Jordan Times
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Iraq instability, reform, Mideast conflict on Arab summit menu
By Randa Habib
Agence France-Presse
Monday's dawn assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the most spectacular event in the more than three-year Palestinian uprising, has deprived Iraq the dubious honour of being the most inflammable issue in the region. Thousands of people marched in city streets across the Arab and Muslim world, denouncing Israel and Arab capitals, notably Amman and Cairo, which retain diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.
“The Arab street is livid over the situation in Iraq and Palestine. The assassination of Sheikh Yassin was the last straw for Arabs, frustrated with their leaders' passivity,” an Arab official told AFP.
“The Arab summit will convene under mounting pressure from people who are waiting for a firm stand from their leaders against Israel,” said the official who requested anonymity.
“The summit is meeting under different circumstances than before, because there is pressure to reform Arab societies and systems, and concern that they should not be imposed” from outside, Arab League official Taher Masri said.
Leaders of countries in the pan-Arab organisation may not see eye- to-eye on undertaking reforms but agree “we should do it at our own pace,” said Masri, a former prime minister and now Arab commissioner for civil affairs.
“Some Arab leaders are not ready for such reforms and are worried... there is a risk that Islamists would take over [power],” he told AFP.
“At the same time the Arab summit cannot ignore the need for change, whether coming from abroad or internally, so a kind of compromise will be adopted, based on reforms tailored to each Arab country,” he said.
The United States has drawn up its own plan to spread democracy and implement economic liberalisation, called the “Greater Middle East Initiative.”
Washington hopes to launch it at the summit of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialised nations in June, despite hefty Arab criticism.
Many countries, including traditional US allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have criticised the initiative, while Jordan has insisted it includes a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The US initiative has ignored this issue. The Arab countries will make sure they argue the need for a political solution to that conflict, as well as the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty,” said another Arab official.
“This is essential for the launch of any reforms in the Arab world,” he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
For Masri, the summit in Tunis should reject concepts included in the “Greater Middle East Initiative” because they include countries like Afghanistan or Iran, which he said are “different in many ways” from Arab societies.
The summit, the first formal gathering of Arab leaders since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime last April, will also serve as a key forum to examine the repercussions that persistent instability in Iraq has on Arab countries.
“Iraq's interim Governing Council will seek again Arab assistance and Arab leaders will certainly voice their concerns over the outbreak of civil war in Iraq and the partition of the country on ethnic lines,” an Arab official said.
He stressed that Iraq's participation will pave the way for its formal rehabilitation into the Arab League after the ruling US-led coalition transfers sovereignty to an interim Iraqi authority on June 30.