As Western powers debate Iraq’s fate, Arab governments come under much direct or oblique criticism in the regional press for failing to join last-ditch European efforts to curb the Anglo-American drive for war.

Pan-Arab Al-Quds al-Arabi publisher/editor Abdelbari Atwan expresses bewilderment that Arab leaders are even dithering over France and Germany’s request that they back their joint call with Russia for arms inspectors to be given more time to complete their mission.

“We doubt the Arab governments will respond,” he writes. “Most of them want the war over and done with, and have been colluding with the US administration by granting it bases and facilities on the one hand and prohibiting any popular protests on the other.”
French President Jacques Chirac has stuck his neck out, incurring America’s wrath against his country and the European Union in a bid to prevent the invasion of an Arab country, “but he will not find a single supporter among the Arab leaders,” Atwan predicts. “They have made up their minds and decided not to cross President George W. Bush in the hope of avoiding his retribution, and being spared from the process of democratic change he has threatened to impose on the region” once he takes over Iraq and topples its regime.
Atwan goes on to contrast the massive anti-war demonstrations planned in European and American cities at the weekend with the way Arab governments have been stifling all opposition to America’s plans.

“Arab leaders have restricted their efforts to escalating the psychological war on the Iraqi leadership in order to force it to flee from the confrontation and offer the country on a silver plate to the American invaders, while at the same time conspiring with the US to arrange
an internal coup that would have the same effect,” he remarks.

He reports that France has urged next week’s meeting of Arab League foreign ministers to come out in support of the extension of arms inspections as an alternative to military action. But its call is likely to meet the same fate as the hundreds of appeals that the Palestinians have made for official Arab backing over the years ­ “namely, total disregard.” Instead, the ministers are likely to echo the Gulf Cooperation Council by “blaming Iraq and its leadership, while dispatching forces to Kuwait to protect it from Iraqi aggression,” Atwan writes.

Jordanian commentator Mahmoud Rimawi believes “it is vitally important to make the Americans feel that there are serious objections to their plans in the Arab world and that their takeover is not welcome but provokes universal resentment.”  That, he writes in the UAE daily Al-Khaleej, is why calls were made for the annual Arab summit to be brought forward from its scheduled March 27 date ­ by which time Iraq may well have already been invaded. But Arab governments have been unable to agree on the matter. While they seem to have decided to relocate the gathering from Manama to Cairo, it remains unclear when they intend to convene, and whether or not it will be too late by then to do anything to prevent war.

Rimawi suggests that rather than wait for the Arab governments ­ “who are not exactly known for their dynamism” ­ to arrive at a consensus on what to do collectively about Iraq, the major Arab states that are willing should come together quickly and agree on “serious common policies aimed at recovering their say on matters that have a direct bearing on the region’s fate.”
They could, for example, pick up on the idea proposed by Oman’s chief diplomat Youssef bin Alawi that the Arab states formulate a political solution to the crisis, secure Baghdad’s endorsement, and then present it collectively to the US administration. While the Arab governments act as though they are powerless, they do have the leverage to influence the situation should they choose to use it, he argues. They could, for example, warn Washington that they will not recognize any future regime in Iraq that is installed in power by means of an American invasion.

“A political solution has been and remains viable,” writes Rimawi. “For Baghdad is in no position to throw down challenges to the US, (like North Korea) and a political solution could and should lead to the emergence of a different regime in Baghdad.”

The active promotion of such alternatives to war ­ under which the twin goals of political change and disarmament could be achieved peacefully ­ would be more worthwhile than “the Byzantine debate over the best time to convene the summit,” Rimawi says.
In the Beirut daily As-Safir, chief editor Joseph Samaha expects the Arab world’s ongoing “collapse” to “continue, but at a faster pace” under the “Middle East order” which Iraq’s would-be occupiers seek to impose in the region once they have assumed control of the country.
“We will be victims of this war,” he writes, “and to get an idea of what we will be pushed toward, we need only examine those who preceded us in this situation.” Samaha writes that in pursuing its planned invasion of Iraq, the US administration has deliberately contrived to fatally undermine the UN Security Council, NATO and the European Union after failing to turn them into instruments of its policy.

The way these major international institutions have fallen victim to the Bush administration’s policies is enough reason to “expect the worst and get a foretaste of the kind of jungle Washington insists on turning the world into,” he says.
“Faced with this spectacle, it may be trivial to forecast that the ‘Quartet’ charged with resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is also set to be one of the victims of the war that has not yet broken out,” Samaha says.

