Jan 20, 2003             Opinion Editorials                   http://www.aljazeerah.info                                    

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Portentous signs about Israeli elections
Arab News, 20 January 2003
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Unless there is a cataclysmic development around the corner, Ariel Sharon will remain prime minister when Israelis go to the polls in less than a week. And perhaps not even a cataclysmic event will remove him from power. So far nothing has worked. Neither a cash-for-votes scandal within his own party nor corruption allegations have hurt Sharon nearly as much as was expected.

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Israeli plan to weaken Egypt
By Hassan Tahsin

Arab News, 1/20/03

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Many people believe that the Camp David accords ended the confrontation between Egypt and Israel forever. The reality of the situation though is that the war is continuing but in the form of a Cold War between the US and then Soviet Union.

Egypt viewed the peace treaty as a civilized way of ending military confrontation and for the return of Egyptian land occupied by Israel without the need for any more bloodshed.

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Right sometimes is might
By Wahib Binzagr, CBE

Arab News, 1/20/03

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It is an understatement to say that we live in a disturbed world. We are constantly disturbed by what we hear and read. We become more perplexed when government officials go out of line with reason or responsibility to take side without benefit to furthering peace in the world. Even worse when it is biased, it causes hardship.

These are some of the thoughts that come to the minds of readers around the world when they read objections by a member of a western Foreign Office to a visit by a female citizen of that country to Israel and Palestine.

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Syrian, Turkish offers

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It is obvious that all these countries would be critically affected by a war against Iraq. They all share the same dangers, albeit in different degrees. The security and stability of the entire region would be put at risk if war breaks out in the coming weeks or months. The meeting Ankara is offering would certainly do no harm. On the contrary, the countries of the region can still coordinate their efforts and policies not only on how to avoid a disastrous war but also on how to deal with its fallout, whether security-related or economic in nature.

Syria appears to entertain a similar move on the foreign ministers level. Damascus announced it plans to host a regional meeting ahead of the meeting in Turkey. Surely the two initiatives can be combined. It matters little where such a meeting is held provided it is convened. What is important is the agreement on the agenda of such a meeting. Prior consultations must therefore be held swiftly in view of the little time still available.

While not all the countries invited to such a meeting share the same perspective on Iraq, there is still a common denominator that binds them on the aftermath of a devastating armed conflict.

Jordan is therefore right in holding consultations with other Arab countries in order to agree on a common response to the various initiatives being floated on Iraq. The results of these consultations must be on the agenda of any regional meeting whatever the level of attendance. The foreign ministers may also consider visiting Baghdad in a last-ditch effort to avert a war. They may also consider submitting a joint position before the UN Security Council on the Iraqi conflict or even visit Washington and London.

Time's awasting as war looms nearer, but still there is some room left to restore sanity to a fearful situation.

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Why Arabs are angry with America

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AMERICA'S NEW programme for the Middle East, launched on Dec. 12 by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, makes it seem, through the use of the term Middle East, as if it includes Iran, Israel and Turkey, as well as the Arab world.

The stated objective of the so-called US-Middle East Partnership Initiative is to improve America's image in the Arab world. This is meant to be done through “sustained” support for political reform (i.e., democracy), economic reform (free markets), social reform (women's liberation) and educational reform (through a comprehensive overhaul of educational curricula).

At first, many people thought Powell was about to launch an initiative similar to the post-World War II Marshall Plan, which turned a hostile Germany into an ally of the US through economic aid.

Far from pouring billions of dollars into the new initiative, however, Powell said that it would only involve a paltry $29 million, to be shared by 25 different countries. Consequently, the new plan will prove to be nothing more than a public relations campaign designed to convince Arab public opinion that America is on their side.

America's image in the Arab world is far worse than Powell believes. It would be extremely difficult to convince Arabs that US policies are evenhanded and fair, and that it is not a strategic ally of Israel's, a country determined to destroy the lives of the Palestinians.

It would be even more difficult to convince Arabs that America is not blockading the Iraqi people but only Saddam Hussein, and that it is planning to wage war against Saddam and not the entire people. America can scarcely deny that it plans to occupy Baghdad, the ancient capital of the Abbasids and a potent symbol of Arab dignity, again humiliating the Arabs and Muslims everywhere.

America helped Israel defeat the Arabs in five different wars; it devastated Iraq in 1991 and has been bombing the country almost on a daily basis ever since. It has occupied Iraq's airspace, starved its people and now occupies military bases in six Gulf Arab states.

The fact that America has been instrumental in visiting successive defeats on the proud Arab nation led to hatred building up in the entire region. This hatred is being expressed in many ways, terror among them.

What has America done to prove that it respects Arabs? By making them adopt political, economic, social and educational reforms, America will damage their popularity among ordinary Arabs. Reformers will be silenced for fear of being branded as mouthpiece for the United States. As for improving its image in the Arab street, America would need far more than a public relations campaign: it would need to change its policies.

US President George W. Bush and a large number of American columnists and commentators tried to ascribe the hatred demonstrated by Arabs and Muslims towards the United States to the fact that America is free, rich, democratic and strong. In other words, they tried to portray the poor and backward Arabs as being jealous of America's superiority and success.

American policies in the Middle East have had nothing to do with it. Arabs, they would say, hate Americans because of what they are, not because of what they do.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact that America is rich and democratic is cause for Arab admiration, not hatred. In fact, Arabs love America; they respect America's free society and admire America's economic and cultural achievements. What Arabs hate, however, is America's policy towards Palestine and Iraq.

America is totally biased in favour of Israel despite its occupation of Arab lands, despite the crimes against humanity committed on a daily basis by the Israeli army, and despite Israel's reneging on UN resolutions concerning expulsions, settlements, house demolitions and annexation.

