The Middle East, Reshaped To Acceptable US Specifications, Will Be Ready For Peace.

NICOSIA - With the US focusing on post-war Iraq and the prospect of regime changes looming, moderate Arab opinion leaders seem set to help in building up a peace momentum. On the spot APS soundings across the Arab World indicate that, despite anti-US rhetoric emanating from the street, there are expectations of fundamental change to follow shortly after a US-led war on Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in Iraq. The momentum for Arab-Israeli peace this time could be far stronger than the Madrid Conference that followed the 1991 US-led war to liberate Kuwait. But the first and the most important condition is that the US must prove to the Arab street that it has become a fair, unbiased broker of peace between the Arabs and Israel. But many Arab experts believe it is a toll order.

This time the focus will be on a war of liberation for the Arab mind to parallel both a radical change in American thinking and the peace momentum. Moderate Arab opinion leaders already have begun to delve into such "taboos" as normalisation between Israel and its neighbours. According to a New York Times report on Feb. 10, Crown Prince Abdullah Ibn Abdel Aziz is preparing to launch major reforms in Saudi Arabia after the US campaign to disarm Iraq is over. The paper says things will be set in motion with a request for the US to pull its troops out of Saudi Arabia, and that will be followed by a six-year-long transition to a freely-elected parliament; so there will be democracy and transparency.

Drastic changes of this nature in the Middle East have been promised by US leaders, in particular Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is considered the least hawkish in the Bush administration. Speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in early February, Powell said overthrowing the Iraqi government could cause "some difficulties" for the US in other parts of the Middle East during the conflict and in the months immediately after a war. But he added: "I think there is also the possibility that success could fundamentally reshape that region in a powerful, positive way that will enhance US interests, especially if in the aftermath of such a conflict, we are also able to achieve progress on the Middle East peace" process.

Arab opinion leaders polled by APS summarised the underlying implications of Powell's comments as follows: (a) there is little chance for any movement in the peace process until after the Iraqi Baathist regime is removed, and this development must be seen in the context of an Israeli government ready to make a just and lasting peace with the Arabs; (b) the US expects that, once Saddam is out of the way, regimes in the Arab World will become more vulnerable to pressure, and therefore more flexible, in their positions on the peace process and other issues; and (c) the US will, contrary to what the hawkish neo-conservative elements in the Bush administration have been suggesting since Sept. 11, 2001, move to change the region to those specifications which will eventually be acceptable to the Arab street - be that through voluntary liberalisation or more aggressive pressure tactics on rejectionist and un-elected rulers.

What remains to be seen is whether the US will succeed in keeping the momentum to reshape the Middle East, including Israel. There are early indications that the process to liberate the Arab mind has already begun, with a media war between rival Arab TV channels likely to open up to public debate subjects that were previously considered taboo.

Private media ventures are taking root in the region. One example is the Khalifa Group of Algeria. This group has a Khalifa TV channel among various other business operations, with its founder and CEO Rafik Abdelmounem Khalifa being a pragmatist well connected to the leadership in Algiers. The Khalifa Group's annual turnover is about $1 bn (see Downstream Trends No. 5).

A better known example is the Qatari-owned TV network Al Jazeera, which has over the past few years acquired a reputation for challenging the traditional concepts of news reporting and talk-shows in the Middle East - angering several Arab regimes in the process. It has, on the other hand, acquired the title of "Osama Bin Ladin Channel", because his statements are released through Al Jazeera, which is backed by the ruler of Qatar. The London-based Middle East Broadcasting (MBC) media group - owned by in-laws of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia - has launched Al Arabiya TV channel, to rival Al Jazeera as well as expose its bias against the royal regime of Riyadh. Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya will fight to reach the Arab masses.

This reflects an unequal power struggle between Doha and Riyadh over a number of issues, including the role of "number one strategic partner to the US" in the six Arab Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries. While Saudi Arabia has been reluctant to allow Washington use of base facilities in the kingdom to target Baghdad, Qatar has allowed the US to convert Al Udaid base and As Sayliyah camp into what seems to be the nerve centre for any attack on Iraq (see details in the latest edition of SBME). Doha has thus moved to reduce the strategic value to the US of bases in Saudi Arabia, while Riyadh has been unable to respond in a similar way because of strong domestic sentiment against any American military presence in the kingdom.

However, information has come to light in recent weeks about links between Doha and Al Qaida, which are embarrassing to the ruling Al Thani family of Qatar. From an intelligence break-through - the result of co-operation by the intelligence agencies of Britain, Jordan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the US - it has emerged that an Iraq-based Al Qaida network had operated for eight months under the supervision of Abu Musaab Al Zarqawi, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin who fought in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. The agencies discovered that a member of the ruling family in Qatar operated a safe house for Zarqawi when he transited the emirate going in and out of Afghanistan (see details this week's RIM).

With the planned ouster of Saddam to be followed by a prolonged US stay in Iraq and a media war in the background to be joined by a US government sponsored Arabic TV channel, the Saudi leadership would be keen to pre-empt the various kinds of pressure that can be expected to follow. The New York Times (NYT) report of Feb. 10, which outlines Crown Prince Abdullah's reform plans, indicates that Riyadh is beginning to realise the extent to which the American mindset has changed since Sept. 11, 2001. Rather than wait for real pressure to materialise, as it would if the US takes control of Iraq, the Saudi royal family is moving ahead on its own accord to bring about gradual democratisation. To wait to be pressured to democratise would undermine the regime's credibility. According to the NYT, Prince Abdullah will also take the bolder move of sidelining the powerful Wahhabi religious establishment. While the NYT report suggests moves towards democratisation are opposed by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef and not favoured by Defence Minister Prince Sultan, both full-brothers of the ailing King Fahd, the paper indicates that in the end they will go along with Abdullah because the royal family sticks together in times of crisis. The proposed reforms have the support of the business community and the younger princes, like Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal and Prince Bandar, the long-serving ambassador to Washington.

Sidelining the Wahhabi establishment is a potentially explosive move, as this would mean an end to partnership between the House of Saud and the House of Shaikh Mohammed Ibn Abdel Wahhab that has lasted more than 250 years and which, from the standpoint of Wahhabi religious leaders, has provided legitimacy to the royal family. If Abdullah succeeds in this move - a huge task as it would mean drying out the swamp from which Osama Bin Laden's power base has emerged - and thus averts an endless cycle of tribal wars in the Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia could eventually become a viable democratic entity. But many believe that ending Wahhabi fanaticism will be as tall an order as expecting a victorious Bush administration to become a fair leader of an Arab World humiliated by what Bin Laden on Feb. 11 called "Greater Israel".

If - assuming both the US and Prince Abdullah play their cards right - Saudi Arabia goes for such drastic change, it will be hard for other regimes in the Middle East to resist pressure to do the same. The Shiite theocracy in Iran will be under such pressure as well. Some will try to bargain through the peace process, i.e. by adopting a flexible posture on Arab-Israeli peace in exchange for US understanding and support for the status quo. But such tactics are not likely to succeed because the neo-conservative hawks in the Bush administration believe that democracy is more likely to have a moderating influence on Middle East society than a temporary agreement with an authoritarian regime.

Washington post-Sept. 11 is convinced that a democratically minded middle class in the region would be far more effective in spreading peace and prosperity than an un-elected regime concentrating on its own survival (see News Service No. 1). However, the opinion leaders warn that the Arab street will rise and the US empire will decline if President Bush wimps out of a chaotic Iraq in the aftermath of Saddam's downfall.