Arab armed forces in Iraq?

For more than a year now, the US has been floating the idea of resorting to coercing its Arab allies (specifically those who received a healthy dosage of aid dollars) to commit troops to Iraq.

This has been an idea previously floated by Democrats during overseas visits.

Now, as Republicans begin to call for at least a phased withdrawal to pull up their pants ahead of a November election, the idea is resurfacing as the White House realizes the catastrophe it will leave in its wake - an Iran dominated Iraq.

So, hoping to appear to be filling the vacuum, the US will lean on Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, the UAE, and others to send armed contingents to Iraq.

In my opinion, this is far more insane than sending US forces to Iraq in the first place. But the US is between Iraq and a hard place (sorry for the weak humor).

The Coalition of the willing has decreased in number by about 27% and the total number of soldiers have been cut by about 48%.

And more will have left by year's end. So, turning to the Arabs.

First off, the Arab armies are incompetent at best, rabble at worst. None of them have fought guerilla warfare, nor house to house urban warfare, nothing that a modern, mechanized army is required to know first-hand.

Secondly, the aforementioned countries are known throughout the Arab world for their poor human rights record, their torture record is abysmal and for the quashing of democratic enterprise in their own countries.

Now, these countries also happen to be Sunni. Egypt, has acknowledged a 700,000 Shia community, but has never afforded them minority status like, say, the Copts.

Jordan has borne the brunt of freely publicized hostility from both Iran and the government run by Jaafary and the Badr/SCIRI tyranny.

And Iran will not quickly forget that Jordan heavily sided with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. King Hussein, a Hashemite, of the Banu Hashem, a direct descendant of the Prophet, and now his son, King Abdullah, who warned of the Shia Crescent threatening the Middle East.

Nor will Iran likely forget Egypt's role in affording the late Shah asylum when no one else took him in. Nor will Egypt forget that Iran named a street in honor of one of Sadat's assassins.

Or Egypt's role in providing Iraq with arms as early as 1981, and later, military experts, some of whom helped in the retaking of the Fao Peninsula on April 17, 1988.

Egyptians fought in the Iraqi Army, although many feel they were forced to by Saddam's secret police. But Yemen did send a contingent to fight alongside the Iraqis during the Iraq-Iran war, and they were known to have fought bravely, according to one Iraqi officer who told me of their conduct many years later.

The UAE has an ongoing territorial dispute with the UAE. Bahrain is about 80% Shia ruled by a Sunni monarchy.

So, which Arab country will send a strong enough force to Iraq?

There are more problems to consider. Let us say a Jordanian unit captures a Badr Brigade militia member trying to kidnap a Sunni tribesman. If the Jordanian unit detains this man, you can bet the Badrists will have the excuse they are looking for to shed some Jordanian blood. After all, do they not blame Jordan for Zarqawi? And did they not mount very threatening protests against Jordan prompting a freeze between the two countries, albeit temporarily?

And what if an Egyptian unit captures an Egyptian terrorist, sees him being roughed up by the wild pack of so-called Iraqi police, how will they react then?

And what of the Arab press which is now focusing on the Iranian nuclear issue and Ahmedinjad's remarks as a way to divert attention from their real prize - Iraq?

How will their editorialists react if one of their own is killed?

There is mounting sympathy for the Sunnis among Arabs today. And among many fundamentalist Islamic groups in Jordan and Egypt, the Shia are considered apostates, although this is not directly stated.

And didn't La3nat Allah Rouhallah Khoemini once say that Egypt is the soul of the Shia world? You can check Islamic history for a clarification on that one, it's just too complicated to go into here.

Can you imagine these Arab forces with a fraction of the US training and none of the body armor, protected Humvees, mechanized divisions, and so on?

It's the worst idea I can possibly imagine for Iraq. It is mired in failure from the get-go.

But then again so was this entire war.