What after Zarqawi?

President Bush's cautious reaction to Zarkawi's death is, therefore, understandable because the exit of Zarkawi may at the same time blunt the US-inspired campaign that the insurgency was being led and fed by "foreigners" (Zarkawi was a Jordanian national).

Zarkawi's transformation from a drinking and tattooed teenager, both taboos in Islam, to his fiendish acts of beheading innocent captives were truly remarkable. The Oxford Research Group's profoundly thought-provoking report on "Global Response to Global Threat" raises serious questions as to the validity of post-9/11 security discourse that causes of terrorism are not worth discussing, that terrorism is invariably non-governmental, and that counter-insurgency should predominate over all other global challenges.

The report shows that international terrorism is a relatively minor threat compared to the future determinants of global insecurity that will be caused by climate change, competition over resources, marginalization of the majority of the world, and global militarization. Current security orthodoxy giving disproportionate weight to military response to meet international terrorism may provide short-term relief. But the Oxford Research Group feels that the war on terror is distracting governments from genuine threats that humanity faces today and the threats will continue to degenerate unless redressive measures are taken.

No one, least of all, the underdeveloped nations, would want historian Niall Ferguson's prediction of the forgotten parts of the world to suffer from endemic plunder and strife and retreat of civilization to a few fortified areas to come to pass. But then it is questionable whether the use of massive military might to contain interminable stream of insurgency, as in Iraq, will be an adequate answer to the ushering in of a period of hegemonic stability where the principal actor views international law as too amorphous to merit US consent and as intrusive into US domestic affairs and hence has refused to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol and the International Criminal Court.

Sadism at Abu Ghraib apart, the Bush administration has been guilty, in the words of Lisa Hajjar of "repeatedly employing interrogation tactics that constitute torture and inhuman treatment and are proscribed by the Geneva Conventions and US laws." She argues that even if one were to accept the Bush administration's argument that Iraqi detainees are "unlawful combatants" the universally recognized baseline standard of treatment of prisoners in war is Geneva Convention which prohibits all detained persons regardless of status not to be subjected to "cruel treatment and torture" and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."

But then the Iraq invasion without UNSC sanction and the doctrine of pre-emption (despite Colin Powell's assurance that the doctrine is primarily aimed at non-state actors/terrorists), there is growing distrust in the international community about the Bush administration's respect for international law and its desire for peaceful resolution of conflict. In a recent policy analysis, Dr. Cindy Williams has demonstrated that America's enormous military advantage has not been translated into stopping "grinding insurgency" in Iraq or security at home or regaining America's global influence. Noteworthy is the fact that the US's official development assistance is less than half the average of the European countries and nearly at the bottom of the world's major donors.

The US's anachronistic conflict resolution policy is further demonstrated by the fact that in FY06 while National Defense gets about five hundred billion dollars, international affairs is allocated only thirty billion dollars ($8.7 billion for the conduct of foreign affairs). US National Security Council Strategy declares Iraq is the central front in the global war on terror and victory in Iraq is a vital US interest. That this policy has reduced support for the US at home and abroad is clearly evident.

But there are believers like Nixon's Defense Secretary Melvin Laird who speaking from his Vietnam experience has advised against "Americanization" of the Iraq war, but at the same time has asked President Bush to articulate a simple message, that the US is not fighting in Iraq for giving the Iraqis the right to vote but to protect "Western democracy, the global economy, and all else that is threatened by the spread of barbarism in the name of religion." Laird's advice is reminiscent of the argument advanced by John Foster Dulles for the creation of NATO to defend "our cherished freedoms" with military might, religious faith, and a positive demonstration of political and social system as counter-attraction to communism.

The sectarian conflict in the Muslim world and the mainly Sunni insurgency in Iraq have proved that the Bush administration is not going to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis. The initial mistake committed by the Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer, pointed out by Larry Diamond who briefly served Bremer, was to regard all Sunnis as Saddamists and by extension as terrorists. Subsequent referendum, elections, and government formation have not fully done away with the Sunni grievances of political exclusion.

But the exit of Zarkawi may have a salutary effect on the Iraqi insurgency because of the disenchantment felt by many Sunnis due to Zarkawi's intolerant interpretation of Islam, his criticism of religious scholars who in his eyes were less supportive of the Iraqi insurgency and violence against the Sunnis who opted for participation in the political process.

Then again, Zarkawi's Tandhim al-Qaida claiming to have between 5,000 to 15,000 fighters had been shaped by the personality of its founder. Besides, many terrorist acts were credited to Zarkawi because of Washington's desire to further demonize Zarkawi and by the perpetrators who found the acts to be controversial even to the extremists. It is questionable whether Zarkawi's death would necessarily see a reduction in Iraqi insurgency, but one may safely assume that the brutalities inflicted upon the innocent captives like beheading may become a thing of the past.

Israeli political analyst Reuven Paz views the struggle in Iraq as a "return home" of the predominantly Sunni Jihadists after years of struggle in "exile" in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Central Asia. These Jihadists filled the vacuum created by the short-sighted US policy of elimination of the Iraqi army and security forces due to their alleged allegiance to Baathism. This controversial US policy has some merit because the threat to the US interests in the Persian Gulf comes less from Iranian theocracy that has lost fervor and more from the Sunni Islamic radicalism.

In the final analysis, Zarkawi's death is unlikely to have any significant impact on the extent of the Iraqi insurgency, that is manned neither by Saddamists seeking to restore the past nor by Bathists for ideological attachment nor by al-Qaeda followers.

Though the tendency to interpret the current events through the prism of the Crusades invoking Quranic verses urging Iraqis to unite against American invaders undeniably provides a religious facet to the insurgency, it is primarily a rebellion by the Sunnis for their lost predominance and by the other Iraqis against continued foreign occupation which is yet to deliver political stability, personal security, and economic benefits.

Given the existential tribal social system in Iraq (as in many other countries of the Greater Middle East) the Bush administration's missionary zeal to spread democracy in the region is unlikely to bear fruit in the near future. The most that can be expected from the exit of Zarkawi from the scene is a comparatively less brutal face worn by the insurgents in Iraq.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador.