Dec 16, 2002 Op Eds

December 16, 2002 Opinion Editorials http://www.aljazeerah.info

A few days ago a friend in Ramallah called to wish me a happy Eid. As she talked about the daily horrors of life under military occupation, she told me about a group of Europeans who had come to Palestine to help with the olive harvest and to generally show their support. She explained that quite a number of Europeans had come to offer their services in various ways. I asked if any Muslims or Arabs had come and she said none that she knew of. We wondered why Muslims — even from states which have relations with Israel — haven’t volunteered to go and give personal help rather than simply sending money. Why don’t they risk more than the contents of their wallets? There are many ways to resist and if we can’t help militarily, we can give succor by other means.

We Arabs as a nation have suffered greatly in the last two centuries at the hands of colonialists and it continues today. The worst example is Israel and its continuing brutality against the Palestinians; the world at large either approves the Israeli savagery or simply pretends not to notice. All that we have endured, however, should never push us from, or cause us to misuse, the tenets of Islam. Islam is a universal religion and it belongs to all humanity. Neither culture nor race should dictate the conduct of Muslims toward others — and surely never anger nor a desire for revenge.

If we have been wronged, this does not release us to ignore the laws and teachings of Islam which direct us to treat other religions with justice and kindness. If many present-day Israelis have allowed themselves to become a perverted form of Judaism and if they have become a replica of those who brutalized them for centuries in the West, we should take heed and not fall into this same trap. Is it not said that an abused child often becomes an abusive parent?

We as a nation have been abused and mistreated by the West for many years. Indeed, the Israeli occupation has outstripped every other occupation by its sheer brutality and bestiality. None of this, however, gives us the right either to mistreat or harm Christians or Jews. If the laws of Islam are sacred, then they apply to all circumstances. There is not, nor ever has been, one set of laws for Muslims to use in a time of sorrow and another to use in a time of joy. If some in the West attack Islam and if the Israelis deny the Palestinians their natural human rights, there are many more who defend Islam and Muslims.

Haven’t we seen many demonstrations in Western capitals protesting war in Iraq and supporting the Palestinians in their struggle for freedom and a state? Where were the demonstrations in the Islamic capitals? Jews in the West — and in Israel — are among the most vocal critics of Ariel Sharon and his fellow butchers. Such Jews as Noam Chomsky and Uri Avnery are tireless in their pursuit of justice for the Palestinians.

Before we dump all Jews and Christians into one basket labeled “Haters of Islam,” we should at least try to follow the example of those who appear on the doorsteps of the Palestinians. They are there to help the Palestinians by staying in houses scheduled for demolition by the Israeli Army. In doing that, they are risking life and limb for strangers who are not even of their own race or religion.

In conclusion, when Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, freed Makkah from the pagan Quraish, he treated them kindly even though he and his followers had suffered and died at their hands. He told them they were free to do as they wished and to go where they wanted. If the prophet, pbuh, could forgive those who were his most vicious enemies, shouldn’t we Muslims follow his example and uphold the laws of Islam? Should we not treat all the People of the Book with justice and respect, as we have been ordered to do, while still defending our rights?

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Reem Mohammed Al-Faisal is a Saudi photographer.

India — a secular republic no more
By Siraj Wahab, Arab News Staff, 12/16/02

It is now official. India no longer wants to be a secular republic. An overwhelming majority of Hindus in Gujarat have just rewritten the country’s constitution by returning to power a mass murderer called Narendra Modi. It took the Hindu supremacists 55 long years of terrible carnage, and the slaughter of countless Muslims, to gut the secular philosophy of the country’s founder, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

Those behind the recent genocide of Muslims in Gujarat always insisted on going to the people’s court. They wanted elections even before the fires were extinguished and the charred bodies laid to rest. They knew full well that their heinous crimes against humanity had almost total support from the majority community. They also knew that their depraved actions would invite serious consequences from any court of law. The election results have merely confirmed the writing on the wall: That India is a theocratic state and that the average Hindu hates Indian Muslims to the point of wishing them out of existence.

