>>US wins support from unlikely quarter
By N Janardhan
DUBAI - The back-to-back meetings of the Arab League foreign ministers and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in Qatar this week had two central themes: first, a near unanimity - barring Iraq, Iran and Syria - in not condemning the United States' retaliatory strikes on Afghanistan; and second, a unanimous voice against possible US attacks on any other Arab or Muslim country under the pretext of combating terrorism.
In its most significant remarks, the 56-country OIC, the world's largest Islamic body representing 1.2 billion Muslims, expressed concern at the prospect of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, just as it strongly condemned the September 11 attacks in the US.
Those statements, as well as dropping any reference to the Taliban regime in the official communique, are likely to go down well with the US and relatively appease the restive Muslim population for now.
Civilians fled the Afghan city of Kandahar on Thursday as airstrikes targeted a compound where followers of Osama bin Laden had lived, the latest in a series of US-led raids in retaliation for terror attacks in New York and Washington exactly one month ago.
The Taliban said that at least 115 people had been killed nationwide in overnight strikes late on Wednesday and early on Thursday, including 100 who died around Jalalabad and another 15 who were killed when a missile struck a mosque in that northeastern city. The attacks began on Sunday night.
"We don't have to blame the United States because what happened [there] is a big tragedy: 6,000 people were killed in one day and they were killed by terrorist action," Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani said after the OIC meeting. "We don't generally support military action, but then again we don't support terrorism either and we also have to identify terrorism and see its causes, which is why we asked for it to be discussed at the United Nations in future," he said.
Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal said that Muslim countries want to help "eradicate terrorism which harms the Islamic world and Islamic causes, and never serves the Palestinian cause". And Abdelouahed Belkeziz, the Secretary-General of the OIC, said that the attacks in the US were diametrically opposed to the religion and teachings of Islam, which proscribe the unjust taking of a human life and stress the sanctity of human life.
A Dubai-based Arab analyst said, "The final statement is meant to send a signal that we tacitly approve of the strikes and distinguish between the Taliban, who are smearing Islam's image, and the poor Afghans. If we don't cooperate, the United States will say that we shelter terrorists," he said, but added that he was disappointed that the OIC had failed to draft the parameters of the on-going war in the context of the Muslim world or specify any response if the campaign was extended.
Defending the OIC's non-condemnation of the attacks on Afghanistan, Qatar's Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani said. "The OIC found that any condemnation of the US strikes would be difficult as this is a sensitive and delicate issue."
Qatar Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who is also the chairman of the OIC, criticized the "short-term" view of Arab governments, saying, "Unfortunately, we do not look at how we can benefit from this situation in the long term." His remarks came in response to statements from some hardline delegates that they had hoped that the OIC would take advantage of the US desire to forge a coalition to resolve issues such as the Palestinian-Israeli crisis. Instead, the OIC declarations only echoed Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's criticism of Israel for exploiting the attacks on America to launch new offensives against Palestinians.
The only other point of consensus was a clause that called for a central UN role in countering the "global phenomenon of terrorism", and a call for an international conference to debate the same. This, analysts say, is an attempt to distinguish between terrorism as the West regards it and what Muslims see as the legitimate right of groups to resist foreign occupation, such as Hizbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which Israel brands as perpetrators of terror.
"We would have liked to see an internationally-led campaign," said Arab League Secretary-General Amr Mussa about the US-led strikes. "Terrorism is a global phenomenon and any action against it is best addressed through the United Nations," he said.
Middle East experts had been certain that the OIC meeting would not throw up any surprises that would be contrary to distancing themselves from the Taliban, who, along with bin Laden, have pledged to purge Islamic countries of their pro-Western leaders.
"It's an extremely delicate and complex situation," Cairo-based Middle East expert Hussein Amin said, adding, "On the one hand, they see the Taliban as an embarrassment to the faith and they also do not want to jeopardize US aid or support. But on the other hand, they have to deal with rising anti-US sentiment as well.''
The efforts by Iran, Iraq and Syria to criticize the retaliatory strikes were put down by US allies and regional giants Egypt and Saudi Arabia. On the eve of the OIC meeting Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri called on Muslim ministers to condemn the US strikes on Afghanistan, and said that the US could also target Iraq to settle old scores. "It is a hope, more than an expectation, that Muslim countries should defend themselves and their religious values which are being targeted by the new US-Zionist war campaign," Sabri said. "So, we hope these countries will reject these strikes ... and call for one scale to be used to deal with terrorism and not 1,000 [scales], because if there is a list of terrorist nations then Israel should be on it,"
As a compromise, the OIC communique included a statement that rejected any organizational member being targeted "under the pretext of combating terrorism", a fear that is growing after Washington announced that it is likely to expand its war beyond Afghanistan, implying that Iraq was a likely mark.
"Arab public opinion would not accept the widening of attacks that involves Arab countries," Jamal Al Suwaidi of the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research was quoted as saying in a local newspaper daily. "There are already demonstrations in Egypt, Sudan, Oman and Iraq against the attacks on Afghanistan, which could spread like wildfire if any other Muslim or Arab country is hit by the West,'' a United Arab Emirate-based journalist said.
If public resentment, in the case of Iraq being attacked, is any worry for the Muslim governments, the oil factor should shake the West up too. The Arabs have always refrained from using oil as a tool to influence the West. But, as the OIC was meeting in Doha, former Saudi Arabian oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani said, "If Iraqi oil - 2.2 millions barrels per day - disappears from the world market, prices would rise above 30 dollars without fail." That would plunge the world's slowing economy into a downslide, a risk that the West may not be prepared to take.
But for now, the US allies in the region have had the last word, as summed up even before the Doha meetings by Omani Foreign Minister Yussuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, "The Arab position on US military operations in Afghanistan, in as much as they come within the anti-terror fight, is consistent with the international position.
"But if these operations were to target other objectives, including certain Arab countries, we would reject that and would not cooperate with it," Abdullah said, without qualifying what non-cooperation meant.
Iraq, meanwhile, has dismissed as "stupid" a warning it received from the US not to take advantage of the Western campaign against Afghanistan to launch military action in the region.
The chief US envoy to the United Nations, John Negroponte, had warned that Iraq would pay a heavy price if it used the current situation to act against its own population or any neighboring states.
The Iraqi government on Thursday released the text of a reply delivered to the US by its ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Aldouri. "Your message is stupid. Iraq is not afraid of you or anyone else when it has a right to claim. What you warned about is not on Iraq's agenda," the statement said, adding, Iraq is vital and powerful. It is not an opportunistic country. Your administration has not learned from the past."
The US is concerned that Iraq might move at home against rebellious Kurds, as it has several times over the past two decades, or any of its neighbors. Baghdad attacked Iran in 1980 and invaded Kuwait a decade later.
The US has said there is no hard evidence linking Iraq to the attacks against the US but some people in the administration of President George W Bush believe that the war on terrorism should also be aimed at Iraq to make sure it is not developing weapons of mass destruction. <<
atimes.com
If bin Laden and others like him and with him were to accomplish their goals, would any of the heads of those states still be in power? My guess is no. |
