War drums herald Powell tour
By Hoda Tawfiq
US-based Arab diplomats expressed deep concern that last week's American-British airstrikes against suspected military targets near the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, will increase tension in the region. Coming only a few days before Secretary of State Colin Powell's Middle East tour, the airstrikes are likely to complicate his mission.
US administration officials have avoided discussing the airstrikes' broader implications on the stalled Middle East peace efforts. One Arab diplomat, expressing surprise at the timing of the attack, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the Bush administration had asked Arab leaders to lower the tension in the region following the election of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "However, it was the US administration which escalated the tension by bombarding Iraq, and immediately announcing afterwards that it was about to start joint military exercises with Israel, including the launching of Patriot missiles," the diplomat said. The missile training exercise was a clear message to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein that the world's superpower took seriously his recent threats against Israel, which included his declared plan to form an army to liberate occupied Jerusalem. That the Bush administration should renew its commitment to protect Israel's security while ignoring its daily aggression against Palestinian civilians was seen by Arab diplomats as a very negative message indeed.
Meanwhile, few observers took seriously the public statements by President George W Bush and his administration to the effect that the bombing of military targets near Baghdad was "a routine measure" to protect US and British pilots patrolling no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq. Details of the attack released by the Pentagon only weakened US and British claims that it was a routine operation. According to the Pentagon, 50 US fighters, bombers, aerial refuellers, command and control planes and electronic jammers took off from the Gulf-based aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and from bases in Kuwait and Bahrain to bomb Iraqi targets. Accompanied by four British Tornado jets, 24 American aircraft actually launched missiles and dropped bombs, leading analysts to wonder whether an operation of this size could be a routine mission to enforce the no-fly zones.
Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, former US delegate to the United Nations, said that "the military operation sent an important signal to Baghdad that they should not try to use the early months of a new US administration to test whether or not they can get away with something."
Still, analysts questioned the timing of the attack on Iraq, coming as it did just a few days before Powell starts his visit to Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Israel and Kuwait.
Powell himself has said little about the use of military force against Iraq, preferring to speak about the importance of strengthening the international sanctions against the Iraqi regime. He expressed concern that the coalition was suffering from cracks and that the sanctions were crumbling. He repeated that he intends to discuss with regional leaders ways to reinvigorate the international sanctions placed on Iraq after the 1990 war.
"As I travel throughout the region, I will be concentrating on the UN part of the policy, as opposed to the United States bilateral relationship with respect to Iraq, and other activities in the Gulf and with the Iraqi opposition," Powell stated. He went on to ask countries in the region to deny Iraq the opportunity to purchase both weapons and materiel that would allow them to make their own.
Informed sources told Al-Ahram Weekly that Powell would urge countries neighbouring Iraq to give facilities to the Iraqi opposition to launch attacks against the regime, something that the Arab countries rejected in the past. Indeed, there does not appear to be any support in the region for the US call to tighten sanctions against Iraq, what with planes from all over the region -- and the world -- landing in Baghdad in defiance of Washington.
US administration officials have warned against great expectations from Powell's visit, saying his goal is to listen and to assess how to proceed. In any case, the attack against Iraq has already set the tone: the Bush administration is playing tough and will not let Saddam test its resolve. US officials apparently believe that diplomacy alone will take too long, whereas Bush wants to quickly put an end to Saddam's return to the world stage and renewed threats to intervene in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The timing of the renewed US bombing was in fact intended, some sources say, to coincide with Powell's tour so that Arab countries understand clearly the Bush administration's displeasure with the trend in the Arab world towards restoring ties with Iraq and reintegrating it into the region.