Arab leaders rally around UN resolution
Divisions in Arab League lead some to question its relevance
CAIRO (AP) - As the Arab world’s top diplomats debated how to deal with the threat of war against Baghdad, Iraq’s foreign minister honed right in on his counterpart from Qatar, the tiny Gulf nation likely to serve as a launching pad for any U.S. assault on Iraq.
All smiles, Iraq’s Naji Sabri rushed to the Qatari’s side and laid a warm hug and kiss on him, a traditional Arab greeting, and with journalists’ cameras flashing, the two men chatted on the floor of the Arab League’s council chamber.
The scene over the weekend in the Egyptian capital was a classic Arab League gesture, an exuberant display of affection between nations edging into opposing camps in a looming crisis.
With a war against Iraq in the balance, the Arab League had the world’s centre stage over the weekend, and it may have seemed that the Arab diplomats in attendance - some in dark suits, others in flowing robes - constituted a deliberative body moved by common tradition and purpose.
Indeed, the league was founded 57 years ago to embody Arab unity. But with widely divergent interests among its 22 members, the unity is often just a veneer, critics say. When the disputes underneath become visible, they are dramatic. The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait opened a split that still hasn’t healed. Egypt was thrown out for 10 years because of its 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
Last month, Libya announced it would quit the league, calling it too weak to stand up for the Arab world over the issues of Iraq and the Palestinians - although after appeals from Arab leaders it hasn’t yet carried out its withdrawal.
The latest meeting of league foreign ministers “just shows the crisis in the league. An Arab nation is threatened with attack, and the league has no influence on the world stage to do anything,” Libyan analyst Salih Ibrahim, director of the Tripoli-based High Academy for Studies and Research, said Tuesday.
At Saturday and Sunday’s gathering, Arab foreign ministers had an interest in papering over their differences, experts said. All nations in the Arab world, no matter how they feel about Saddam Hussein, say they don’t want to see a U.S. attack on Iraq.
They seized on the UN Security Council resolution passed last week as an opportunity to avert a war - and urged Baghdad to accept it, despite its toughened inspections regime and threat of “serious consequences” if Iraq doesn’t co-operate fully with the search for weapons of mass destruction.
Political analyst Abdel Moneim Said of Egypt’s Al Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies said the resolution gave Arab governments “a feeling that the crisis is de-escalating. There is a window open for Iraq. If it respects the UN resolution, then there will not be war.”
But if Washington moves ahead with an attack - as it says it will if the United Nations doesn’t ensure Iraq gives up weapons of mass destruction - divisions in the Arab League would leave it unable to do much to prevent it, experts say.
The league usually seeks to issue decisions by consensus, meaning the final result is often the lowest common denominator that all members can be cajoled into backing. Critics say this all too often prevents the body from taking strong action.
Qatar, for example, has increasingly shown it sees its future as a close ally of the United States. It has indicated that it could agree to any U.S. request to use its al-Udeid air base in an attack on Iraq, and Gen. Tommy Franks, who would run the war, is already set to move his command staff to al-Udeid in December.
Kuwait is also moving toward a similar role, and both it and Qatar would welcome the cover that the UN resolution could give them to join the fight, said Labib Kamhawi, a Jordanian political analyst.
“They’re trying to sell the position that they’re being forced to do it, that they have no choice,” Kamhawi said.
In much of the Arab world, public opposition to a war is strong and potentially volatile, raising fears in their governments that a U.S. strike will destabilize the region. But while U.S. allies in the region like Egypt and Jordan may wish to find a way to avert war, they may find themselves in a corner where they can’t press for strong action from the league.
The Egyptians are “against any strike on Iraq up until the point that this position could negatively affect their relations with the United States, then they will change,” Kamhawi said. “But if they do so, they’re bound to find lots of trouble on the domestic front.”