The extremist Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, and the party’s other political affiliates, will no longer have to come out with election manifestos promising development. They can just publish report cards stating the number of Muslims they killed or helped kill. The higher the number of casualties, the greater will be the party’s prospects. The top job will go to the person who is most adept at organizing massacres on a large scale in an instant.

Gujarat’s election results are a complete legitimization of the violence perpetrated by the ruling party. There will now be a general amnesty for all those who indulged in slaughter, rape and arson. We can expect this successful experiment to be repeated throughout India.

What a tragedy! There was a general belief in the country that after the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992 India would return to the path of sanity. There was hope that everybody — Muslims and Hindus — would realize the folly of mixing religion with politics. There was optimism that the BJP in power would be more responsible than the BJP in opposition. That belief was betrayed, that hope was killed, that optimism was shattered by the party’s continued indulgence in minority bashing. Thousands of Indian Muslims have died to prove that the BJP is bent on genocide.

For political parties, it is the end that matters: The BJP succeeded at the cost of the country’s priceless image. So the BJP has won and, unfortunately, India has lost. One feels sorry for the courageous Hindu academics, journalists, lawyers and judges who did their best to save the country from falling into the clutches of fundamentalists. They and other peace-loving Indians, who are now in the minority, will recall what Jawaharlal Nehru wrote years ago — that majority communalism is more dangerous than minority communalism. But in the country of Vajpayee, Advani, Modi, Vinay Katiyar and Praveen Togadia, who will pay heed to the words of a sage and the misery of a minority?

Vote for bigotry
Arab News, 16 December 2002
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If the election that has just taken place in Gujarat, where the BJP has been re-elected by a landslide, had happened in Europe or elsewhere in the West, there would be an international outcry, with demands for a boycott of the country and that something be done about it.

The BJP in Gujarat has its hands steeped in blood. It presided over an orgy of violence earlier this year in which between 1,000 and 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, were hacked to death or burned alive. Though the wave of violence was, initially, explained as a spontaneous reaction to another revolting crime, the torching of a trainload of Hindu militants in which 59 people died, credible evidence has come to light to show that there was nothing spontaneous about the riots. It was planned by bigots, with Chief Minister Narendra Modi, his henchmen, and the government machinery helping and directing them. They encouraged local BJP activists to whip up Hindu resentment with calls for revenge, and then, when the mobs appeared, provided no protection to their Muslim victims whatsoever.

Gujarat is Indian democracy’s shame. That a government that preaches religious hate and exploits communal fears could be rewarded with another term in office after what it has done is almost beyond comprehension. This is elected bigotry. It is the evidence that when populism is brought into play, democracy itself is poisoned. Populism is its Achilles’ heel.

One must hope no more blood will be shed, although in the wake of the vote, there have already been communal clashes. Probably this time riot police will be deployed to prevent any further immediate violence, because now there is nothing further to be gained politically from it. But it is bound, sooner or later, to happen again. The levers of power in Gujarat are in the hands of a bunch of fascists who use violence whenever they think it politically useful. And they have their friends in Delhi.

The BJP win is a major blow for India’s secularists. It is a particularly shattering blow for the opposition Congress party. It has made advances elsewhere in India. It is true that since Gujarat has been the bastion of bigotry for over 30 years, voting for the BJP and its predecessors most of the time, this week’s vote is not so surprising. Nonetheless, Gujarat was a test Congress should have won. It did not because it did not have a cohesive presence or a credible message.

In the minds of too many Indians, Congress lacks leadership and it lacks ideas. That was in evidence in Gujarat. Its performance was pathetic. Instead of setting its own agenda, it tried to emulate the BJP by constantly proclaiming its Hindu credentials. There was no point trying to out-BJP the BJP. It was bound to fail — as fail it did.