As for the Arab world, its weakness has been stripped bare by the Iraqi crisis, and it has come to be taken for granted that an invasion of Iraq will plunge it into turmoil, and that it will emerge even feebler and more fragmented than ever.
“William Burns, an administration official, will be supervising the Arab foreign ministers’ meeting in a few days time. He will make sure that we don’t nurture any of the international objections to the American aggression that it directed against us,” Samaha suggests.
“It is hard to predict what the worldwide ‘confrontations’ over Iraq will culminate in two weeks hence, but what can be predicted is that they will leave an indelible mark on international relations afterward. It can also be foreseen that those who are confronting America now have a margin of maneuver. As for the Arab world, it will pay the highest price, precisely because it was not party to the pre-war confrontations.”

Raghida Dergham uses her weekly commentary for the Saudi-run pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat to describe the mood in the Arab world on the eve of “a war we are all certain is coming very soon, even though we don’t really know what its reasons and purposes are.”
She writes that the Arab peoples are “torn between their hatred of their regimes and their hatred of America’s Middle East policy. Some saw Saddam Hussein, momentarily, as the face of defiance of America’s high handedness and its injustice toward the Arabs in the conflict with Israel. Others see him as the source of the affliction, because of the adventures and wars he waged for leadership. The vast majority blame the other Arab leaders equally for the region’s condition, due to their despotism and deliberate humiliation of their peoples to preserve the regimes. The same majority blame America for its unjust policies and its record of contempt for the Arab individual, who it has constantly sought to sideline so as to control Arab natural resources.” Dergham says there is a section of Arab public opinion, mostly among the youth, that does not oppose war on Iraq, because it thinks it is the only route to “regime change.” Most Iraqis also apparently want to be rid of the regime by any means, even if that entails an American invasion and occupation.

“The oppression of those who live under the Iraq regime, and the discontent of those who cannot see the Arab regimes adopting necessary reforms, has reached the point of despair. And despair has bred acquiescence to anything that might shake the foundations of the Arab world, even a war that was conceived by men famed for their loathing and contempt for the Arab peoples and their total loyalty to Israel, indeed to Sharon-ism.”  For those who think along these lines, “the important thing is for the status quo to be demolished, in the hope that the region may then move toward democracy. The US, for them, is the means for demolishing the status quo … It is the ‘dynamite’… It is the appropriate temporary ‘partner’ for the transition, but it is not trusted beyond that, even by this segment of public opinion.”
Another section of the Arab public “wants to achieve the same objectives, but differ over the means.” They argue that “reform via anarchy and military might is not a recipe for democracy but for military rule,” and while they agree on the urgent need for regime change in Iraq, they give precedence to preventing an American invasion and occupation and “searching for ways of changing the status quo without catastrophic wars,” Dergham says.

“Further complicating the issue is the US Administration, and the agenda of those advocating war.” The latter are certainly not enamored of the Arab peoples” or seeking to bring them democracy. “The war on Iraq is not a war for Iraq, but a war for America’s greatness waged via Iraq, which has provided the administration’s hawks with an opportunity they deem golden. They want a war on Iraq for the sake of a ‘doctrine’ they formulated years ago, and onto which they recently put George W. Bush’s name. The essence of this doctrine is that everything is permissible in order to preserve America’s pre-eminence … and prevent even friends and allies from daring to rival or share its hegemony,” Dergham continues.
Their current “battle” against France and Germany is another facet of their strategic defense “doctrine,” she adds, as is their deliberate effort to create a split within NATO. “Iraq is a testing ground for the doctrine,” according to Dergham, and little thought has been given to the question “what next” or to what happens “the day after” Iraq is invaded and occupied.

In the Jordanian daily Al-Rai, Khaled Mahadeen wonders what possessed the likes of Spain and Australia to offer troops for an invasion of Iraq. The Spanish government may have been driven by nostalgia for the country’s despicable imperial past, he says, but Australia? And what does either country have to gain from their actions, other than the resentment of the Arab and Muslim worlds?
Mahadeen writes that in addition to behaving like lackeys, the leaders of Spain and Australia are betraying their own peoples, the majority of whom oppose a war that could kill hundreds or even thousands of innocent civilians.

“American, British and Israeli spokespeople have incessantly been claiming that Iraq threatens their security and peace, but we never heard any Spanish or Australian official even attempt to echo that fraudulent and mendacious charge. And if the Australian and Spanish stance stems from a commitment to world peace and to opposing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their use to threaten others, why has neither country had a single word to say about the ongoing war of annihilation that the Israel war machine is waging against the Palestinian people?” he wonders.

Mahadeen hints that the same questions can be asked of a number of Arab governments. “By allowing the US and Britain to lure them into a devastating war against the Iraqi people, a number of Arab, Muslim and other governments are being dragged into an adventure that lacks wisdom, intelligence and foresight,” he says. “Spain and Australia have no interest in such a war, and only harm will befall any Arab or Islamic side that contributes to it, if only by remaining lock jawed.”

Source:  Daily Star (Lebanon)