America has been incessantly and deliberately blockading the Iraqi people, depriving them of the basic requirements for a dignified existence. Iraqi universities, hospitals and infrastructure, once the pride of the Middle East, have been all but destroyed. And as if that were not enough, the US is preparing for a new war that threatens to return the country to the Stone Age, besides piling even more humiliation upon the Arab nation.

Moreover, America has been occupying the Arabian Peninsula for the last 12 years. Occupation is by nature reprehensible and foreign bases are unacceptable, especially if their presence is aimed at the peoples and interests of the occupied people.

Before 1990, there was no US military presence in the Gulf states. After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, however, Gulf states allowed the Americans to mass troops on their territories. At the time, it was thought that this American presence would be temporary. But they stayed, and turned into forces of occupation. Their mission was (and still is) to control Arab oil.

At the present time, the US has 10,000 troops, 50 aircraft, and 64 Patriot missile batteries deployed in Saudi Arabia. There are 12,000 troops, 522 tanks, 127 aircraft, and 64 missile batteries in Kuwait. In Qatar, there are 3,000 troops, 175 tanks, five reconnaissance aircraft and 7,700 landmines. In the UAE, there are 500 troops. Some 3,000 American troops, six helicopters and a number of aircraft are stationed in Oman, while Bahrain hosts 1,200 troops.

Is it wrong, therefore, to say that the US is occupying the Arabian Peninsula?

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Unilateralism is a recipe for multiple disasters

The Daily Star, 1/20/03

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Only rarely do the meanderings of Middle Eastern politics provide a unifying theme, but the weekend just passed has done precisely that. From America and Israel to Iraq and Egypt, a series of events combined to illustrate the danger of unilateralism. In short, they showed that when governments refuse to either acknowledge the concerns of their foes or heed the advice of their allies, the result can only be misery for all concerned.
In the world’s most powerful capital, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered to oppose George W. Bush’s head-long rush toward war in Iraq. Like-minded people did the same in countries around the globe, most of them driven by a genuine aversion to unnecessary bloodshed. In some Arab cities like Cairo, however, protesters missed the point entirely, using the occasion to glorify Saddam Hussein and so undermine attempts to separate opposition to war from support for an undeserving regime.
In occupied Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was undeterred in his ambition to have the region’s disputes “settled” by acquiescence in hegemony for his country and its American sponsor. Dismissing the “road map” to peace drawn up by the international “Quartet,” Sharon insisted that “the US and Israeli visions are the only practical interpretations.”
In Baghdad, even as the United Nations’ top two weapons inspectors warned the Iraqi government that it was running out of time, Saddam showed no sign of abandoning the counterproductive rhetoric that has gotten him and his people into so much trouble for a generation.
What all of these events have in common is the distillation of a depressing realization: Almost no one is ready to work together to resolve the crises affecting the region. Even when they say the right words, they fail to follow up with the requisite actions. Last March’s summit in Beirut, for instance, produced the Arab Peace Initiative, an ambitious document whose unanimous backing has been wasted by diplomatic paralysis. The Quartet is a powerful grouping ostensibly formed to let the ample voices of its members ­ the United States, Russia, the United Nations, and the European Union ­ speak in concert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; but its leading member has sought to impose its own approach and done nothing to keep the Jewish state from sabotaging the peace process.
Those who truly want to avoid further turbulence in the Middle East have to stop seeing themselves as Americans, Iraqis, Palestinians and Israelis; we can no longer afford to define ourselves ­ or our interlocutors ­ as Christians, Muslims and Jews. Instead, people on all sides of these increasingly dangerous issues have to start recognizing their natural partners in the other camps. What is required is a new alliance of those who prefer trust to suspicion, cooperation to conflagration, and negotiation to annihilation. Those who thrive on divisiveness have no right to plunge the rest of us into war, but that is exactly what they will do unless reasonable people resolve to stop them. To accomplish this, those who want peace will have to believe in their cause ­ and in each other ­ as much as the warmongers believe in theirs.

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Bush’s war cry is pro-Israel, pro-oil and anti-world

