Genies out of bottles
Nothing is what it seems in the Arab world, at least not according to the press, writes Amina Elbendary
Click to view caption |
|
Amgad Rasmi in Ad-Dustour shows Bush declaring that the US has achieved all its goals in Iraq -- except for hitting at the resistance
For Hani in Al-Hayat peace is a dove trapped between the cage of Israel and the prison of the Arab World
|
In the London-based Lebanese newspaper Al-Hayat on 8 August, Iraqi writer Mahdi Al-Said analysed the political roles played by some of the large Iraqi families since the first British occupation of the country in the 1920s. Al-Said's analysis revealed how many of these families had developed, under British influence and with colonialist encouragement, out of the traditional tribal structures, and how they continued to be influential under successive monarchical, republican and Ba'athist regimes. Many of these families, such as the Al-Jalabi (Chalabi), Al-Bajaji (Pachachi) or even Talababi and Barazani, continued to be influential in post-Saddam Iraq, and their resilience, transcending parameters set out for them by the colonial power, was remarkable.
The image of the new Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) in the Arab press remained obscure, but inevitably reality would sink in, and Arab regimes would recognise the Council, argued Abdul-Rahman Al-Rashed, editor- in-chief of the London-based Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat on 11 August.
Yet this crucial step would come only after political and economic negotiation and compromises. The Arab standpoint had changed dramatically, Al-Rashed pointed out, with the Arab League at first insisting on being part of the Iraqi situation after the war, and then refusing to send peace-keeping troops to Iraq at American request. The League had first insisted on a role in Iraq, but now, after the appointment of the IGC, it had criticised this body as being "illegitimate".
The League's refusal to deal with the Iraqi crisis leaves room for opponents of the Arabs to monopolise the situation in a large Arab state, Al-Rashed wrote. The Arab states' refusal, individually and collectively, to enter Iraq and deal with its current state, was, for Al-Rashed, a grave political mistake that would have a high price. The IGC, he said, represented the Iraqi elite, and doubting its legitimacy was not in harmony with current political realities. Let us remember, Al-Rashed concluded, that the Americans had taken many of Iraq's specificities into consideration and appointed a governing council instead of choosing to be the sole rulers of Iraq, which was a step worth supporting until the country gained full independence.
Statements made by Hussein Al-Khomeini, grandson of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, to Al-Hayat on 10 August made the front pages of many Arab newspapers this week, and were perceived as shocking because they were unexpected from the heir of a supreme Shi'ite guide and godfather of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Speaking from Al-Najaf in Iraq, Al-Khomeini appeared to be giving the US occupation of Iraq a vote of confidence, while simultaneously criticising the regime in Iran.
Writing in the Jordanian daily Al-Rai on 11 August, Tarek Masarwa commented on the interview, finding in it a new interpretation of Shi'ism and one that called for the separation of the state and religion. This meant, Masarwa wrote, that Al-Khomeini was going beyond the declared position of most Arab secularists, including the socialists. His position was closer, the writer argued, to that of the Syrian Arab nationalists. Al-Khomeini did not claim to represent an opposition trend in Iran, Masarwa said, nor did he seem concerned with forming alliances with groups such as the Mujahidi Khalq or cooperating with the Americans in Iraq. Al-Khomeini had not called for the violent overthrow of the current regime in Iran, but rather for a popular referendum.
The stumbling on the roadmap to peace between Israelis and Palestinians continued to inspire pessimism on the part of Arab commentators, none of whom seemed now to expect it to lead to an independent Palestinian state, and much less to peace. Writing in Al-Hayat on 8 August, the secretary-general of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), Nayef Hawatmeh, analysed the outcome of the recent back-to-back visits to Washington by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Far from being a genuine peace plan, Hawatmeh wrote, the roadmap was turning into yet another bargaining chip.
Developments in Iraq and Palestine were interconnected, argued Abdul-Wahab Badrakhan in Al-Hayat on 12 August, because both countries were experiencing the power of the US administration and its readiness to follow positive policies. Both nations were incapable of getting involved in the other's dilemma, however, though both were under the same type of occupation and both were placing their hopes on the US. This was the case even though a yawning gap separated America's interests in the region from the Iraqi and Palestinian aspirations that the latter hoped the US would help them accomplish.
US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's recent article in the Washington Post on transformations in the Middle East was analysed by Jawad Al-Bashiti in the Jordanian daily Al-Arab Al-Yom on 11 August. Rice had argued that a "new Germany" was about to see the light in Mesopotamia, thanks to the US war on Saddam Hussein. However, the Arabs would not get the same kind of attention from the US that the Europeans had received after World War II, Al-Bashiti maintained, until the US was convinced that its interests lay in ending the conflict with Israel.
Rice had talked about "insufficient political and economic liberty" in the Arab world as being the region's primary malaise. However, for Al- Bashiti the reasons for this malaise lay elsewhere. The US had supported European resurgence after World War II in order to counter the growing power of the USSR. For the US today, however, democratic and economic success for the Arab world were merely ways of future ensuring American and Israeli control of the Arab world.
The ever-agitated Abdul-Bari Utwan, editor-in-chief of the London- based paper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, directed his wrath at the Kuwaiti government this week. "It is the Kuwaitis who should apologise," he argued, in response to the recent refusal of the Kuwaiti administration to receive Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen unless he first apologised for the PLO's support for Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Palestinian officials should stop thinking about visiting Kuwait, Utwan said, and the Kuwaiti government had "committed a crime" against Arabism and Islam by allowing some 200,000 US soldiers to use its territory as a launching pad for the recent US-led invasion of Iraq. It was the Palestinians who deserved an apology, he maintained, since they had often been let down by other Arabs.
The recent Israeli incursions into Lebanon were the subject of extensive commentary in the Lebanese papers, among them the daily As- Safir. Writing on 11 August, Editor-in-Chief Talal Salman argued that at first Hizbullah had been perceived by some observers as having reacted nervously to the Israeli aggression. But this reaction had come in the midst of unprecedented pressure on Lebanon's regional allies, including Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as in an atmosphere of Lebanese fear -- fear of Lebanese isolation, of pressure from Arab countries and even of losing European friends.
As Joseph Smaha explained on 12 August, also in As-Safir, Israel was using the strategic transformations in regional politics after the US occupation of Iraq to change the rules of the game with Lebanon. Hence, the daily sorties and the Israeli assassination attempts inside Lebanon. Smaha argued that Israel was trying to indicate to the outside world that Hizbullah had now been "disabled", whether in Palestine because of the cease-fire, or in Iraq for obvious reasons, or now in Lebanon.
Writing in a similar vein, Hossam Eitani in As-Safir on 12 August argued that recent developments might not have gained as much attention had it not been for Israeli and US pressures on Lebanon and Syria since the war on Iraq. The resistance was facing serious challenges, both internal and external, he said, and it no longer enjoyed the consensus of domestic support that it once had. In fact, for some it had become a political and a military luxury that the country could not afford, while for others, who wanted to hold on to all the bargaining cards, it was still worthy of support.
However, the writer explained, the first trend had become more prevalent across the political spectrum, and the second was not free of opportunists. Yet, the resistance, namely Hizbullah, had nevertheless shown itself to be mature and capable of rising to its responsibilities.
