Jan 9, 2003 Op Eds

Jan 9, 2003 Opinion Editorials http://www.aljazeerah.info

US military battle planners are heading to the Gulf to be in position to carry out an attack on Iraq. World War II was touted as "a war to end all wars". US President George Bush would have very much liked to sell this one as a war to end all weapons of mass destruction (at least for public consumption) but for the spoilsport from North Korea.

Yes, North Korea has done everything which would have unleashed a nuclear holocaust on the long-suffering people of Iraq if their leader was the one who struck a Kim Jong-Il-like defiant note. To the consternation of the "dear leader" of the free world, Kim declared last week that his scientists are working on a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 pact. Worse still, he kicked out UN arms inspectors.

Chancelleries of the world are busy analyzing Kim’s motives. They ask why this bombshell now. The real question should be why not now when the fate of one country hangs on the crucial question of whether it has weapons of mass destruction or not.

We don’t know how the drama which began in Yongbyon, home to North Korea’s main nuclear complex, will play out but the issues raised by North Korean challenge and the UN Resolution 1441 on Iraq are not likely to die down soon.

Even before the Iraqi crisis flared up, there were some justifiable questions about the morality of a few countries led by the US deciding who should and should not have nuclear weapons. And nonnuclear states in Asia and elsewhere note the US is following an entirely different approach to North Korea and Iraq though the alleged crimes are the same. In the case of one, Iraq, the US is prepared to risk a war.

Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, we are told again and again by Americans, is a leader who does not care for human lives, Iraqi or other. He has weapons of mass destruction. Should not a cornered Saddam use all these weapons and implement a scorched-earth policy killing people in thousands and setting fire to oil fields and other properties in Iraq?

That the Washington hawks are not scared of any such possibilities proves that even they don’t believe in the propaganda they have unleashed against Iraq. But other countries, especially those who don’t have nuclear weapons, are going to draw an entirely different conclusion from this.

It is quite possible that after having watched the way the US is confronting North Korea and Iraq, more countries may quietly try to acquire or expand secret arsenals of weapons of mass destruction.

All this means that there can be no meaningful curbs on nuclear proliferation so long as the established nuclear powers maintain their superiority, turn a blind eye when their favorites (Israel in the case of US) amass nuclear weapons and behave like frightened chickens when challenged by a country that has them and makes no secret of them.

The oft-repeated argument is that nuclear weapons can be dangerous in the hands of "rogue states". But to date only one country had used nuclear weapons against its enemies; and that country is not even being called a rogue state.

Sad case of Muslim American charities
By Fawaz Turki, Arab News, 1/9/03

Can you pare down the ten amendments of the Bill of Rights to a manageable, no-nonsense six? Well, not really, but government authorities sure as heck can try that under the table, especially when it comes to dealing with those dreadful "Middle Eastern types" running around the country. For surely you have read about what had happened to those equally dreadful Italian, Irish, Jewish and Japanese types before them early in the last century.

In mid-December, hundreds of visitors and would-be immigrants were arrested by the Immigration and Naturalization Service a day after they showed up in response to a government-mandated registration drive for people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and other Middle Eastern countries who were in the United States on temporary visas. After being photographed, fingerprinted and interviewed, they were taken into custody and charged with overstaying their visas, though many, according to press reports, had nearly completed the process for legal residency. The INS said about 7,500 immigrants from these countries would, in due course, be similarly affected nationwide.

Sure, since Sept. 11, the name of the game has been security, security, security. And you let that slide.

Outside the US, at secret CIA interrogation centers around the world, from Bagram in Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, terrorist suspects are "sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles ... or held in awkward, painful positions and deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights — subject to what are known as ‘stress and duress’ techniques," wrote Dana Priest and Barton Gellman in a front-page report in the Washington Post, Dec. 26.

Those suspects who do not cooperate are turned over ("rendered" in CIA parlance) to foreign intelligence services whose practice of torture has been documented by the US government and human rights organizations.

And sure, you say again, these are difficult times we live in, America is threatened, and though these practices are egregious, they could be, if not justified, at least explained.

And since Sept. 11, hundreds of suspects have been rounded up and held in federal jails around the country without access to lawyers, relatives and even to news media, a policy that is not only short-sighted, but lacks any valid penological objective.

Yes, troubling, but you argue once again that, well, America can’t afford to let its guard down.

But what of the assault on Arab-American Muslims, whose faith requires its adherents to observe zakah, the donation of a portion of their annual income to charity? Should Muslims nationwide be considered supporters of terrorism because they had donated to charities that, after Sept. 11, became designated as conduits to terrorists?

Looks like it.

Since those planes crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, virtually all Muslim charities in the US have been designated as financiers of terrorism, and in some cases their officers arrested and charged, including the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, the largest and most respected Muslim charity in the country, the equivalent of the Christian United Way and the Jewish United Jewish Appeal.

Spokesmen for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a Long Beach, California group that lobbies for Muslim causes, have told the press that among American Muslims, particularly those from the Middle East, there is a feeling that were they to write checks to their favorite charities these days "the government will come after us." Though Muslims in the US are not by any means a homogenous community, coming as they do from different countries and ethnic backgrounds, with different cultures and different languages, they now are beginning to feel a homogeneity that they had not felt before, identifying with one another in no small part because the US government, and in many cases American society in general, are treating them as one.

In effect, by waging the battle for homeland security, the US may be forging a new minority identity.

As Peter Sherry, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, wrote recently in the Washington Post’s Outlook section: "We are pushing these groups together into a political coalition around grievances against the government that will not soon be forgotten. The outcome will almost certainly be a new minority group whose claims against America will be a source of rancor and division long after the current crisis has ceased."

This was evident at the MPAC annual conference in Long Beach during the last weekend of December, which attracted 1,500 attendees, where the defining theme was the need for American Muslims to forge an overarching group consciousness. It appears that whereas, in the past, America’s Muslims had never felt an urgent need to unite, now being subjected to intimidation by law enforcement agencies, from the FBI to the INS, will reinforce that need.

