Bush's Iraq plan meets scepticism in Middle East

US President George Bush’s new strategy to send thousands of extra troops to Iraq was met with harsh scepticism across the Middle East today where many predicted that even with more soldiers, America would fail at breaking the cycle of violence.

Many analysts said instead of quelling the fighting, sending more troops into Iraq would just increase the number of causalities and continue to divide the war-fractured country.

“Whatever the size of the troops, as long as this is a war between a regular army, in the face of gang-style militant groups, Americans will fail,” said Galal Nassar, a fellow with the Nasser Military Academy in Egypt.

Bush said he planned to send 21,500 more US forces to Iraq to try to stabilise the country and “hasten the day our troops begin coming home”.

He also acknowledged making mistakes in earlier security efforts in Baghdad.

Bush’s blueprint would boost the number of US troops in Iraq – now at 132,000 - to 153,500.

The latest increase calls for sending 17,500 US combat troops to Baghdad, and 4,000 more Marines to Anbar Province, a base of the Sunni insurgency and foreign al-Qaida fighters.

Mustafa al-Ani, a military analyst with the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, said the troop surge is Bush’s last chance in Iraq.

But he cautioned that the United States will not succeed if it only targets al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgents and fails to break apart the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

“You can’t deal with al-Qaida, and ignore al-Sadr. Without disarming his militia I don’t see any chance of success,” al-Ani said.

In Kuwait, Ayed al-Manna, a political science teacher the Arab Open University, said Bush’s new strategy did not amount to a clear plan.

“Twenty-one thousand soldiers are a drop in a sea. More US troops would only mean more soldiers to hunt by insurgents in the absence of a defined plan by Americans and Iraqis,” al-Manna said.

Bush’s strategy also will bust if Iraqis themselves don’t back it up and allow outside influence to infiltrate, said Maj. Gen. Hossam Sweilem, a military expert in Cairo.

“Will they succeed in crashing these groups? It all depends on the Iraqis themselves. It’s very difficult under the heavy Iranian involvement in Iraq, which aims at foiling Bush’s strategy and forcing him to withdraw,” Sweilem said.

But some analysts doubted if Iraqis had the ability to end the Sunni-Shiite attacks that have spiralled in Baghdad and elsewhere since a Feb. 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra. They also questioned Bush’s confidence in Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

“He didn’t answer the main question, what is Maliki failed in meeting the new plan? Maliki’s government is part of the problem not the solution. What are the alternatives to Bush if al-Maliki failed?” Areeb el-Rentawi head of Al-Quds Centre for Political Studies, in Amman, Jordan told Al-Jazeera satellite TV.

The US president’s plan for the Iraq war also called for clamping down on what Washington sees as Iran and Syria’s support for insurgents. Bush said Iran and Syria “are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq”.

“We will disrupt the attacks on our forces,” Bush said. “We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria.”

In Iran, state-run television said the U.S. leader had finally accepted responsibility for failure Iraq but also denied Washington’s accusations that Tehran meddles its neighbour’s affairs.

“Once again without any evidence, Bush accused Iran of intervening in Iraq,” state-run TV said.

Bush said the United States would expand intelligence cooperation in the Middle East, deploy Patriot missile defense systems to help allies and deploy an additional carrier strike group to the region. He also said the United States would try to get more help from American allies in the region.

“Countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf States need to understand that an American defeat in Iraq would create a new sanctuary for extremists – and a strategic threat to their survival,” he said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also will travel to the region beginning tomorrow to promote the Bush administration’s plan.