~~GULFWIRE~~VOICES OF THE REGION~~WEEK OF OCTOBER 12, 2002~~ (fwd)

["Clement M. Henry" <chenry@mail.la.utexas.edu>]

More useful bits about reactions from the little oil states of the Gulf to
America's apparently imminent war.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 09:43:27 -0500
From: GulfWire e-Newsletters <GulfWire@arabialink.com>
To: "<<GULFWIRE>>" <GulfWire2@arabialink.com>
Subject: ~~GULFWIRE~~VOICES OF THE REGION~~WEEK OF OCTOBER 7, 2002~~

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            ***** GULFWIRE ~~ VOICES OF THE REGION ******
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           THE NATIONAL COUNCIL ON U.S.-ARAB RELATIONS AND
            THE U.S.-GCC CORPORATE COOPERATION COMMITTEE

                       WEEK OF OCTOBER 7, 2002

=========================================================================
COMMENTARY FROM LEADING FIGURES AND MEDIA OUTLETS IN THE ARAB GULF STATES
=========================================================================
THE VIEWS CONTAINED IN THESE ITEMS DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF
       GULFWIRE OR THE NATIONAL COUNCIL ON U.S.-ARAB RELATIONS
=========================================================================

GULFWIRE ~ VOICES OF THE REGION ~ TABLE OF CONTENTS

·  GULF NEWS SAYS: IMPLEMENT RESOLUTIONS - Gulf News Editorial
·  GULF NEWS SAYS: NOW IS THE TIME TO UNITE - Gulf News Editorial
·  KEEP THE MOMENTUM - The Jordan Times Editorial
·  SADDAM: VISION THAT LEADS TO WAR - Arab News Column
·  GULF NEWS SAYS: WHAT OF THE FUTURE? - Gulf News Editorial
·  WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO CHANGE OUR IMAGE? - Arab News Column
·  U.S. MAY BE LOSING THE WAR FOR MIDEAST MINDS  - Gulf News Column

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GULF NEWS SAYS: IMPLEMENT RESOLUTIONS
Gulf News Editorial - October 9, 2002

The UAE has joined its fellow Arab states in the Gulf to warn Iraq to take
whatever steps are needed to avert what President His Highness Sheikh Zayed
bin Sultan Al Nahyan described as "looming viciousness," clearly referring
to the much publicized threat of armed invasion led by the Americans. The
GCC states have repeatedly urged the Iraqi government to implement the
relevant UN resolutions fully, and to prove to the world that Iraq does not
have any weapons of mass destruction.

This week's tour of the Gulf states by the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Naji
Sabri, has not given Iraq the results that it must have hoped for. Iraq
wanted to establish some common ground with the Gulf states in getting them
to agree to Baghdad's position that rejects any future military action
against Iraq, and if that was not possible, to establish at the very least
that American troops would be denied any bases in the Gulf. The GCC states
did not give any direct answer to Iraq's requests, positively or negatively,
but instead stuck to the line emphasizing the importance of Iraq abiding by
the UN resolutions.

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/opinion.asp?ArticleID=65111

[Reprinted with permission of Gulf News]

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GULF NEWS SAYS: NOW IS THE TIME TO UNITE
Gulf News Editorial - October 8, 2002

These are indeed testing times for the Arab and Muslim world. The Middle
East region has come under increasing strain over the past year. The Islamic
nation faces an onslaught orchestrated by its enemies and sustained by a
hijacked, but otherwise noble, endeavor – the fight against terror. It is in
the face of such challenges that President His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin
Sultan Al Nahyan has made his appeal for reason to prevail.

In a wide-ranging interview with an Egyptian newspaper, Sheikh Zayed has
reiterated an important ingredient for success – the need for unity. At a
time when other powers are determined to undermine the Arab and Islamic
world and get their hands on its resources, it is only through cohesiveness
that such designs will be thwarted. His call for a joint front comes as the
tempo for aggression against the Iraqi people gathers pace.

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/opinion.asp?ArticleID=65027

[Reprinted with permission of Gulf News]

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KEEP THE MOMENTUM
The Jordan Times - Editorial - October 10, 2002

Optimists would see in US President George Bush's speech on Monday an
apparent shift in Washington's stance on Iraq — one for the better. They
might interpret Bush's words as suggesting that a war with Iraq was no
longer inevitable and that Iraqi disarmament would be sufficient to avert
armed conflict. But a high-level group of former Jordanian officials,
academics and journalists recently returned from a study tour in the US
saying the American administration is adamant about Iraq. Baghdad has two
options: Fully implement the UN resolutions or remove the leadership.