And make no mistake about it, intimidation there has been.

One well-known Muslim American entrepreneur in Florida, Jesse Maali, was arrested recently and his home searched for allegedly donating lavishly to Palestinian and Muslim charities. The prosecutors even brought up the nebulous issue of a letter that Maali had written to an Arab newspaper in London in which it was claimed he had supported suicide bombers.

So what happened to the First Amendment that prohibits government abridging the freedom of speech of citizens? You would think that Maali should be free to write whatever the heck he darn well pleases, wherever he pleases, wouldn’t you? And while we’re at it, what has happened to the Fourth Amendment that affirms "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures"?

As more and more Muslim charities are shut down, with their assets frozen (the Benevolence International Fund being the latest victim) we wonder about all that.

All of us wonder about it — those of us who believe in America, whether we were born, grew up, or came here fresh off the boat.

(disinherited@yahoo.com)

Britain’s ardor for war shows signs of cooling
By Rohan Minogue

Arab News, 1/9/03

LONDON — There are indications that Britain’s strong support for the United States in the Iraq crisis, along with its willingness to commit troops, may be cooling. The announcement Tuesday of pending British troops movements was far less dramatic than had been anticipated, and statements from political leaders indicate a possible cooling of the war fever that has been building for months.

Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon told the House of Commons Tuesday 1,500 reservists would be called up for possible deployment to the Gulf. Weekend reports, citing Ministry of Defense sources, had said a 20,000-strong armored division would be on its way and 8,000 reservists would be put on alert but these proved unfounded.

The newspaper that printed the first report, the Daily Telegraph, which has good contacts to the military, said Tuesday there was "continuing uncertainty over the scale of Britain’s contribution to any operations inside Iraq", adding this uncertainty was frustrating generals concerned over the approaching hot weather in Iraq. British diplomats, particularly those posted to Arab countries, are deeply worried over the looming conflict. The Guardian reported Monday telegrams from embassies had flooded into London in a "collective cri de coeur".

Diplomats were warning of potentially devastating consequences, in particular a boost to terrorists of the Al-Qaeda stamp, the left- liberal newspaper said. The convening of an unprecedented conference of more than 100 top diplomats in London appeared aimed at assuaging these concerns. Prime Minister Tony Blair went out of his way to reassure the ambassadors. "I would not commit British troops to a war I thought was wrong or unnecessary but the price of influence is that you do not leave the US to face the most difficult issues alone," he said Tuesday.

The previous day Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had highlighted concerns that rogue states like Iraq and North Korea could pass weapons of mass destruction to terror organizations, but commentators were quick to note that no evidence of this had been found.

Last year, retired generals, senior church leaders and civil servants joined politicians on the left wing of Blair’s Labour Party in an unusual coalition to voice concern over the increasing belligerence shown by government ministers. And opinion polls show at most 40 percent of the electorate in favor of a war against Iraq, with a similar proportion against and some 20 percent undecided.

The BBC’s political pundits said Blair was facing criticism from senior colleagues worried that Britain might back the US in an attack on Iraq without clear new evidence or a fresh UN mandate. Blair had been advised that this would contravene international law, they said.

While Blair once again highlighted the dangers posed by Saddam Hussein and Iraq’s attempts to procure weapons of mass destruction, he used his speech to the diplomats to urge the US to listen to wider concerns. "The problem people have with the US is not that, for example, they oppose them on weapons of mass destruction or international terrorism," Blair said. "People listen to the US on these issues and may well agree with them, but they want the US to listen back," he said in clear, if muted, criticism of Britain’s main ally.

"So for the international community, the Middle East peace process is also important, global poverty is important, global warming is important, the United Nations is important," he said.

Blair’s words will be welcomed by many in his party. And those anxious about the wider implications of a new Gulf War were breathing a cautious sigh of relief. (DPA)