By Saad Mehio

The Daily Star, 1/20/03

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“The status of Israel is highly relevant to the US treatment of Iraq. In one interpretation the United States provoked the 1990 crisis and launched the 1991 Gulf War to prevent a destabilizing Israeli attack on Iraq’s expanding military capacity.”
Does this conclusion sound unbelievable?
Perhaps, but it was made by respected British author Geoff Simons in his recently published book, Targeting Iraq: Sanctions and bombing in US Policy, as a theory worth debating.
“Is the war that the Bush team is preparing to launch in Iraq really a war for oil? My short answer is yes. Any war we launch in Iraq will certainly be in part about oil. To deny that is laughable.”
Another unbelievable conclusion?
Maybe. But none other than the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman made it as an incontrovertible fact.
But if oil is at least part of the reason for the war being planned on Iraq, what other reasons are there?
Israel, naturally.
Simons and Friedman have thus settled the issue. The imminent war on Iraq has two reasons and two reasons only: oil and Israel, in whichever order you prefer. As for US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s initiative to promote democracy and establish an American-Middle Eastern partnership, it seems that it is destined for the State Department archives, together with President George W. Bush’s perorations on “good” and “evil.”
If Simons’ and Friedman’s analyses prove to be correct (and there is no reason to believe their being otherwise, since both are privy to reliable information), then we can deduce that the events of Sept. 11 did nothing to change American policy in the Middle East.
Before the attacks on New York and Washington, and for half a century at least, US policy revolved in a fixed orbit around Israel and oil. The US was expected to learn lessons from Sept. 11, that it would rethink its policy that sees the Middle East merely as a gas station looked at through Israeli-tinted glasses.
But what happened was exactly the opposite of what was expected. Instead of the Americans restoring a measure of balance to their policies (by ceasing to consider the region as land without people, and oil without land, for example), they became even more imbalanced. Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon thus became a “man of peace,” and Israel’s extremist Likud Party became the foremost ally of American civilization. The occupied Palestinian territories, meanwhile, turned into “the so-called Occupied Territories,” according to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
American Jewish writer David Glick described the present situation as “Middle East Madness.” In the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), Glick wrote: “The US claim to be an honest broker is deceitful. The $5 billion Washington gives Israel each year is used to perpetuate the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. That money goes to purchase American F-16 fighter jets and attack helicopters which Israel is using against a civilian population resisting the occupation of its land.”
Rachelle Marshall, another American Jewish writer, said in WRMEA: “There is no doubt that if Bush rushes to a war against Iraq while continuing to ignore the plight of the Palestinians, the United States could find itself alone, with Israel as its only ally. This would be a dangerous position, even for a superpower, in an increasingly interdependent world.”
So much for Israel. But what about oil?
Here, the picture takes on an even more bizarre aspect. Listening to America’s shrill war cries about oil, one would think that:
l Either the oil of the Middle East has fallen into the hands of hostile powers intent on destroying Western civilization by cutting off its energy lifeline;
l Or that the evil Arabs have imposed a new oil embargo with the aim of bringing the West to its knees;
l Or that OPEC has decided to wage a price war, threatening Western economies and causing them to go into recession.
Yet these suppositions are nothing more than just that: suppositions with no basis in fact. The fact of the matter is that most oil producers have been indebted to Washington since the United States replaced Britain as the guardian of the West’s oil supplies after World War II and the 1956 Suez Crisis.
Moreover, the Arabs unilaterally (and most stupidly) abandoned the concept of using oil as a weapon in their relations with the United States and the West almost 30 years ago.
As for prices and production levels, OPEC has recently been behaving as if it represents oil consumers rather than producers. Even now, the cartel is moving swiftly to compensate for the anticipated shortfall in Iraqi and Venezuelan supplies to keep the price below the $30 ceiling.
Supplies of oil are therefore guaranteed. This even applies to Iraqi oil, which is being run by the United Nations (which in turn is controlled by the United States).
If this is the case, why then is a war about to be fought over oil?
According to Friedman, the danger is that Saddam Hussein might come to dominate the oil fields. But this is an old excuse. It might have been relevant 12 years ago, when the Iraqi president had his hands on the oil fields of Kuwait. Now, though, he barely controls Baghdad and its outlying suburbs, making Friedman’s assertions as laughable as saying that America’s war on Iraq bears no relation whatsoever to oil.
The Americans have another excuse for going to war: eradicating the roots of terrorism by striking at the terrorists and the “axis of evil” that supports them.
This sounds more convincing than the previous two arguments. But who says that war is the best way to eliminate terrorism? Not even the United States itself seems to believe this is the case; otherwise it would not have proposed initiatives to promote democracy and liberty in the Arab world.
There is no escaping the conclusion that the Bush administration wants to wage war on Iraq for a number of reasons, all revolving around the central themes of Israel and oil:
1. To exercise a firm grip on the production, marketing, and pricing of Middle Eastern oil, as part of the administration’s strategy to clutch the Eurasian continent by the throat.
2. To justify the administration’s massive defense budget and keep the wheels of the American military-industrial complex turning through continuous war.
3. Rearranging the map of the Middle East in order to integrate it with Israel ­ instead of the other way round.
Can this policy guarantee stability for the Pax Americana in this most volatile of regions? Certainly not.
What will happen is the exact opposite. New Arab and Muslim rejectionist movements are sure to appear that put independence before democracy, and seek to turn the entire Middle East into an anti-imperialist camp.
In other words, the peoples of the Middle East might soon prove that they are the “barbarians” who will breach the walls of American civilization ­ egged on by the many world powers envious of America.
This will be the inevitable outcome if the giant American bird continues to soar with its wings wet with oil and stained by Likud racism.

Saad Mehio is a Lebanese journalist and writer.

