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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SOROS who wrote (14892)	3/2/2003 10:36:17 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 25898

You've found good articles. This one struck me :Other countries have a right to be concerned about Bush's motives. Many here at SI have claimed that Iraq IS just the beginning of Bush's takeover of the the ME. Syrian President Assad says: "We are all targeted, we are all in danger"...Well, hell yes. Assad accuses US of plotting to redraw Mideast map The Associated Press Mar. 1, 2003 Syrian President Bashar Assad, in a speech during the opening session of the summit, said it was a mistake to identify the Iraqi leadership as the source of the crisis. Assad accused the United States of being interested not in toppling a dictatorial regime, but in securing Iraq's "oil and redrawing the region's map and destroying Iraq's infrastructure." "We are all targeted ... we are all in danger," Assad said. Assad also called on delegated not to disassociate the Iraq crisis with that of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Earlier, the United Arab Emirates called for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to step down to spare the region war, the first Arab country to do so publicly. Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, president of the Gulf nation, submitted a proposal Saturday at an Arab League summit urging Saddam and the rest of his leadership to give up power in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The call defied long-standing resistance among Arab leaders to meddling in each others' domestic affairs. The United States has said Saddam's resignation is the only way to avert war over his alleged weapons of mass destruction. Sheik Zayed's proposal likely reflected a minority opinion shared mainly by Gulf countries that have long taken the hardest line against Saddam. The 22-member league, which includes Iraq, was expected to take a moderate approach when Saturday's summit ends with a pan-Arab declaration on how the Iraq crisis should be addressed. A proposed final summit resolution drafted by Arab foreign ministers rejects any attack on Iraq that is not sanctioned by the United Nations and proposes a last-ditch peacemaking effort. In his letter circulated among journalists at the summit and formally submitted to his fellow leaders, Sheik Zayed said Arabs should "play a major role in (persuading Saddam to step down), something which might amount to the miracle needed to overcome this looming danger" of war. Sheik Zayed did not name Saddam, but said the entire "Iraqi leadership should step down and leave Iraq ... within two weeks of adopting this Arab initiative." "Regional and international binding legal guarantees should be given to the Iraqi leadership so that it won't be subjected to any form of legal action," Sheik Zayed said. Iraqi dissidents have accused Saddam's regime of crimes against humanity linked to brutal crackdowns on Iraq minorities, including the use of chemical weapons on rebelling Iraqi Kurds. Sheik Zayed proposed that after Saddam's departure, the Arab League and the United Nations should govern until Iraq could return to "its normal situation according to the will of the brotherly Iraqi people." On Thursday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell urged Arab leaders to call on Saddam to "step down and get out of the way and let some responsible leadership take over in Baghdad." But Egypt, considered the state in the best position to forge a pan-Arab consensus, said the Arab League could not issue such a call. "We are not in the business of changing the regime of one country or another," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said Friday. "We can only ask all parties to abide by international resolutions in order to avoid war." Privately, however, Arab diplomats said the idea of getting Saddam to step down has been under informal discussion. In a commentary Saturday in the Saudi newspaper Al-Jazirah, Ali Qorni, a professor of communications at Saudi Arabia's King Saud University, said some Arabs may fear they will be labeled American stooges if they speak out against Saddam. But he said they should acknowledge that to further political, economic and social stability, "it is in our strategic interests to remove the regime of Saddam Hussein with no sorrow or apologies .... If this is also in the interest of the United States or the West, then this will not hurt us at all." Diplomats had said the summit may send a high-level delegation to Baghdad carrying a message to Saddam with vague suggestions he quit. They also raised the possibility of sending an Arab delegation to press Iraq to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors trying to determine whether Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction. After two days of debate that preceded the summit, the foreign ministers could not decide whether an Arab delegation would go just to Baghdad or also to the United States, the United Nations and the European Union to stress the need to resolve the crisis peacefully. The foreign ministers left it to their leaders to choose between two proposals addressing what role Arabs might play in any war, diplomats said on condition of anonymity. One calls on Arabs not to take part in any attack; a second, endorsed by the Syrian leader in his speech Saturday, bars Arabs from allowing America to use their territory as a staging ground. A Kuwaiti envoy, Sheik Ahmed Fahd Al-Ahmed, told reporters the latter wording was "not realistic" but that Kuwait supported the call on Arabs not to participate in military action. Tens of thousands of US troops are training in Kuwait ahead of a possible war with Iraq, which invaded Kuwait in 1990 and occupied it until a US-led coalition forced Saddam to retreat in the 1991 Gulf War. US troops also are in Iraq's neighbor Jordan and are passing through Egypt's Suez Canal in preparation for a possible war. Other Gulf countries have been sending troops and arms to help defend Kuwait should Iraq strike Kuwait in reaction to a US attack. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud told CNN that a US military occupation of any post-Saddam Iraq would bring "chaos" to the region. The Arab world has been deeply divided by the US-Iraq confrontation. Some countries, like Kuwait, argue war is inevitable and say the focus should be on planning for the aftermath. A second camp, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, argues war can be avoided if Iraq cooperates fully with UN weapons inspectors. The proposal to condemn any war not authorized by the United Nations is a step short of the unequivocal anti-war declaration a third camp, led by Syria, is pressing the summit to make. jpost.com