Turkey and Iran eye post-Saddam Iraq as fog of war thickens

An Arab press review, By The Daily Star, 1/9/03

Turkey and Iran are both continuing to fuel Arab suspicions about the sincerity of their declared opposition to an American war on their neighbor, Iraq.
While Arab commentators balk at Ankara’s latest claims that it may be entitled to a share of Iraq’s oil post-Saddam Hussein, they note that Tehran also seems increasingly to be positioning itself to take advantage of US-enforced “regime change” in Baghdad.
Relations between the Islamic Republic and the existing Iraqi government, meanwhile, appear to have taken a turn for the worse, with the reported cancellation of a planned visit to the Iranian capital by Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri.
The Iranian Arabic-language newspaper Al-Vefagh links the development to internal Iranian politics. It says Sabri’s visit was called off because of protests by members of Iran’s reformist-dominated Parliament, and quotes one leading lawmaker as saying the MPs are demanding that Baghdad provide Tehran with “guarantees” as a precondition for any official meetings between the two sides. These include reaffirming the territorial concessions Iraq made to Iran in 1975, apologizing for the 1980-1988 war, paying reparations for Iranian war losses, and releasing all remaining Iranian prisoners of war.
Tehran has meanwhile been playing host to its Iraqi Kurdish protege, Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), who is quoted in the press as praising Iran for its record of support for the Iraqi opposition.
Among Talabani’s Iranian hosts was Parliament Speaker Mahdi Karrubi, who declared that “the Islamic Republic of Iran calls for a united and strong Iraq with a government comprising all sects, races and viewpoints,” and appealed for “unity of ranks between the Iraqi forces struggling to consolidate security and stability.”
In its account of Talabani’s talks in Iran which included a meeting with the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite Islamist opposition leader Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim Al-Vefagh also quotes the PUK chieftain as denying Turkish press reports that he has invited the Turkish armed forces to deploy in his sector of the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq.
Iran’s behind-the-scenes-contacts with the US administration of President George W. Bush over Iraq’s future prompt an analyst writing in the Lebanese daily An-Nahar to suggest that a broader “understanding” between Washington and Tehran about their bilateral relationship as well as regional issues may be taking shape.
Salem Mashkour explains that while Iran did not officially attend last month’s US-sponsored Iraqi opposition conference in London, an Iranian envoy was deeply involved in hush-hush contacts with both the Iraqi participants and the American sponsors. He also writes of the Americans having conveyed assurances to the Iranians in the countdown to the conference assurances to the effect that they should not take the administration’s classification of Iran as part of an “axis of evil” at face value. Iraqi opposition figures were asked to pass that message on to Tehran after they suggested to US officials that their country’s hostility to Iran was deterring it from championing the cause of “regime change” in Iraq.
Mashkour observes that even the “purely rhetorical” attacks Washington used to make on Tehran have ceased in recent weeks, and suggests this could be a by-product of an “understandings” reached between the two sides over Iraq similar to those which they concluded earlier over Afghanistan.
Mashkour says there is growing debate within Iran over what policy the Islamic Republic should adopt to safeguard its national interests in the event of an American invasion of Iraq, which feeds into the long-running row between the feuding reformist and conservative currents over relations with the US.
But while Iran’s conservatives are outwardly opposed to ties with the Americans, it is paradoxically they who are the main players in the “dialogue” underway with the US concerning Iraq, Mashkour writes.
The man in charge of the “Iraq dossier” in Tehran is former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who remains a powerful figure in the regime. He helped broker “arrangements and reconciliations” ahead of the Iraqi opposition conference in London: first rebuilding bridges between Tehran and Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani “after years of hostility and recrimination,” and then reconciling Barzani with the American-backed opposition figure Ahmed Chalabi.
Barzani and Chalabi had not been on speaking terms since 1996, when Barzani invited Baghdad’s forces to eject Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress (INC) from Iraqi Kurdistan.
“In the mid-1980s,” Mashkour recalls, “Rafsanjani brokered a secret Iranian-American understanding over a deal that would terminate the Iraqi regime and normalize relations between Washington and Tehran. But parties that stood to be damaged sabotaged the process, in what became known as the Irangate affair.” The writer wonders: “Might Rafsanjani succeed this time, also via the Iraq issue?”
Turkey’s designs on Iraq are meanwhile the subject of much speculation and comment, after Turkish Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis declared that Ankara is examining old international treaties with a view to staking a legal claim to oil fields around the northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.
A commentator in the Jordanian daily Ad-Dustour suspects that the revival of historic Turkish claims in Iraq is the Turkish establishment’s way of rallying public support for the idea of Turkish troops taking part in an American war.
Mohammed Shareef al-Jayyousi notes that Yakis only referred to Turkey’s possible “rights” to Iraqi oil in response to aggressive questioning by journalists who demanded to know what his government intended doing to “recover” the oil fields in northern Iraq.
The Turkish press has for weeks been talking about the country’s purported right to a share of the oil from Kirkuk and Mosul, and this “campaign” appears to be part of an attempt to “prepare the public for an anticipated Turkish role against Iraq,” he says.
Those in Turkey who favor military intervention in Iraq seem oblivious to the potentially disastrous consequences both for the region as a whole and for Turkey itself, Jayyousi cautions.
He argues that it would not be to the advantage even of the US for Turkey to get embroiled in Iraq. Of all the countries of the region, only Israel perceives a benefit in seeing Iraq “torched” in that manner. “But while dragging Turkey into the war will not serve the Americans’ interests and could wreck them,” the growing influence of the American right and its close identification with Israel means it could well happen anyway.
Jayyousi adds that with many of Washington’s allies, including Jordan, are opposed to war, the Bush administration may opt to start a conflict and then extricate itself from it quickly. That would leave Turkey in the lurch should it “be lured into getting involved, whether driven by defunct delusions, which are currently being re-stoked, or by American inducements and promises.”
Either way, he warns, Turkey’s involvement would exacerbate rather than alleviate the negative consequences of war, “but the question remains: Will Turkey awaken before it is too late, and deny the American and Jewish extremists the chance to get their plans implemented by proxy?”
Israel’s eagerness to see Iraq attacked is highlighted by Mustafa Husseini in the Lebanese daily As-Safir, who notes that the Americans and their clients and allies are keeping remarkably quiet about how they envisage “the day after” their planned invasion, which everyone assumes will be a success.
They have merely been reiterating in vague and unspecific terms parroted by London and the Iraqi “oppositions” that they want a “federal and democratic Iraq.” This strikes Husseini as strange, given that the declared rationale for war is Baghdad’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. The casus belli is ostensibly the external threat posed by Iraq, yet the “solution” being readied is confined to rearranging the country’s domestic affairs.
They key to understanding this could be the “gushing enthusiasm” that Israel is showing for an American invasion of Iraq, Husseini suggests.
The Israelis have been doing their utmost to convince the world that Iraq’s weapons threaten them, even though they know this is not true. Israel “is not only the most powerful country in the region but more powerful than all those countries combined.” And, in any case, the Scuds that Iraq fired at the Jewish states in 1991 weren’t armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Yet Israel still invokes that “failed Iraqi stunt” to claim that “Iraq’s WMDs” threaten its existence and warrant war.
“The truth of the matter is that Israel knows, as everyone else does, that the aim of the American invasion of Iraq is to install a client regime in Baghdad that is loyal to Washington,” Husseini writes. It also knows that “recognizing Israel, concluding a peace treaty with it, and normalizing relations with it unconditionally i.e. submitting to it is the principal gauge of loyalty to America as far as the Arab states are concerned.”
Husseini explains that “so far” the US has encouraged and sometimes put pressure on its Arab allies to embrace Israel, without necessarily insisting that they do so as a condition for retaining its goodwill. But the Israelis seem to believe that this will change once an American client regime is invested in Baghdad. They think this will “usher in a new and unprecedented period in Washington’s relations with the Arab states, characterized by frank and open American dictates,” he writes. “A diverse and varied array of American swords will hang over the heads of these states and the regimes that rule them: from partition and dismemberment, to the changing of regimes (even loyal ones) should they stick to the ‘old gauges’ of loyalty. What drives Israel’s enthusiasm for the prospective American invasion of Iraq is what it expects to get out of it in terms of new American criteria for Arab loyalty.”
Israel will not suffice with obtaining Iraq’s recognition, Husseini continues. It will deem that to be “the first motion in a domino effect” that leads to the “total collapse” of all Arab resistance to its dictates. And it is counting on two types of Arab leader to set off that “domino effect”: the “small rulers of small countries” who imagine that they wield great influence; and the rulers of other Arab countries “which are not small but want an end, at any price, to the Arab-Israeli conflict, that has been digging an increasingly deep trench between them and their peoples, to such an extent that their apathy toward it endangers their positions,” he writes.
“That is what the Israelis are banking on in the planned American invasion of Iraq,” Husseini says. But on the Arab side, the issue is barely being discussed at all. “Even those who display opposition to that invasion and warn of its ‘dire consequences’ hide behind vague sentences and generalizations such as: ‘Chaos will envelop the region.’ Such expressions resemble in their generality and obscurity the talk of a ‘federal and democratic Iraq.’ Words designed to create fog to conceal the outcome that Israel is banking on.”
In the Saudi daily Okaz, commentator Talal Saleh Banan warns that if the US is allowed to get away with forcing regime change in Baghdad, it will be tempted to do the same elsewhere in the future, and the rest of the world will find it hard to prevent it from targeting “any other government of which it disapproves.”
He writes that it is “regrettable” that the international community is putting the onus on Baghdad to prevent war, “as though it were Iraq that were beating the war drums or planning an attack,” when everyone knows that Iraq’s alleged WMD programs are just a pretext which Washington is invoking and its aim is to install a client regime in power.
Banan argues that America’s appetite for meddling in other countries will be further whetted if it managed to achieve its aims in Iraq without actually going to war, as it now seems attempting to do. “Given America’s insistence on targeting Iraq to achieve political and strategic objectives related to its global calculations, the least than can be done is for that to be made costly for it, rather than submitting to its wishes without a fight,” he remarks.
“If we cannot spare Iraq from aggression,” says the Saudi writer, “then we should at least not help the (US) enemy fulfill its dream of achieving a cheap victory. We would all pay an exorbitant price for that sooner or later, and not the Iraqi people alone.”