If Congress learns that one lesson, then something worthwhile will have come out of this appalling result. India needs an opposition party that works. At the moment it does not have one. Congress — in many people’s minds, still tainted by corruption and wedded to red tape and government control — is the nearest thing to an institutionalized political vacuum that India has ever seen. It has to start coming up with coherent ideas and a leader who is not just keeping the seat warm until her children are ready to take over. Otherwise, the BJP will continue in office no matter how much violence it stirs up.

Hate crimes against Arabs, Muslims in America rise 1,600 per cent in 2001

By Riad Z. Abdelkarim

Jordan Times, 12/16/02

THE FBI's recently released annual hate crimes report showed a marked increase in hate crimes targeting Muslims and people who are or appear to be of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent in 2001. The FBI's report found that incidents targeting people, institutions and businesses identified with the Islamic faith increased from a mere 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001 — a rise of 1,600 per cent.

Although the statistics did not specify how many of the 481 incidents occurred after Sept. 11, 2001, presumably the vast majority took place after that date. The increases, the FBI claimed in somewhat understated fashion, happened “presumably as a result of the heinous incidents that occurred on Sept. 11”. According to the FBI report, most of the incidents against Muslims and people who are or were believed to have been of Middle Eastern ethnicity involved assaults and intimidation, but three cases of murder or manslaughter and 35 cases of arson were also reported.

As disturbing as these statistics are, however, the numbers of hate crimes reported by the FBI most likely vastly underestimate the true number of incidents that took place, as many Muslims are believed not to have reported such incidents to law enforcement authorities. According to statistics gathered by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a national Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, the number of hate crimes and “anti-Muslim” incidents reported by American Muslims was over 1,700 by February 2002. These ranged from public harassment and hate mail to bomb threats, death threats, physical assault, property damage and murder.

One question that has arisen in the aftermath of this hate crime surge is whether the US government responded appropriately to the post-9/11 environment of anti-Muslim hysteria. The answer is both yes and no, according to a recently released report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), titled “We are not the enemy: hate crimes against Arabs, Muslims, and those perceived to be Arab or Muslim after Sept. 11”.

“Government officials didn't sit on their hands while Muslims and Arabs were attacked after Sept. 11,” said Amardeep Singh, author of the report and US programme researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But law enforcement and other government agencies should have been better prepared for this kind of onslaught.”

The HRW report praises the official condemnation of hate crimes after Sept. 11 by public figures including President George W. Bush. However, the report notes that “the US government contradicted its anti-prejudice message by directing its anti-terrorism efforts — including secret immigration detention and FBI interviews of thousands of non-citizens — at Arabs and Muslims.”

Indeed, after the initial wave of hate crimes against American Muslims and Arab Americans, a second manifestation of the post-Sept. 11 backlash ensued. Sadly, this backlash was in large part sanctioned by and carried out by our own government. It is interesting to note that one category of incidents compiled by CAIR — not to be found in the FBI report — is “FBI/Police/INS Intimidation”, with a total of 224 reported cases.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, FBI agents began in earnest to interview tens of thousands of American Muslims and Arab Americans around the country (the author of this article included). The manner in which many of these interviews were carried out led community leaders and members to feel that they were being unjustly treated as suspects. Many community leaders and activists — who were themselves quite vocal in condemning the terror attacks — found themselves being questioned by federal agents about their political beliefs and religious activities.

These early interviews did nothing to further the investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks — not a single Arab American or American Muslim was arrested or charged. Non-citizen student visa or green card holders were in some cases detained — and some deported — for minor visa violations. Rather than assisting the investigation, these heavy-handed FBI and INS tactics contributed to the atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust with which Muslims were being viewed and in which this unprecedented surge of hate crimes occurred. In addition, the interviews had a chilling effect on the community, with many people fearful of speaking out against the subsequent curb on civil liberties or the war in Afghanistan for fear of being labelled “unpatriotic”, “disloyal” or, even worse, “un-American”.

