Dilemma in the Gulf
By
Magdi Mehanna
Following the eruption of the US-Iraq crisis the Gulf states repeatedly that they would cooperate with US and British forces only if the Security Council issued a resolution sanctioning war. This was the position of Gulf states right up to the minute the US issued its warning to the Iraqi president to go into exile. The rest is history.
The US and Britain launched their war without international cover or a Security Council resolution. Yet despite earlier statements the Gulf states rushed to participate in this illegitimate war, allowing the US to use their territories to launch attacks on Iraq.
Nor are the Gulf states the only countries adopting such a contradictory stand. The Arab order as a whole has shown itself inept, and has lost enormous credibility with the Arab street. There was too much rhetoric by Arab governments about preventing the war, too much condemnation of the aggression, to allow for such complicity in directly or indirectly participating on the side of the US.
There will be a price to be paid, not only in the Gulf but by all Arab regimes, once Baghdad falls and the US imposes a client regime in Iraq. Washington will not be satisfied by the fall of Baghdad. Its collapse will encourage Washington to play out the planned scenario and impose its hegemony on the region and the world. Meanwhile, the Arabs will be preoccupied with blaming each other.
* The week's Soapbox speaker is the former editor-in-chief of Al-Wafd newspaper.