Economic outlook in the Arab region

By Henry T. Azzam

The Daily Star, 1/9/03

The most important factor influencing the region’s economic outlook this year is the heightened risk of a war on Iraq. There is a consensus building up that a US-led attack on Iraq is highly likely in the first few months of 2003. Iraq does not constitute at present a clear danger to the national security of the United States. As a secular state, Iraq has nothing to do with Washington’s new declared enemy of “militant Islam” and no connections have been established between Baghdad and Al-Qaeda. Even if Baghdad complies fully with all the resolutions of the United Nations, this will not be sufficient to pre-empt a war on Iraq. On the contrary, the US may consider such a development as the worst possible scenario because it would lead to the lifting of sanctions, allowing President Saddam Hussein to again draw on massive oil revenues to rebuild his weapons programs.
The National Security Strategy Report released by the Bush administration on Sept. 20 speaks of “American internationalism” and the need to embark on an aggressive military and foreign policy which embraces pre-emptive attacks against perceived enemies and advocates global and permanent US military and economic domination. A quick and successful war on Iraq will allow the US to establish military bases in that country from which it can affect political outcome elsewhere in the region. By imposing its military will on Iraq, the US will have full control of the region’s oil reserves, which account for more than 25 percent of the world’s total. Iraqi oil exports will provide a backup in case the flow of oil from Saudi Arabia is disrupted and will give the US supremacy over the energy lifeline of Europe, China and Japan for years to come.
The star performer in the region last year was Jordan, with real Gross Domestic Product growth estimated at 5 percent, up from 4.2 percent in 2001. The atrocities in the Palestinian territories, which affected tourism from the US and Europe, and the heightened risk of war on Iraq, Jordan’s sole supplier of oil and its major export market, have had a dampening effect on the kingdom. However, the good management of the Jordanian economy, the decline in domestic interest rates, the surge in export growth and the ongoing integration of Jordan in the global economy have bolstered confidence in the country’s economic and political stability and its homegrown growth prospects. Assuming there is a quick solution to the crisis in Iraq early this year, a major source of uncertainty hovering over Jordan will be removed and the kingdom will be able to achieve the targeted real GDP growth of 5.5 percent.
Lebanon’s economic prospects improved considerably in late 2002, following the “Paris II” donor conference at which $4.4 billion in credit facilities and project loans was pledged. The conference helped head off a financial crisis and boosted the ability of the Lebanese government to implement economic reforms and better manage a large public debt of some $30 billion. The inflow of capital and the resulting fall in domestic interest rates are likely to give a major boost to economic growth prospects this year, with real GDP estimated to grow at 3 percent, up from 1.8 percent in 2002.
Syria’s economy is estimated to have grown by 3 percent in 2002, up from 2 percent the year before, helped by a good harvest, higher oil revenues and stronger trade relations with Iraq. In addition to its own oil production, Syria gets around 150,000 barrels per day of Iraqi oil at subsidized prices in return for Syrian exports. Even though Syria will allow a few private banks to establish a presence in the country this year, economic growth remains constrained by the cumbersome regulatory, legal and bureaucratic structures. Syria seems to be stuck in socialist time and the impetus of the wide-ranging economic reform program launched in late 2000 has slowed considerably. Real GDP growth of 2 percent is forecast this year.
The Palestinian economy suffered losses in the past two years of around $8.5 billion. Real GDP is estimated to have declined by 40 percent in 2002 following a drop of 30 percent in 2001, 5 percent in 2000 and solid growth of 10.9 percent in 1999. In addition to human losses and massive damage to infrastructure, the Palestinian territories recorded severe drops in production, trade, tourism and foreign investment. The greatest losses occurred as a result of closure and restrictions on movements of goods and people. Unemployment exceeds 75 percent and more than two-thirds of Palestinians now live below the poverty line ($2 per day). Hopefully this year will see an end to the violence in the Palestinian territories. Such a scenario is unlikely to unfold except late in the year, suggesting another drop in real GDP of around 10 percent in 2003. Although that would be less than previous GDP declines, the Palestinian economy may end the year 85 percent below what it was in 1999.
Egypt’s economic growth slowed to 1.7 percent last year from 3.3 percent in 2001. Structural imbalances facing state banks became more visible in 2002, necessitating a change of leadership and credit policies at these institutions. The pound’s exchange rate continued to lose ground against the dollar, dropping to 4.65, while the black market rate ended the year at 5.3. The budget deficit rose to 4.2 percent of GDP last year, while foreign reserves dropped to $13.9 billion. Foreign debt continued to be on the safe side at $28.7 billion, with annual debt servicing taking less than 9 percent of government foreign currency earnings. A successful war on Iraq could reflect negatively on Egypt, not only due to the expected lower oil prices that could unfold after the war, but also because the removal of sanctions on Iraq would deprive Egypt of a market that absorbs a third of its exports. The Egyptian economy is likely to underperform this yea, with real growth of 2 percent.
Growth in Tunisia was subdued last year, rising at 1.9 percent compared to 5 percent in 2001. The 2002 drought led to the worst harvest for half a century, with agricultural output dropping by 11 percent and exports declining by 2.8 percent. A better rainy season in late 2002 augers well for Tunisia’s economy this year. Agricultural output is expected to grow by 12 percent, while tourism revenues will start rising again after recording major declines in the past two years. The strong recovery in domestic demand and exports is likely to boost GDP by 5 percent in 2003, setting the economy back on the high growth path of 1998-2001.
Morocco is likely to grow at 4.5 percent this year, up marginally from the 4 percent
real GDP growth recorded in 2002. Inflation is expected to remain unchanged at 2 percent. The projected budget deficit is likely to be around 3 percent of GDP. The loss in customs receipts due to the gradual dismantling of tariffs with the EU, Morocco’s main trading partner, will be partially compensated for by receipts from privatizing a number of state assets in the telecom, sugar refining and tobacco sectors that are likely to generate $1.8 billion. The Algerian economy benefited from higher than expected oil prices last year, registering real growth of 2.3 percent. Growth this year is forecast at 3.4 percent, as Algeria’s non-oil sectors pick up momentum compensating for potential decline in the oil industry.

