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The war to win hearts and minds
begins
By Ehsan Ahrari
After
the passage of UN Resolution 1441, the information
warfare between the United States and Iraq is on with
full fury. As expected, both sides are playing up their
advantages. In the case of Iraq, the only advantage is
to harp on its Islamic heritage, which may not save it
from the American military machine, but may still force
the Bush administration to pay close attention to the
strategic consequences of invading the country.
That possibility is the only card that Saddam
Hussein has left - aside, of course, from fully
cooperating with UN inspectors. It can be argued that
the United States is also using the hype of force
buildup to force Saddam not to dilly-dally, as he has
previously done. If the ultimate result of this info war
is regime change without military action and the
resultant bloodshed and suffering, no one can question
its rationality.
But one must also look hard at
the new meaning of "regime change", which top US
officials have recently been touting.
There is
little doubt that the administration of President George
W Bush remains fully focused on intensifying pressure on
Saddam to come clean regarding his capabilities to
produce weapons of mass destruction. The phrase
"material breach" that is looming large in the new
resolution should be very clear to Saddam.
After
the end of the UN debate, Iraq finds itself totally
isolated in the international arena. Russia, China and
France have done their bit to prolong the debate,
knowing full well that a unilateral US military invasion
of Iraq was in the making while they were quibbling over
the wording of the new resolution. No matter how
differently those three permanent members of the UN
Security Council read the meaning of that phrase during
the debate, they were cognizant that Washington was
interpreting it as leading to a military strike against
Iraq. But that debate is over. Now comes the real action
in the form of information war.
The Iraqi letter
of acceptance of UN Resolution 1441 was fully couched in
the Islamic language of defiance. It opened with a
Koranic verse which states, "Go to Pharaoh, for he has
indeed transgressed all bounds. But speak to him mildly,
perchance he may take warning or fear." A number of
points should be made on the Iraqi use of this verse.
First, since that verse is originally addressed
to Prophet Moses, through its use Iraq is underscoring
its moral superiority over the US in its current
conflict. Second, from the perspective of the "hard
power" (ie, military power) of that era, Pharaoh was
enormously powerful. On the contrary, Moses was all
alone, only equipped with the power of truth of his
message. But he knew that the power of God was with him.
Similarly, Iraq is conveying to its supporters and
Muslims at large, that despite the awesome hard-power
gap between it and the United States, the unseen power
of God is on its side. Third, it is worth noting that
within a matter of a week, the US has been compared to
Pharaoh twice, once in the alleged taped voice of Osama
bin Laden - when he referred to Bush as the "Pharaoh of
the century" - and for the second time by Iraq. Finally,
in the month of Ramadan, when Muslims pay special
attention to the symbols and rituals of Islam, this
phraseology creates additional and ominous resentment
and tensions, whose consequences may not become apparent
any time soon.
The significance of the last two
points is underscored only by the fact that within the
past three weeks or so, the Bush administration has
launched a multi-million-dollar propaganda campaign all
over the Middle East and other Muslim countries,
conveying the message that its fight is not against
Islam, and that millions of Muslims freely practice
their faith in the United States. Washington has no
illusions that it is succeeding in its endeavors now or
any time soon; however, the hope is that the awesome
power of the US will plant fear in the hearts and minds
of its opponents of all stripes. Then they might be more
amenable to seeing the "truth" about America's
intentions, which are underscored on those propaganda
commercials.
One may disagree with the rationale
of the preceding argument, but the fact that the Bush
administration, with its coterie of superhawks, is
seriously pursuing the propaganda option speaks volumes
of the increasing information awareness at the global
level. This also provides considerable "power of
persuasion" to parties to any conflict that are resolute
about winning the minds of the people and, in the
process, enhancing their positional advantage. That type
of warfare was the sole purview of official
propagandists in the past. Now its practitioners are
mushrooming all over the world. Saddam Hussein is
definitely one of its most ardent practitioners. One may
recall the ease with which his secular regime
incorporated in totality the stridently anti-American
Islamic rhetoric of the Islamic Republic of Iran during
the Desert Storm campaign of 1991.
From the US
side, there is a constant - some say, excessive -
emphasis on regime change in the official rhetoric as
well involving ground realities. To start, there is
little doubt that the phrase "material breach" of
Resolution 1441 is singularly emphasized in Washington
as the United Nation's endorsement of the use of force.
Moreover, that decision will be made entirely by the US,
not by reverting it to the legal hairsplitting exercise
of the Security Council.
To that, add the
repeated harping on the phrase "regime change", but with
a new wrinkle: either Saddam comes clean on the issue of
weapons of mass destruction and agrees to fully disarm,
thereby changing the nature of his regime, or the US
will oust him through military actions.
To
convey how seriously Saddam envisions the threat to his
survival this time, there have been unconfirmed reports
in the international press that he was negotiating
asylum in Libya for his family and senior aides in
exchange for about US$3.5 billion. Considering that
Muammar Gaddafi, dictator of Libya, will come under
international (read US) pressure to hand Saddam over for
trial, the alleged deal does not cover refuge for Saddam
or his son Uday.
Now the US is on a roll.
Support for a "regime change" must be further widened.
For that purpose, Bush is expected to seek a political
statement of support from NATO members during his visit
at the forthcoming meeting of that alliance this week.
Given the strong German opposition to a military
invasion of Iraq, and considering a highly visible
French involvement in neutralizing the language of
Resolution 1441, there is little doubt that the US will
seek any collective commitment for assistance in the
seemingly impending military invasion of Iraq. At the
same time, if Washington were to choose to attack Iraq,
NATO members' current low level of military preparedness
and the outmodedness of their military wherewithal will
not exactly serve as a source of strength for the US.
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is
convinced that the European predilection for
war-by-committee will prove to be nothing short of a
drag in the way of Washington's contrary preference for
a quick and decisive military action. He is famously
known for stating that coalitions should not determine
the mission of a military campaign, rather its mission
should determine the nature of the participating
coalition, an observation that the European states find
both arrogant and offensive. But the fact that the US is
still seeking their support means a lot - indeed, a coup
de force from the perspective of information warfare -
considering the ever-growing gap between the
capabilities of military forces on both sides of the
Atlantic.
The enormous asymmetries of military
power between the US and Iraq in 1991 suggest that
military victory against Iraq in 2002 or 2003 may be a
cakewalk. There is not likely to be any urban warfare or
a massive deployment of troops, only high-tech and
"remote control" warfare. But before that phase begins,
both Iraq and the US are already engaged in a war to win
the minds of the Iraqis, Arabs and Muslims.
Saddam is in no mood to give up his endeavors to
win supporters in the Arab and Muslim world. His sole
purpose now is to prolong his survival.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria,
Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
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