No-win situations

The Palestinians are trapped in Gaza and the US is trapped in Iraq. Doaa El-Bey looks at a seemingly hopeless state of affairs

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The fuel shortage will further exacerbate the situation in Gaza, leading to an all-out explosion. Meanwhile, the US has asked for the help of Arab states in Iraq, which seems is becoming harder to control.

The noticeable decrease in the amount of fuel going into Gaza prompted many writers to talk about an imminent explosion in the Strip. Yasser Al-Zaatra warned in the Jordanian political independent daily Addustour that if the Israeli authorities did not resume supplying Gaza with enough fuel to generate power stations, half of the Gaza population will live in complete darkness in a few days time and the rest will follow suit shortly.

"The situation in Gaza would not necessarily lead to collective death, but to individual death as a result of shortages in healthcare and hospital supplies under repeated Israeli attacks that leave many dead and injured, including civilians," Al-Zaatra said.

It is obvious that Israel, in collaboration with some Arab regimes and the support of the US and Europe, aims to keep the standard of life in the Strip to the bare minimum so that its people would be prompted to rebel against the presence of Hamas as their ruler, supposedly the cause of their suffering.

Thus while the Israeli embargo is expected to continue, and the Palestinian Authority would remain adamant in implementing the first item in the roadmap which is curbing any resistance, Hamas's options are not easy. Hamas could escalate its resistance or direct the upcoming explosion towards the Egyptian and Israeli borders in a way that would expose the Israeli plans and move the Arab street. However, Al-Zaatra concluded, whatever the outcome of the situation in Gaza, it would not harm Hamas because it works according to the fact that the only option it has is resistance.

Sameeh Shabib focussed on Hamas's warning of an imminent explosion or a Palestinian revolution against those who imposed an embargo on Gaza. Hamas warned that the explosion could affect Egypt, Israel and the PA.

Although the writer believed that the embargo "caused genuine economic catastrophes like unemployment and environmental pollution", nevertheless, Hamas is using the embargo for the specific political purpose of removing the political embargo imposed on the movement in Gaza. It ignored the fact that the economic embargo was imposed as a result of Hamas's bloody coup, its take-over of Gaza, launching missile attacks against Israeli settlements and its refusal to accept the agreements the PA concluded previously with Israel.

"Hamas is trying to open the Rafah crossing point by force. It is trying to use force to impose facts on the ground regardless of Egyptian sovereignty, Palestinian legitimacy and the status of the Palestinian presidency in the Palestinian political system," Shabib wrote in the Palestinian political independent daily Al-Ayyam.

The situation in Iraq does not seem to be better than that of Gaza. US Ambassador Ryan Crocker's calls on Arab states to send ambassadors to Iraq and help restore peace in an Arab country were strongly criticised this week.

Eyad Jammaluddin, a member of the Iraqi parliament, welcomed Crocker's call and any initiative to boost Iraq's relations with other states. However, he had his reservations on Crocker's call on Arab states to confront Iran because that would make Iraq another Lebanon, in which the confrontation between Arab and Iranian influence is in full swing.

He thought it very strange that the US now feels "sensitive" to the Iranian influence in Iraq. He questioned who allowed them to have such influence in the first place; who opened all the doors for them, and who dealt with an Iraqi government whose members work mainly for the interests of Iran?

"Doesn't Crocker know that the Iranian cancer has spread to every corner of the Iraqi state? Doesn't he know that Iran has suspended, marginalised or killed many Iraqi politicians?" Jammaluddin asked in the London-based independent political daily Asharq Al-Awsat.

The writer ascribed Crocker's call to the US inability to confront Iran and its reluctance to get involved in the confrontation. He advised Crocker to leave Arab states alone and the US to start mending what it did in Iraq as it is still capable of doing that.

Mahmoud Al-Mubarak satirically described Crocker's call as genuine generosity on the part of the US. He wondered how the ambassador, whose state still illegitimately occupies Iraq, failed to realise that the security situation in Iraq is the main reason that has stopped Arab states from sending diplomatic missions to Baghdad.

In fact, Al-Mubarak considered the call as an indictment on Washington because it interfered in the internal affairs of sovereign states. In addition, by showing indifference to exposing the lives of citizens in all Arab states to danger, the US is trying to prove that it does not discriminate against any of them.

"If Crocker thinks that the Arab states are stupid enough to believe his calls that the security situation would improve if they merely reopen their embassies in Iraq then he should learn to understand the Arab mentality far from his president who created the lie of the century, that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction," he wrote in the London-based independent political daily Al-Hayat.

Al-Mubarak called on Arab states to put their national interests and priorities ahead of US interests, stand up to American despotism and decline to expose their diplomats to the dangers in Iraq. After all, as the writer resumed, since it is the US that aborted security in Iraq, it should be left to reap the fruits of its wise attempts to create 'creative havoc'.

Saad Mahiou regarded the Crocker and David Petraeus report as proof that the US is still divided among itself regarding the future of its presence in Iraq. Both officials espoused George Bush's point of view and recommended that any further troop withdrawal should be postponed for at least 45 days.

The gap between the Democrats and the Republicans is huge. The Democrats believe the war in Iraq is becoming a national catastrophe and an international embarrassment for the US. Thus ending it is a top priority in America's interest. It could be done through agreement with the Iraqi leaders by leaving some American forces to give Baghdad any emergency help against external dangers like Iran or Al-Qaeda.

On the other hand, the Republicans believe that the withdrawal of troops would constitute a real danger in that important, strategic and volatile region. In addition, they believe that victory is possible as the recent military and security developments showed.

"The Iraqi war is now a 'strategic trap' for the US, in which it cannot win or lose; it cannot stay or withdraw. It is teetering between attacking in some cases and taking refuge in a trench in others," Mahiou described the US situation in the United Arab Emirates political independent daily Al-Khaleej.

Vietnam was a similar trap but the difference is that neither oil, nor petro dollars or Israel were involved in that issue. In Iraq, there is a strategic trap, but there are also strategic US interests, oil and Israel. The three together strike a dangerous balance.