Henry T. Azzam is the chief executive officer of Jordinvest.

Time for bloodshed to stop in Palestine and Israel
Gulf News, 09-01-2003
-

In the 27 months that the Palestinians have been waging their Intifada against Israeli occupation, three lives a day have been lost. Two of the three lives have been Palestinian; the other life an Israeli. That means nearly 2,500 people have been killed in fighting a battle that is no nearer its aims, no nearer achieving a conclusion and thus, no nearer achieving peace. In fact, if anything, the two sides are further apart now than at any time in the past, with extremists on both more entrenched than ever in their stance, not prepared to concede anything to the other. It is a situation that should not be allowed to persist. But unfortunately, it does persist because it is accepted and condoned by Israel and its ally, the United States of America, which has "other fish to fry" in the region.

In the name of all humanity, one would have thought that in this, the 21st century, sufficient wisdom would prevail for people of intelligence on both sides - and their allies - insist that the killings stop. Insist that the Palestinians and Israelis sit down together and achieve an equitable solution. Anything less makes a mockery of so-called civilised society.

America is alienating the Pakistani people

By Husain Haqqani | Gulf News, 09-01-2003
-

1Strains in the U.S. alliance with Pakistan are beginning to show with an increase in terrorist activity along the border with Afghanistan as well as within Pakistan. The U.S. claim that it has the right of hot pursuit from Afghanistan into Pakistan and that such a right had been privately conceded by the Pakistan government, demonstrates the limits of a crucial alliance forged without sufficient public disclosure.

Just as Pakistanis found out through the Western media about the use of Pakistani bases by U.S. troops during last year's Afghan war, there are suspicions of other covert or undeclared agreements. Unfortunately, such claims feed the Pakistani rumour mills and give rise to conspiracy theories, which have been the bane of U.S.-Pakistan relations since the 1950s. A relationship mired in ambiguous and covert arrangements rather than on a forthright friendship is bound to go through the periodic ups and downs that characterise the Pakistan-U.S. alliance.

Instead of putting further pressure on Pakistan by demanding the right of hot pursuit, perhaps the U.S. should seek the resolution of dilemmas created by the conflicting demands of Pakistan's domestic politics and the security policies defined by its ruling oligarchy.

Twice in the last month, U.S. troops in Afghanistan have come under attack in the border region and the attackers have been thought by the U.S. military to take refuge in Pakistan. On one occasion, U.S. troops under attack by a man in the uniform of a Pakistani tribal security guard called in air support, resulting in the bombing of Pakistani territory.

The U.S. military now seeks to cross from Afghanistan into Pakistan's lawless tribal regions in pursuit of fugitive Taliban or Al Qaida militants. According to the Pentagon, U.S. forces have had the right of hot pursuit with the express consent of the Pakistani government despite Islamabad's denials of an agreement to allow U.S. troops to cross into Pakistan.