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A war that cannot be won

By Abdulhadi Khalaf 

The Daily Star, 1/20/03

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Sooner or later the United States, the mightiest power on earth, will undoubtedly defeat Al-Qaeda. It’s only a matter of time before it captures Osama bin Laden, dead or alive, and ­ though some Al-Qaeda cells may survive ­ adds the network to the long list of vanquished groups that over the course of history sought to challenge empires. No one seriously disputes Washington’s capacity to deal with any number of other terrorist groups either. But it remains highly doubtful that America can win its “war on terror.”
This forecast is not based on the CIA’s exaggerated estimate that Al-Qaeda can “draw on the support of some six to seven million radical Muslims” in different parts of the world, of whom supposedly “some 120,000 would be willing to resort to armed struggle.” These are the perceptions of a deeply wounded, paranoid and racist institution.
The “war on terror” is being waged in full gear without clearly defining either “the enemy” or the parameters of victory. The list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) issued by the US State Department defines these as “groups that either engage in or have the capacity or intent to carry out terrorist activity that threatens US nationals or US national security, including efforts to disrupt national defense, foreign relations, or US economic interests.”
These are sweeping yet ambiguous criteria that make everyone a potential enemy. But this ambiguity is not semantic or accidental. It is intentional and thoroughly political.
After Sept. 11, discussion of the term “terrorism” became even more confused and selective. Political correctness dominated debate on the event, its preludes and ramifications.
Official definitions of terrorism refer to the use of violence to achieve political goals. But neither that, nor the targeting of civilians, is the preserve of the bad guys or the terrorist groups. Just consider the actions of American or Israeli soldiers ­ whether the “collateral damage” of US bombing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia and Kosovo, or the Israeli terror campaign “in self-defense” against the Palestinians and their towns, villages and refugee camps.
Compounding the ambiguity are the innumerable cases in which yesterday’s worst terrorists have become today’s heroes. This metamorphosis is not confined to narratives of anti-colonial struggle and liberation. Changing political trends, self-interests and geopolitical conditions have frequently transformed terrorists into freedom fighters and vice versa. The Taleban and the Arab volunteers in Afghanistan, including Sheikh Osama himself, are a recent example. Their gradual but steady change of fortunes throughout the 1990s reflects how geopolitical considerations turned them from de facto allies of the US into its sworn enemies ­ or from Ronald Reagan’s freedom fighters into George W. Bush’s terrorists.
While Al-Qaeda cannot survive this determined worldwide onslaught, its demise will not put an end to global protest movements, to which bin Laden and Al-Qaeda are a nuisance and aberration.
The transnational protest movements that are growing in the shadow of globalization include an array of progressive as well as regressive groups and networks. All seek to move beyond the confines of the nation-state system and pursue their agendas in emerging globalized political spaces. Within these spaces, one finds the many nonstate actors ­ social movements, organizations and networks ­ claiming to represent the aspirations of transnational communities.
The increasing irrelevance of state boundaries gives them unprecedented opportunities to enhance their mobility, logistics and communications. It also makes it difficult for their adversaries to retaliate except randomly.
Although globalization offers these non-state actors opportunities to go beyond religion and ethnicity, transnational religious and ethnic communities remain their most receptive grounds. As they seek to lead struggles against marginalization, exploitation and obliteration of identity, the new spaces opened through globalization provide them with new ways of engaging in acts of resistance.
Thus in a world dominated economically, politically and culturally by a single superpower, nonstate actors can paradoxically increase their ability to hit back. Regardless of how horrific the actions of some of these groups may be, most will continue to see themselves as aggrieved, betrayed, or subjugated by a superior powerful adversary. There may be echoes of Samson in some forms of resistance that appear to outside observers as futile and unviable. But as many anthropological studies of peasant forms of resistance demonstrate, even seemingly meaningless and self-destructive acts can follow rational calculations. At times, terror itself becomes the message, signaling both the perpetrator’s weakness and their intention to resist. Terror may have other motives too.
Unlike the weak and humiliated villagers described by our anthropologist colleagues, the weak and humiliated in the global village may not confine their acts of resistance to symbolic gestures. The perpetrators of the Sept. 11 horrors were not motivated by poverty, but by a sense of humiliation, betrayal and rage, which they turned to devastating effect on the country they felt had humiliated and betrayed them. In their rhetoric, the US had not only “robbed” them of their victory in Afghanistan but also begun to occupy their lands elsewhere. This is not to suggest for a moment that they are Spartacuses or Robin Hoods of our age. But even those legendary figures were, in another narrative, nothing more than desperate terrorists.
One can only speculate on what really motivates the weak to challenge the mighty when the experience of generations testifies to the futility of such challenges. Throughout our human history, numerous individuals, groups and organizations have waged direct or indirect confrontations with superior adversaries, whether through sabotage, arson, deception, murder or lesser acts. All have perceived themselves as aggrieved, and been moved by a sense of injury and humiliation and/or exacting justice so great and overwhelming as to justify sacrificing their own lives and those of others. The objectives of most range from redressing past wrongs to exacting retribution or vengeance. But none of them, I would contend, would have seriously contemplated that terror actions by themselves could have led to them overpowering their adversaries.
In coming up with possible scenarios for future terrorist attacks, the authorities in the US are said to have enlisted the help of some of Hollywood’s top action screenwriters and directors. They, of course, can write scripts that surprise us all ­ even surpassing the shocking images of New York’s skyline on Sept. 11. They may even dream one up that makes America emerge triumphant from its “war on terror.”

Abdulhadi Khalaf is a Bahraini academic who teaches Sociology of Development at the University of Lund, Sweden.

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Why hasn’t Washington tapped its oil reserves?

