Look both ways
Dina Ezzat zooms in on factional strife in Iraq and Sudan for the top regional stories in the Arab press
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Clockwise fro top left: Israel's wall of separation as constructed by Amgad Rasmi in Asharq Al-Awsat;
"She's changed completely. I told her not to treat me as a husband but a prisoner of war." By Mohamed Amr in Akher Sa'a; the Palestinian daily Al-Ayam believes the Arabs have their own wall of separation. By Bahaa' Bokheiri
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The Arab press this week was filled with questions over the future of this part of the world and the changes that are likely to occur -- sooner or later.
Many writers and commentators were particularly keen to examine the future of Iraq and whether it will emerge from the current American occupation -- when and if it ends -- as a unified state, a federation or a fragmented country. Others -- fewer in number -- asked about the future of Syria and whether Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad will walk in the footsteps of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in courting the US. The future of the Palestinian state, the one that US President George Bush promised to deliver by 2005, was also on the plate.
In his widely-read column in An- Nahar on Monday, prominent Lebanese commentator Ghassan Tuini said Arabs have to think of their future role "either as individual states or collectively" in shaping the nature of their region in view of American plans and the interaction of those plans with other international players, especially Europe, the immediate neighbour of the Middle East. "The US discourse on the reshaping of the Middle East is becoming more intense and there is a pressing need for a rational Arab stance."
Prominent coverage was also given to the prospects of direct Syrian-Israeli talks in view of the proposal made by the Israeli president to his Syrian counterpart to visit Israel and talk peace. While the Syrian press continued to dismiss all reports of a high-level or low-level Syrian- Israeli meeting in a Middle Eastern capital, the rest of the Arab press continued to speculate. Nominated to play mediator between Israel and Syria -- and perhaps Damascus and Washington -- have been the Turks, Qataris, Saudis, Egyptians and Jordanians.
Particularly eye-catching in the Arab press was the possible Qatari role. On Sunday, the daily Qatari Al-Sharq reported news of a previously unscheduled visit by Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad Bin Jassim, who has actively orchestrated mediation between the US and both Libya and Sudan, to Syria "with a message from the emir of Qatar to the Syrian president on ways of bringing stability and tranquillity to the region". Al- Sharq stopped short of declaring the content of the message but its inferences were close enough for an attentive reader to get the message.
On Monday, Editor-in-Chief Abdul- Rahman Al-Rashid of the London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat attempted to quash all doubts by interviewing President Al-Assad. In the extensive interview, Al-Assad was forthcoming in acknowledging his country's interest in pursuing ongoing communication with the US but said that so far these contacts "had not taken any particular shape". Al- Assad, however, added that "the requests conveyed through this dialogue are mainly Israeli, not American requests." And on the Israeli proposal and reported contacts between Tel Aviv and Damascus, Assad said, "Syria is keen on achieving a clear peace on the basis of the Madrid Conference and what has been achieved (in previous sessions of direct talks), and will respond (favourably) with offers leading in this direction."
Developments on the Syrian front did not upstage developments in Iraq or Sudan. In the column "Look North and South" Al-Rashid argued that developments in Sudan and Iraq would prove to be the most crucial questions for the future map of the Middle East. If the south of Sudan was to break away from the rest of the country under the leadership of the southern Sudanese rebels who contest the Arab affiliation of that part of the country, then problems lie ahead. Al-Rashid added that there will also be problems should the north of Iraq obtain independence from the rest of the country under Kurdish leadership. Expressing optimism that these separations were not inevitable, Al- Rashid was quick to add that if they do occur "they will bring more of the present evil and may lead to two more wasted decades in this region."
Elsewhere questions were being asked about the future of the Libyan people. In the London-based daily Al-Hayat, an article titled "Who will compensate the Libyan people" by Hamid Al-Hamoud argued that the most important thing now is for the Libyan people to make sense out of the dramatic developments of the past few weeks when their leader chose to willingly admit to attempts to possess weapons of mass destruction and to agree to destroy them in return for improved relations with the US. "The Libyan regime needs to reassess its performance," Al- Hamoud wrote. This reassessment should produce new policies that could give the Libyan people better living standards that are compatible with the oil wealth they have, he argued.
Meanwhile, legislative and presidential elections in a number of Arab countries, including Algeria -- with elections only a few weeks away -- and ending with Egypt where the current presidential term will end in October of next year were also important topics for coverage and commentary. In Algeria, the row between President Abdul-Aziz Boutafliqa and his toughest opponent Ali Bin Flis was making headlines. Particularly subject to debate in the press was the still ambiguous affiliation of the powerful Algerian army whose support is essential for any president. According to a new analysis carried by the Algerian daily Al- Fajr on Friday, the outcome of the current battle between Boutafliqa and Bin Flis will only be settled when the army "draws the line".
A line was also expected to be drawn in the sand in Iran to end the battle between reformists and conservatives over upcoming legislative elections that have received much attention from the Arab press. The arbiter will be the top religious leader in the country, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who must take either the side of a conservative supervisory body that denied hundreds of reformist MPs the right to run for the elections, or the side of those reformists who have been protesting their exclusion on logistical grounds.
Speculation about the future of the Middle East could not have been conducted by the Arab press without hundreds of column inches dedicated to the Arab-Israeli conflict. There too, there seemed to be a need for a line to be drawn; and according to Arab commentators the US has to draw the line for the Israeli government whose continuous violations of international law have prompted widespread Arab anger.
According to an opinion piece by the Omani daily Oman, if the US fails to draw this line then the government of Ariel Sharon will continue its unchecked provocative policies that are bound to take the Middle East backwards, to an atmosphere of continuous confrontation, rather than allow it to move forward towards the much US-preached peace and principles of democracy, human rights and liberalisation.