Popular sentiment in Pakistan against the United States is increasing, fuelled in part by the prospect of a war with Iraq and by the perception that the U.S. is insensitive to the concerns of the Islamic world. This limits the ability of an increasingly unpopular Pakistani government to fulfil U.S. demands in the anti-terrorism effort. It also forces Washington to walk a tightrope in dealing with Pakistan. The U.S. cannot pressure the Pakistani military regime to the extent of destabilising an important ally. Nor can it ignore the many errors of omission and commission that continue to make Pakistan a flash point in the war against militancy and terrorism.

Extremists have been at work in Pakistan in recent weeks with increasing ferocity. The Christmas day attack on a church in the town of Daska in northeastern Pakistan was preceded by several small-scale bombings in different parts of the country. Police in the port city of Karachi claimed it had arrested the members of a group planning to attack U.S. diplomats, drawing praise from the U.S. government for Pakistan's cooperation in the anti-terrorism effort.

But Western journalists have also reported witnessing disturbing trends. An Associated Press reporter made public an interview with a former Taliban official who claimed that Taliban and Al Qaida remnants were regrouping inside Pakistan and that Al Qaida even ran secret training camps. The Pakistani government blames private individuals and groups for sheltering Taliban and Al Qaida members and says it is doing its best to track them down. Under such circumstances, deployment of U.S. personnel in Pakistani territory without full Pakistani backing would put American soldiers at considerable risk. It would also erode further Pakistani support for the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan.

Pakistan is, in part, paying the price of its past support for the Taliban and its tolerance of militants. The government's inability to crack down effectively against militants also stems from its lack of domestic political support and the complexities of domestic politics. U.S. actions, such as the INS decision to fingerprint and register all Pakistani visitors to the U.S. and the obtrusive presence of the FBI in Pakistani cities, is adding to frustration among the Pakistani people over what is seen as a loss of Pakistani sovereignty.

Pakistani authorities cannot deny their role in the release, ostensibly on court orders, of the leaders of groups that were declared terrorist organisations by the government earlier this year. Until the release of these militant leaders, Musharraf's regime had shown little regard for juridical niceties.

The government got round the problem of 'law' by issuing 297 decrees (ordinances) in three years and by purging the superior courts under the Provisional Constitution Order. From the American point of view, the judicial orders in favour of Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Maulana Masood Azhar, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed and other alleged militants raised questions about the government's commitment to the war against terrorism.

Statements by Pakistani government spokesmen notwithstanding, everyone knows that once it decides to keep someone in prison, the Pakistani government can find many ways to attain that objective. The threat of hot pursuit may be Washington's way of forcing General Musharraf to recognise that the U.S. wants a paradigm shift from his regime and that the bits and pieces of cooperation, which Islamabad considers a major contribution, are simply not enough for the Americans.

Pakistan is a strategically located country facing tremendous difficulties, compounded by the ambition of its security services to retain their supremacy in running the country. It will remain important for the U.S. because of its nuclear weapons capability, its traditional friendship with Washington and its declared support in the war against terrorism. But the U.S. sees the situation in Pakistan as tenuous and the expectations of the two allies from each other are very divergent.

The U.S. policy of depending exclusively on its military regime for a change in the country's overall direction has not worked. The U.S. would do better by seeking ways of securing cooperation from various elements of Pakistani society that are themselves angry with the country's unending cycle of violence. Pakistan's own leadership, too, must abandon its tactical approach to relations with the world's sole hyper-power and evolve a strategy of genuinely befriending the U.S. without compromising national sovereignty. If Pakistan's own law enforcement was beyond reproach, there would be no grounds for the U.S. (or anyone else, for that matter) to make demands of hot pursuit.

Instead of subjecting ordinary Pakistanis to humiliation with discriminatory travel restrictions, FBI raids and U.S. military action, Washington must help Pakistan's return to institutional governance and deal with Pakistan under international law instead of through deals and arrangements with rulers that cannot even be publicly acknowledged, let alone fully implemented.

Husain Haqqani is Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. He served as adviser to prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto and as Pakistan's ambassador to Sri Lanka.

A grim look at the Bush administration policy

By George S. Hishmeh | Gulf News, 09-01-2003

The Bush administration was caught flat-footed in the first days of the new year as it plodded along unevenly on its foreign-policy quagmires. A miscalculation, here or there, may prove disastrous; hence fears among many Americans that the future does not bode well.

The Washington Post says that President George W. Bush is now facing, midway in his term, "the most daunting array of international challenges encountered by an American leader since the height of the Cold War."

A common feature of the American policy is the absence of steadiness, a factor that has repeatedly prompted accusations that it is not fair-minded or even-handed. In fact, a double standard is evident in its pronunciations.

This is clearly the case in its handling of the brewing crisis with North Korea for reactivating its nuclear programmes when compared with its relentless warmongering over Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. (The just-issued statement by Mohammed El Baradei, head of the Internation-al Atomic Energy Agency, that nothing suspicious was found in Iraq was like throwing cold water on the American stance vis-a-vis the Saddam Hussain regime.)

While the Bush administration continues to commit more fire-power and men to the Middle East (although there are some who still believe this is only American hot air), it has seemingly backed away from a direct confrontation with North Korea, which, unlike Iraq, is believed to possess a few nuclear bombs.

Why hasn't it done the same with Iraq and opted for diplomacy is anybody's guess. Some believe American real motivations in Baghdad is the takeover of Iraq's rich oil wells, a development that is bound to precipitate many complications in the region especially within the Organi-sation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).

North Korea's nuclear brink-manship has undoubtedly served Iraq; if nothing, it has at least punched a hole in the American stance and simultaneously emboldened the American opponents of war in the Middle East and at the same confused many others over the rationale for its policy of pre-emption.

The Bush administration's advocacy of pre-emption - as opposed to containment - could not in this instance be applied equally against the "axis of evil" fellow travellers - North Korea, Iraq and Iran. Iraq, being the weakest, apparently lost out, much to the joy of the adventurers within the administration.