By Samira Dawani

The Daily Star, 1/20/03

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At first glance, the reluctance of US President George W. Bush’s administration to heed the plea by some US oil companies to release oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is puzzling. The SPR was created and is maintained to provide stocks that can be released to cushion a sudden disruption to crude oil supplies that could be caused by war or other circumstances.
In the summer of 2000, when the price of US benchmark crude West Texas Intermediate soared to around $37 per barrel, then President Bill Clinton authorized the release of 30 million barrels of crude oil from the SPR on a time exchange basis. High prices at the time were not caused by a supply disruption, let alone a sudden or unexpected one, and the move was merely aimed at placating disgruntled consumers.
But the supply shortfalls in the US this time around are caused by a sudden and unexpected supply disruption ­ the Venezuelan oil strike. Yet the US administration maintained its silence as prices steadily rose over the six-week period since the start of the strike, falling back slightly only after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries made clear its intention to boost output by up to 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) from the beginning of February to alleviate the effects of the strike. Under OPEC’s price band mechanism, a move to increase output is called for when the price of the OPEC basket of seven crudes persists above $28 per barrel for 20 consecutive trading days.
It was not until late last week that America publicly urged OPEC to up production, describing its proposed increase as a “positive development.” Why, then, is the Bush administration holding back from releasing oil from the SPR, allowing prices to rise, when it could immediately plug the shortage and bring down prices by releasing crude? Why is it relying on long-haul OPEC crude that will take up to 45 days to arrive in the US?
One reason is that the current oil price spike is only partially due to the Venezuelan strike, which has paralyzed Venezuela’s oil sector since early December. Nor is the rise in oil prices due to supply restrictions by OPEC, whose 10 participating members excluding Iraq exceeded their collective output target by almost 3 million bpd in November.
Venezuela’s output gradually dropped in December from almost 3 million bpd during the previous few months to no more than 1 million bpd, and was expected to be far lower in January. But OPEC’s other nine participating members (excluding Iraq) have continued to overproduce at even higher levels than in November. Those of them with enough spare capacity are likely to further boost production this month to compensate for the shortfall in Venezuelan production.
The current spike in prices is also due to the uncertainty arising from fears of disruptions to supplies from the Gulf in the event of a US-led war on Iraq.
The true reason for US reluctance to make an issue of high prices or to tap the SPR is that Washington can be in no doubt that its preparations for war on Iraq ­ irrespective of what the UN weapons inspectors may or may not find ­ are fueling justified fears in the market of serious disruption to Gulf exports and even to production itself if popular disturbances in Gulf countries occur as a reaction to war. Another possibility is that the Iraqi leadership could decide to attack oil facilities in Iraq or in neighboring countries it considers to be in collusion with Washington.
The likelihood is that the Bush administration does not want to start drawing on the SPR ahead of war, so that it can do so for as long as possible once it attacks Iraq and prices rise further. The administration’s refusal to allow the SPR to be tapped is a tacit admission that there could be worse to come if the Venezuelan strike drags on and its effects are compounded by supply disruptions from the Middle East caused by war on Iraq.
US reluctance to react to the Venez-uelan oil strike as an emergency necessitating the release of SPR oil has political undertones. The Venezuelan opposition, which is trying to overthrow a regime that Washington has little love for, is an outgrowth of US policies to Latin American states it considers unfriendly. That is not to say that Washington directly intervened against President Hugo Chavez as it did during the failed April coup. The strike that has paralyzed Venezuela’s oil industry took the US by surprise.
America may be less vulnerable than other net importers to the effects of a combined Venezuelan oil strike and possible disruptions to oil supplies from the Middle East in the event of war, because it can draw on its SPR, which has a maximum capacity of 700 million barrels and is over two-thirds full.
The US reaction to the current oil price spike must be seen in the wider context of the anti-Iraq paranoia coloring the thinking of the Bush administration. Some of the latter’s more right-wing elements are depicting war on Iraq as though it were some sort of video game, totally obscuring vital life and death issues such as the danger that Iraq might fragment in the event of war, or that Israel might take advantage of such a war to force a “final solution” to the Palestine question or that the Islamic world could be pushed into a war of civilizations with the West. In such a context, it is no exaggeration to say that Washington is mindlessly overlooking the possibility of a huge oil crisis that would not merely affect the US, but all other net oil-importing countries as well.
Some might argue that Washington’s inaction regarding the current price spike springs from its wish to prove that it is ready and able to take all the possible consequences of a war on Iraq. That argument brings to mind the recent statement by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the US is capable of waging two wars simultaneously (against Iraq and North Korea) while continuing its “war on terror.”
For its part, OPEC finds itself in a conundrum. Its long-haul oil exports cannot easily and quickly substitute short-haul Venezuelan crude supplies to the US. Any additional OPEC output specifically produced to replace Venezuelan oil could coincide with increased Venezuelan output once the strike ends. Moreover, the global market remains well supplied, despite the Venezuelan strike, and demand growth projections are low. OPEC’s pledge to increase supplies to counter the effects of the Venezuelan strike if prices remain at current levels till mid-January means that OPEC runs the risk of creating a glut just as seasonal global demand drops in the second quarter, particularly if war on Iraq is averted. This could lead to a huge drop in prices.
Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s most influential producer, exerted much effort to convince OPEC’s other participating members at last month’s meeting to agree a 1.3 million bpd increase in official quotas on the one hand, while pledging to reduce actual output on the other by tightening compliance with quotas. This was aimed at preserving OPEC’s credibility and preventing a price collapse. The decision also helped Saudi Arabia to enhance its credentials as a moderate producer, keen to keep the market well supplied at prices suitable to producers and consumers. Projecting such an image is important to the kingdom at a time when it is the subject of US media attacks, some of which are not unconnected with influential circles in Washington.
No sooner had the latest OPEC decision been announced than analysts were predicting that OPEC would not do much to reduce actual output by clamping down on cheating, because cheating seemed to push down prices when political developments occurred that markets interpreted to mean war on Iraq was further postponed or less likely to break out. That scenario would have been clearly discernible had it not been for the Venezuelan oil strike, which removed the bulk of Venezuela’s 2.5 million bpd exports from the market. This was mainly responsible for reducing the overproduction of OPEC’s 10 participating members above their collective OPEC output target from over 2.5 million bpd in November to around 1 million bpd in December, with rampant cheating by Venezuela’s other nine participating fellow OPEC members partially offsetting the drastic drop in Venezuela’s output.
The effects of the Venezuelan oil strike may well be felt over the next few months, even if it ends soon. But the strike is unlikely to end quickly unless America exerts pressure in that direction or takes decisive action to hasten Chavez’s fall. Action of either sort would indicate that Washington is feeling the negative economic effects of the Venezuelan strike and that the date for a planned war on Iraq is drawing near.
It is premature to predict the outcome of the Venezuelan crisis. There are indications that the opposition is tending toward violence in hopes of provoking the army into staging a coup before Chavez succeeds in breaking the strike or neutralizing its effects, which would deprive the opposition of its most powerful pressure tactic. In the meantime, Washington is counting on continued OPEC cheating and on official OPEC output increases under the organization’s price band mechanism. It is also betting that non-OPEC producers will be tempted by higher prices into bringing more oil on stream. But that remains a longer-term hope, because non-OPEC producers produce to capacity, and lack additional shut-in barrels that would allow them to make up for any shortages resulting from disruption to Gulf supplies.

Samira Dawani is a London-based economic journalist.

