Regional Implications of the Iraq Crisis

Gregory Blue, 16 April 2003

Iraq's evolving situation since 1990 has had implications for all of Iraq's neighbours as well as for the broader Middle Eastern and West Asian regions. Given our restrictions today, I can only examine these implications in the briefest, most simplistic of terms, even though the issues are highly complex. The implications of the current American invasion and occupation are almost certain to be tremendous. They can be seen at the political, economic and military levels. Let me address these in reverse order, and begin with some background.

Militarily, Iraq in the mid-1950s was at the core of the Baghdad Pact, which joined it to Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Great Britain in an anti-Communist Cold War alliance. Under this arrangement, the Iraqi military grew to a limited extent within the over-arching framework of containment policy, but it remained relatively weak on its own. After the 1958 Iraqi revolution, the armed forces that cast aside the old order were further strengthened with Soviet aid. The defeat of Iraq along with Egypt, Syria and Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War against Israel resulted in the coup that brought the Ba'ath Party to power. Revenues form the newly nationalised oil industry allowed an expansion of the army in the 1970s and especially during the Iran-Iraq war, which Saddam Hussein launched in 1980. Saddam fought that costly and horrifically bloody war primarily to take full control of the Shatt al-Arab, the waterway formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which empties into the Persian Gulf. However, he received major support from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikhdoms as well as from the West, due to their fears that Ayatollah Khomeini's regime, which had taken power in 1979, would attempt to spread revolutionary Islam throughout the regime. During the war, which lasted until 1988, Saddam's military received substantial Western technical assistance as well as advanced weaponry, including American chemical and biological weapons technology. Relations with the West broke down of course was over Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The 1991 Gulf War left the Iraqi military gravely weakened, and a decade of sanctions weakened it even more. As a result, Iraq's neighbours, including its long-time enemies Iran and Syria, had a decade-long respite from the threat of Saddam's aggression. In Iran, this period has seen the emergence of a powerful, popularly-backed reformist movement around President Mohammed Khatami.

The result of the present American invasion, which was formally opposed by virtually all Arab states except the small Gulf sheikhdoms, appears to be that Iraq itself will not be a regional military power for the foreseeable future. One imagines, for example, that the concerns of Saudi Arabia and Israel about an Iraqi threat will now be definitively dissipated. At the same time, the implications of a American military presence based in Iraq could be very important for the region. In particular, Syria and Iran are now likely to feel extremely vulnerable. Iran, designated as a "rogue state" by successive American administrations, now faces U.S. forces to its west in Iraq as well as to its east in Afghanistan. What will be the impact on the Iranian reform movement? Hard to say… And things look just as bad or worse for Syria, which was long considered a "rogue state" until it joined the U.S. in the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. Should it again be relegated to "rogue" status, as now seems possible, it will confront the hostile allied forces of the U.S., Turkey and Israel, on three separate fronts. Also of possible regional military importance for American strategic planners is the fact that any residual Russian hopes for influence in the Middle East are now severely constrained. In addition to the ties established in the late 1990s with the GUUAM consortium (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova), which are operative within framework of the NATO Partners-for-Peace programme, Washington strengthened military cooperation with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in the framework of the "war on terrorism". Now it is virtually guaranteed the long-term use of important bases by U.S.-backed regimes in I Afghanistan and Iraq.

Turning to economic implications of the Iraq crisis, the past decade has seen two significant effects. One has been the reduction of Iraqi oil for sale on the world market. Another has been the provision of Iraqi oil on favourable terms to Jordan and Syria. The Jordanian provision was accepted by the UN under the sanctions regime, but the Syrian was not. The Bush administration has just announced that it is ending of the supply of Iraqi oil to Syria.⁽¹⁾ If carried through over even the medium-term, as seems likely unless Damascus comes to some accommodation with Washington, the effect on Syria's economy is likely to be significant, and may well impact significantly on living conditions in that country.

At the same time, there are likely to be regional implications of the substantial programme for the rebuilding of Iraq's petroleum sector by American and British firms accountable to private investors. Historically, from the time of Ba'athist 1972 nationalisation of oil, the government of Iraq was one of the main exponents within OPEC for maintaining high oil prices. This was so that Iraq's oil industry could fund social programmes as well as economic development and military spending. How assuring returns on foreign investment will square with the provision of social services and again raising popular living standards in a war-torn, crisis-ridden society we do not know at present, but there are grounds for not being too optimistic. Moreover, the rebuilding of the sector will no doubt take some time, but when it is completed, one expected effect is that increased Iraqi supply will cause world oil prices to fall. This could affect the Arab OPEC states collectively, though how is a matter of speculation. It is possible that some form of OPEC coordination will emerge around the common low-price strategy previously favoured by the Saudis and the small Gulf states, which (unlike Iraq and Iran) have not had to satisfy a large, educated citizenry. But it might also happen that competition among Arab OPEC countries might be fostered that will lead to a weakening of the oil-producers' organisation. This will no doubt please some, but not necessarily the peoples of the region.

Finally, the political significance of the crisis for Iraq's neighbours begins within Iraq itself. This is partly due to the fact that Iraq's population includes several groups which extend beyond the country's borders. This fact constituted one of the most dramatic dimensions of the crisis after the 1991 Gulf War, and it continues to be of utmost sensitivity currently. In particular, the Kurdish people make up a majority in parts of northern Iraq, but most Kurds live outside Iraq, in eastern Turkey, as well as in Syria, Azerbaijan and Iran. At the same time, the Shi'a Muslim populations, who predominate in southern Iraq but also inhabit other parts of the country, have a multiplicity of ties to fellow Shi'a in Iran, where that version of Islam is the officially established form of the faith. The permanent allegiance of both groups to the Iraqi state is not to be taken for granted.