But in the opinion of Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, "the lesson of North Korea for the Third World dictators is to go nuclear as rapidly as possible, and as secretly as possible, and then act crazy so as to deter us."

The American double-standard continued to be abundantly clear in its unequal treatment of Palestinians and Israelis. The Bush administration has quickly condemned the deplorable "suicide bombings" in Tel Aviv last Sunday, which has left 23 persons dead and many more injured. On the other hand, there was hardly a word uttered form the White House against what the Washington Post described editorially last week as the "grinding carnage" among Palestinian youth and the ineffectual Israeli "explanations ... (which) long acquired a routine quality," casting blame on no one among its police or military.

After pointing to the continued haemorrhaging of the Palestinians - 154 have been killed in November and December - Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat appealed for American and international intervention to bring back the two parties together and help the Palestinian National Authority to maintain security in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, nominally under Palestinian control.

Brzezinski echoed the call, blaming the Bush administration for failing to get engaged. "The parties involved cannot reach peace," he said in a television interview. "On both sides, the extremists are determined to push the other side into extremism. The Palestinian extremists don't want moderate Israelis, who I think still represent the majority of the people, to come to power. They prefer the fanatics. On the Israeli side, they want to destroy the Palestinian moderates. They also prefer the Palestinian fanatics, because each side, each extreme, thinks it'll then get its victory...

"This is the problem. Unless the international community steps in, outlines what the peace ought to be like, and then pushes the two parties on the road to peace, this kind of stuff that we are tragically witnessing today is going to be repeated over and over and over again, to the detriment of the well-being of the Israelis and the Palestinians."

The CNN interviewer, Judy Woodruff, nodded: "Very grim analysis."

South Koreans emerging as the bigger thorn in American flesh

By Nihal Singh

Khaleej Times, 1/9/03

IN A surprisingly short time, South Korea, rather than its northern neighbour, has become a thorn in American flesh as the Bush administration surveys the world scene from its imperial perch. The recent election of Noh Moon Hyun was a disturbing signal for Washington and even before he assumes office in February, his philosophy of seeing Seoul as a mediator between the United States and North Korea is being implemented.

Equally disturbing for the US administration is the scale and depth of South Korean anti-American feelings, fuelled most recently by the acquittal by a military court of two US servicemen whose armoured vehicle crushed two teenager South Korean girls to death last summer. Some 37,000 American troops are stationed in South Korea and although the president-elect has changed his earlier stance of seeking their withdrawal, there is much criticism of the inequality implied in the Status of Forces Agreement.

The crisis in US-South Korean relations has been brought to a head by North Korea's carefully calibrated pressure on the Bush administration to accede to its demand for direct talks and recognition. President Bush's advisers are bending over backwards in suggesting that there is no crisis because they wish to concentrate on toppling President Saddam Hussein and set about remaking the Middle East. Precisely for that reason, Pyongyang is becoming more audacious. The last Korean crisis was resolved through the good offices of former US president Jimmy Carter. The 1994 agreement stipulated that Pyongyang would shut its plutonium producing reactor while the US, through a consortium, would give two light water reactors and fuel oil to North Korea until they went on stream. Significantly, Seoul was largely kept out of the picture in the initial stages of the crisis talks. The Clinton administration, during its sunset days, was close to firming up a reconciliation deal.

The Bush administration, on the other hand, adopted a hardline stance towards North Korea, and when it did get down to paying attention to Pyongyang, the latter acknowledged that it was seeking a uranium processing route for making nuclear weapons. The US then suspended its oil shipments and North Korea retorted by removing international monitoring equipment and throwing out inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. It is no secret that America has been dragging its feet in meeting agreed deadlines for the light water reactors.

American inhibitions flow not merely from its preoccupation with Iraq. Seoul is within artillery range of North Korea and a new Washington-Pyongyang crisis is literally a matter of life and death for South Korea. Besides, Japan is keenly concerned with developments because a nuclear-armed North Korea would drastically alter the strategic picture. Unlike in 1994, when South Korea was for the better part a spectator, Seoul is now asserting a primary role in resolving the crisis and the drumbeat of anti-American demonstrations further serve to make Americans edgy.

While the new stand-off between Washington and Pyongyang is likely to be resolved after a fashion, President George W. Bush and his advisers have reason to be worried by South Korea's new assertion of nationalism and independence. Essentially, South Koreans are saying that their tutelage should be ended after half a century and since North Korean-US hostility directly impinges on their country, they should have a primary role in tackling it. The longer the Bush administration takes in readjusting its sights, the greater will be the wave of anti-Americanism.

Washington's fears about a Roh victory are thus coming true. While a conservative win in South Korea would have postponed a Washington-Seoul crisis, it would not have averted it. The older generation, deferential to the US and conscious of the legacy of the Korean war of the 1950s, is giving way to a young generation more assertive of national rights and self-confident in the prosperous new Korea. Thealmost universal desire for the reunion of the two Koreas in terms of family reunions is tempered by Seoul's recognition of the catastrophic consequences of a shotgun wedding. However difficult Pyongyang is, it is cheaper and wiser for Seoul to shore up the Northern regime by giving it food and economic assistance.

In taking a hard line towards Pyongyang and giving cold shoulder to President Kim Dae Jung, President George W. Bush and his advisers underestimated the stirrings of the new Korea and how important it is for Seoul to strike a modus vivendi with North Korea. To exacerbate the situation, the Bush administration took inordinately long to complete its review of policy towards North Korea. South Korean resentment grew and the victory of the assertive Roh merely served to stiffen the resolve to play a central role in defusing the crisis in Pyongyang-Washington relations.

What next? There can be little doubt that Sofa, the Status of Forces Agreement, will have to be changed to give a greater role to Seoul in dealing with misdemeanours by American servicemen based in South Korea. Beyond it is the question of forming a new equation among the US, South and North Korea and Japan. While all of North Korea's neighbours are in favour of retaining a nuclear-free status for the Korean peninsula, they look at the terms of achieving this goal from different perspectives. Japan is vitally interested in North Korea's military capabilities because its own immediate interests are involved. And there are increasing warnings coming out of Washington about an anti-South Korean backlash in the US.