Following the initial wave of interviews, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that the FBI would be arranging “voluntary” interviews with thousands of Middle Eastern and Muslim visa holders, bringing new meaning to the concept of ethnic or racial profiling. These men were selected for interview not because of any known connection to terrorism, but rather simply because of their names and countries of origin.

Even more serious than these so-called “voluntary” interviews have been the detentions of hundreds of individuals — mostly non-citizen Arab or Muslim males — by the FBI and INS without charge, without public hearings, without allowing legal representations and without even revealing their names. These draconian detentions have been the target of widespread, coordinated efforts by civil liberties and Arab-American and American Muslim advocacy groups. As Singh notes, “since Sept. 11, a pall of suspicion has been cast over Arabs and Muslims in the United States. Public officials can help reduce bias violence against them by ensuring that the `war against terrorism' is focused on criminal behaviour rather than whole communities”.

Thankfully, the surge in hate crimes against those who are or appear to be Muslim has died down. Of greater concern to American Muslims presently, however, are the likelihood of another misguided backlash should our nation go to war against Iraq and the continued officially sanctioned harassment of Arabs and Muslims — citizens, immigrants and students — by our own government. One unsettling question remains: who will be making certain that our own government's increasingly reactionary policies are not unwittingly contributing to the anti-Muslim hysteria that makes these hate crimes almost inevitable? In other words, who will be watching over the watchdog?

The writer, a physician, activist and writer from Anaheim, California, writes the monthly `Islam in America' column for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

After war in Iraq: what redrawing the map of the Middle

East might mean

By Fahed Fanek, The Daily Star, 12/16/02

A system of government can only draw legitimacy from the free choice of the people as expressed through the ballot box. This, at any rate, is the 21st-century way of doing things. Gone are the days when rulers derived their legitimacy from divine right.
With this in mind, it is easy to conclude that most current Arab regimes lack legitimacy simply because they do not represent their peoples. These regimes seized power either through military coups, falsified elections, or through unconstitutional processes of inheritance. Lebanon apart, no Arab country can boast a genuine Parliament that the government has to take into account.
Legitimacy is a regime’s most precious asset. Only through legitimacy can its decisions have compelling moral authority. Regimes that lack legitimacy can only impose their will through naked force or direct oppression. The worst thing that can happen to a regime is to lose legitimacy and, with it, the respect of the entire world.
In addition to the primary source of legitimacy (the people’s will), there is another: the legitimacy of achievement. Stable regimes that succeed in presenting their peoples with achievements in the political, economic and social fields gain legitimacy through these. On the other hand, even elected regimes lose legitimacy if they fail to deliver.
The problem with the Arab world is that most of its governments possess neither popular legitimacy nor that borne of achievement. Most Arab regimes are therefore illegitimate, with survival as their only preoccupation.
Attempts to regain legitimacy through religion have also reached a dead end. In fact, such a course is proving detrimental and is being abandoned so as not to raise suspicions of terrorism.
What made matters worse was that after Sept. 11, the United States began reversing the support it used to give some Arab regimes — and in fact began exerting pressure on them. What the Americans realized was that such regimes’ lack of legitimacy is being reflected as terrorism for which America has to pay the price.
This being the case, it is not strange that world powers should find it easy to trample over the Arab world, or that the pan-Arab nation should be among the poorest on Earth despite being blessed with abundant natural wealth. This situation has reached a crisis point and cannot be allowed to continue while the struggle between the various powers is decided.
Since post-Sept. 11 America has been seeking war and conflict in every corner, trying to change the world according to its own vision (especially the Muslim world, where it has been paying the price of illegitimate governments and lack of democracy in the form of international terrorism), journalistic imagination has been allowed to run wild as to what the US might do once its war in Iraq is successful, placing it in a position that allows it to impose its will on the entire Middle East and reshape the region according to its whims.
Journalists have been regaling us with America’s plans to carve up the Middle East in a way that fulfills its political and economic objectives to turn the entire planet into an American empire.
Arab analysts have been propagating such ideas in order to make themselves seem knowledgeable to their readers. The Americans never said as much, and the analysts who have been busy telling us of America’s “plans” have never bothered to explain what they mean by “changing the map of the Middle East.” Will this process involve new physical facts on the ground (as what happened with the 1916 Sykes-Picot treaty), or will it result in a new politico-economic arrangement for an Israel-led “new Middle East”?
Geographically speaking, there have been rumors going around that the US intends to divide Iraq into three (Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish statelets), and Saudi Arabia into four — oil-rich Najd, Hejaz, Al-Ahsa (the largest oasis in Saudi Arabia, extending from the Arabian Gulf to the Dahwa and Oman deserts, and forming the border with Qatar, the UAE and the Sultanate of Oman) and Aseer (one of the most populous regions in the kingdom and a tourist attraction known for its comfortable climate).
Other than that, the rest of the Arab world is fragmented as it is and cannot tolerate any more divisions.
As far as political realignment is concerned, the US realizes that Israel is unwanted by its neighbors, and it is thus impracticable to try and control the Middle East through the Jewish state. In fact, Washington asked Israel in 1991 and is asking it again today not to interfere in its plans for Iraq because Washington knows that support from Israel is a moral and political liability.
Reshaping the Middle East might have another meaning: changing the current climate of tension in the region. America has already tried to do just that after it achieved its objectives in the Gulf War of 1991, by dragging the Arabs and Israelis to the Madrid peace conference to create a new Middle East in which Arabs and Jews could coexist. Unfortunately, this experiment failed when the Bush-Baker administration lost the US presidential election, and when the Israelis and Palestinians surprised everyone by signing the 1993 Oslo Accords.
If the US goes ahead with its war on Iraq and succeeds in achieving its immediate goals, it will have an opportunity to introduce change to the region especially since it has belatedly realized that terrorism cannot be tackled without dealing with its root causes. Yet, there is still one thing Washington think tanks have not said much about: What happens after the war is won? Military victory would be the beginning, rather than the end, of US involvement in the region.
At any rate, the events that will unfold in the Arab world in the next 10 years will be as much the result of US power as Arab weakness and fragmentation.

