Issue No. 608
Opinion
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17 - 23 October 2002 Issue No. 608 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Calling a spade a spade
Having secured Congressional approval for the use of military force against Iraq, the White House is now confident that it will overcome reservations by France and Russia in the UN Security Council, and consequently mobilise the entire world behind its campaign to depose Saddam Hussein. Arab countries, which have so far made UN endorsement a condition for their consent to a strike on Iraq, were hoping that France and Russia would block the upcoming military campaign. Now it will be harder for them to straddle the fence. The United States will, in all likelihood, obtain what it wants from the UN Security Council. The wording of a UN resolution may have to be a bit elastic, the approved procedures a bit vague, but the US military campaign against Iraq, despite vocal international and public opposition, is about to receive a cloak of international legitimacy.
Over the past few weeks, US policy has substantially succeeded in changing the position of the Iraqi leadership. The latter has accepted most of what it objected to in the past. It agreed to the return of international inspectors, almost unconditionally. And it promised to open all sites to inspection, including presidential palaces. But, with every concession made by the Iraqis, the ceiling of US demands kept rising, just enough to push the humiliation of the Iraqi government and people beyond the level they are able to bear. Washington is adamant that it must use military force to change the Iraqi regime and impose a proxy government of Iraqi expatriates. Such a prospect would be hard for the Arabs to swallow, considering that the United States and the Security Council are turning a blind eye to Israel's stockpiling of nuclear warheads and weapons of mass destruction and their continued policy of massacring Palestinians.
The double standards are glaring, and so is the powerlessness of Arab governments. With US troops deployed in the Gulf and US fleets roaming Arab waters, Arab governments are in an obvious conundrum. They cannot antagonise the Americans and yet, they have no comforting words for their own people.
Washington, for its part, is not calling a spade a spade. When its marines were attacked on the Kuwaiti island of Faylaka, it claimed that the attackers were linked to Al- Qa'eda and sent Kuwaiti authorities in search of Bin Laden's followers and evidence linking the two Kuwaiti suspects to Afghan terror outfits. It is hard to imagine that this attack will be the last. The people of the region -- including those of Iraq's worst adversaries -- have obviously had enough of US policies and some may just well decide to cross the line from rhetoric to resistance.
The horrific explosion in Bali, Indonesia, and the suicide attack against the French oil tanker Limburg off Yemeni shores, provide some food for thought. Al- Qa'eda cannot be the driving force behind all crimes and violence in the world. US politicians should, at least, take part of the credit.
Some Arabs have naively accepted the US claim that these attacks are the handiwork of Al-Qa'eda, rather than a sign of the rage of ordinary Arabs at the strong- arm tactics Israel and America are using against the Palestinians and Arab and Muslim nations in general. But it is going to be increasingly hard to silence domestic opposition to foreign intervention in the region. The average Arab is not buying claims, often expressed by some Arab leaders and writers, that the Arabs are too weak to help the Iraqis, resist US military invasion, or stop Israel's oppression of the Palestinians. As the US military campaign picks up steam, the bogeyman of terror will be insufficient to keep Arab nations quiet or stem their fury over the war on Iraq. It is time to admit the facts and call a spade a spade.
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