The United States' war o­n Iraq, notwithstanding its predictable military outcome, should serve as a humbling experience for the sole superpower.

Decimating a dilapidated army of ragtag soldiers by the world's most powerful military machine, and that too after the most massive air strikes in recent memory, is not something that Pentagon planners can proudly claim to be their finest hour.

On April 13, 72 hours after Baghdad's 'liberation', the first spontaneous anti-US protests erupted in the Iraqi capital with denunciations of 'Down with Bush & American imperialism', reinforced by the US military's failure to preserve law and order.

In fact, if anything, the war exposed the limitations of US power - military, media, political and diplomatic.

An army that did not last for more than 100 hours of ground combat the last time around in 1991 survived and sustained brutal bombing for 21 days before folding up.

And what of the aftermath, since many feel the United States may have bitten more than it can chew?

The Middle East is today a more destabilised, polarised and volatile region, with US interests and even Israel more vulnerable. Both face greater animosity, and rumblings of 'Who's Next?' are reverberating through the region.

Iraq's adversarial neighbours who were deemed to be US allies - Saudi Arabia and Turkey - refused to play ball. Istanbul was even willing to forego billions in bounty because the Turkish establishment felt that Turkey's national interests must take precedence over the US national interest.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq has fanned the flames of anti-US sentiment all over the world, particularly in the West and the Muslim countries. And unlike the 1991 Gulf War, which had UN sanction, this time around, the United States acted in defiance of the world body.

The United States' diplomatic isolation is so pronounced that US President George W Bush has been forced to cancel a scheduled May 5 visit to neighbouring Canada, because of divergent perspectives o­n the Iraq war.

Interestingly, the conflict within the American establishment seems to have been accentuated in the aftermath of the Iraq war.

Settling scores

The hawks like deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Pentagon guru Richard Perle, who are apparently in a triumphalist mode, still seem to be in a mindset of settling scores, and are keen to revive the 'made-in-Israel' hit-list of Muslim countries like Iran and Syria.

Conversely, the more sobering, somewhat dovish tendency seems to realise that the US invasion has drawn a regional backlash, and people like Powell are already backtracking from earlier threats against Iran and Syria, saying in an interview with BBC o­n April 12 that the United States has ''no plans to invade any other country''.

Other actions would strengthen this view that handling Iraq, and even Afghanistan for that matter, means that the United States has its hands full in the region trying to stabilise countries that remain under its military control.

Going after other countries in the manner they took o­n Afghanistan and Iraq now seems increasingly unlikely, more so in a politically hostile geopolitical environment.

Some relevant developments that corroborate this view:

On North Korea, another of the US-certified rogue states, China, Russia and South Korea support a US dialogue with Pyongyang and oppose any US military action, even opposing the US sponsored resolution in the UN Security Council.

Central Command chief, Gen Tommy Franks ( left ), despite his preoccupation with Iraq, air-dashed to Kabul o­n April 11 because the situation in Afghanistan remains unsettled.

The US military commander there, Lt Gen Dan MacNeill, himself publicly stated in a media interview he had been ''frustrated'' at the lack of ''bold actions o­n Afghanistan by the West''.

The anti-US troika - France, Germany and Russia -- in their summit at St Petersburg o­n April 11, stated that o­n Iraq their ''views have not changed'', and that they oppose any ''new colonialism'' being imposed there.

Adding fuel

For a change, even the Arab League secretary-general, Amir Moussa, warned o­n April 12 that targeting other states would be ''adding fuel to the fire and it would be the end of the Middle East and all that is connected to the Middle East''.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's remarkable U-turn o­n Jewish settlements, which he told the Haaretz newspaper o­n April 13 he is willing to forego in return for a durable peace o­n Palestine, marks a softening of stance reflecting ground realities.

US policymakers thus face three major challenges in the post-Iraq scenario.

First, the dichotomy in the United States' regional strategy in the Middle East and South Asia. In the Middle East, the United States is a power keen to change the status quo, as it did in Iraq, but in South Asia, it seeks to preserve the status quo, particularly o­n contentious conflicts like Kashmir.

Second, there is greater fear among Muslim regimes, particularly the autocrats. Fear of the United States and fear of their own people, who yearn for democratic change, and the need to restore confidence among the Muslim world given the US crisis of credibility.

Third, now that regional conflicts like Korea, Palestine and Kashmir, are again o­n the global radar screen after Iraq, the United States' principal challenge is to develop a credible strategy based o­n bidding goodbye to unilateralism.

One diplomatic fallout of the Iraq war is the US desire to present a more even-handed perspective o­n Pakistan and India.

Kashmir crisis

Powell has publicly committed to tackling Kashmir ''after Iraq''. He has, for the first time, snubbed Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha's attempt to link preemption o­n Iraq with a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan.

Powell stated that ''the attempts to draw a parallel between the Iraq and Kashmir situations are wrong and overwhelmed by differences between them''.

However, Iraq would prove a Pyrrhic victory, if the peace was lost just because US troops are unable to preserve law and order in Baghdad, restore civic amenities and ensure speedy medical assistance to hundreds of wounded civilians, as television sights of Baghdad hospitals testify.

Giving precedence to military matters and ignoring the human aspects will o­nly aggravate the divide, spawned by US efforts to occupy Iraq under US generals and bureaucrats.

This would o­nly reinforce suspicions among Muslim conspiracy theorists that Iraq was all about Israel and oil, not weapons of mass destruction, none of which have been discovered anyway to date. - IPS