Fahed Fanek is a Jordanian economic and media consultant.

Arabs snub Iraqi opposition conference

An Arab press review by The Daily Star, 12/16/02

Saudi Arabia’s leading pan-Arab daily, Asharq al-Awsat, remarks on its front page that the weekend meeting of some 350 delegates of offshore Iraq opposition groups opened at the Metropolitan Hotel in London with “an Arab no-show, but a strong foreign attendance.”
It says most of the big powers were represented at the opening, save for Russia and the European Union, while “official” Arab attendance was limited to a Kuwaiti MP and a diplomat from the Kuwaiti Embassy in London.
Asharq al-Awsat says the conference brings together groups “that are backed both financially and politically by the United States:” the Iraqi National Congress (INC) led by Ahmed Chalabi; the Iraqi National Accord fronted by Iyad Alawi; the Tehran-based Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI) headed by Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim, Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and Shareef Ali bin Hussein’s Movement for Constitutional Monarchy.
SAIRI’s Hakim chose to stay away, sending one of his brothers instead, “to avoid being embarrassed by the presence of Zalmay Khalilzad, US President George W. Bush’s special envoy and ambassador at large for the Iraqi opposition, who spent the last few days organizing the conference and scrutinizing potential participants to determine who’s in and who’s out.”
On the day Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s opponents kickstarted their deliberations in London, Saudi Arabia and Iraq were restoring telephone communications after a break of 12 years.
Ibrahim Fouda, executive director of the Saudi Exports Development Center and member of Saudi Arabia’s “Shura” (Consultative) Council, told Asharq al-Awsat the resumption of would boost economic and trade links. Some 100 Saudi businessmen and officials attended last month’s international trade fair in Baghdad.
Abderrahman al-Rashed, Saudi editor-in-chief of Asharq al-Awsat, wonders in his daily column if the London conference is the Iraqi opposition’s last “before its triumphant return to its liberated homeland.”
That, he says, “is the general feeling of most conference delegates.” Their zeal does not hush up intellectual and political differences among the various Iraqi opposition groups as the US government braces to force regime change in Baghdad. But diversity is a universal characteristic of dissident factions everywhere since “they do not constitute armed forces that can be ordered around particularly not when they hail from a country as religiously, culturally and ethnically diverse as Iraq.”
“Arab political and cultural forces cannot continue giving the cold shoulder to the heterogeneous Iraqi opposition,” he says, “as it now stands knocking on Baghdad’s door, preparing to become part of its future regime, irrespective of that regime’s nature.”
“The question of organizing these (Iraqi opposition) groups and making plans for the situation in Iraq has become an urgent regional matter,” given that the United States is bent on regime change in Baghdad, he adds. Iraq’s “neighbors and the major regional powers must help the Iraqi opposition factions agree on a formula that embraces rather than cancels out their existing pluralism.”
Regime change in Iraq is around the corner, according to Rashed, “and the Iraqi opposition is a partner in bringing about the change. The region must prepare for that. The opposition, in turn, would be wrong to believe that the impending victory will be of its own making alone. Everyone is aware of the change being foreign-imposed which does not cancel out the opposition’s nationalist credentials or the justice of its demands. What could cancel out the opposition altogether … is if it carried its differences with it into the ‘liberated’ land.”
Daoud al-Shiryan, a Saudi columnist for the Sauri-run pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat, suggests that the delegates “will consider a document prepared by Washington to build a democratic Iraq in the post-Saddam era. The document’s most salient feature is that in it, the Iraqi opposition urges the world community to intervene and force regime change in order to end the Iraqi people’s suffering.
