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Arab League's warnings fall on deaf
ears
By Hooman Peimani
On
September 5, the Arab League foreign ministerial meeting
held in Cairo unanimously backed Iraq in its apparent
showdown with the United States. Arab League
Secretary-General Amr Moussa clearly expressed the
opposition of all 22 members (most of whom are close
oil-producing allies of the United States) to any
American attack against Iraq, which, according to him,
would "open the gates of hell in the Middle East".
Despite such unanimous Arab opposition, the
consequences of the continued American push for a war
against Iraq, now backed by British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, will not be confined only to instability in Arab
countries, most of which are already facing domestic
political challenges. Also, it will likely pave the way
for a long period of uncertainty about oil supplies in
international markets, with possible major economic and
political consequences both for oil-exporting and
oil-importing economies.
The Arab League's
unanimous support of Iraq did not surprise anyone. The
Arab foreign ministers attending the Cairo meeting
simply reiterated what they had already stated publicly
and privately. By and large, the Arab regimes suffer
from a weak and fragile social basis resulting from
their incompetence and corruption. Economic difficulties
have further increased social discontent, not only in
the poor Arab countries, such as Jordan and Egypt, but
also in most of the rich oil-exporting countries, such
as Saudi Arabia. Consequently, all the Arab elites have
resorted to authoritarianism in various forms to ensure
their survival. Repression and rampant abuses of human
rights have actually worsened the situation by further
alienating their already dissatisfied peoples. The
result has been a growing gap between the Arab regimes
and their respective peoples.
In the absence of
a possibility for legal political activities and of
democratic means for changing governments - ie,
elections - the social situation has become suitable for
the emergence of extremist political groups in many Arab
countries advocating violence as the only way for
changing the undesirable undemocratic regimes. Operating
in radicalized societies, such groups capitalize on the
growing popular discontent and eroding legitimacy of
Arab states to expand and promote their subversive
political views. As a result, a few exceptions aside
(eg, Lebanon), radical, extremist and fanatic
underground groups have mushroomed in Arab countries.
Their regimes' high-handed policy toward those groups
has at best interrupted their activities for short
periods, while granting them more popularity as victims
of repressive regimes. As the root causes for their very
existence remain intact, their revival and expansion are
just a matter of time.
In such a situation, the
Arab governments have argued that any future American
war against Iraq to replace its regime with a
pro-American one would destabilize their countries. The
already dissatisfied Arabs who are angry at what they
describe as a pro-Israeli American policy towards the
Middle East would likely turn the Arab streets into an
arena for radical political protests by the masses, who
could easily re-focus their anti-Americanism onto their
respective governments. Any expression of support by
those governments for an American military operation, or
any indifference to it, would even worsen the situation.
Apart from its possibly disastrous political
outcome, an American attack on Iraq could also impose a
high economic cost on many oil-exporting states,
including Arab ones, as well as on oil-importing
countries. Over the past few weeks, talk about a
possible attack pushed up the oil price, which only
began to come down after Iraq offered to accept the
return of UN inspectors. Yet that may not last long;
despite Iraq's move, the repeated pro-war statements of
senior American politicians, including President George
W Bush, and the emerging signs of bipartisan support for
his proposed war in the American Congress, have
certainly increased the likelihood of a war in the near
future.
If the current trend continues, a steady
increase in oil prices will likely be the logical
outcome for as long as the threat of war remains in
place. The latter will undoubtedly further worsen the
grim economic situation in many oil-importing economies,
including the industrialized ones. In particular, Japan
and the European Union countries with heavy dependency
on imported oil, especially from the Middle East, will
feel the brunt of more expensive oil on their economies.
As most of them have experienced negative or
insignificant economic growth over the past few years,
significant increases in the price of imported fuel will
surely push them deeper into economic problems.
Logically, this will be translated into a lower demand
for imported oil, which will offset any short-term-gain
of increased oil prices in oil-exporting economies.
In turn, the resulting decline in economic
activities in Europe and elsewhere will certainly affect
negatively many Middle Eastern economies that are
heavily dependent on Europe and Japan for employment and
for revenue, be it through oil exports (eg, Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait) or trade and tourism (eg, Morocco, Tunisia,
Egypt and Lebanon). Neither "rich" nor "poor" Arab
countries are prepared to deal with the predictable
economic consequences.
Unlike what many
Westerners might think, most of the "rich" Persian Gulf
Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, have lost their
famous financial might and prosperity. In fact, since
the 1990s they have experienced major economic problems
caused by the heavy cost of the 1991 Persian Gulf war,
long periods of low oil prices and the increasing
economic burden of their growing populations. Budget
deficits and shortages of funds have damaged their
economies, resulting in a lowering of
government-provided services for citizens, in a shelving
of many development projects and in a decreasing level
of financial aid to "poor" Arab countries.
Severe political and economic problems in the
Middle East and significant economic difficulties in
major oil-importing developed economies seem to be two
predictable outcomes of the current American policy
towards Iraq. An actual war would have a more
destructive economic and political impact. To alarm the
Americans about the consequences of their war plan on
Iraq, the Arab League foreign ministers expressed in a
resolution their "total rejection of the threat of
aggression on Arab nations, especially Iraq, reaffirming
that these threats and any threat to the security and
safety of any Arab country are considered a threat to
Arab national security." The united Arab stance has not
changed the American resolution to pursue its objective
in Iraq. It is not certain whether any coordinated
European and Japanese opposition will have a better
result.
Dr Hooman Peimani works as an
independent consultant with international organizations
in Geneva and does research in international
relations
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