Before Tony Blair joins the new crusaders trying to impose a "regime
change", a Western "settlement" on Iraq, he should at least look at the
historical facts that explain the rise of nationalist leaders such as
Saddam Hussein. And while he is at it, since he is good at empathy, he
might try looking at Britain through Iraqi eyes. Seen from Baghdad, the
British have bombed and invaded their country, lied to them, manipulated
their borders, imposed on them leaders they did not want, kidnapped ones
they did, fixed their elections, used collective terror tactics on their
civilians, promised them freedom and then planned to turn their country
into a province of India populated by immigrant Punjabi farmers. Small
wonder that the author Said Aburish said to me recently: "If you think
Saddam Hussein is a hard man to deal with, just wait for the next
generation of Iraqi leaders."
In view of Saddam's ruthlessness in dealing with the Kurds in Iraq, his war
with Iran and his invasion of Kuwait, it is hard to conceive that there are
younger Iraqi leaders who believe Saddam has not been tough enough, and
that, although the United States has the most powerful armed forces in the
world, Americans do not have the stomach for the sacrifices an all-out war
in the Middle East would entail.
These young Iraqis take the Islamic long view of history, which suggests
that the Middle East never favours the foreigner and always takes its
revenge on those who, like the British and Americans, insist on seeing the
region through their own eyes.
We need to go back to the First World War, when Lawrence of Arabia and
Winston Churchill were imposing the first regime changes on the Middle
East, to see how we have reached the situation we face today. In 1919, the
recently concluded war had made everyone realise the strategic importance
of oil, and in any future major skirmish a secure supply of oil would be an
essential weapon. Britain already had one source: British Petroleum, owned
in part by the British government, had been pumping oil at Masjid-i-Salamn,
in Iran's Zagros Mountains, since 1908. But it was not enough.
So even before the peace conference began in Paris in 1919 some underhand
oil trading took place. France, for example, gave Britain the oil-rich area
around Mosul in Iraq, in exchange for a share of the oil and "a free hand"
in Syria. Unfortunately, Britain had already promised Syria to the Syrians.
It was obvious to the smarter Arab leaders that guarantees of freedom and
independence made during the war by Britain and France in return for their
support against Germany's ally, Turkey, would now mean nothing.
This was confirmed at the peace conference when the oil companies pressed
their governments to renounce all wartime promises to the Arabs. The oil
companies saw only too well that oil concessions and royalties would be
easier to negotiate with a series of rival Arab states, lacking any sense
of unity, than with a powerful independent Arab state in the Middle East.
Ironically – in that President George W Bush now leads the new crusaders –
the only country to protest at the betrayal of the Arabs was the United
States.
A commission set up by President Wilson warned that independence for states
such as Palestine, Syria and Iraq, should be granted as soon as possible.
And the idea of making Palestine into a Jewish commonwealth should be
dropped. The report was ignored, even in Washington, and it took a further
two years for the Allies to finalise their carve-up of the Middle East. The
Arabs were stunned to learn that the whole Arab rectangle lying between the
Mediterranean and the Persian frontier, including Palestine, was to be
placed under mandates to suit the foreign policies of Britain and France.
The Arabs had simply exchanged one imperial ruler, Turkey, for another, the
West.
Revolution began almost immediately. The Iraqis tried to kick us out by
raiding British establishments and killing British troops. The British army
retaliated with collective punishment, burning to the ground every village
from which any such attack was mounted. Lawrence of Arabia wrote to The
Times suggesting, with heavy irony, that burning villages was not very
efficient. "By gas attacks, the whole population of offending districts
could be wiped out neatly, and as a method of government, it would be no
more immoral than the present system."
The grim truth was that something along these lines was being considered.
Churchill, then Secretary of State for Air and War, suggested that the RAF
should take on the job of subduing Iraq: "It would ... entail the provision
of some kind of asphyxiating bombs calculated to cause disablement of some
kind but not death ... for use in preliminary operations against turbulent
tribes." In the end the RAF stuck to conventional high-explosive bombs, a
method we are still using today.
When Churchill appointed Lawrence to clear up the mess the Middle East had
become, Lawrence began by offering to make Feisal, the man he had chosen as
military leader of the Arab revolt, King of Iraq. The problem was that
there were several other candidates.
The most popular was an early version of Saddam Hussein, the nationalist
leader Sayid Taleb, who had gained popular support by threatening a
nationwide revolt if the Iraqis were not allowed to choose their own
leader. Our solution was simple. We kidnapped him, and dispatched him to
Ceylon.
By the time Taleb was allowed to return, Feisal had been elected king by
one of those suspiciously high majorities – 96.8 per cent. The regime
changes continued. In Jordan, we made Feisal's brother Abdullah king, and
provided him with money and troops in return for his promise to suppress
anti-Zionist activity. Their father, Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca, the man
who had started the Arab revolt against Turkey, was offered £100,000 a year
not to make a nuisance of himself. And that was that. Britain regarded this
as redemption in full of her promises to the Arabs. The Arabs, particularly
the Iraqis, did not see it that way. They have been in revolt ever since.
Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979 on a platform of Arab unity and
resistance to Western influence in the Middle East. He continues to have a
following in the Arab world because he is seen as one of the few Arab
leaders prepared to stand up to the West, particularly the United States,
whose interest in the area is comparatively recent. (The British Arabist,
St John Philby, father of the notorious KGB spy Kim Philby, negotiated a
deal between the Standard Oil Company of California and the Saudis, and
commercial production began in March 1938.)
Whether we accept that Saddam Hussein poses a threat or not, and whether
this threat is so great that we can justify attacking Iraq again, we should
first ask the crunch question: if the new crusaders defeat and occupy Iraq,
what then? A United Nations mandate, something like that imposed on the
country after the First World War, allowing the victorious army to remain
in control of the conquered land? Or perhaps a new "Feisal" inserted as a
token ruler of a reluctant population? Either course spells disaster. The
cynical disposition of other people's countries and their leaders – no
matter how frightful they may appear to us – will surely bring a bloody
reckoning.
That great Arabist Gertrude Bell once warned that the catchwords of
revolution – equality and fraternity – would always have great appeal in
the Middle East because they challenged a world order in which Europeans
were supreme, or in which those Europeans and their client Arab leaders
treated ordinary Arabs as inferior beings.
And so a new cycle of anger, frustration and bloodshed will begin because
800 years after the crusades there will still be foreigners occupying Arab
lands.
Phillip Knightley is the author of 'The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia'
--
There is a time in the life of every problem when it is big enough to see,
yet small enough to solve (Mike Leavitt)
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