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Al-Ahram Weekly 12 - 18 August 1999 Issue No. 442 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 12 - 18 August 1999 Issue No. 442
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Books Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Frustrated with Tehran
By Salah HemeidOn Sunday Iraqi President Saddam Hussein launched one of his most scathing attacks on Iran since the end of the war between the two countries 11 years ago. The probable reason for Saddam's ire is Tehran's reluctance to mend fences with Baghdad at a time when the country is keen to break out of its 9-year-long regional and international isolation, after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Hussein accused Iran of maintaining its hostile ambitions not only against Iraq but the entire Arab world.
In a televised speech marking the 11th anniversary of the end of the war, Saddam attributed his country's problems with Iran to "the arrogant, hostile and expansionist stance of Iran's rulers".
August 8, when the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini accepted Security Council Resolution 598 ending the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war, is officially celebrated in Iraq as "Great Victory Day". Iraq claimed it had won the war which it named Saddam's Qadissiya, after the battle Muslims waged in 636 to conquer Persia.
"We want to tell the whole world that the victory Iraqis scored was a great victory for all humanity," said Saddam, referring to a war which left some one million Iraqis and Iranians either dead, wounded or handicapped.
Saddam charged that Iran continued to hold thousands of Iraqi prisoners -- some of them since the beginning of the war 19 years ago -- in terrible conditions in detention camps. Iran had moreover, "betrayed" Iraq, Saddam said, when it refused to return some 137 military and civilian planes the Iraqis had flown to Iranian territory during the 1991 Gulf War in a bid to save them from allied bombardment. He also condemned Iran for abiding by the UN economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait.
If Saddam's 70-minute speech is any indication, Iraqi-Iranian relations seem to have plunged to a new low. This is apparent not only from the contemptuous language the Iraqi leader used when referring to Iran, but also in his insistence that the Islamic republic continues to hold hostile ambitions towards Iraq.
There are reasons for Saddam's anger. He had expected that Tehran would reciprocate his goodwill gesture of surrendering half of the strategic Shatt Al-Arab waterway to Iranian sovereignty, after his invasion of Kuwait. This was by all counts a grand gesture since Iraq had fought an eight-year-long war with Iran to deny it that very privilege. Saddam must also be uncomfortable with attempts by some Arab countries, especially his arch enemy Saudi Arabia, to mend fences with Iran, thus ending years of animosity with their non-Arab neighbour. This is an especially sore point with the Iraqi leadership in view of the fact that these same Arab countries have consistently ignored, or actively obstructed, attempts to bring about a comprehensive inter-Arab reconciliation that would bring Iraq back to the Arab fold.
The Iraqi leader must also be worried by the presence of thousands of armed Iraqi dissidents in Iran at a time when the United States is increasing its efforts to unite and finance Iraqi opposition groups who are trying to remove him from power.
Iran, meanwhile, has rejected Saddam's claims and accused his government of hindering the establishment of a permanent peace between the two neighbours. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamidreza Assefi, said the Iraqi president was trying to disguise his "defeat and humiliation" as victories.
Tehran, for its part, claims that Baghdad is harbouring the Mujahdeen Khalq organisation, which it accuses of subversive activities in Iran. It denies, furthermore, that it is holding Iraqi POWs, while claiming that Iraq still holds thousands of its own POWs in captivity.
