Patrick Seale: The trap is closing on US hopes and forces in Iraq

When the police in any country investigate a crime, the first questions they tend to ask is, "Who stands to gain? In whose interest was it committed? Who had the motivation? Whose aims were achieved?" Or, in the Latin phrase, Cui bono?

The same question may be put about the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which has turned into a crime of vast and mushrooming proportions.

This week's ferocious battles in Baghdad point to a sharply deteriorating situation in which the initiative has passed to the insurgents. American troops, aided by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's ill-trained and battered security forces, control little beyond the heavily-protected Green Zone. Hostage-taking is rampant and the war looks increasingly unwinnable.

It therefore seems highly unlikely that national elections can be held in January 2005, or, if they are held against all odds, that a credible government will emerge.

The prospect of a stable and legitimate Iraqi government extending its authority over the whole country seems increasingly remote. But if the prospect of victory fades like a desert mirage, so do American hopes of making a dignified and honourable exit from the Iraqi quagmire. .

The alternative is to stay the course and to tough it out, with all that means in terms of mounting American and Iraqi deaths, terrible material destruction and soaring costs.

For this policy to have a chance of success, many more American troops are required to fight their way into insurgent areas and subdue them.

But, with the US military already over-stretched, there is little political will in Washington to extend the war. The most likely outcome is a bloody stalemate, in which the main losers will be the sorely-pressed Iraqi people.

Amazingly, the war does not seem to have damaged President George W Bush's lead in the polls over his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry. This is probably because many Americans have swallowed the administration's lie that Saddam Hussain was linked to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Bush has cast himself successfully as a war president - a warrior against terrorism who is fighting in Iraq to protect them. But opinion could swing against him in the coming weeks to the November 2 election if fighting and US losses continue to escalate.

Winners and Losers

There are many different ways of describing what is taking place in Iraq. Bush's argument is that America is fighting to liberate Iraqis from a repressive Oriental autocracy and introduce them to the joys of democracy, in the hope and expectation that this will serve as a model for the whole region.

As if oblivious of the horrific setbacks, he continues to rant about "the forward march of freedom".

A very different opinion is that this is an old-fashioned colonial war, not unlike France's invasion of Algeria in 1830 or Britain's occupation of Egypt in 1882, or the two powers' greedy share-out of the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.

On this view, imperial America is, in turn, seeking to defeat the forces of Arab nationalism and militant Islam to extend its hegemony over the Arab world and especially over Arab oil.

Yet another way of looking at the war in Iraq is to see it as a transposition, on to another battlefield, of the Arab-Israeli conflict a war in which the United States is fighting on Israel's behalf.

Although the struggle continues, it is not too early to ask who are the winners and who are the losers.

It is now well-established that the main advocates for America's war in Iraq were Israel's friends in the United States the so-called neo-conservatives present in large numbers in the Pentagon and several other US government agencies, in think tanks, war colleges and the press.

In the words of General Anthony Zinni, a former chief of the US Central Command, "the worst-kept secret in Washington" was that the neoconservatives pushed the war in Iraq for Israel's benefit.

Zinni's remarks are part of a swelling backlash against the Washington neocons - especially those referred to as the civilian leadership of the Pentagon - which is causing considerable anxiety in their ranks and in Israel.

The spectre of strategic failure

Israel's interest in the war its strategic aim - was to destroy and permanently enfeeble Iraq, so as to eliminate any future potential threat from the east. This aim was achieved in the two wars of 1991 and 2003. Iraq as a strong, unitary Arab state no longer exists. It has effectively been dismembered.

The best that can be hoped for in present circumstances is that it will eventually re-emerge as a loose federation. This is a far cry from the hopes of all those concerned that the Arab world might one day be able to assert its strength and independence.

America's interest was by no means identical to Israel's. The US wanted to get rid of Saddam, whose ambitions and recklessness were seen as threats to the American-sponsored political order in the Gulf. But the US did not wish to destroy Iraq altogether.

The US has no interest in a weak, dismembered Iraq becoming a source of instability in the region. It did not foresee that a power vacuum would emerge in Iraq which would be far more threatening to America's overall interests in the region than Saddam had ever been.

On the contrary, the US vision was of an Iraq reborn as an American client-state, a strongpoint of American influence, hosting American bases, its vast oil reserves exploited by American companies, its reconstruction in American hands, a country strong enough to serve as a counterweight to both Iran and Saudi Arabia.

American strategists envisaged that the seizure and remodelling of Iraq would consolidate America's political and military control over the region's oil and affirm its supremacy over all rivals, regional and international.

It is evident that, while Israel got what it wanted, American strategic aims have not, and will not, be achieved. Instead of a US client state, Iraq has become a hotbed of violent anti-Americanism, a haven for America's bitterest enemies.

The insurgents whether Iraqi nationalists, former Saddam loyalists, or militant Islamists seem intent on forcing a western withdrawal from Iraq. They appear to want to push the United States out of the Arab Middle East as it was pushed out of Iran in 1979.

Meanwhile, America's dilemma remains as cruel as ever: it cannot comfortably stay, nor can it easily withdraw. The trap is closing on its hopes and on its forces in Iraq.

Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs. He can be contacted at: gulfnews.com