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Whirl of regional diplomacy in search for Iraqi solution

An Arab press review, By The Daily Star, 1/20/03

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A frenzy of diplomatic activity to avert a US war on Iraq has gripped the Middle East, with the Arab press hardly able to keep up with the comings and goings of regional players.
The flurry of diplomatic travels precedes a Syrian-proposed meeting in Damascus this week of the foreign ministers of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey ahead of a conference of their heads of state planned by Turkey. The avowed objective of both gatherings is to find a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis.
At the same time, hundreds of thousands of protesters poured onto streets across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia over the weekend to urge George W. Bush’s administration to back off on its plans to wage war on Iraq as Hans Blix, the chief UN arms inspector, and Mohammed al-Baradei, head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, flew to Baghdad for two days of talks essential to the report on Iraqi compliance with disarmament demands they are to present to the UN Security Council on Jan. 27.
Tishrin, an official Syrian daily, writes in its leader that Damascus, in the context of its “relentless endeavors to avert American aggression on Iraq and spare the region a disaster looking,” has engaged Iraq’s neighbors in a new round of “consultative diplomacy,” the objective of which is to pave the way for their concerted action to prevent war through a ministerial meeting which would serve as a prelude to a regional summit, possibly in Istanbul.
“This Syrian move,” it says, “runs parallel” to another persistent anti-war effort being exerted at the Arab and international levels. And “everyone agrees that the purpose is not to strong-arm the United States of America, which ­ as the world’s greatest power ­ cannot be strong-armed into anything.” The purpose is to give diplomacy a chance to find ways to spare innocent lives.
“What Syria and the Arabs, including Iraq, want,” says Tishrin, “is to keep the situation under the control of the United Nations, which is best-suited to handle it  … independently of America’s egoism, fanaticism and economic interests that are pushing for war irrespective of its repercussions on states in the region and elsewhere in the world and regardless of the number of casualties in Iraq, which has been suffering the calamitous consequences of an American embargo that has been in place for the past 12 years.
“Whoever has been following events in the region,” the paper says, “can easily notice that the United States is working on several fronts to close the door on any peaceful solution, as ordered in UN Security Council Resolution 1441, which specified that the Iraq crisis should be dealt with through UN arms inspectors who would brief the Security Council on their findings.
“The US administration, by pouring unprecedented military reinforcements” into the region, “is not only obstructing peaceful solutions but destroying them altogether in favor of military action, which has become the obsession of both the White House and the Pentagon ­ not to mention the State Department, which has buried the language of diplomacy and chosen to stand to the right of the military.
“Someone from outside the region could have justified this US military buildup of warships, aircraft carriers, jet fighters, bombers, tanks, armor and 150,000 soldiers if Iraq truly posed a threat to America or if it stockpiled doomsday weapons and did not cooperate with the arms inspections,” Tishrin adds. “But the opposite is true. Iraq, which has been under a military and economic siege for many years, is not in a position to threaten anyone and is seriously committed to implement UN resolutions and cooperate with UN arms inspectors, allowing them unfettered access to all sites, including presidential palaces and citizens’ homes.”
So why the US military buildup? “There is no explanation other than aggressive intent, a greediness to take control of Iraq’s oil resources and a desire to facilitate Israel’s continued hold on occupied Arab lands.”
In Qatar, Al-Sharq says in its leader that it is “unable to understand the ambiguous Arab reactions to Turkey’s invitation for a regional summit to discuss the war cries engulfing Iraq and the region. We cannot possibly grasp or believe that prior engagements could prevent Arab leaders from attending such a proposed summit.”
The daily assumes the dangerous fallout of war facing the region will ultimately push Arab leaders “to build on the anti-war protests” sweeping Arab and world capitals, including Washington, and to defend Arab interests by warding off an American war on Iraq.
Mohammed Noureddine, writing for Al-Sharq, says a regional summit on Iraq ­ “if it is held this week or next” ­ will constitute “a triumph for Turkey only. That’s because such a summit cannot produce operative resolutions. Its ultimate ambition would be to hammer out an appeal to Baghdad to cooperate fully with the UN and another to Washington to give peace the longest chance possible.”
The burden of being the fulcrum on which the decision turns regarding whether or not the US will get what amounts to UN authorization to wage war on Iraq falls squarely on the shoulders of one man, Hans Blix, says Palestinian analyst Bilal al-Hassan in Saudi Arabia’s leading pan-Arab daily, Asharq al-Awsat.
Hassan says he sees worrying signs that the weapons inspectors in Iraq have begun to resort to behavior consistent with the US position. He expresses the hope that Blix ­ a former Swedish foreign minister, a former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a holder of a doctoral degree in law ­ will not fall into the US trap, and will stick to the tradition of credibility and objectivity that former Swedish diplomats involved in a string of diplomatic missions in the Middle East have established ­ starting with UN envoy Count Folke Bernadotte and ending with Gunnar Jarring.
Blix is under immense pressure from the US administration to compromise his integrity and allow his mission and his team of inspectors to be manipulated into providing “evidence” that Iraq has breached Resolution 1441, giving the US a UN-approved pretext for attacking Iraq, Hassan writes. “Never before has one man carried the responsibility for war and peace” as Blix does, and he doubtless feels the burden of that responsibility.
Blix is caught in an increasingly contradictory situation. On the one hand, he wants to retain his longstanding professional and personal integrity by carrying out his mission objectively. On the other, he is under mounting pressure to act in a way that “satisfies the US monster at the White House.”
In effect he has been given two missions, not one. The first is clear, and entails carrying out inspections to determine whether or not Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. The second is an “impossible mission,” and involves adopting a US goal and US format for carrying out the inspections. The latter already presumes Iraq’s “guilt” and regards the inspections as nothing more than a tool to be used to prove that guilt, Hassan writes.
Washington says it has “incontrovertible proof” that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Yet it refuses to give the evidence to the inspectors. Instead, the US administration has put the onus on the UN inspectors to find those weapons themselves. As they fail to find any, the Bush administration shifts the onus onto Iraq, demanding that it declare those weapons and lead the UN inspectors to them, failing which Baghdad will be considered in “material breach” of Resolution 1441, which would trigger a UN-authorized war against it. Washington wants the inspectors to sign off on such a no-win scenario for Iraq.
Caught between the “clear” mission the UN has given him and the “impossible” one being forced down his throat by Washington, Blix is trying to conduct his mission scientifically and objectively while also trying to please the US administration, and is thus “projecting a confused and anxious image of himself,” according to Hassan. Blix’s efforts to please Washington produced statements in Paris and London as he was en route to Baghdad that “do not advance his mission.”
Hassan writes that when Blix accepted the post as head of the UN Monitoring and Verification Committee in Iraq in 2000, he was at pains to distance himself from the behavior of his predecessor Richard Butler, who left the post with accusations hanging over his head “of colluding with US and Israeli intelligence.” Blix even went so far as to provide members of his team with training to make them culturally sensitive to the Iraqi mentality so that they would avoid provocative and humiliating conduct.
Yet several recent incidents in which the inspectors were involved amounted to deliberate provocation and humiliation.
For instance, the inspectors: Confined the head of the Iraqi team liaising with them, General Hussam Mohammed Ameen, and Iraq’s UN representative to a room and prevented them from leaving it; “stormed” the home of Iraqi scientist Shaker al-Jabouri and searched his private papers; paid a surprise visit to a presidential palace and prevented Iraqi Parliament Speaker Saadoun Hammadi from moving freely.
“Such conduct has nothing to do with a search for weapons of mass destruction and symbolizes provocation and humiliation,” Hassan says. It is Blix’s right to be skeptical and to investigate. “But he has no right whatsoever to tell the other side: You are under suspicion and must provide evidence of your innocence.”
Despite creeping disillusionment with Blix, he ends on a tentatively optimistic note: “Everyone hopes Blix will be able to continue upholding the good reputation enjoyed by the diplomacy of his country.”
Analyst Iyad Abu-Shakra, also writing for Asharq al-Awsat, has no illusions that the UN inspectors or Arab diplomatic efforts can prevent a US-led war on Iraq. In a pessimistic commentary entitled “The US invasion is coming and Americans don’t know why,” Abu-Shakra sees a US war as the opening chapter in an American blueprint to “bring down regimes, change maps and wage a war of civilizations.” Washington is using the UN and manipulating it to serve its own interests and to buy time as it completes the military buildup necessary to invade Iraq.
Reactions to this in the Arab world are coming from three separate camps. The first hopes to use “moderation” to deprive Washington of any excuse to wage war. But Abu-Shakra holds out no hope that such attempts will work because “only moderates understand the value of moderation on the other side.”
The second Arab reaction is spearheaded by some Iraqi opposition members in exile, who have “totally surrendered” to Washington on grounds that their first priority is to topple Saddam Hussein, irrespective of the means, and that “they will beg for whatever is possible” from the US, which will be Iraq’s “actual ruler.” And in their attempts to become acceptable to the US, Israel, Turkey and Iran, they are putting forth an agenda that calls for negating Iraq’s Arab identity and culture, using Saddam’s repression of the Kurds and the Shiites as a pretext.
A third group of Arabs appears to be opposing “surrender” but are actually working toward it by adopting unrealistic, uncompromising public rhetoric without taking any practical steps to stop a war.
Abu-Shakra concludes that “the US administration, egged on by Israeli inducement and instigation and sustained by Britain’s ‘international’ cover, is pressing ahead with its plan.” Only a change inside the US proper would be enough to stop the country from “hurtling toward invasion.” But the fact that the vast majority of the American public is overwhelmingly misled by the US media and is ignorant about the rest of the world, that only 8 percent of Americans have passports and only 20 percent of them know where Iraq is on a map, all mean that “such a change will not occur.”

