By Miral Fahmy
Reuters, 15 March 2006
DUBAI - Three years after warning that invading Iraq would unleash hell in the Middle East, Baghdad's neighbours fear they could be dragged into a brewing civil war.
As Sunni-Shi'ite violence intensifies, governments in Turkey, Iran and nearby Arab countries are drawing up plans to prevent any sectarian or ethnic conflict spilling across borders and upsetting their internal political balance, analysts say.
They are also considering its likely impact on an already shifting regional balance of power, in which Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia fears the rising political clout of Shi'ite Muslim Iran.
"If war breaks out in Iraq, it will become a battleground involving everyone in the region," said Kuwaiti political analyst Jassem al-Saadoun. "Every one of Iraq's neighbours is guilty of meddling in its affairs for political gain."
Ever since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, several Arab officials have warned of civil war in Iraq, where Shi'ites dominate the government and security forces and Sunni insurgents control swathes of the country.
With its majority Shi'ite population, post-Saddam Iraq was always going to have close ties to Iran. Analysts say Tehran may use its considerable sway over the new U.S.-backed government in Baghdad as a lever in its nuclear dispute with the West.
To counter emerging Shi'ite power in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have turned a blind eye to the large flow of cash heading to Sunni insurgents there, some Western diplomats believe.
They say charities run by Islamist extremists, and religious groups, are funding the fighting in Iraq. They also cite reports that governments are considering arming Sunni tribes there.
Turkey wants to stop Kurds carving out a state in Iraq, while Syria, trying to maintain some regional influence, faces U.S. charges that it funnels arms and fighters over the border.
"We could be looking at another Lebanon and that is extremely frightening," a Western diplomat said, referring to the 1975-1990 civil war which had sectarian roots but was also fuelled by foreign support for rival militias.
SECTARIAN SPLIT
With their own Shi'ite minorities, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are especially worried that civil war in Iraq would divide their people and win more recruits for al Qaeda-type Sunni militants.
Nearby Sunni-led Bahrain, which has seen unrest among its Iranian-influenced Shi'ite majority, is equally concerned. Mohammed al-Sayed Said, deputy director of Egypt's al-Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies, said Saudi Arabia was the Arab country with most at stake, adding:
"It's a question of immediate borders, so they won't leave it to luck. They will do their best to stem Shi'ite power."
The kingdom is the world's largest oil exporter and its key crude-producing Eastern province is mainly Shi'ite-populated.
Alan Munro, a former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said the kingdom wanted to avoid fragmenting Iraq at all costs.
"They are rather worried that (civil war)... would reawaken all sort of designs on the part of neighbours," he added, referring to Iran. "The unity of Iraq is paramount in Saudi minds. They would do all they could to buttress stability."
Any sectarian conflict could also suck in Sunni-majority Jordan and Syria, strong advocates of Iraqi national unity.
"If there is a widescale civil war in Iraq between Sunnis and Shi'ites, its sparks will spread across the region but mostly hit Jordan and Syria," said Mamdouh al-Abbadi, a prominent Jordanian lawmaker and former minister.
"We will end up being drawn to taking sides because of our predominantly Sunni population," he added.
With the Lebanese civil war still fresh in many Arab minds, analysts said governments were unlikely to intervene militarily.
"But they will also do the minimum to stop people from going to fight in Iraq to avoid a sectarian conflict at home," said Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper.
One Saudi official said Arabs fighting foreign forces in Iraq could prove even more dangerous than al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the men who battled Soviet troops in Afghanistan.
These fighters may return home and turn their guns against U.S.-allied governments that are already combating al Qaeda.
"Iraq's neighbours cannot allow a civil war to happen, not out of love for Iraq, but out of self-defence," said Saadoun, the Kuwaiti analyst. "Most of them are aware that those who fuel the fire of civil war will be burned by it too."
Additional reporting by Andrew Hammond in Riyadh, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Jonathan Wright in Cairo.
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Citation: Miral Fahmy. "Iraq civil war seen drawing in neighbours," Reuters, 15 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L15769347.htm
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