The US and Britain expected to be greeted as
liberators. Saddam’s brutal repression and murder
of tens of thousands of Iraqis found in mass
graves justified the belief that his fall would be
greeted with joy by the majority of Iraqis. But the
feelings of the Iraqis were always ambiguous.
There was also a sense of humiliation at the defeat
and occupation by foreigners. The interim Iraqi
council gained no popular support, subject as it
was to American control. The largely American
and British troops became increasingly mired in
the task of subduing militant groups of Sunnis
and Shias. The restoration of normal life, supplies
of electricity and medical services was slow. The
two governments were shown to have prepared
inadequately for the aftermath of defeating
Saddam with wholly insufficient resources for the
huge task of reconstruction. The use of heavy
armour in cities, mounting innocent Iraqi civilian
casualties, no time set for the ending of the mil-
itary presence and the restoration of completeIraqi
sovereignty, played into the hands of a violent
minority.
The ‘exit strategy’ was not clear and the US
administration could not abruptly change course
before the November 2004 presidential election.
The partial handover to a transitional Iraqi
government at the end of June 2004, unable to
conclude any binding agreements, was defined by
the coalition as the restoration of Iraqi sover-
eignty. But coalition troops under foreign
command remain. The eruption in May 2004 of
the scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners
undermined the acceptance of US and British
troops even further. Now Washington and
London had to concede that the provisional Iraqi
government had the right to require their with-
drawal. The abuse played into the hands of the
terrorists with serious consequences for any
Western intervention in the future. No one knows
how high Iraqi civilian casualties have been
during the war and its aftermath. Estimates range
from 18,000 to 100,000. Despite Sunni threats
and suicide car bombers, 8 million enthusiastic
men and women cast their votes in Iraq’s first
democratic election, January 2005. Bush’s
unequivocal lead with Blair’s support and UN
assistance sent a powerful message throughout
the Middle East that the tide of reforms will, over
time, prevail, even while terrorism scars the
region. During 2005, Iraq was sent on the diffi-
cult path of parliamentary rule, agreeing on a new
government and a constitution, preparing the way
for the withdrawal of foreign troops.
Many Muslims accuse the US of oppression in
Iraq, feelings inflamed by the misdeeds of errant
soldiers torturing Iraqis held in prison, and
oppression in the Palestinian territories indirectly
by the one-sided backing of Israel. In Arab eyes,
after the Iraq war, the US is less trusted as an
honest broker than in any earlier decade.
The conflict between Israel and the
Palestinians lies at the heart of wider deep divi-
sions. Israel is the only genuine democracy in the
Middle East and its political culture and Western
orientation present a challenge to the Arab world.
Israel was largely a Western ‘implant’, its first gen-
eration overwhelmingly coming from outside the
region. Its military hardware has been supplied by
the West ensuring that Israel maintained an edge
of superiority over its neighbours. Israel receives
the largest amount of aid from the US and Jewish
fund raisers from all over the world. The Israeli
economy and society are Western and in terms of
Purchasing Power Parity its Gross Domestic
Product per head is almost double that of oil-rich
Saudi Arabia, all the more remarkable given the
lack of its natural resources. Israel’s defeat of its
Arab neighbours and occupation of land that
once belonged to them is a source of Arab nation-
alism and deep resentment. The struggle against
Israel and Zionism is a weapon in the hands of
Muslim fundamentalists in secular-ruled Arab
states, and also a temptation for secular rulers to
exploit to gain popularity. A settlement of the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict would reduce inter-
national tensions within the region but it will not
solve the internal problems of the Arab states or
their relations with the wider world.
Any settlement has to involve Jewish settlers
leaving the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
Some hundred and forty Jewish settlements scat-
tered throughout the territories of the West Bank
and Gaza and populated by some 220,000 settlers,
many of whom were recent immigrants and are
militantly orthodox, are under threat and attack
from their Palestinian neighbours. Arafat shied
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