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Dangerous arrogance: Sharon and the world
Gulf News, 20-01-2003
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Ariel Sharon has displayed total disregard for international opinion. Rubbishing the plan for peace put forward by a "quartet" comprising the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia, the Israeli prime minister has dismissed this team of senior diplomats as being "nothing," not to be taken seriously.

   His arrogance continues to take his country deeper into the morass of confrontation and fear. The Israeli leader, who reignited the Intifada immediately on being voted into office, promises the Israeli electorate more of the same. His statements, ahead of general elections scheduled for January 28, are designed to keep alive the siege mentality that drives the Jewish state's decision makers. Sharon's uncompromising hatred for the Palestinians contrasts sharply with his main rival, Amram Mitzna, who advocates immediate talks or separation with the people Israel subjugates and a rolling back of colonies built on Arab territory.

   Sharon rejects the concept of a Palestinian state saying he would rather prefer to see Palestinians hemmed in by the Israeli military in what would essentially turn out to be a huge concentration camp. His other requirements of the Palestinians, which include the removal of its leadership and the installation of a "prime minister", reflect the thinking of a man who knows and understands little other than the language of violence. For violence is going to be the only product that his words will spawn on both sides of the Middle East divide.

   The killings of innocent Palestinians meanwhile continue. In the face of such belligerence that only begets retaliatory action, the world stands by apathetically, overlooking the fact that its silence is taken as approval by the Zionist leadership. It is necessary that Sharon's arrogance is recognised for what it is - a danger to all it is directed at.

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The Democrats push for power and Iraq
By Dr. James J. Zogby  | Gulf News, 20-01-2003
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It is January, 2003 and, as expected, the 2004 contest to select a Democratic candidate to challenge President George W. Bush has already begun. Despite two prominent dropouts, former Vice President Al Gore and Senator Tom Daschle, the field of Democratic aspirants is large and growing.