This is particularly true of the Kurds, a nation of 20 million people, spread over five countries, who have struggled with persistence and determination for an independent state since the 1920s. The two most extensive Kurdish struggles have been those waged in Turkey and Iraq, where Kurds make up 20% and 15 % of the population respectively. In Iraq, many of the country's oil fields lie in predominantly Kurdish areas, and there has been a near continuous Kurdish struggles for autonomy or independence there since the 1950s. Iraqi Kurds responded energetically in 1991 to American calls for rebellion against Saddam Hussein. They were then left unsupported to face the onslaught of his forces. The reason for U.S. inaction then was apparently the fear in Turkey, a key NATO ally, that independence for the Iraqi Kurds would spur calls for independence by their counter-parts in Turkey.

One notable difference between the 1991 Iraq crisis and the situation today is that in the late 1990s the Turkish state managed, at the cost of much brutality and bloodshed, to defeat the longstanding guerrilla war waged by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its leader, Abdullah Ocalan. That war, which cost 30,000 lives over a fifteen year period, came to an end in 2000, after Ocalan himself had been captured and condemned to death on terrorism charges in a very public trial. Yet, even in the present circumstances, Turkey is still acutely concerned with Kurdish prospects. The Turkish government let it be clearly known after the U.S. invasion of Iraq commenced that it had strong objections to Kurdish militia entering the key oil city of Kirkuk; these objections are currently a reported soruce of tension between the U.S. and Turkish governments.⁽²⁾ The latter's sensitivities on Kurdish issues may well have been heightened by the judgment last week by the European Court of Justice that Ocalan, who remains a rallying point for Kurdish nationalist sentiment within Turkey,⁽³⁾ did not receive a fair trial and that his human rights were violated.⁽⁴⁾

The prospect of an autonomous Kurdish zone in northern Iraq, much less of a unified Kurdish state spanning current state borders, has the potential to give rise to deep-seated instability in the region for some time unless a viable federal constitutional arrangement in Iraq manages to meet the justifiable aspirations of the Kurds while soothing the anxieties of the Turkish state. How hopeful can one be that the task is feasible? Even if a representative democratic regime were to emerge now in Iraq, the task would be a daunting one -- and the record of the U.S. in promoting democracy in the region does not inspire special confidence in this regard.

And should one take encouragement from the news that the man assigned by the Bush administration to broker an accord among the various pro-Western Iraqi groups is Donald Rumsfeld's friend, Zalmay Khalilzad?⁽⁵⁾ Khalilizad is the former Rand Corporation executive who played a similar role last summer in Afghanistan as a king-maker (or rather president-maker) when he stage-managed the loya jirga meant to designate that country's new government. Instead it was Khalilzad who controlled the designating. Guerrilla activity in Afghanistan against the American-backed regime of Hamid Karzai has incidentally increased considerably in the past month, partly as the result of the distraction of the Iraq campaign and partly the result of still festering ethnic and political tensions in Afghanistan.⁽⁶⁾ Central Asian regional commentators like Ahmed Rashid have warned for some time that the West risks spurring violent resistance and terrorism if it allies itself with repressive governments that fly in the face of popular wishes and aspirations.⁽⁷⁾ At the same time, serious concerns have been voiced that war in Iraq and an American occupation could pre-empt efforts at democratisation and infuriate popular opinion throughout the Arab world.⁽⁸⁾ Similar concerns hold for the entire Middle East.

As a final example, consider once again the case of Turkey, where democracy still contends with a legacy of dictatorship, and where polls indicate that over ninety percent of the population has been opposed to the government giving support to the invasion. The Bush administration reportedly first assumed promises of aid would be sufficient to bring the Turkish government and parliament onside with the invasion plans. Once parliament instead voted its opposition to allowing an American land campaign to be launched into Iraq from Turkish soil, American officials reportedly tried to horse-trade to get a reversal. Finally, once more brandishing the magic wand of economic assistance, Colin Powell succeeded in pulling off a deal with Turkey's government that circumvented parliament and allowed supplies to be conveyed to the invading forces from Turkish territory.⁽⁹⁾ Given such manipulations, it's hard not to wonder how much the Bush administration intends to respect the rest of the region's popular, democratic opinion in the future.

1. "U.S, cuts Syria's oil lifeline", Globe and Mail, 16 April 2003, A10. "They were instructed to shut it down", said U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, although he added he was not yet certain that all flows of oil from Iraq to Syria had been closed."

2. Paul Knox, "U.S.-Turkish tensions rise over Iraq's Kurds", Globe and Mail, 11 April 2003, A4

3. "Banned leader still has power to rally Kurds", Globe and Mail, 25 March 2003, A9.

4. "Turkey's Ocalan trial unfair", BBC News Online, 12 March 2003 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2842691.stm>

5. "Who's likely to lead Iraq", Victoria Times Colonist, 13 April 2003, D1-D5.

6. "Afghanistan beset by wave of violence", Globe and Mail, 16 April 2003, A12.

7. Ahmed Rashid. Jihad. The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia. New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2002.

8. Richard Bernstein, "The new agenda: Go it alone. Remake the World", New York Times, 23 March 2003, Section 4, p. 1.

9. "Steven R. Weisman and Frank Bruni, "Turkey increases its support of U.S. in Iraq war", Globe and Mail, 3 April 2003, A8.