A month after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime and the start of the post-war United States occupation of Iraq, there is disorder and violence in much of the country and widespread antagonism to US influence. Several of the key US officials appointed to administer the country are already being replaced, and unease about post-war developments is shared even within the British government.
Meanwhile, a series of well-planned and carefully executed attacks in Riyadh demonstrate that US interests elsewhere in the Middle East are still vulnerable. The Riyadh bombings, timed to coincide with Colin Powells visit to Saudi Arabia, constitute the most serious attack on US interests since those of 11 September 2001.
Al-Qaida is back
The bombings took place amidst a period of high security in the Kingdom, and followed recent discoveries of arms and explosives in Riyadh itself. There had been warnings of possible attacks against US interests, yet the Saudi security forces were evidently unable to prevent their execution. This security failure could owe something to lack of competence, and be complicated by the broad support that exists in Saudi Arabia for anti-American actions, but it also compels recognition of the very many soft targets that exist in this oil-rich country.
Although the US plans to withdraw about 4,000 uniformed troops over the next year or so, they represent only a small if visible part of US involvement in Saudi Arabia. This numbers over 30,000 people, mostly civilians, who work in many different ways to support the Kingdom and its oil industries. Most of this presence will remain, as will the military bases, even if they are now going to be kept on a stand-by rather than an active status.
In any case, al-Qaidas motives in Saudi Arabia have always extended beyond merely the removal of US forces from the Kingdom. Equally significant has been the long-held belief that the House of Saud is a corrupt and highly unacceptable Keeper of the Two Holy Places. That motive, along with a continuing US presence, will go on feeding the resentment that lends support to al-Qaida. The organisation has now shown itself to be far from defeated by the United States in its war on terror.
US forces in regional draw-down
The Riyadh bombings come at a time of fundamental changes in the distribution of US military forces throughout the Middle East, Europe and south-west Asia. The partial withdrawal from Saudi Arabia has been widely reported, but less well-known is the recent downgrading of bases and facilities in Turkey and Jordan and the imminent departure of substantial US forces from Kuwait. These will be followed by withdrawals from Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Some of the US forces are being moved to Qatar, and the basing of a range of aircraft in Oman (including strategic bombers) will continue both states are considered to be safer environments than their western Gulf neighbours (see Aviation Week subscription only, 5 May 2003, Drawdown and Exit by David Fulghum).
This redistribution of US forces is in turn part of a much wider move that involves a steady decrease in maintaining very large overseas air bases, often close to centres of population and therefore more at risk from paramilitary action. This will even mean a draw-down of US forces in western Europe, but this will be accompanied by an increase in the number of bases that will be available for use when required. Several such bases have already been established in Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere in Central Asia, and it is probable that some new bases will be developed in south-east Europe that is, in countries close to the Middle East that do not have substantial Islamic populations.
Behind these policies lie three considerations. The first and most immediate is the acceptance by the Pentagon that the scale of hostility to the United States in the Middle East requires real restrictions on large-scale deployments on the grounds of the security of American personnel.
A second factor is simply the huge cost of keeping the forces overseas; this is reinforced by the frustration among many service-people themselves to being restricted to secure bases in remote places for months on end.
The third consideration is the more general shift by the US military towards the rapid deployment of forces to meet particular security threats, in contrast to the previous approach of having permanent large-scale bases located overseas. A small sign of this trend is the US Air Forces increasing concentration on long-range precision-guided missiles, coupled with reconnaissance drones; these are designed to make it easier to fight wars at a distance.
All of this is, in effect, an admission that the very presence of substantial US military forces in oil-rich regions such as the Persian Gulf and the Caspian basin is fuelling deep and abiding resentments among the people affected, now made even worse by what is perceived as the occupation of Iraq, a major Arab state.
The current discoveries of mass graves in Iraq is further evidence of the brutal character of Saddam Husseins regime, but in the context of the control of Iraq by Washington, it is not easy for US forces to argue against the widespread view in the Arab world that one form of autocracy is being replaced by another.
It is certainly accepted in Washington that US forces will remain in an occupying role in Iraq for many months if not years, but even when they go, some major military facilities are planned to remain, including three or four bases kept on in different parts of the country.
The US logic, and its defects
There is, then, a US military trend towards large numbers of stand-by bases and other facilities stretching across south-east Europe, the Middle East and through into Central Asia, whose underlying motive is the long-term security of oil supplies. The US will continue to maintain large bases in countries that are considered sufficiently friendly to its interests. In other cases, bases will be available as and when required, with the US military continuing its acquisition of rapid deployment and expeditionary capabilities.
The core problem is that, whatever the Pentagon thinks, the strategy simply will not work. Al-Qaida is recovering from the disruption caused by the termination of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. There, some Taliban militia are even reforming, and the Riyadh bombings demonstrate al-Qaidas continuing viability in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the foreign occupation of Iraq will provide an extra justification for its activities to a list that includes hostility to the House of Saud, opposition to western influence in the Gulf and the running sore of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
The decrease of the United States overt military presence across the region does not alter the basis of its strategic policy there: long-term security of oil supplies coupled with enduring support for Israel. Control cannot be achieved solely by cruise missiles fired from hundreds of miles away. The local commercial, political and security interests and connections remain, as will opposition to their presence. The Riyadh bombings indicate a deeper lesson: just as Washington may have thought that it had gained greater control of a strategically crucial region, it may actually be in the process of losing it.