The optimists would view a Bush "change of heart" as a reaction to the
overwhelming international rejection of the military option, and the growing
opposition to war from within the US itself, including the US Congress. They
would remark that more and more US senators and congressmen have been
voicing strong reservations about the need to strike at Iraq and its regime
because they simply have not been convinced that Baghdad poses an imminent
danger to the US. New York Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel drove more
to the core of what concerns American parents with sons in the military. He
told US Hardball talk show host Chris Matthews last Saturday that Americans
are leery of committing their "boys" to a war that they are not convinced
of. The parents of those "boys" remember Vietnam.

Meanwhile, yesterday's headlines on the region still ring of urgency:
"Britain's Straw tells Mideast leaders to keep pressure on Iraq," "Turkey
prepares border for war refugees," "Floating armories allow rapid US land
attack."

In this turmoil of lobbying, dialoguing and even arm-twisting, peacemakers
must not lose site of one important element. That is keeping up the momentum
of diplomatic efforts in the two crucial files in the region, the Iraqi and
the Palestinian. US allies have been making the same point over and over
again about the need to give diplomatic channels a chance before waging war.
And the Quartet for the Middle East is pushing ahead with plans for
Palestinian statehood by 2005. If the parties to the conflicts and the
parties to the solutions can maintain sobriety, dispense with harmful
self-interests, and stay focused on reaching peaceful solutions, then there
is room for optimism.

Jordan's own diplomatic efforts play no small part in keeping the dialogue
going. The pace at which US and European diplomats have been landing in
Amman to confer with His Majesty King Abdullah is testimony to the respect
and regard the international community holds for Jordan's sagacious stands.
When it comes to being sandwiched by regional turmoil, Jordan's experience
serves it well. That that history can serve others too is now well
understood.

http://www.jordantimes.com/Thu/opinion/opinion1.htm

[Reprinted with permission of The Jordan Times]

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SADDAM: VISION THAT LEADS TO WAR
Arab News - By Amir Taheri - October 10, 2002

As the United States moves closer to using force to achieve "regime change"
in Iraq, one question must be posed: do the American know enough about
Saddam Hussein?

Although he seems to have edged Osama Bin Laden one notch down the list of
the "most hated" of demons for Americans, the Iraqi dictator is an enigma to
most Americans. Some describe him as a megalomaniac in the lineage of
comic-strip baddies. Others have tried to dig into his childhood as an
orphan to explain his politics in pseudo-Freudian terms.

A simpler way may be to try to study his political vision within the
framework of his logic and on the basis of his words and actions.

What is Saddam's vision?

It is based on a perverted understanding of nationalism as applied to Iraq.
His basic assumption is that there is a single Arab nation stretching from
the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. At different times, history, which
determines the fate of nations, chooses part of this mythical nation to
assume leadership. As things stand today, it is the Iraqi part of the Arab
nation that has been chosen by history to assume leadership.

It was here that Saddam ran into his first big problem. Although all the
people of Iraq do feel that they are Iraqis, not all regard themselves as
Arabs. As early as 1969, Saddam spoke of his determination to strengthen
Iraq's "uruba" (Arabness). This was no easy task.

Historically, only a fraction of the 7,000-year biography of the land that
is Iraq could be described as "Arab." The rest is covered by Sumerian,
Assyrian, Akkdaian, Babylonian, Elamite, Urartan, Persian, Byzantine,
Mongol, Mameluke, and Ottoman periods among others.

The Iraqi way of life, architecture, music, cuisine and daily rituals
reflect this rich diversity. The very word Iraq is Persian (it means
Lowlands), as is Baghdad, which means God-given. The words Euphrates (it
means euphoric) and Tigris, which means tiger-like, the names of Iraq's two
great rivers, are both Greek.

Iraq is also the home of 11 living languages some of which, like the
Elamite, are twice as old as Arabic. An estimated 25 percent of the
population are ethnic Kurds of different origins, speaking two different
languages (Surani and Bahdinani), and following a variety of religions,
including Islam, Zoroastrianism, and esoteric faiths. Then there are
Assyrians, Chaldaens, and Sabaeans, most of them Christians, and Turcomen
who are all Muslims.

Arabic is the mother tongue of some 68 percent of the population, providing
a strong linguistic bond. But the ethnic Arabs are divided by religious
faith between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Thus, while the concept of Iraqitude
(uruqua) is inclusive because it covers all Iraqis regardless of linguistic,
ethnic and religious differences, the concept of "uruba" excludes those who
do not feel they are Arabs.

