Saudi refusal causes deep unease in Arab Gulf states

The US is courting leading Arab states in order to extract Arab legitimacy for an US anti-terrorist campaign seen by many non-Arab Muslims as a western Christian "crusade against Islam."

The US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, said yesterday during a stop-over in Shannon on his way to Saudi Arabia, that in talks in Riyadh he would not raise the emotive issue of US warplanes launching attacks on Afghanistan from Saudi bases.

"We are not going to be making requests of the Saudi Arabian government ... We are respectful of the circumstance of the countries in the region," he said. Saudi Arabia has refused to grant the US permission to use its bases for offensive action against any "Arab and Muslim" countries.

The Saudi rejection has created deep unease in other Gulf countries hosting US forces, including Bahrain and Oman, as well as Egypt, a close US ally which has yet to associate itself with the Bush administration's "campaign against terrorism" because of Washington's refusal to abjure strikes on Iraq and Palestinian and Lebanese groups resisting Israel's occupation of Arab land.

Nevertheless, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Mr Ahmad Maher, has welcomed President Bush's endorsement of a Palestinian state. "This unequivocal declaration by the United States shows its determination to pursue active efforts for the implementation of the Mitchell report and is likely to open the way for final status negotiations," Mr Maher stated.

Other Arab pronouncements were more measured. The Arab News, the official English daily published in the Saudi capital, asked if Mr Bush's observation that the "idea of a Palestinian state has always been a part of a vision" is merely "a ploy designed to entice Arabs and Muslims into joining the campaign against terrorism." But the editorial writer observed: "Only yesterday, the State Department repeated the tired, old mantra ... that the Palestinians have to stop the violence, the implication is that they are to blame for it. That suggests that Washington is as biased as ever."

The paper demanded that the establishment of a Palestinian state now "is the only way to ensure wholehearted Arab and Muslim support for the war against terrorism."