Gore's decision not to run came at the end of a national media tour designed to promote his new book, Joined at the Heart: the Transformation of the American Family. The book did not sell well, but Gore's reemergence in public life was well received. And so his decision not to run left his supporters disappointed.

Many still strongly believe that Gore had been unfairly denied the Presidency in 2000 by a partisan Supreme Court decision. They were hoping for a 2004 rematch.

Gore, however, sensed that such a rematch was not a winning proposition. The press, he believed, would see this as a replay of 2000 and would dredge up all of the old themes of the last election – especially Gore's "personality" issues and the scandals of the Clinton White House.

The other leading Democrat who announced that he will not run is the party's leader in the U.S. Senate. With Gore and Daschle out, the doors have opened wide to other candidates. To date, five have already announced their candidacy, with at least five others considering a possible 2004 run for the White House.

This week's latest entry is Senator Joseph Lieberman, a conservative Democrat who in 2000 ran as Gore's Vice-Presidential running mate. Lieberman joins a field of announced candidates that includes: Congressman Richard Gephardt, former Minority Leader of the House of Representatives; Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts; Senator John Edwards of North Carolina; and Governor Howard Dean from the state of Vermont.

Not yet formally declared, but widely reported to be considering a run for the Democratic nomination are: Senator Robert Graham of Florida; Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware; former Nato Commander General Wesley Clark; civil rights leader Al Sharpton; and former Senator Gary Hart, who also ran for the nomination in 1984 and 1988.

At this point, without Gore, the race is wide open. No one candidate stands out in the crowded field. A recent poll, for example, showed Lieberman, Kerry, Edwards and Gephardt all with support between 19 per cent and 13 per cent. Dean and the other unannounced candidates all receive single digit support.

The challenge for most of these presidential aspirants will be to define their "uniqueness" early in the race. With the exception of Dean, Sharpton and Clark, the rest of the group have had good, but not outstanding records in the Congress. Most of the group supported President Bush's war on terror and his threatened war on Iraq.

'Centrists'

Lieberman and Gephardt even broke ranks with their colleagues to co-sponsor with Republicans the President's "war resolution". Additionally, most of this field claims to be "centrists" on economic policy.

The major exception to the profile, of course, is the Reverend Al Sharpton. He is anti-war and a harsh critic of the Administration's economic and social policies. The major negative factors in Sharpton's candidacy are controversial actions in his past and the belief of many African Americans that he is seeking to use his candidacy to become the "new Jesse Jackson" – i.e. the major spokesman for African Americans and the arbiter of the African American vote within the Democratic Party.

As a result, a number of African American elected officials are considering the possibility of running in an effort to block Sharpton's rise.

Since no Senator has won the presidency since Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy did 40 and 44 years ago respectively, Howard Dean's supporters consider his tenure as a governor as a positive factor in his candidacy. Like Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter (both Democratic governors) and Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush (all Republican governors), eight of the last nine presidential elections have been won by former governors.

Dean's major drawback, however, seems to be that although he has been running for the nomination for almost one year, he has still not attracted major national attention and has had trouble breaking through against a field of better known Senators.

Clearly the dark horse candidate in the mix is General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of Nato Forces in Europe. A charismatic military leader, Clark is still a political unknown. He has been a critic of the Administration's "go it alone" approach to the war on terror and the confrontation with Iraq. While Clark has been quietly sounding out potential fundraisers and campaign supporters, his views on most other issues are still not widely known.

Hart was the charismatic young candidate who almost upset Walter Mondale in the Democratic primaries of 1984. Though he was favoured to win the nomination in 1988, Hart was forced to withdraw from the race after being caught in a sex scandal. He has been out of electoral politics since that time.

He has maintained his viability and visibility, however, heading a number of influential panels that have analysed and made recommendations on national security issues.

Lieberman's tilt

At this point, Americans concerned by the failure of the Bush Administration to provide balanced leadership in pursuing Middle East peace, will not hear their criticisms echoed by any of these candidates with the exception of Sharpton, and to a degree of Kerry and Clark. But this may change.

Lieberman, for example, who is one of Israel's strongest supporters in the Congress, did anger some hard line pro-Israel activists by his recent balanced comments made during his last Middle East visit. He backtracked somewhat in a more recent appearance before the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.

Edwards, Gephardt and Dean appeared to support hard-line pro-Israeli positions after their latest Middle East visits. But the situation remains volatile and the Administration is vulnerable to criticism should one candidate decide to distinguish himself from the group by raising it.

In addition to defining their differences from the rest of the field, there are two other significant challenges facing this growing group of Democratic candidates.

One will be raising the necessary funds and attracting a strong campaign staff. With such a large group running, the competition will be intense, making this the "first primary."

To run an effective campaign it is estimated that a candidate must raise at least $12 million by December—or one million dollars per month—a difficult challenge even without the competitors.

The second test will be the ability to lay out an agenda of winning ideas that accomplish three objections: captivate public attention; galvanise the diverse constituencies within the Democratic Party; and provide a platform that can successfully challenge President Bush.

At present, Bush's policy numbers indicate an interesting trend. His job performance rating is dropping, especially in areas like the economy, health care, the federal budget and foreign affairs.

Additionally, only one-third of all voters now say that they will definitely vote for Bush in 2004. Another one-third say that they will definitely vote for someone else, while another one-third say that they remain undecided.

To win, therefore, Democrats need to advance a candidate who can put forward a clear alternative to the Administration's agenda and a candidate who is liked and trusted and can mobilise not only Democratic supporters but independents and even some moderate Republicans.

It remains to be seen if this can be done, but the picture will become clearer as the current field of candidates begins to give shape to their campaigns.

The writer, president of the Arab American Institute and a Democratic political lobbyist, hosts the weekly radio and television programme A Capital View on the Arab Network of America which is also aired live in the Middle East on MBC. He also writes a weekly column that appears regularly in Gulf News.

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