“Washington is keen to see the conference issue such an invitation, not only to use it as political cover for its impending war on Iraq, but to give the said war a nationalist character, to minimize the damage caused by talk of an American trusteeship over Iraq and to perhaps facilitate the passing of a ‘Uniting for Peace Resolution’ (by the UN General Assembly).”
Some in the Iraqi opposition see nothing wrong in the proposed US draft or in America’s sponsorship of the conference, Shiryan adds, “because they believe America’s presence on the ground in Iraq will prevent internecine strife, dispel the risks of Iraq’s dismemberment and minimize losses in the interim stage.”
The opposition cannot do without US backing, “but it can make the call for regime change conditional. There’s a world of difference between the opposition being a partner in the approaching change and serving as a minion … But whoever followed the rows … that accompanied the countdown for the conference would conclude that the opposition still lacks a minimum common denominator.” Consequently, Shiryan writes, “it is wishful thinking to expect a stand that will shield Iraq’s rights from the meddling of others.”
Zuhair Qusaibati, writing on the op-ed page of Al-Hayat, comments that the Afghan-born Khalilzad sat sandwiched between Barzani and Talabani which reminds him of the United Nations’ talks on Afghanistan in Bonn about this time last year.
The difference, he says, is that whereas the talks in Bonn were about a provisional government in Afghanistan in the wake of America’s ouster of the Taleban, the conference in London is meant to pave the way for the removal of the regime in Baghdad “in order to save Iraq and democracy.” In London, Khalizad was as omnipresent as the UN’s Lakhdar Ibrahimi was in Bonn.
“No one doubts the integrity of the delegates and their quest to establish democracy in a new Iraq, notwithstanding all that has been said about behind-the-scenes struggles over representation,” Qusaibati writes. But this “does not prevent raising questions about the gathering as numerous as the number of delegates in attendance: Chiefly, can a two-day conference find a way out from the bottlenecks for an Iraq whose social and national fabrics have been in tatters for more than 10 years? Even if the opposition were to succeed in unifying its slogans and ranks, has it become qualified to manage a country that has been brought to its knees by two wars, by crippling economic sanctions, by an autocratic regime and by ill repute? Can the opposition assure Iraq’s neighbors that it can uphold the country’s unity and territorial integrity? Can opposition leaders come clean on the deals they struck with Tehran?
“More importantly too, if Bush’s America is sincere and serious in co-opting the Iraqi opposition for the post-Saddam stage, has it extended adequate assistance to the opposition for it to stand on its own feet after the US spent years belittling it? Or is (Bush’s America) simply using the opposition as a scarecrow to strong-arm Baghdad? Didn’t Secretary of State Colin Powell declare that Saddam could stay put if he changed and got rid of his weapons of mass destruction? Didn’t Washington previously restrain leading opposition figures from declaring an Iraqi government in exile?”
What is certain, according to Qusaibati, is that “many of the leaders sitting together in London do not have blind faith in America’s objectives, although they wouldn’t admit that. What is certain as well is that most of them have no idea of the ‘zero hour’ set by Washington for its war on Iraq or of the role that will be assigned to the opposition in exile by the Bush administration. But such expressions in the conference’s closing statement, as proposed by the US, as ‘the need to determine the characteristics of the transitional period’ and ‘Kirkuk’s ethnic make-up’ are sufficient to keep the opposition busy haggling for months to come.”
Writing for Al-Hayat, Majed Ahmed Samarai, a one-time Iraqi ambassador living in exile, says the US wants to use the conference to demonstrate to some of Iraq’s Arab neighbors, who have been “hesitant” to back its designs on Iraq, “that the Iraqis themselves support the US plan for war.”
