however, if the goal is to expel Western influence
from the region, the action taken by Iraq has had the opposite result.
There are now over 200,000 Western troops in the Gulf and, however
the crisis ends, there is going to be a greatly enlarged permanent
Western presence in the region for many years to come, indeed as
long as the Gulf remains a major source of oil. Twenty years after the
British withdrawal, Iraq has succeeded in bringing the imperialist
forces back in.
The issue on which the Kuwait crisis confronts both the Arab world
and the West is that of consistency. The West’s policy has been rightly
condemned for its inconsistency: for failing to take action, through
the United Nations, against Israel while doing so against Iraq. Equally
other cases of illegal intervention—Syria in Lebanon, Turkey in Cyp-
rus, Morocco in the Sahara—have been passed over in silence. The
United Nations has to adopt the same attitude to its allies as it has
done to Iraq. Comparable condemnation of, and effective sanctions
against, Israel are needed. It would, however, be mistaken to use criti-
cism of Western hypocrisy to collude in what is a clear case of
aggression by a fascist state.
The question of consistency also applies to Iraq. Iraq claims, among
its other justifications for invading Kuwait, to be overcoming the
‘colonialist’ legacy of division. Kuwait, it is said, was once part of
Iraq and is now reunited with it. This is a dangerous argument. Most
of Kuwait was never part of the vilayat of Basra. Moreover, if Kuwait
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is an artificial political entity, created by colonialism, so too is Iraq.
By calling for the revision of frontiers, Iraq is opening up the
possibility that its frontiers too will be subject to revision.

The modern state of Iraq, for all its claims to represent the ancient
kingdom of Mesopotamia and the Abbasid state, is as much the crea-
tion of British imperialism as is Kuwait. This means that, whatever
differences divide Arab states, they cannot be resolved by one state
occupying the other and denying its legitimacy. The only long-term
solution to the issue of legitimacy is for the governments of these
states to acquire a democratic form, something neither Saddam nor
the monarchs of the peninsula want to entertain. The alternative is
that the same interventionist logic will be applied to Iraq: Iran,
Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia could all make claims on part of Iraq.
This alone should suggest that Saddam Hussein’s answer to the
Kuwait crisis is a false one. Let us hope that it will not also lead to
tragedy through a war in which the Arab peoples, and especially the
people of Iraq, will be the greatest losers.

                                                     12 November 1990

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