9 - 15 May 2002
Issue No.585
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 9 - 15 May 2002 Issue No.585 |
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With us or against us
As the US increasingly rattles its sabres in Iraq's direction, the pressure is on for countries to declare whether they are for or against a military strike, Dina Ezzat reports
As the US steps up its efforts to encourage the resumption of Arab-Israeli negotiations, some Arab countries are increasingly concerned that the effort is only part of a larger scheme that includes a military campaign against Iraq.
"The United States reserves its option to do whatever it believes might be appropriate to see if there can be a regime change [in Iraq]," US Secretary of State Colin Powell said this week. As Powell spoke, Iraqi Foreign Minister Nagi Sabri Al-Hadithi and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan were meeting at the UN to discuss the possibility of arms inspectors returning to Iraq and a subsequent end to sanctions on Baghdad.
Both Sabri and Annan gave a positive account of their talks, which are scheduled to be resumed next month. Baghdad reiterated its satisfaction with the meeting in the official Al-Iraq newspaper, which wrote that it hoped "through [this] dialogue... the UN [had] the chance to assume its role and work to fulfil international commitments towards Iraq and recognise its legal and political rights."
The return of the UN inspectors would be, it seems, only the beginning of a slow process. Hans Blix, the chief UN arms inspector, said he needed a year of Iraqi cooperation to complete his job.
However, the return of the weapons inspectors may not spare Iraq a military attack. "US policy is that, regardless of what inspectors do, the people of Iraq and the people of the region would be better off with a different regime in Baghdad," Powell said.
Iraqi sources told Al-Ahram Weekly that Baghdad would not allow inspectors into the country if it thought the US would strike anyway.
Following talks between Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Al-Hadithi in Moscow, Ivanov said, "Iraq has made a series of proposals which seem interesting to us. These proposals will be studied seriously and we will pursue the dialogue with Iraq." Shedding more light on the meeting, an Iraqi diplomat told the Weekly that Ivanov and Al-Hadithi had discussed a "deal by which inspectors could go back to Iraq with... serious guarantees that Iraq will not have to sustain any military strikes, particularly if they aim to topple the regime."
The Iraqi diplomat said that although Baghdad was not going to determine its policies in accordance with the US's "evil intentions", it would try to remove obvious pretexts by which US President George Bush could justify an attack.
Most of the US's friends in the Arab world are unenthusiastic about an attack on Iraq. Although the Pentagon continues to say that it may strike Iraq late this year or early in 2003, many Arab allies are cautioning the US against strikes. "It is true that promoting the move as a way to get rid of [Iraqi President Saddam] Hussein... might be tempting to some Arab regimes," an Arab diplomat said, "but it would still be very difficult for any Arab government to face the public anger that support would provoke."
Kuwait is the only Arab country that has openly supported military action against Iraq. If the US decided to hit Iraq there was nothing that Kuwait could or would do to prevent it, said Sheikh Al- Sabah Al-Ahmed, the country's foreign minister and deputy prime minister. Al-Ahmed went so far as to say that, if asked, Kuwait would cooperate militarily with the US in compliance with their mutual defence agreements.
So far, Kuwait has rejected all Arab efforts to reintegrate Iraq into the Arab fold. This week, the Kuwaitis shunned attempts by the Arab League to retrieve Kuwait National Archive documents from Iraq. Kuwait was not interested in retrieving its property through the Arab League, Al-Ahmed said. Any return of property "must go through the UN".
For Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, what matters most is that progress is being made. "The Arab League is part of the apparatus of international legitimacy, and I have been in touch with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on this matter," Moussa said. In a bid to implement the Arab summit resolutions on Iraq-Kuwait relations, Moussa argued, Baghdad was working hard to return official Kuwaiti documents.
An Iraqi official said, "We are working with the UN on the inspection issue. We also notified the UN of our intention to return these documents. We just hope that there are things that we can do under the Arab umbrella."
Qatar also seems unwilling to oppose a US move against Iraq. "Let's be realistic, who could stop the US?" a Cairo-based Qatari diplomat said.
But as one senior Arab diplomat argued, "The US cannot launch strikes against Iraq if Saudi Arabia is seriously opposed to this move. And it is." According to the source, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has asked Saddam Hussein to thwart any threat of destabilisation in the Arab world. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal expressed a similar sentiment while in Washington earlier this month, arguing that Iraq should be given a chance to implement the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
Britain and other European capitals are also cold-shouldering US military schemes, and senior EU officials have publicly criticised American warmongering. In a show of solidarity with Iraq, an unofficial British delegation led by MP George Galloway arrived in Baghdad this week. Upon his arrival, Galloway criticised plans for US strikes against Iraq and said he was confident that Baghdad would allow the UN weapons inspectors to return. He suggested that the real question was whether the US would allow that to happen.
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