Long road to a safer world

By RUPERT CORNWELL

Its over, and mercifully faster than most of us dared imagine. But the devastating military campaign to remove Saddam Hussein has raised more questions than it answers.

The categorical assertions the war camp used to justify the first major and unprovoked preemptive war in half a century have yet to be substantiated. But so, too, have many of the forebodings of those who opposed it. Is the world a safer or more dangerous place after the removal of one of its nastiest tyrants?

How simple it would be if the British and Americans found mighty stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons concealed across Iraq, preferably in crates and canisters marked al Qaeda. That was how the war was sold. But so far, nothing. No weapons of mass destruction, thus far at least, and no credible evidence whatsoever of significant links between the terrorist group and Saddam's regime. So was the whole enterprise a misguided and reckless adventure that will destabilise the planet? Not quite.

Yes, Hosni Mubarak and others have warned that the price of Saddam's overthrow will be "1000 new bin Ladens". But that may be little more than overblown Arab rhetoric. No doubt, this latest perceived humiliation of Islam in its heartlands at the hands of an overweening invader will prove a recruiting agent for al Qaeda and the rest.

The fact is, however, that al Qaeda is probably a shadow of its former self. It is an organisation without a base, whose leadership is either dead or on the run, harried by the US and no longer certain of anyone's loyalty. In these circumstances, its ability to organise anything on the scale of September 11 must be questioned.

However maddening the security checks, flying has probably never been safer. For all the scare-mongering, there is no hard evidence the terrorist organisation is (or was) close to producing a serious chemical, biological or nuclear device. Not only America's, but the world's guard is up.

Undoubtedly we will see further attacks against soft targets, along the lines of the Bali nightclub last October. But that would have been the case, with or without Iraq.

Before the war, the talk among its opponents was that, whatever the outcome, an invasion would serve only as a match to the Middle East tinderbox. These are early days, but such arguments may need to be re-examined.

At the outset of the campaign, it seemed as if the famous "Arab street" might finally make itself felt. But fury has given way to resignation, rebellion to despair at the futility of resisting American arms. Are the disliked and narrowly based regimes in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia more at risk than a month ago? It is impossible to say so for sure.

But suppose Mubarak, the House of Saud, the Assad regime in Syria did fall, to be replaced by governments more representative of the popular will. Might not that lessen the pressures which drive the disenfranchised into the arms of radical Islam and thence to the likes of al Qaeda? After all, 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.

But if we are no more at risk, whether we are safer is another matter. Even Bush has not ventured as much, for all the promises that this was a war fought in the name of spreading peace by destroying a rogue state's weapons of mass destruction.

Whether the Gulf War of 2003 helps create a more peaceful world, will only be apparent a long way down the line. It will depend on two unknowns: The first is the shock effect in the region of the utter destruction of Saddam's regime. The second, even more important, is the willingness of Washington to see the job through.

The heat that the US is currently putting on Syria is a reflection of the former, that a regional troublemaker can be cowed into something approaching submission. Syria is without friends among its neighbours. Maybe now the inexperienced Bashar Assad will shut down the Damascus headquarters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and shut down the pipeline of support from Iran to Hizbollah and its forward bases in Syria's protectorate of Lebanon.

The same, conceivably, might apply to Iran itself, that founder member of the "Axis of Evil" - in the State Department's book the world's premier supporter of terrorism. To be sure the language from Tehran grows more defiant by the day; its deeds on the other hand could become more pliant.

But a sullen, albeit less troublesome Syria and a less obstreperous Iran are no long-term solution to the problems the invasion of Iraq was supposed to tackle. That will only come about if the US follows up words with deeds on the dispute which poisons every other in the Middle East - the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Bush has a chance - in some ways a slightly better chance than his father after Saddam was driven from Kuwait in 1991 - to achieve a settlement.

Suppose Syria does cease succour and assistance for the terrorist groups which threaten Israel. That would remove one of Ariel Sharon's main justifications for refusing compromise with the Palestinians. With the confirmation of a new Palestinian government, that goes a good way towards sidelining Yasser Arafat, another reason for Israeli procrastination would disappear as well.

But does Bush understand this - and is he ready to apply real pressure on Sharon to roll back settlements, open the borders of the occupied territories, and generally make the daily life of ordinary Palestinians marginally less miserable?

This Administration is fond of boasting that it has gone where none of its predecessors has gone, and called explicitly for a fully fledged two-state solution to the dispute. Taken literally, that may be so. But thus far it has been mere words, as if a few lofty phrases coined by his speechwriters and uttered in the Rose Garden will do the trick.

No, achievement of a Middle Eastern peace settlement will be as long and hard a slog as the reconstruction of Iraq - not just of its buildings but, far harder, of its psyche. Such is the latest "twin-track" challenge for this and successor administrations. If Washington brings it off, it will be a miracle. If not, then the invasion of Iraq will have solved nothing.

- INDEPENDENT