IRAQ: Give diplomacy a chance, says UAE paper

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Att.Editors: The following item is by the United Arab Emirates news agency (WAM)

ABU DHABI, Feb 17 2003 (IPS) - The marches by masses around the world in the past two days rejecting a possible war on Iraq has a candid message to tell – give other options a chance, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) paper says.

Commenting editorially on the issue today, the English daily ‘Gulf News’ wrote that UN resolution 1441 did not call for a "regime change" – a polite euphemism for a governmental overthrow by, presumably, outside forces, with supposedly the limited resources of some indigenous fighters.

– Had the UN Security Council decided that its now infamous Resolution 1441 was to include such a message, then it is more than likely that it would never have succeeded in being passed by the members. For such a resolution would have flouted all UN conventions and even its charter, since nowhere does it state that UN members, either multilaterally or unilaterally, have the right to initiate war upon another member," the Dubai-based paper said.

In fact, it added, the very purpose of the founding of the UN was to avoid war and to seek compromise through diplomacy.

The paper believes that the rift between nations over Iraq is dividing not only the Security Council itself, and possibly the UN but also the 19-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). ôIn both august bodies, solutions to the stalemate are being proposed as rapidly as they are being rejected. The next few days will determine the course of the next few months. Perhaps diplomacy – and common sense – will prevail at last," it concluded.