The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is another way of posing the law of unintended consequences. For example, the unintended consequences of General Yahya Khan’s 1970 elections were war with India and the breakup of Pakistan. Similarly, the unintended result of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s re-institutionalization of the demoralized Pakistan army was his later execution by a handpicked army chief. More significantly, the unintended consequences of the US-Pakistan sponsored Islamic jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s against the Russians continue to impact the two sponsors and impinge on the fate of regions, cultures and civilizations. Consider.
For both Pakistan and the US, the intended consequence of the Afghan jihad was the ouster of the Russians from Afghanistan. But the un intended consequences for Pakistan were violent sectarianism, drugs and Kalashnikovs. The un intended consequence for America was Osama bin Laden’s transformation from a low level, US backed, anti-Russia maverick-mujahid to the leader of the most consequential anti-America, ‘Islamic’ movement of modern times. Indeed, OBL’s 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington have changed the discourse of cultures and civilizations and are threatening to redraw the social and political map of the Middle East. It is arguable whether or not OBL could have visualized the swift American intervention in Afghanistan and the demise of the Taliban regime as one consequence of 9/11. Similarly, it is arguable whether or not President Bush would have intervened so decisively in Iraq and ousted Saddam Hussain if 9/11 hadn’t provided him the framework of fear in which to fashion and implement his neo-conservative pre-emptive doctrine of strategic domination. Still, the boot could be on the other foot. Consider.
The US intervention in Iraq had two tactical aims. Get rid of Saddam Hussain quickly, and install a stable, long term pro-America regime. The first objective was achieved but the second has proved costly and difficult in terms of American lives lost (over 1400) and money spent (over $300 b). Nonetheless, despite violent resistance from the Sunni minority, the US has succeeded in holding elections in Iraq. The intended consequence is to prop up a pro-US regime while paving the way for an exit strategy for America’s beleaguered troops. In the event, pundits are asking many relevant questions. Will the new democracy be secular or sectarian? Will the Shia majority be able to live and let live with the Sunni minority that has historically lorded it over them or will their divisions sharpen? Will the Al-Qaeda-supported resistance be crushed? Will the new government be sufficiently autonomous of Washington to be credible in the eyes of the Iraqi people? Few, however, are asking what the un intended consequences of American sponsored Shi’ite Iraqi democracy might be in time to come. Consider the implications of the first Arab nation ever to be ruled by the Shias.
Robert Fisk, possibly the most perceptive journalist writing on the Middle East, argues that “a Shia inheritance of Iraq is creating deep fears among the Arab kings and dictators that their Sunni leadership is under threat”. He says Arab leaders are talking of “a new Shia Crescent running through Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon in which the underdogs of the Middle-East, repressed under the Ottomans, the British and then pro-Western dictators, will be a new and potent force”. In Kuwait, the Shi’ite Salafis have just announced the formation of the Ummah, the first ever political party in the kingdom. In Bahrain, the Shia majority that revolted in the 1990s against the ruling Sunni minority is bound to demand democratization, which will become the buzz word for greater Shia participation in government. Saudi Arabia, which has long disregarded its Shia minority and has no love lost for democracy, is worried. “The Arab states outside the Shia Crescent fear Shia political power even more than they are frightened by genuine democracy”, says Fisk. But those may not be all of the unintended consequences of the American intervention in Iraq.
Much of the Arab world’s oil on which the West thrives lies in the Shia belt. The Shias are astride Saudi Arabia’s richest oil reserves along its eastern seaboard. Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil also lies in Shia lands. Along with the oil wealth of Iran, this now accounts for half the world’s oil reserves. That is why Jordan’s king, for instance, is anxious that the new developments in Iraq could “destablise the Gulf and pose a challenge to the US”. If oil should become a weapon in the struggle for internal democracy and external autonomy, the “tectonic plates of the Middle-East” could move “in a new and uncertain direction”, argues Fisk.
One of the unintended short term consequences of 9/11 is the remarkable turnaround of Pakistan from a potentially “failing” or “pariah” state into a “pivotal” and resurgent state which has disavowed extremist political Islam, minimized conflict with its neighbours and rebuilt mutually beneficial relations with the West. Despite the chances of greater conflict and upheaval in the short term, can one hope that the un intended longer term consequences of America’s intervention in Iraq might be the democratization and secularization of the Middle-East and a more equitable sharing of the world’s resources?