Gulf region is in for some nasty surprises

Now that US Secretary of Defence Robert M. Gates recognised that the 2003 Iraq invasion "shock-and-awe" strategy was an error, and that the Pentagon's narrow focus on conventional combat operations proved costly, how will the next president of the United States perceive the Gulf region?

Can John McCain justify his long-term involvement in Iraq while Barack Obama contemplates an orderly withdrawal? Will either deny Iran a nuclear capability, stabilise the entire area, or help precipitate a far more dangerous environment?

In their first presidential debate on September 26, Obama and McCain devoted specific attention to Iraq as well as Iran, and what both said about future American relations in the region deserves meticulous attention.

The two candidates challenged each other on Iraq but, as expected, confirmed long-held positions. Perhaps to show resolve, Obama asserted that Washington "should never hesitate to use military force, and I will not," he emphasised, "as president, in order to keep the American people safe, never hesitate to use military force".

His bravura targeted the hapless Afghans and Pakistanis, and while McCain remained focused on Iraq, both vociferously threatened Iran.

With the latest Gates interjection that the counterinsurgency mission in Iraq "came at a frightful human, financial and political cost," Obama's focus on misjudgments that preceded the 2003 invasion was poignant. "You said it was going to be quick and easy," Obama lambasted McCain.

"You said you knew where the weapons of mass destruction were," he pounced, mockingly concluding: "You were wrong. You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong." Still, McCain insisted that the United States was "winning in Iraq, and we will come home with victory and with honour."

Alas for Iraq and the Gulf region, the debate took on very belligerent tones as the two senators insisted that regional developments, including the rapidly expanding nuclear weapons programme in Iran, would necessitate uncompromising American responses.

Although the two disagreed on how best to interact with Tehran, their proposals confirmed that neither was prepared to bargain. Both acquiesced to the notion that the US could not tolerate a nuclear Iran even if they did not reveal how they might prevent such an outcome.

The Gulf region is in for some nasty surprises in the months ahead for a variety of reasons. McCain emphasised and kept pointing out that Washington could not, indeed must not, lose in Iraq even if he seldom explained what winning actually meant. Someone should remind him that President George W. Bush declared "mission accomplished" after he landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier near San Diego on May 2, 2003.

Others spoke of a "cakewalk" before catastrophe hit them in the face, or were confronted with "stuff happens" after man-made tragedies hit them on the head. We now have a contrite Gates explaining that raw might "envisioned a computerised [perhaps even an] idealised version of warfare" to have been unrealistic.

Gates was brutally honest when he warned officers to "be sceptical of systems analysis, computer models, game theories," adding that they should "look askance" at notions of future conflict that imply "adversaries can be cowed, shocked or awed into submission, instead of being tracked down, hilltop by hilltop, house by house."

One wished that Gates went a step further if for no other reason than to warn McCain and Obama that they should think twice about sending men and women into harm's way. He should have acknowledged that over 4,177 (as of September 30) American deaths in Iraq created a lot of widows and orphans.

He should have apologised to the loved ones of the million or so Iraqis killed because of an illegal war. Moreover, and rather than indirectly raising the blatant illegality of this war - invading on the basis of a pack of lies concocted by third-rate neo-conservative ideologues who were and are ready to sacrifice every man, woman and child to satisfy mistaken beliefs or sheer greed - Gates could have learned a lesson from Robert McNamara.

It may be useful to remember what the architect of the Vietnam War wrote in his 1995 memoirs. Appropriately titled In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, the repentant former secretary of defence carved for posterity: "Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why," and in 2004, he insisted that the West in general and the US in particular, were making the same mistakes all over again in Iraq.

Conundrum

McCain and Obama face a conundrum: one of them will become president shortly and must come to terms with the kind of delusions and false assumptions that the world has not seen since Vietnam. Both must reassess American influence, to avoid lies (WMDs), immorality (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo), political quagmires (ethnic cleansing), and economic ruin.

The next president will have to rediscover international law, respect the Geneva Conventions, desist from illegal and ineffective regime changes in sovereign nations, and end a slew of policy initiatives that harm Americans in the first place and the rest of the world in the second.

In a moment of utter candour, almost remorsefully, McCain told us last Friday: "And we've got to - to make sure that we have people who are trained interrogators so that we don't ever torture a prisoner ever again," even if in February 2008, he voted to preserve water-boarding.

The contradiction was eminent, and while Obama gave McCain "great credit on the torture issue," the next president was truly confronted with the option of restoring lost American values. Beyond Iraq, Iran, and oil, it was important for both men and their numerous advisors to see the Gulf region not as a confrontation zone but as ordinary and peaceful. So that the region could prosper, away from the vagaries of major powers, and the threat of perpetual wars.

Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is a commentator and author of several books on Gulf affairs.