POLITICS-IRAQ: Arabs Meeting but Not Agreeing

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George Baghdadi

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Feb 28 2003 (IPS) - Ministers are struggling ahead of the Arab League summit beginning Saturday to work out some compromise over Iraq, if not an agreement.

There are many proposals in the air, but none the ministers have been able to agree on. And there is little sign that the Arab meeting would build enough momentum to slow the build up of military forces around Iraq – much of it on the soil of members like Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.

The Arab Foreign Ministers have been holding "consultative" discussions before the summit begins. They had failed to reach any agreement in Cairo last week.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri demanded at pre-summit talks in this resort by the Red Sea that "a strong and powerful position should be made condemning the United States intentions to launch a war against Iraq." Iraq will be represented by Vice-President Izzat Ibrahim El-Douri at the meeting of heads of state or government. Few in the 22-member Arab League are listening to the Iraqi demand. Delegates from Kuwait argue that war on Iraq is inevitable. They want the Arab League to start talking about what will happen afterwards.

A second camp including Egypt and Saudi Arabia argues that war can be avoided if Iraq cooperates fully with United Nations (UN) inspectors seeking to verify that it has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction.

Yet another camp led by Syria wants toughly worded criticism of the U.S. and Israel. Syria, a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, is convinced that Iraq has shown sufficient cooperation with UN inspectors. Close allies of the U.S. on the other hand want moderate language.

Proposals are being laid down one after the other. Egypt and Jordan are suggesting that Arab leaders, who have started to arrive for the summit, issue two statements at the end of their talks – a final communiqué of some agreed position, and a second non-binding "Sharm declaration" to be addressed to what is being spoken of as the Arab street.

Many believe that a U.S. attack on Iraq will trigger a wave of anti-American anger in the Arab world, forcing governments to adopt repressive measures to retain control.

Another proposal is to send out two high-level delegations, one to Iraq to tell President Saddam Hussein to cooperate more, and the other to Washington to tell President George W. Bush that Arabs want a peaceful solution.

Two ministerial and non-ministerial committees have been formed, each of eight countries, to try to craft a more assertive stand on the issue. Much is going on but at the moment it seems it is all going nowhere.

"Arab diplomacy is pliant, confused, and confusing, and it lacks substance, muscle, and strategic vision," says Yahya Zakaria, a leading Egyptian analyst. "Arab rulers will only spice up their rhetoric to compensate for their passivity."

Arab nations have much to fear by way of a flood of refugees, disrupted economies, and the prospect of agitation among their own minorities. They fear also that the emergence of a democratic government in Iraq could undermine the autocratic regimes of the Arab world. And they fear a crash in oil prices. Without Saddam, Iraq’s oil riches could flood the market.

The Arab League meeting has been moved forward from the due date at the end of March. The meeting was to be held in Bahrain but is being held in Egypt now under Bahrain’s chairmanship. The "Arab brothers" were split also on whether to have an earlier summit at all.

If this summit fails, the outcome for the region is grim, says political analyst George Jabour. "This would probably mean that the Israelis would continue to escalate their military campaign in the occupied territories and that the U.S. would easily attack Baghdad," said Jabour, former adviser to late Syrian President Hafez Assad.

The summit is the first of a series of high-profile meetings at which Arab and Muslim states will discuss the Iraq crisis. Gulf nations are due to hold a summit next week. Heads of government of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference are due to meet after that.

The conflict between Israelis and the Palestinians is almost forgotten in the differences over Iraq. But there will be a very visible sign of it at the summit. An Arab head-dress will be placed before an empty chair for Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. He will speak to the summit on satellite from his bunker in the West Bank where the Israelis have pinned him down.