Washington ensured that the proposed final declaration would stick to general, bland statements of principle on Iraq’s future: a commitment to a unified, disarmed Iraq, ruled by a “democratic regime” at peace with its neighbors a likely reference to Israel as well as to Iran and Kuwait and willing to implement all relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
The public relations role to which the US managed to confine the conference also allowed Washington to strike a pragmatic, behind-the-scenes understanding of convenience with the Iran-backed SAIRI, one of the largest, most influential Iraqi opposition groups, and the only non-Kurdish faction with military muscle.
Unlike the way in which the US excluded Tehran from its plans in Afghanistan, it has decided to include a religious political party affiliated with Iran SAIRI in its Iraq strategy because this could contribute to transforming SAIRI from a predominantly religious movement into one that provides wider sectarian representation for Iraqi Shiites.
But Samarai faults the conference organizers for excluding some of the “Arab forces that have been part of the powers and elements of the Iraqi state for 80 years, but which are regarded with unwarranted and subjective suspicion by some parties within the Group of Six.”
Also writing for Al-Hayat, Egyptian political analyst Wahid Abdelmeguid, deputy head of Cairo’s Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, finds fault with the two main leaders of the pan-Arab political order, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, without directly naming the latter, for ignoring Iraqi opposition groups and avoiding dialogue with them.
Singling out Egypt for direct criticism, Abdelmeguid says there is “no justification” for Egypt’s reluctance to have dealings with the Iraqi opposition. “Giving priority to avoiding a military blitz on Iraq does not prevent Egypt from paying some attention to the consequences of such an attack, which will probably lead to changing the regime in Iraq,” he says.
He says Egypt must alter its position, not only because its current position undermines its own regional interests, but because it throws the future of the Arab order into question.
Addressing the concern of some Arabs that the Iraqi opposition groups are too close to the US, Abdelmeguid suggests that some of them may have been “pushed into throwing themselves into Washington’s arms” after losing hope of gaining any Arab encouragement. Merely opening Arab doors, especially Cairo’s doors, to Iraqi opposition groups would obviate their need for Washington, he argues. But if Egypt and the other Arabs refuse to participate in defining Iraq’s political future, the US and “other regional non-Arab players” a reference to Turkey, Iran and Israel will do so without them.
Arguments that the Iraqi opposition’s role is marginal in the current US-Iraq conflict cut no ice because once the current regime is toppled, those groups will assume the main role. “Egypt knows Iraq is not Afghanistan,” and that the political forces in Iraq, which have a long historical tradition, will not allow the US to impose a puppet regime. “So how can it be in Egypt’s interest to overlook building relations with the forces that will set up the new regime in Baghdad?” Abdelmeguid asks.
Egypt and other Arab countries are risking their future relations with Baghdad because those groups, which Turkey and Iran are carefully cultivating, may retaliate by snubbing the Arab countries once they come to power. Although Iraq’s role in the Arab world has been suspended by international ostracism and economic sanctions over the past decade, the Arab order may not be able to withstand Iraq’s withdrawal from it once the current regime has been toppled, Abdelmeguid warns, noting that Libya has not completely renounced its intentions of doing likewise. “The biggest threat to the Arab order in the coming phase is that the Iraqi people or large segments of it may lose faith in its Arab identity and the sense of belonging and commitment that it engenders.”

