Jeremy Bradshaw
Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2005

“You cannot have proper elections with violence occurring. The Americans are wrong to think that violence will end with the elections. If anything it will get worse, much worse” says Mr Zaid El-Rifal, president of the Jordanian Senate.

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“If democracy, real democracy, were established across the Middle East, every country would be an enemy of the United States. To have a stable democracy – one that nurtures the values that the West appreciates – there needs to be a core middle class “ says Mr El-Rifal, adding, ”but this is lacking in most Middle Eastern states where the majority live below the poverty line. That’s why democracy will feed extremism.”

In recent weeks, the young King of Jordan, Abdullah the Second, has warned Washington that the elections in Iraq set – at U.S. insistence – for January 30th should be delayed.

Far from solving Iraq’s problems, all the signs are that the elections could trigger a crisis of untold proportions across the Middle East. The Sunni boycott, the attacks on candidates by insurgents and the numerical superiority of the Shiite population, all suggest Baghdad will have a Shiite government.

Such a result, the King and other leaders in the region fear, could be disastrous for both Iraq and the peace of the region.

Why? First, the new government’s immediate task will be to write a new constitution for Iraq.

A Shiite government – unless stopped by the Americans – will impose a radical Islamic legal system that will crush the rights of the minority Sunnis or Kurds.

Second, this will quite possibly cause a civil war and the break up of Iraq in to three parts. The dislocation and fall-out will be immense. Countries like Turkey will not allow a Kurdish state come into being without a fight.

Third, a Shiite takeover will mean a vast increase in the influence of the current regime in Iran. A Shiite government in Iraq will create a “Shiite crescent” – as King Abdullah of Jordan has termed it – from Iran through Iraq to the Hezbollah in Lebanon and to the eastern parts of Saudi Arabia (where the Shiites form a majority in an otherwise Sunni Kingdom).

Fourth, it will embolden the hard-liners among Palestinians who are dedicated to destroying, and not negotiating with, the Israelis.

“President Bush needs to be aware that the new government of Iraq will write the constitution,” King Abdullah said. “The president needs to think out of the box and consider what type of government this will create? If the Americans are so keen to put the Iranians [who are developing nuclear weapons] in their place, they need to see that Iraq is the soft under-belly of Iran.”

The King’s Frustration is visible. His hands are tied. Jordan depends on U.S. aid to survive. President Bush is not a man given to last minute changes of mind. The Sunnis are rejecting calls to participate in the elections and the violence is worsening.

The Iranians will, the King believes, not necessarily allow a Shiite takeover to look like a victory for Tehran (which is controls the most powerful Shiite groupings in Iraq). A moderate face or gloss may be given to a new Iraqi regime but it will in truth be a puppet of Tehran.

No wonder governments across the Gulf have begged the Americans to postpone the elections. Democracy without security is meaningless.

The conditions for the elections could not be worse. There are reckoned to be over 200,000 insurgents currently working to destabilize Iraq.

Candidates, voters and election officials are all being targeted by hit squads. The Sunnis – who ran a secular regime under Saddam – have seen all their organizations disbanded by the Americans, while the civic structures of the Shiites in the south have never been stronger, nor less tolerant of secular Islam.

The Gulf States are especially concerned. Bahrain has a Shiite majority but a Sunni King; Tehran has long held territorial claims to the Kingdom.

Likewise, Iran has made claims on the UAE – it currently occupies three of its islands.

Saudi Arabia’s problems are seen to be especially serious. Saudi intelligence is said to have been widely infiltrated by bin Laden supporters and the royal family is apparently split from top to bottom.

The Saudis don’t know how to reform without alienating the reactionary Wahhabi clerics, upon whom they depend.

Jordan itself – which is made up of 60 percent or more of Palestinians – is inherently unstable. It hosts over 400,000 Iraqis who have escaped the post-Saddam fall-out and a Palestinian population that is preoccupied by developments within Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

For King Abdullah, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state “living in peace and stability is the only way to guarantee a comprehensive peace” between the two sides.

In the King’s view the only way to remove the anger vented by the Islamic extremists across the region is to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

The King says he is “optimistic” about the future. But then, he has little choice.

Editor's note: