Israel and Iraq
By Robert Wolfe

Nothing could be more ironic than the efforts of the anti-Semitic left to portray the impending US invasion of Iraq as motivated by a pro-Israeli bias of the Bush administration. It is just barely possible that such an invasion will work out well for the United States, but it is sure to work out badly for Israel.
For Bush, Iraq is essentially a target of opportunity. Unable or unwilling to attack the Iranian and Saudi regimes, who are between them mainly responsible for the rise of the terrorist Islamist movement, Bush sees in Iraq a regime that can be easily isolated due to its prior condemnation by the UN for the invasion of Kuwait. What does it matter if Iraq at this point has only a few missiles and perhaps also a few biological or chemical warheads, as compared with the thousands of missiles and huge stocks of biological and chemical weapons possessed by Iran, Syria, Egypt and Libya? The important point is that Saddam Hussein is a certified bad guy and the Iraqi army no longer considered much of a threat. A US invasion of Iraq is therefore likely to succeed, enabling Bush to claim to be making the Middle East safe for democracy and advancing the war on terror while at the same time gaining control of Iraq's enormous oil reserves.

Will the overthrow of Saddam Hussein actually advance the war on terror and promote the cause of democracy in the Middle East? Not very likely. As a secular fascist of the "Arab socialist" school, Saddam Hussein has never had more than a peripheral connection with the international Islamist terrorist network. By attacking him, the US will provide the Islamists with a new grievance to exploit for propaganda purposes while failing to actually inconvenience them to any great extent. As for the cause of democracy in the Middle East, hardly anyone expects a democratic government to be established in Iraq in the aftermath of an American victory. Much more probable is either the breakup of Iraq into its Kurdish, Sunni and Shi'ite components or else the creation of a puppet regime in Baghdad propped up by the American army. Either way the Shi'ites in the south of Iraq, and perhaps also the Kurds in the north, will naturally turn to Iran for protection and assistance, thus strengthening rather than weakening the Iranian Islamist regime which continues to hold "Death to America" rallies on a regular basis. > On the other hand there is the oil, so perhaps the benefits to the US of an invasion of Iraq might conceivably outweigh the disadvantages of further destabilizing an already unstable region. But for Israel the picture is quite different. It is true that Iraq is an active enemy of Israel and regularly contributes large sums of money to the families of suicide bombers who murder Israelis. However Israel is not threatened by Iraq to anywhere near the same degree as she is threatened by Iran and Syria, and potentially also Egypt. A US assault on Baghdad will not do much to alleviate the pressure on Israel from the Arab and Muslim world, and it will have a whole series of predictably negative consequences for Israel which can be summarized as follows:
(1) Whatever missiles Saddam Hussein still retains will probably be used to attack Israel in the event of a US assault. Iraqi use of chemical and/or biological warheads against Israel, while unlikely, cannot be ruled out.

(2) All those seeking revenge for a US attack on Iraq yet unable to strike directly at the United States will be tempted to strike at Israelis and Jews instead. They will rationalize this by blaming Israel for the US assault, as the anti-Semitic left and Saddam Hussein himself are already doing.

(3) Most important of all, the United States will most certainly try to appease Arab and Muslim public opinion in the wake of an assault on Iraq by pressuring Israel to make new concessions to the Palestinians. Bush has already more or less announced that this is his intention, following in the footsteps of Bush Senior, who did the same thing after the first Gulf War. Sharon is already running scared, trying to position himself as a centrist advocate of "painful compromises" and a Palestinian state so as to avoid the appearance of caving in to pressure from Bush.

Conceivably a Palestinian state might not be such a bad thing for Israel if Arafat could be removed, terrorism ended, a more democratic system installed and incitement to violence against Israelis banned from the Palestinian media and educational system. This is supposedly the position of both Bush and Sharon, but such a position is incompatible with any kind of rapid movement towards the establishment of a Palestinian state. So far there is no sign whatsoever of any of these things happening, nor is there any reason to believe that they will happen in the immediate future. Arafat will not disappear unless he is made to disappear, and instituting Palestinian democracy and banning Palestinian incitement and terrorism against Israel would require a lengthy process stretching over many years to achieve. Bush is not thinking in these terms; he is thinking in terms of a Palestinian state within one or two years, because that is what he believes he must achieve in order to appease Arab and Muslim public opinion. What Sharon is thinking no one really knows, but sooner or later he will either have to defy Bush openly or repudiate a whole series of positions which he has upheld for years.

A Palestinian state in all or most of the contested territories, headed de facto or de jure by Arafat and dominated by Fatah and Hamas will prove an unmitigated disaster for the state of Israel. It will appear as a reward for terrorism and will be in a position to acquire the means to conduct a far more deadly terrorist offensive against Israel in the future. Both Bush and Sharon deny that this is the Palestinian state they have in mind, but it is nonetheless the only Palestinian state that can possibly come into being based on their current policies. The more successful a US assault on Iraq, the more likely that this is precisely the Palestinian state which Bush will try to impose on Sharon. Yet far from opposing the US plan to invade Iraq, not only Sharon but the entire Israeli establishment has pledged its support and backing for this plan.

Can Israel have a foreign policy independent of the United States? Right now it seems as if the answer to this question is no. Yet without an independent foreign policy, Israel is being slowly driven in the direction of national suicide. There will come a time when this will be apparent for all to see. One way to prepare for this time would be for Israelis and Jews everywhere to disassociate ourselves from the impending US invasion of Iraq.