Saddam, however, does not tolerate hyphenated identities. Under him no one
can be Kurdish-Iraqi or Izadi-Iraqi. You have to be Arab, period. His
problem was how to "Arabize" Iraq. In 1970, Saddam opened the Ottoman
archives in which Iraqis were classified as either "Ottoman" or "Persian"
subjects. He prepared a policy of mass expulsion against the "Persians"
regardless of the fact that many prominent Iraqis, including Rashid
Ali-Gilani, the father of Iraqi nationalism, and Al-Jawaheri, the greatest
Arabic poet of the 20th century, had been classified as "Persian subjects"
during the Ottoman rule.

The mass expulsion of the "Persians" was implemented from 1972. By 1980
nearly a million had been driven out. Needless to say, the overwhelming
majority of those expelled had been born and raised in Iraq, regarded
themselves as Iraqis, and spoke Arabic as mother tongue. To replace them,
Saddam decided to "import" a million "authentic Arabs", especially from
Egypt. Very soon, however, he decided that the imported Egyptians, far from
being ideal Arabs, were "lazy layabouts" who cared little about his dreams
of empire and conquest.

In 1980 he decided to "Arabize" the Kurds. Over the next 10 years, more than
4,000 Kurdish villages in the north of the country were razed, their
inhabitants transferred to southern Iraq, and scattered among the
Arabic-speaking majority. For Saddam this was a double coup. The newly
transplanted Kurds were Sunni Muslims while the Arabs among whom they would
live were Shiites.

By 1990, having imported part of the manpower he needed from Egypt,
Palestine and other Arab lands, Saddam realized that he could also find the
money he required for his empire-building project in an Arab country. The
obvious choice was Kuwait that Saddam, in private, often described as "a
bank safe," not a state.

To sum up, Saddam's vision runs something like this: It is time that history
chose the Arabs once again to lead the world. The only "branch" of the Arab
nation capable of fulfilling the "will of history" is Iraq. So Iraq must be
fully Arabized, by force, and, if necessary, through the genocide of
minorities. Iraq must also secure control of the principal source of Arab
wealth: oil. And that means either the direct conquest of the Gulf states or
their indirect domination.

Saddam knows that his vision leads to war, both at home and in his
neighborhood, and then, in time, beyond the region. This is why he has been
preparing for war, and has already fought it on four occasions, since 1968.
His quest for nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction is not the
caprice of a mad dictator. He knows that if he acquires such weapons he
could dominate the region, seize control of almost 50 percent of the world's
known oil reserves, and be treated as an equal by the major powers.

One people, one state, one leader — this is Saddam's motto. Sounds familiar?
Saddam's vision suffers from a fundamental flaw: He holds the Arabs,
including the people of Iraq, in contempt. In a speech in 1977 he said:
"There are times in history when the leadership of a nation is small. There
are other times when the nation is smaller than the leadership. A great
nation with a small leadership gets nowhere. But a great leadership can drag
a small nation along to greatness."

Saddam has dragged the people of Iraq, and to some extent the rest of the
Arabs, into several tragic adventures in the past three decades. Soon, he
may drag them into yet another — one that may turn out to be his last.

http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=19347

[Reprinted with permission of Arab News]

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GULF NEWS SAYS: WHAT OF THE FUTURE?
Gulf News Editorial - October 11, 2002

As the U.S. Congress votes on whether to allow President George Walker Bush
carte blanche on Iraq – seen by many as almost a foregone conclusion –
people question, after the invasion, who? Equally, though, is the pertinent
question, after an invasion, what? For no one (in America or Britain, at
least) seems to have paused for a moment and contemplated just what the Arab
reaction would be to such a war. Not even what happens to what is likely to
be a vast influx of refugees fleeing Iraq into neighboring countries. At the
same time, knowing the invidious ways of the Israelis, the government there
could seize upon the "diversion" of Iraq to expel all the Palestinians from
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Forget the almost impossible logistics of
such an operation, when push comes to shove, the Israelis are known to do
more shoving around than most.

Already Jordan has expressed concern of the possibility of Israel
undertaking such a mission. Historically Jordanians have a very great
understanding of the Israeli psyche, especially since Jordan signed a peace
treaty with Israel in 1994. So it can be said that there exists the very
real possibility of another Palestinian diaspora, courtesy of Israeli
aggression again.

It is also feared that Iraqis and Iraqi Kurds will flee any aggression
evinced from either the invading army or desperate Iraqi troops. Turkey has
expressed a fear of the consequences of an invasion, believing either that
Kurds will flock into the country, or establish a separate state – something
the Turks have been against for many years.

