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Rebuilding a Region
| Article
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18546 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1991 |
1,970 Words |
| Author
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Michael Sterner
Michael Sterner is a partner of the IRC Group, a Washington-
based international consulting firm. He was the U.S.
ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and a deputy assistant
secretary of state from 1977 to 1981. |
When Saddam Hussein made the deliberate decision to allow war to be thrust upon him, he did so on the basis of two calculations. The first was that the only alternative--being seen to back down without fighting--would be worse for him. The second was a gamble that, while he was almost certain to lose the military battle for Kuwait, there was a chance that he could end up winning the wider political war for the hearts and minds of Arabs throughout the Middle East.
Saddam has lost that gamble. His main success was among the communities of angry, disillusioned, and poor Palestinians in Jordan and the Israeli-occupied territories. And in other countries where there are strong politicized Islamic forces--Algeria, Sudan, Morocco, Pakistan--there were significant demonstrations of support for Saddam. But, overall, the results fell far short of what he had hoped for: a broad popular uprising that would have swept away existing regimes or pressured them to change their policies.
Saddam's failure does not, however, mean that the political status quo can be restored in the wake of this conflict. The Persian Gulf War has been a traumatic experience for the Arab world, and it will have important consequences that the West, no less than the Arabs themselves, will have to deal with for years to come.
Regional dynamics
For many Arabs, the war will be seen as a richly deserved denouement for an overreaching and blundering Arab demagogue. But many others will see it in a different light: as yet another humiliating episode in the long history of Arab weakness in the face of Western power. In this respect, the conflict has reopened old psychic wounds, and in many quarters it will reinforce the feelings of frustration, resentment, and powerlessness that are already prominent features of the Arab and Islamic landscape.
Even among more thoughtful Arabs, the crisis has had the effect of bringing long-simmering questions to a head, such as: "What is wrong with our societies to have brought such a calamity down upon us?" It was out of a similar state of shock and introspective searching after the 1967 Arab defeat that the militant Palestinian and Islamic extremist movements were born and the Arab nationalist movement went into a 20-year decline.
The consequences of the present conflict are similarly less likely to be destabilizing in the immediate sense than to sow seeds of
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