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Arab
governments will only protest so that there is no contradiction
between public opinion and official positions
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CAIRO,
September 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Arab states have been
unanimous in rejecting a U.S. war on Iraq, but if it is waged, they
cannot do anything but protest, analysts say.
“There
won’t be any serious opposition, only official statements of
protest,” Nabil Abdul Fattah, an expert at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram
Center for Strategic Studies, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
protests would be “in fact intended for local consumption, so that
there would be no contradiction between public opinion and the official
position, in order to preserve the stability of (Arab) regimes,” he
added.
Arab
cities saw huge demonstrations in support of Iraq during the 1991
U.S.-led Operation Desert Storm to drive Saddam Hussein’s army out of
Kuwait.
There
were also protests against the 1998 U.S.-British blitz on Baghdad dubbed
Operation Desert Fox.
Egyptian
Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher hinted Friday, September 13, at Arab
impotence to prevent a war on Iraq, saying Egypt would reluctantly
support an attack if the United Nations endorses it.
“Egypt,
because of practical reasons and principles, cannot support U.S.
military action unless there is a U.N. resolution against Iraq’s
refusal to implement international resolutions,” Maher said.
Egyptian
political analyst Emad Gad said there was still a possibility for
Baghdad to avoid war if it accepts the return of the U.N. weapons
inspectors who pulled out from Iraq on the eve of Desert Fox.
But
if Baghdad does not allow the inspectors back, “influential Arab
countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia would wash their hands of Iraq
and say they had done everything to avoid a military action,” Gad
argued.
Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak is expected to travel next week to several Arab
countries, possibly Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan, to gather support
for an initiative aimed at convincing Iraq to allow back U.N. weapons
inspectors.
Mubarak
called on Saddam Friday to “grab the opportunity” offered in U.S.
President George W. Bush’s speech a day earlier at the U.N. General
Assembly, by allowing back U.N. weapons inspectors immediately.
He
warned Saddam that failing to do so would “lead to disastrous
consequences” for Iraq.
Bush
warned that U.S. action against Baghdad was “unavoidable” unless the
international organization disarmed Iraq, which the United States
suspects of hiding a program of weapons of mass destruction.
On
Friday, Bush urged the United Nations to fix a deadline for action
against Iraq in “days and weeks”.
Iraq
has rejected the unconditional return of inspectors, saying the teams
could only resume work as part of a deal that provides mainly for the
lifting of the sanctions imposed by the U.N. after its August 1990
invasion of Kuwait.
Gad
said Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria, who formed the main Arab component
of the U.S.-led coalition that drove Iraq out of Kuwait in February
1991, “would not take part this time in a strike on Baghdad.”
But
he did not rule out that smaller states in the Gulf, like Qatar, would
offer military facilities for the United States to carry out a strike.
Qatar
on Friday signaled it would consider an eventual request from its US
"ally" to use its territory as a launch pad for a strike.
“We
still don’t have a direct request from the United States ... when we
(get) this direct request, we can discuss it and see how we can (respond
to) it,” Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr
al-Thani told CNN.
His
comment came as a senior U.S. official said the U.S. national security
leadership was considering moving the entire Tampa, Florida-based
Central Command to Qatar.
Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait, who also host U.S. troops, tanks and warplanes, have
said they would not allow their bases to be used for a U.S. attack, but
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said Sunday that if the
United Nations gave its approval to a strike Riyadh would cooperate.
King
Hamad of Bahrain, whose tiny archipelago hosts the headquarters of the
U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, early this month said that nothing could stop
a U.S. strike to topple Saddam if Bush has made up its mind.
