| |
Who will cry for Saddam this
time?
By Ferry Biedermann
AMMAN - "Watches with Saddam Hussein on them?"
The owner of the watch shop in the Palestinian refugee
camp Baka'a outside the Jordanian capital Amman has to
laugh. "We haven't sold those for a while. We don't get
them any more from Iraq and there's hardly any demand
any more here."
He hesitates a bit and then
adds, "Even the few Iraqis who still come here are fed
up with Saddam."
Baka'a and other Palestinian
camps, in Jordan and throughout the Middle East, were
hotbeds of support for Iraq and its leader during the
1991 Gulf War. People demonstrated, put up posters of
their hero and bought watches and pictures with his
likeness.
Now, the narrow streets of the camp
are clear of posters and nobody demonstrates. It is a
measure of the changed popular as well as official
attitudes to Saddam Hussein.
While in Europe and
the US thousands of people protest a possible war
against Iraq, the Arab world remains largely quiet.
Commentators say the famed cauldron of emotions, the
so-called "Arab street", is apathetic.
Governments in the region oppose an attack
because they fear that it may undermine their own
futures, but not because of popular unrest. "In 1991 we
supported Saddam and went out into the streets to
protest," says the owner of the watch shop who declines
to give his name. He and other people in Baka'a are now
much more skeptical about the Iraqi leader.
"Then we thought he was a liberator but it
turned out he wasn't. His own government is as
illegitimate as all the other regimes here in the
region."
The situation in the Middle East is
almost a mirror image of 1991. At that time both Jordan
and the Palestinians were on the side of Saddam Hussein.
Egypt and Syria supported international action against
Iraq and actually provided troops.
The official
Jordanian position is still not openly supportive of a
war, but it is much more neutral and behind the scenes
there are glimmers of cooperation with the US
government. It takes a different position from most of
Iraq's other neighbors, except Kuwait.
Former
foreign minister Jawad Anani explains, "We are much more
moderate than in 1991. We learned our lesson." Jordan
was heavily penalized in the 1990s for its perceived
pro-Iraqi stance, on an economic and diplomatic level.
Jordan's young monarch, Abdallah, recently launched a
campaign to remind his citizens where their loyalties
lie: "Jordan First."
Anani says that it is
necessary because "external forces" directed too many
Jordanian movements and parties. It is widely seen as a
warning to Jordanians, most of whom are of Palestinian
descent, not to get too involved in the problems in the
Palestinian territories and in Iraq.
Businessman
Labib Kamhawi was previously involved in the solidarity
movement with Iraq but now distances himself. He sees
the "Jordan First" campaign as "a blow to Arab unity".
Many people are very angry, he says; and there is a
growing gap between the government and the people, but
he also concedes that the authorities can easily deal
with whatever unrest may arise.
That is not the
situation in the Palestinian territories, where the
confrontation with Israel is still in full swing and
where Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority has
virtually ceased to function. Still, Palestinian
politicians don't expect the West Bank and Gaza to erupt
into more violence in case of a war in Iraq.
"Look at what happened during the first
intifada," says Ziad Abu Amr, the chairman of the
political committee of the Palestinian Legislative
Council. "Everything stayed quiet." The Palestinians
have their own problems and "don't want to give Israel
an excuse" to carry out even harsher policies, he adds.
Abu Amr does not exclude more violence, though,
especially if the war in Iraq lasts longer and more
Iraqis get killed. "You can never exclude some people
who feel close to al-Qaeda trying to carry out something
spectacular." Attacks on US targets are possible in Arab
countries, says Abu Amr. "They have already happened in
Jordan and Kuwait but Palestinians have never targeted
US citizens."
Anti-US feelings are on the
increase throughout the region, not only among the
people but also among governments. Hisham Qassem,
editor-in-chief of the English language independent
newspaper Cairo Times, dismisses popular unrest and says
that the regime is much more worried about US intentions
in the region.
"The Arab Street is apathetic on
the issue of Iraq and in any case the street has never
toppled governments," says Qassem. The government of
President Hosni Mubarak is not worried about
demonstrations because "they are confident they have
suppressed dissent".
The government does worry,
however, about the intentions of the Bush Administration
that is its ostensible ally.
"The governments
here and elsewhere in the region are against action on
Iraq because they get very nervous about the phrase
'regime change'," says Qassem. "They are afraid that if
it's successful in Iraq it may be applied in other
countries too." None of the 22 members of the Arab
League is a democracy, he points out.
Certainly
Syria is not, but Damascus has another worry too: it is
still on the US list of countries supporting terrorism
for its backing of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.
The regime of the inexperienced, young president
Bashar Assad has been very cooperative in the US war
against al-Qaeda, says Farid al-Khazen, a political
scientist at Lebanon's American University in Beirut.
"Syria knows that it and Hezbollah will be next on the
list after Iraq and it's trying everything to avoid
that."
It may not be enough, however, because of
Syria's other policies, including continued backing of
Hezbollah and sheltering of militant Palestinian
factions, its sanctions busting purchase of Iraqi oil
and even rumors of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
being hidden in the country.
Al-Khazen does
expect Damascus to try its utmost, though, to curry
favor with the Americans. That will include keeping
Hezbollah quiet during a war in Kuwait. He expects the
US government to do the same with the Israelis so that
the Northern Israel-Southern Lebanon front will stay
quiet at least for the duration.
(Inter Press
Service)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
