MIDDLE EAST: Arab papers reflect near unanimity in opposing any US action to depose Saddam Hussein, reports Michael Jansen.
Arab commentators have concluded that the US is determined to strike Iraq regardless of the consequences.
Writing in al-Khaleej, a United Arab Emirates newspaper, Saad Mehio, says the latest remarks of Vice-President Dick Cheney - stressing the "imperative" of taking "pre-emptive action" against Iraq - indicates that the Bush administration has, in spite of protestations to the contrary, made up its mind.
Arab intellectuals argue that the Palestine issue, formerly top of the Arab agenda, has been relegated to a distant second place by the multiple risks posed by another war against Iraq.
The political columnist of al-Quds al-Arabi, Adli Sadeq, believes that one of the "unintended consequences" of a war could be the dismemberment of Iraq. This could produce a domino effect in the region, fracturing states created early in the 20th century into "tribes and oil wells".
Most commentators believe a US victory in Iraq would enable Washington to focus on effecting "regime change", under the rubric of "democratisation," in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, Iran and Egypt. The real objective would be to obtain more malleable rulers in those countries rather than real democracy, several commentators contend.
Others argue that the Arabs would reject the US "democracy package" because Washington seeks to impose it. Muta' Safadi, a Syrian-born philosopher, compares the call for democracy to muezzin's call to prayer. "People hear it but do not always respond to it, because it is impossible to import democracy like a package of seeds."
Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of al-Quds al-Arabi, believes the US call for democratisation is intended to create new US-dominated political, economic and social structures in the Arab world. In his view, policy-makers in Washington are operating on the premise that the Arabs "hate [the Americans\] because they support repressive, unelected regimes which are mired in corruption". Therefore, "to uproot Arab hatred of Americans [which gives rise to terror\], the Arab regimes must be cast out, and this is what America plans to do".
The official Damascus newspaper, Tishrin, appeals to all Arabs to unite against the intensifying US campaign aiming at "intimidating, dividing, singling out and breaking the will" of certain Arab countries, particularly those currently hosting US forces. "We Arabs have two options: to proceed to the altar to be slaughtered one by one, in the delusion that we may, individually, be spared" or to resist "collectively with all the power and human and material resources at our disposal."
A number of editorialists ask: "Can the Arabs withstand US pressure over Iraq?" An informal on-line poll on an Egyptian website reveals that 57 per cent of respondents do not believe any Arab governments would be persuaded to participate in an offensive; 43 per cent believe some would. There is a consensus among analysts that no Arab governments would provide troops: the second Bush administration will not have the Arab cover which gave the first Bush administration's war a measure of popular legitimacy.
Amr Elchoubak, an analyst at al-Ahram's centre for strategic studies, writes: "For the first time since the end of the second World War, a great power has decided to overthrow a ruling regime through an external attack, and without internal backing. This is quite a departure from the conventional pattern", according to which foreign powers ally themselves "with a rebel or revolutionary force working inside a country" to overthrow its regime.