'Bridge' over troubled waters?
The Powell initiative for "sustained reform in the Arab world" has been received with disappointment or, at best, indifference, by most Arab capitals. Dina Ezzat reports
"Unimpressed" is probably the word that would best describe the reaction of many Arab officials and diplomats to the text of the US-Middle East partnership initiative announced by US Secretary of State Colin Powell last Thursday. For most of the officials who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly, the substance of the Powell initiative falls far short of the hype that preceded its launch. Indeed, a major reason that this initiative failed to impress is that it does not even hint at answers to the key unknowns with respect to the direction of Arab-American relations -- namely, Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the link that Western states and media outlets say exists between international terrorism and Arab and Muslim states.
The officials and diplomats who spoke to the Weekly, whether representing countries Washington considers its friends or foes had the same reaction: the initiative is unlikely to have much of a constructive impact on troubled Arab-American relations. "It is a generally insignificant initiative. Powell's project is seen as an "OK framework" for closer cooperation with regards to economic and political cooperation, commented one senior Arab diplomatic source.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher criticised the endeavour for failing to address the Arab-Israeli conflict -- the central issue in the region. Palestinian Minister of Planning and International Relations Nabil Shaath called it "a disappointing media initiative that aims to promote it as an American effort for engagement with the Arab world".
Actually, both in his statement and in the question period that followed the announcement of the initiative, Powell directed demands for peacemaking only at the Palestinians, while failing to ask anything of Israel. The secretary of state also explicitly criticised the "Palestinian community" for its use of violence against Israel, failing to mention an internationally recognised pattern of Israeli aggression against Palestinians.
On Iraq -- for the moment the most contentious issue in Arab-American relations -- Powell confined his remarks to saying, "Iraq will resolve itself one way or another."
For most officials, in the absence of a serious discussion about either of these two issues, talk of a new era in Arab-American relations was not at all persuasive. And as one Arab diplomatic source commented, such talk "is particularly unconvincing when the US earmarks only $29 million for the first few years of this undertaking when it has recently allocated $92 million for the support of Iraqi opposition". In a similar vein, another Arab diplomat contrasted the funding for the initiative with "the billions of dollars in extra military and economic aid that Washington is currently contemplating for Israel."
The Powell initiative, which was first scheduled for September but subsequently delayed several times, received little response in the Arab world beyond official reactions.
The only two countries that had words of praise for the programme were Jordan and Qatar. Jordan is the only Arab state that has a free trade agreement with the US. Qatar maintains exceptionally close military ties with the Americans, added to which it recently wrapped up a week-long military exercise with the US -- the virtual "Internal Look" simulations.
"The problem with this initiative is that it shows a feeble conceptualisation of Arab- American relations and the detour they have taken since the 11 September attacks," commented one Arab official. The same official characterised the initiative as being only the latest incarnation of the theme promoted time and time again by the Americans; accordingly, the problem seen to underlie Arab- American relations is that the Arabs have not democratised sufficiently and they envy the US's wealth and power. Offering his assessment of the state of relations between the Arabs and the US, the official said, "The big problem with Arab-American relations is that on the official levels, Arabs, particularly regimes allied to Washington, see the US as a source of embarrassment because of its blind bias towards Israel, while on the popular level, no matter how much Arabs like American movies, they see that the US supports Israel, while at the same time coerces Arabs in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and many other parts of the Arab world."
In his statement last Thursday, Powell described his initiative as providing a framework and funding mechanism for the US to work with the governments and peoples in the region -- a sort of "bridge", as he called it, between the US and the Arab world. "Hope is what [this initiative] is about," Powell said as he announced the allocation of $29 million, which comes on top of the $1 billion in annual assistance for Arab countries, to support programmes for improving education, empowering women and fostering good governance and political reform.
The discussion of political reform was, in fact, unsettling for many Arab regimes. "The Americans seem to be telling the Arab world that Washington is going to take matters in its own hands now," commented one Arab diplomat. While the initiative did not directly refer to reform, Arab diplomats agree that whatever Powell offered last Thursday could not be read in isolation from the recent writings by senior US State Department officials including William Burns and Richard Hass that raised this subject in conjunction with discussion of Arab-American relations.
In a recent statement, Hass said that US relations with governments in this part of the world, "even if fairly elected", will depend on how they treat their people and how they behave "on international stage issues", including the war against terrorism, international trade and ensuring the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The appointment of hawkish pro-Israeli Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state, as coordinator of the initiative only added to the cynicism with which it was received by officials. "This initiative was proposed at a time when the US has over 60,000 military personnel deployed around the Arab Gulf area ready to attack Iraq; when the US is suspending -- if not shelving altogether -- a roadmap for Arab-Israeli peace that was never fair from an Arab point of view, and when Arabs are being so poorly treated at American airports because they are Arabs. This is the context in which we have to understand the initiative," said one senior Arab source.
For Palestinian Minister Shaath and so many other Arab officials and diplomats who asked that their names be withheld, this initiative will not take Arab-American relations anywhere.
For Lebanese Minister of Culture Ghassan Salama the problem with the plans that are being offered as a remedy for Arab political, social and economic ills is that they overlook the fact that Arabs have their own initiative of "Pan-Arabism" that was launched a few decades ago, but which has not yet reached its ultimate objective. During a lecture he delivered in Cairo on Sunday, Salama argued, "The Americans are thinking on our behalf about how we can develop. If we are unwilling to respond positively, they are ready to use military force to impose their ideas on us and they will probably start in Iraq."