Azhar's ouster aggravates instability
By Kamila Hyat | 16-12-2002
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The unceremonious ouster of Mian Azhar as chief of the ruling PML-QA was by no means an unexpected event.

Many had seen such a move coming in the wake of the post-election tussle for control of the PML-QA as the crisis within the party intensified.

It is also true that in fact the position of Azhar had been weakened well before this.

Establishment support for him had quite visibly been pulled back, well ahead of the polls, with those holding the reins of power apparently becoming convinced that Azhar, a man of few words and some say limited political ability, would be ill-suited to handling affairs at a national level.

As such, real power within the PML-QA had already been delegated to the wily veteran of political game-playing, Chaudhry Shujaat, who led PML-QA government forming efforts as well as negotiations with the Musharraf regime.

But, for all his failings, Azhar had certain strong points as well. He remains a politician with considerable respect as a man of honesty and one known for his humility.

He was also the acceptable, compromise choice for a significant number within the PML-QA unwilling to tolerate leadership by Shujaat, who has a large number of political enemies, or even Jamali, a man who has little political standing at the national level – and almost none at all in Punjab, the heartland of the PML.

As such, with Azhar's ouster, the PML-QA could find its burden of problems has been added to rather than lightened.

With Jamali already one of the weakest prime ministers in the country's history, he can ill-afford to have further opposition take root within his own party.

And the fact that Azhar takes with him several political heavyweights such as Begum Abida Hussain, a woman not known to remain a silent observer for long, is another factor that could add to the problem-creating powers of the sidelined PML-QA leaders.

The emerging evidence that Azhar has already established contacts with the exiled Sharif family and even Benazir Bhutto can again only cause further alarm in official quarters.

As a mediator, Azhar is seen by many as the perfect man to bring opponents together, and as such he could play a crucial role in building a strong front against the government.This can only add to the uncertainty already prevailing within the country.

There are growing fears that given the problems he faces, Jamali will find it difficult to solve them.

Two provinces, Sindh and Balochistan, are almost certain to end up with unstable governments vulnerable to moves against them, while in the NWFP, the government of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) is already posing challenges.

By threatening to force U.S. troops out of tribal areas and imposing a dress code for women in some educational institutions only weeks after assuming power, the MMA seems to have shown little regard for policies advocated by the centre.

These factors are almost certain to create a more direct confrontation at one time or another, especially over the issue of policy on the U.S. How the Jamali government sets about tackling these multiple difficulties is a matter that will be closely watched.

It is, however, clear to many that he can ill-afford creating new enemies at this juncture, and by forcing Azhar in to the opposition camp, the forces lined up against him have expanded.

This can only augur ill for the government and for democracy as a whole within the country, as yet another attempt begins to build the institutions that can play a part in providing much needed stability and resolving the growing issues faced by people everywhere in the country.

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