Fears that Iraq may not be the last United States target have been raised by bellicose statements from the Pentagon and US neo-conservatives directed against other members of the ”axis of evil” and the so-called ”states of concern”.
In light of the Baghdad regime’s fate, these countries now face a choice between fight and flight.
Syria
Syria has been implacably opposed to the war with neighbouring Iraq and has called for an end to the Anglo-American ”occupation”.
It made no response to remarks by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that he had ”scraps of intelligence” saying that Syria has been helping supporters of Saddam Hussein to flee Iraq. Rumsfeld also said Syria had allowed ”jihadists” to travel to Iraq to resist the US-led invasion.
Syria dismissed earlier accusations by Rumsfeld that military equipment was being transported through its territory to Iraq. The only specific item mentioned was night-vision goggles.
In covering the war Syrian media focused heavily on the casualties and hardships suffered by Iraqi civilians, with less emphasis on the collapse of the Baghdad regime. Syria has also distanced itself from Saddam, with whom it has quarrelled on various occasions.
”Syria was not, at any time, backing anyone but the Iraqi people,” state-run radio said this week.
Neo-conservatives in the US see Syria as one of the Arab countries most ripe for ”regime change”, though Britain favours political engagement to promote more gradual reform.
A large issue in the background is the Lebanese Hizbullah organisation and radical Palestinian groups, which Damascus continues to support as a lever towards eventually recovering the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
As Syria and Iran have been targeted by the neo-conservatives, both countries have been attempting to maintain a common stance. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made a surprise visit to Iran last month, apparently to cement the two countries’ policies.
”Both dread the thought of a US-controlled government in Baghdad,” said Patrick Seale, an expert on Syria.
This has led Syria to insist on the Iraqis being allowed to ”choose their government freely away from foreign intervention” — a possible hostage to fortune as Syria itself does not have free elections.
US accusations are likely to harden Syria’s position, Seale said. ”The president has adopted a very tough line from the beginning and I think he will resist very strongly any form of intimidation. His aim is to remain in tune with domestic and Arab
public opinion.”
Iran
Once the dust settles in Iraq, Iran will come under fresh pressure from Washington over its nuclear programme and its alleged ties to militant Palestinian groups, diplomats say.
Although the presence of US troops in Iraq has clearly rattled the country’s conservative leadership, Tehran has taken comfort from international criticism of the US approach.
Since it was named by the Bush administration as part of the ”axis of evil”, Tehran has avoided a belligerent tone, cultivating relations with European Union states while insisting on its right to pursue its nuclear programme.
The first test of the effect of US action in Iraq will be whether Iran agrees to sign an additional protocol that would allow inspections of its nuclear programme at declared and undeclared sites. Iran has so far refused to sign up to the ”go anywhere” inspection regime and maintains that its nuclear programme is designed exclusively for peaceful, civilian uses.
Some officials have hinted that Iran might agree to more intrusive inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency if it is allowed more access to technical expertise abroad for its nuclear energy programme.
Iran may be able to manage the nuclear issue, but allegations in Western media that members of al-Qaeda may be receiving protection from hardline elements represent a red line for Washington. Tehran has denied the allegations and says it has deported al-Qaeda suspects.
The presence of US troops on Iran’s eastern border in Afghanistan and now on its western border with Iraq has created a nervous climate domestically, leading to calls for ”vigilance” from conservative clerics.
The conservatives seem less concerned about the possibility of US military action than with what they call a ”media war” launched from Iraq that would somehow undermine their authority. Some reformers fear the Bush administration’s actions may give a pretext for a sweeping crackdown against dissent.
Libya
Libya has adopted an anti-war stance on Iraq but has not been especially vociferous.
It is in negotiations with the US over compensation for the Lockerbie bombing. It has made an offer amounting to about $10-million per victim, on which the US is consulting the victims’ families, but the main issue is agreeing a statement by Libya accepting responsibility for the bombing.
Sanctions against Libya are still in place, though they are not at present enforced against companies doing business with Tripoli. As with Syria and Iran, Britain differs from the US in being more inclined towards dialogue than confrontation.
There are some concerns about the possible development of chemical weapons by Libya. The two plants usually mentioned are at Rabta and Tarhunah.
North Korea
North Korea’s polemics against the US have acquired a much sharper edge since the invasion of Iraq, apparently reflecting a real fear that Pyongyang may be next on the list of regime changes.
As soon as the war began, the Foreign Ministry said that North
Korea would now be compelled to ”do more” to defend itself from a
subsequent US attack.
”There is no doubt that the US will make the Korean peninsula the third stage of its ‘anti-terrorism’ war,” said the Workers’ Daily. After years of Pyongyang’s warnings that the US plans to invade North Korea — on little or no evidence — the Iraq war now appears to justify its alarmist line.
In the mid-1990s North Korean diplomacy paid off. In return for it suspending its nuclear programme, the US agreed to provide aid and edged closer to dialogue.
This tentative process narrowly failed to bring about a visit to Pyongyang by former president Bill Clinton. President George W Bush’s tougher line had already led Pyongyang to expel United Nations nuclear inspectors before the Iraq crisis.
Now Pyongyang interprets US military moves in South Korea as hard evidence that it will be targeted. Stealth fighters and other aircraft have been deployed, says the Pentagon, to ”deter” the north.
US officials in Seoul this week were discussing a plan to pull back US troops from the 38th parallel to positions south of Seoul, leaving the defence of the borderline in South Korean hands.
Analysts in Seoul suggest this would allow US troops to be kept safely out of range if a pre-emptive air attack were launched on Pyongyang’s nuclear sites.
Last weekend Pyongyang gave a strong hint that it was developing nuclear weapons to prevent such a pre-emptive strike. It said that it would rely on a ”tremendous military deterrent force”.
This week, as Pyongyang’s withdrawal from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty became effective, it said it had no intention of allowing UN inspectors to pave the way — as in Iraq — for a US-led war.
”The US demand for the scrapping of our nuclear weapons programme before [agreeing to] dialogue would lead to inspection,” said the official news agency, ”and the resultant [North Korean] disarmament would spark a war.”
While tough North Korean statements in the past have sometimes masked a willingness to talk, the danger now is that Pyongyang believes dialogue with a victorious US would only pave the way for its own defeat.
Cuba
The Cuban government fears that it could be a target of ”regime change” after the war in Iraq, according to the former head of the US mission in Havana.
Wayne Smith, who headed the US mission in the Carter administration, said that the recent round-up and jailing of government opponents was an indication that the regime believed that the US may step up its efforts to remove the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro.
The US has accused Cuba of using the war in Iraq as a cover for the trials and jailing of more than 70 opponents there. Havana has defended the sentences, which range from six to 28 years, claiming that Washington has been involved in an attempt to overthrow the government.
”There is a certain sense on the part of the Cubans that they might be next,” Smith told National Public Radio.
He said that there was a belief on the island that ”the ballgame changed with our invasion of Iraq and our policy of pre-emptive war”.
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque denied that the crackdown was timed to coincide with the war so that international attention would be elsewhere. The trials have been condemned by the UN and Human Rights Watch.
Criticising the trials, the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said: ”This is symptomatic of the dictatorship of the Cuban regime.”
The head of US interests in Havana, James Cason, was accused by Cuba
of encouraging opponents to plot a ”counter-revolution”. — Â