The key change is, of course, South Korea's new approach to its relations with the United States. President Kim Dae Jung initiated his 'sunshine' policy towards the North and won the Nobel Peace Prize for it. His protégé and successor has proved even more assertive in taking the high moral ground for peace on the peninsula. South Korea is now a mediator between Washington and Pyongyang, rather than a dutiful follower of the White House. This is a particularly bitter pill for the Bush administration to swallow when it is basking in the glow of its new imperialist credentials around the world.

And the new crisis comes just when President Bush has set his heart on removing President Saddam Hussein and taking other steps in creating a New World Order his father had prematurely projected.

US-Pakistan relations: Friendship built on sand By Mushahid Hussain

Khaleej Times, 1/9/03

PAKISTAN has begun 2003 on a difficult and dangerous note with increasing doubts about the direction of the special relationship with the United States and its own role in the US-led 'war on terror'. A year ago, 2002 had begun on a different note. Today, Pakistan's status veers between a publicly professed friend, which is privately being perceived as that of a potential foe. A year ago, Pakistan was being lionised as a 'strategic partner in the war on terror', and General Musharraf was topping the list of 'moderate and modern Muslims'. This turnaround should be a wake-up call for the Pakistan Establishment, which had become complacent about the notion that the American connection was both solid and strategic. Hence, it had begun to believe in a revival of the 'good old days' of the Cold War. Facts have demonstrated that such confidence was misplaced.

Pakistani and American military forces have had their first clash across the Durand Line, with confusion about the causes and conflicting versions of whether the US military is allowed the right to pursue Al Qaeda and Taleban remnants into Pakistan.

Even if the maiden military clash between the Pakistan and US forces was 'accidental', the fact is that it sends a larger message, which should provide ample room for discomfort in the Pakistan Establishment. The message is three-pronged:

First, the US military seems to be blaming the Pakistan Army for its own failings in Afghanistan, notably the failure to stabilise the situation there or achieve the primary mission objective: getting Osama 'dead or alive'. The constant refrain heard from American military commanders is that 'Pakistan could, and should do more'. For instance, The Washington Post reported on January 4 that "while US officials stress in public that Pakistan has taken steps to control militants from Al Qaeda and the Taleban, some privately say that the Musharraf government could do more to combat them in the border areas but has chosen not to".

Second, there is an increasing lack of trust in Pakistan's Establishment - the leadership, armed forces and intelligence services - regarding their capacity to deliver, implying that earlier expectations have not been met. This, despite the fact that Pakistan has sent troops into the tribal areas for the first time in its 55-year history. This was a step taken at the risk of ignoring local sensibilities that could provoke a destabilising backlash.

Third, regarding the conflicting versions of what is actual policy regarding American troops crossing over into Pakistan, clearly one of the governments is not telling the truth. The Americans have publicly stated that their troops have the right to cross into Pakistan, and, according to the January 4 edition of The Washington Post, "this is done with the express consent of the Pakistani government".

Conversely, Pakistani spokesmen convey a contrary view.

This is similar to the earlier controversy over the arrest of the Lahore doctors, where the FBI role was being condemned by one official quarter while another was concurrently denying it. Even if the clash is 'accidental' as is being portrayed by both sides, it is certainly not isolated, since there is a new pattern of policies aimed increasingly at portraying Pakistan as a potential foe, or at the least, an untrustworthy partner. Some examples:

The United States is focusing on two 'rogue states' as the key culprits regarding proliferation of weapons of mass destruction - Iraq and North Korea - and the American Press, through orchestrated leaks, is somehow keen to present Pakistan as a nuclear conduit to both, without evidence being presented.

Pakistan is kept on a short leash, as if on probation, and the language used for Pakistan's role in the 'war on terror' is remarkably similar to that employed for Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority: constant demands being urged to 'do more', as if what has been done is not good enough and does not meet American standards of loyalty.
Pakistani expectations of economic benefits for its role in the 'war on terror' have certainly not been met, although Turkey and Egypt are being promised financial rewards, which have been denied to Pakistan.
The latest humiliation: putting Pakistanis among those who will be registered and finger-printed in the US, while puny Armenia has managed to get itself off the list.
Throughout the two 2002 crises with India, at no time did the US publicly ask the Indians to defuse tensions. The onus was always on Pakistan, while at the same time, American promises to facilitate a dialogue on Kashmir were not met.
Instead of blaming the US, or carping about its 'unreliable friendship', Pakistani policymakers should have an introspective appraisal of where things went wrong and why?
There is no doubt that the original decision to side with the US and dump the flawed Afghan policy was a correct one. It would have been better had Pakistan had done the U-turn regarding the Taleban on its own volition rather than under duress, but this change was long called for and it was in the national interest.
However, where the policymakers went wrong was in their weak bargaining or seeking a quid pro quo for the support to the US, which was deemed vital by Washington, and in the failure to gauge American intentions in Afghanistan and beyond.
Pakistan has been short-changed, despite 'services rendered' as happened in the joint jihad with the Americans in Afghanistan in the 1980s or again, in 2001.
The case of the F-16 planes, for which Pakistan paid but which were held up on political considerations is another example. Successive Pakistani governments have continued to pay for the planes' storage, although there is no hope of delivery. At the same time, they have refused to sue the US in a court of law since the transaction made was a purely commercial one.
The reason for not going to court was fear of earning American ire. Even president Clinton conceded to prime minister Nawaz Sharif in December 1998 that Pakistan had a fair chance of winning a lawsuit on this issue, which, incidentally, he resolved after part payment in cash.
It is high time Pakistani policymakers did hard-nosed thinking on issues facing the country and devised a strategy on how to meet these challenges

http://www.aljazeerah.info

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's.