Iraq & Arab rescue task [Archives:2005/886/Opinion]
By Prof. Dr. Abdulaziz al-Tarb
It has not become secret for anyone that the situation in Iraq has become very complicated. Iraqi politicians are in dispute on everything and the United States of America is incapable of facing the situation and putting an end to the deteriorating security situation and the bloodbaths open here. It is as if the world community and its international organization are absent vis-a-vis what are taking place in the country. The European Union has not been able yet to coordinate or unify its efforts and movements of the committee of Iraq's neighbouring countries is rather traditional and has no essential influences on what is going on inside Iraq.
Amidst this troubled and gloomy climate, there has emerged an Arab action providing a ray of hope in the possibility of drafting a new policy to rescue Iraq. This movement is sponsored by Egypt and Saudi Arabia following a summit held by President Hosni Mubarak and the Saudi monarch king Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz in Jeddah in initiating an effective regional action to contain the flaring crises in the region. Then there was Jeddah meting of the Arab group that emerged through declaration of a new Arab initiative for national reconciliation among the Iraqis in what is described as necessary intervention coming the appropriate time to stop the security and sectarian congestion in Iraq. This initiative is to start with a visit by the Arab League secretary-general Amr Mousa to the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the first of its kind since the fall of Saddam Hussein regime and the occupation of Iraq.
In fact, this movement is considered a natural extension of the Arab movement for holding a reconciliation conference among the Iraqis, a recommendation that lingered long because various Iraqi forces have planned to achieve speedy political gains at the expense of the situations in the country and exploited by certain regional powers to bolter their influence in Iraq especially after they have found some kind of consent with the occupation forces there, to change the political map and centers of power.
This political Arab action reflects a feeling of a sense of Arab responsibility towards Iraq that nearing to the verge of civil war as a result of failure of all policies of the occupation and its inability. This mission would not be an easy one because situation in Iraq has aggravated to an extent of irremediableness, as many indications point out. Nevertheless, the serious consequences and their impact on the region's countries and the world, dictate speeding up and continuation in political attempts to salvage Iraq and its people from this tragedy. It has now become understandable that resolving the Iraqi crisis would not be by a political operation launched from Iraq, or in the process of referendum on the constitution in this month or the election of a new parliament at the end of next December. It would not be solved also by fabricating an imaginary crisis between the Sunnis and the Shiites or between the Arabs and Kurds or frightening all of Iraq's Baath Party that has ended and dissolved after the fall of Saddam regime. The crisis could not be solved also by leaving ire to fall prey to all types of extremists. Each wants to test its force and ignite new wars and seditions springing from mentalities that inherited the culture of middle ages or by hegemony of regional powers that view in the American mistakes in Iraq, along with its weakness, as a historic opportunity for control and destabilize the traditional regional balance between Iran and the Arabs. This balance is necessary for the stability of this significant region for the world.
There would be neither victor nor vanquished party in the Iraqi crisis. It is the only point in our contemporary world where all would come out defeated. Even the superpowers would not be able to come out of their crisis or the catastrophe they have created in Iraq, except with a serious and effective cooperation of influential Arab countries and all countries of the world in order to rectify he political equation.
The new movement must rectify the mistaken equations that emerged from imbalances of forces between the Iraqi various parties, provided the endeavor to preserve the right of all in an independent Iraq and clarity of its Arab and Islamic identity. There must not be focusing on sect and nationalities that are already melted in the pot of integrated Iraq, now being resurrected by occupation mistakes and calamities. There must be a restoration of the comprehensive political operation to its right track, reconstruction of what was destroyed by the war and the establishment of constituents of a modern state and return to the peaceful settlement according to the UN Security Council resolution 1546 in July 2004. In other words, there must be stages and timings for the political process, structuring the state, withdrawal of occupation forces, and participation of the entire international community in solving the Iraqi crisis without leaving it in the hands of the Americans alone. The new movement should define Iraq's financial and security needs and timings of implementing them even if here emerged a need for issuing a new international resolution. This should be carried out in a way not leaving the Iraqis prey to terrorists and extremists that are rejected in our region, or to some extremist ideas in Washington that think of arming all the parties to face extremism. This would lead to burn what remained of Iraq and would set ablaze the entire region. It is a lesson requires accuracy and to benefit from it before it is too late.
——
[archive-e:886-v:14-y:2005-d:2005-10-17-p:opinion]
