WASHINGTON: With virtually all of Iraq now under US military control, the administration of President George W. Bush is contemplating its next steps both within the country and in the region as a whole.

For Iraq itself, the top priority is to stop the looting in major cities, for which the population appears to be holding US forces responsible, souring any notion that Iraqis are viewing Washington’s invasion as a “liberation”.

Further afield, Washington appears determined to increase pressure on Syria to co-operate in a number of areas, especially in cutting off all support to Hezbollah in Lebanon and turning over wanted Iraqis who may have escaped to Syria. Military action to enforce those demands appears to be off the table, at least for now.

Beyond Syria, Washington is hoping to use a combination of carrots and sticks to persuade Iran against meddling in the internal politics of the Shia majority in Iraq or taking more direct action against the US occupation, such as infiltrating militants from certain factions into Iraq.

The administration is also trying to decide how strongly and urgently to push Israel to accept the “Road Map” prepared by the so-called “Quartet”— the European Union, Russia, the United Nations, as well as the United States — to renew a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

While the administration presented a united front this week in meetings here between top envoys from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon about relaxing Israel’s hold on the West Bank and parts of Gaza, it remains divided on to what extent Sharon can demand that certain pre-conditions be met by the Palestinians before Israel is required to take further steps.

In the war’s aftermath, many observers here have been surprised by the extent to which Washington appears to have been unprepared for the collapse of President Saddam Hussein’s government, particularly with respect to maintaining public order.

This was especially true of the wholesale looting, especially of priceless artifacts in museums and ministries, which took place in Baghdad and elsewhere even after US forces had taken control there.

While Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tried to pass off the looting as just one of those thing that happen after “liberation”, it did not help that US troops successfully defended a number of key buildings in Baghdad while leaving the rest to the mercy of the mob.

“It’s not clear to me why they didn’t foresee an outbreak of violence like this,” said Robert Perito, an expert on peace operations at the US Institute of Peace (USIP). “There seems to have been an assumption that the Iraqi national police would stay on duty” despite the regime’s collapse.

He recalled that widespread looting also took place in cities, including Baghdad, after the first Gulf War 12 years ago, as it did in Panama after US forces invaded there in 1989. “The coalition forces should have known they would have to move quickly from war-fighting to peace-keeping.”

That became even clearer in Mosul this week, where Marines fired on crowds on two successive days, killing at least 10 people and injuring many more.

As a result, Washington is rushing hundreds of military police (MPs) and civic-affairs specialists to Iraq and has begun soliciting bids from private US contractors for police who, unlike the military, are trained for crowd control and using non- lethal force in volatile situations.

The State Department has begun urgent consultations with NATO allies about their possible participation in a peacekeeping operation that could ultimately involve as many as 300,000 troops and has thus far received tentative commitments from Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands.

On the regional front, Washington similarly appears to be improvising somewhat, trying to figure out precisely what to do with its greatly enhanced position in the region.

Angered by Syria’s recent actions — including President Bashir Assad’s frequent denunciations of the invasion; reports of military-related equipment and volunteer fighters going through Syria into Iraq; and the country allegedly providing safe haven for senior Iraqis and even Baghdad weapons of mass destruction — top administration officials issued a series of stern warnings beginning last week that increasingly sounded like a determination to practice “regime change” in Damascus.

But by the end of the week, US military forces unilaterally turned off Syria’s oil supply from Iraq, warning that the move was simply the first step of a series of measures short of military action that Washington was prepared to implement if Assad did not comply with US demands.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that he would soon travel to Damascus, apparently to convey those demands directly to Assad.

In addition to wanting Syria to turn over any senior Iraqi officials it may be sheltering that Washington would like to question, Powell is expected to demand that Syria cut off all support to Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and to close down offices of radical Muslim-Palestinian groups in Damascus, notably Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

At the same time, Powell will be seeking commitments to a timetable for Syria to withdraw its estimated 25,000 troops in Lebanon.

If an accord can be reached on these points — and the administration believes its military presence in Iraq makes it likely that Assad will have little choice — the strategic balance in the region will have been sufficiently transformed to give Israelis, including even Sharon, the confidence to proceed with the Road Map.

Washington similarly wants Iran not only to avoid challenging the US occupation or disrupting the yet-to-be-determined transfer of power from the occupation to an Iraqi civilian authority, but also to cut off support it provides to Hezbollah, which the administration regards as potentially more dangerous to US interests than even Al Qaeda.

To make such a course more palatable to Tehran, senior officials here this week went out of their way to point out how US forces had bombed an armed Iranian opposition group, the Mujahadeen Khalq, in Iraq, which they expected to surrender in the coming days.

“We are doing them a favour and we hope they appreciate it,” said one. —Dawn/InterPress News Service.