Jewish World Review Feb. 28, 2001 / 5 Adar, 5761
Nothing succeeds
like failure
By Daniel Pipes
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
EXACTLY 10 years ago today, Iraq's war
for conquest of Kuwait ended in total failure. Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein was expected quickly to lose
control of Iraq, but a decade later he remains very much
in power.
How did he manage this? Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam's
chief spokesmen, hinted, even before war broke out in
January 1991, why his master had no worries.
Middle
Eastern regimes, Aziz told US secretary of state James
Baker, have never "entered into a war with Israel or the
United States and lost politically." Though somewhat
exaggerated (Arab leaders did pay a price for losing to
Israel in 1948-49), Aziz was basically right: military loss
usually does not hurt a Middle Eastern ruler. Instead, he
denies disaster on the battlefield and flourishes politically.
Consider some examples:
-
Suez crisis, 1956: Egypt's president Gamal Abdel
Nasser suffered a humiliating military rout at the hands of
the British, French and Israelis, but insisted on having
won a victory. He was widely believed. As a result, this
episode "strengthened him politically and morally," writes
the University of Maryland's Shukri Abed, helping
Nasser become the dominant figure of Arab politics.
- Six Day War, 1967: Catastrophic defeat at Israel's
hands prompted Nasser to offer his resignation, but
Egyptians responded with massive street demonstrations
calling on him to stay in power (he did). Syria's defense
minister in 1967, Hafez Assad, went on to become
president of his country.
- Battle of Karama, 1968: Yasser Arafat's Fatah lost its
first major armed confrontation with the Israelis, but
claimed victory.
- Yom Kippur War, 1973: Israeli forces may have beaten
the Egyptians and Syrians, but the latters' governments
again portrayed the war as a great triumph.
- Siege of Beirut, 1982: Arafat transformed a humiliating
retreat from Beirut into political victory, emphasizing that
the Israelis needed 88 days to defeat him, far longer than
it took them to defeat other Arab forces.
Today, those events are remembered as a glorious
victory. For example, Hamas recounted a few years later
that the Palestinians in 1982 "humiliated" Israel and
"broke its resolve."
But what explains this surprising pattern? Three aspects
of Moslem life help account for it.
-
Honor has monumental importance; maintaining it
counts more than actually achieving something. Hussein
Sumaida, an Iraqi exile, explains Saddam's motives in
taking on most of the world in 1991: "Winning didn't
matter. What mattered was putting on a good show and
gaining the hearts and minds of the smoldering Arab
world."
- Fatalism offers Moslem rulers a way to avoid blame. It
was all in the cards, what could we do? As'ad Abu
Khalil of California State University finds that in times of
defeat, Arab leaders typically adopt an attitude that
"people have no influence or effect whatever on their
actions and deeds. It is only God who acts." Invoking
"the inescapability of destiny" absolves Arab regimes and
armies from responsibility. This pattern, he correctly
notes, "has become typical to the point of predictability."
- Conspiracy theories are so dominant that every
confrontation with the West (including Israel) is assumed
to imply a Western intent to destroy the rulers and
conquer their countries. Egyptians, for example, widely
believed the British and French governments planned in
1956 to eliminate Nasser and occupy Egypt. When these
devastating consequences failed to happen, his mere
survival became tantamount to a famous victory.
Defeating an enemy on the battlefield is not enough to
win in the Middle East; the ruler and his regime must also
be eliminated.
The policy implications for Iraq are
obvious.
JWR contributor Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and the author of several books, most recently Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes from. Let him know what you think by clicking here.
© 2001, Daniel Pipes