>From the safety of secure homes, the American government may think it can
carve out the future of the Middle East, but it will not win allies that
way. Nor will it achieve the regional peace needed. Any thoughts of invading
Iraq must contain clear objectives as to its future – and that future should
be in the hands of Arabs, not controlled from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/opinion.asp?ArticleID=65307

[Reprinted with permission of Gulf News]

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WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO CHANGE OUR IMAGE?
Arab News - By Dr. Abdul Qader Tash - October 10, 2002

The importance of correcting and changing Islam's distorted image in the
West is not to be denied. We must not be deterred by the enormousness of the
job; nor should we underestimate the dangers of the anti-Islamic and
anti-Muslim campaigns since Sept. 11. The open intellectual and ideological
climate in which there once was an opportunity for Muslims in the West, and
specifically in America, to make their presence known has changed forever.

We must not allow the enemies of Islam — religious extremists,
"intellectuals" or politicians — to use Sept.11 to plant in Western minds a
distorted image of Islam and Muslims. Reports say that the "anti-Islam" wave
in the US has produced more than 20 books this year on the "the Islamic
threat." Among the most dangerous are: "American Jihad: The Terrorists
Living Among Us" by Steven Emerson and "Militant Islam Reaches America" by
Daniel Pipes. Both authors are known for their enmity to Islam and are in
the forefront of distorting our image in America.

Meanwhile extremist American church officials' attacks on Islam have been
particularly upsetting. The leaders of several groups have issued statements
declaring that Islam is an "evil religion" and inciting the so-called "free
world" not to be tolerant of the followers of the "terrorist" religion!
Several opinion polls published recently show that 37 percent of Americans
have a negative impression of Islam compared with only 28 percent who have a
positive impression.

This is, of course, only one side of the coin; there exists another and more
positive one that we should also be aware of. One is the decision by the
University of North Carolina to require its incoming students to read a book
entitled "Approaching the Koran" by a professor of religion at Haverford
College in Pennsylvania. The decision aroused the fury of conservative
religious organizations and led them to file a lawsuit to prevent the book
being taught. Their argument was that the university's action was
unconstitutional in that it forced students to study a pro-Islamic book. The
case was dismissed and the court upheld the university's decision to teach
the book.

The second example leads us to the excellent work being done by another
American organization which has campaigned to increase knowledge of Islam in
the US. Some 80,000 volunteers belong to this organization, The National
Council for International Visitors. It began its campaign with a segment
from a documentary entitled: "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet." One of the
documentary's producers says that the film tries to put a human touch on
Islam by portraying the way in which American Muslims fulfill their
religious duties. He adds: "The images of Muslims in the media are of angry
people, shouting and screaming in the streets. This is that most Americans
see when looking at people who are supposedly Muslim." The aim of this film
is to present an image of American Muslims who follow the teachings of
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in their daily lives.

What is required of us is to encourage such efforts and to support and
cooperate with their leaders. This would be far more beneficial than wasting
our time and energy on following a campaign that may only harm us. There are
indications that many in the West are desirous of learning about Islam — in
fact, the demand for Islamic knowledge is increasing and attendance at
courses on Islam and the Arab world is on the increase in American
universities. Recent opinion polls in Britain as well as Europe indicate a
similar interest in Islam; these polls are encouraging and we must exploit
and utilize them to our advantage.

The real problem is that we don't seize opportunities that are presented to
us. An American journalist complained a few years ago that Arabs and Muslims
wasted their time complaining about the American media distorting their
image instead of replying to the complaints in a careful, reasoned, and
objective manner. He is correct. For what the West is doing in distorting
our image is not important. What is important is what we do about the
distortion.

Certainly, we must act quickly and earnestly, though in accordance with a
clear vision of what our aims are, what we wish to replace and the way to do
it. And so we have our topic for next week.

http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=19289

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U.S. MAY BE LOSING THE WAR FOR MIDEAST MINDS
Gulf News - By Hashem Ahelbarra - October 10, 2002

"The September 11 attacks prompted the United States government to launch a
public relations campaign of a type never seen before... ... If the terrible
September 11 attacks sparked a strong need to review the U.S. relationships
with the Arabs and Muslims, public diplomacy is still unable to find its
way, mainly due to an escalating political rhetoric and a prevailing tension
in the air..."  Complete column...
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/opinion.asp?ArticleID=65113

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EDITOR'S COMMENT
GulfWire does not take an editorial position on the issues and opinions
reported here and aims to remain objective in coverage of developments in
the Arab Gulf states. However, it is important that among the insights we
provide, we bring the reality of contemporary opinion in the Gulf even if it
is sometimes stinging to the targets of its criticism.  We hope to
illuminate not infuriate. For those who rely on an understanding of
developments in the region to ignore the reality of public and official
sentiments in the Gulf is to move forward in these relationships at their
peril.

Patrick W. Ryan
Editor-in-Chief, GulfWire
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