About the Arab summit, the Iraqi plight, and the rule of the zombie


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Hichem KAROUI
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About the Arab summit, the
Iraqi plight, and the rule of the zombie.

 

By: Hichem Karoui (in Paris)

March
3, 2003

 

(2526 words)

 

            Congratulations
to the Arab leaders.

            They
have finally accepted to face America with the new realities of the old
regional system of the Middle East. Their last summit - at Sharm el Sheikh- was
quite expressive on this level. It was a real delight for 200 million of their
fellow-citizens to see that, at last, their leaders were not preaching in the
desert. The Arabs have thus decided to put Mr. Bush at his place and to show
him his real size. That's great! After all, what is his weight in the balance?
Is he still the leader of the Western world, after he was being ridiculed by
Jacques Chirac, the president of a country not even the size of California? And
still... there is much more to come. Wait and see. So, the Arab leaders are
today convinced that Bush must go out... Not out of his mind. Nor out of his
country. But rather out of the White House. Why? Simple: He is no longer capable
to rule the Arab world, like his predecessors. Times have changed. The
"governors" of the Arab States, gathered last week end in Egypt, have
long debated about this thorny subject: how would they face their peoples if
they don't give Bush a lesson of "savoir vivre"? If Chirac - and even
the Chechnya's blood-wrecked Putin- could do it, how 22 patrons of the Arab oil
& disturbance factory could not? You know, there is a limit for every
thing. Even to the Arab masochism. And Bush outpaced his rights... to stay in
the White House. He must go.

 Out.

 Now.

The last Arab summit was thus quite
disarming... For Bush.

He must disarm or face the Arab wrath.

We are not ants, what the hell! We are
representing 200 million Arabs (French statistics!), all of them willing to put
Bush before the accomplished fact: "The game is over"! Go out
disarmed, or face Jacques Chirac.

Now that Chirac is the "bête noire"
of the American president, the Arabs have got a weapon much more efficient than
the 1973's oil embargo. If Bush intends to resist, we will send him our troika
(high representatives of Beirut, Bahrain, and Tunis), headed by the "bête
noire" himself. Yeah! That's why we gave our new man/weapon rendezvous in
Algiers. Even the CIA has been outwitted this time. Neither Tenet's spies nor
Condoleezza's informers saw the wave coming. With Bouteflika (Algerian
President), Chichi (i.e. Chirac for the intimate) will recall his souvenirs
when he was a soldier in the French imperial army; then, looking round him, he
will see only the relics of the ancient grandeur. Gone for ever. A moment of
truth, that is. France is no longer the centre of the world. In the best case,
it is a little part of the "old Europe". (Rumsfeld was generous,
and..."savant"). That's why it is important to stay in the line of
the pure Gaullism. Opposing America is also a moral duty. Besides, today there
is something called Europe. It counts. And not for butter, whatever Blair
thinks.

 Many years ago however, - precisely in the aftermath of the
second world war- Paul Valéry, a prominent French intellectual and poet, saw
the same Europe as reduced to be just a "little spot" on the map of
the world, stuck as it was, between the two new giants (USA and ex-Soviet
Union). A situation that Charles De Gaulle - Chirac's spiritual father- could
never bring himself to admit. And if Winston Churchill went in history
commentaries with his half-serious, half-funny " I have not been appointed
Minister in order to terminate HM's colonies", De Gaulle did not think either
that he had delivered France from the Nazi yoke in order to accept the American
tutelage, even in the name of the free world, or the Western alliance, or the
Nato, or whatever you call it. That's why he decided to play it alone, and to
call the French nation for a new great destiny, which was: the leadership of
Africa! Not Europe- it was not yet constituted- but the francophone Africa. And
he was not joking.

That France is still the leader of the African
continent does not even need to be reminded of, so obvious it is to all eyes;
whatever thinks Muammar Gaddafi and the African themselves. The Americans know
it, and -at some moments- seem to admit it, although they cannot be trusted.
This is so true that the incredible thing is but how France is not yet a member
of the new pan-African organisation! As to the British, there is no problem.
They have found a new role too. It may be summed up in the well-known popular
joke: America, they say, is still our preferred colony! That's why they keep so
closely tied to the Americans, which is not a bad idea, when you analyze it.
For, instead of opposing the new world Superpower - to which they have even
given their language to reflect their own concept of post-colonial grandeur-,
they decided to stay in the game and to bridge their similarities and their
differences with the opposite shore of the Atlantic. Sly, isn't it?

Now, what the Arabs think of all that? Not
much. The "Mother of all wars" (Saddam's label of the Gulf war) has
bred the "Mother of all priorities", which consists in getting rid
once and for all of the entire Bush dynasty. That's the "Mother of all
evil" in the Arab region.

That family name (I mean Bush), is linked in
the Arab mind with war and destruction. The first Bush started a war that he
was incapable of leading to its logic end, and now his son intends to terminate
the unaccomplished job of the father. You know how the political commentators
call these wars: surgery, they say, alluding to the rapidity and the high
precision of the ultra-modern weapons. If we trust them, these operations are
as benign as neat! These are even "humanist wars". They help people
and alleviate their pains. Well, there is really nothing to say about that. The
Kuwaitis are still grateful to the Americans. But for God's sake, who is the
surgeon who starts an operation and, opening his patient's body, takes the time
of reflection 12 whole years, before handing the case to his son in order to
terminate the job? How do you call such a doctor? A rational person?

Now you see what I mean when I say the Arabs
are fed up with the American incompetence? Apart from joking about their own
incompetence, there is - tout de même- some ground to their worries. The last
war left us with a human situation impossible to handle or to cope with in
Iraq. Besides, if it delivered Kuwait from the Iraqi invasion, it did not
deliver it from the fear of being attacked again. What is the price of freedom
and safety? Are the Arabs bad payers? Did they not pay enough? What's the limit
of all these torments? Is there a limit at least? Then, who grants that this
war Mr. Bush intends to start is the good one?

These are some of the questions the Arab
leaders avoided to raise openly in their last summit, although an informed
source told me that they have discussed them by telepathy, which triggered a
noticeable quarrel between Prince Abdallah of Saudi Arabia and Muammar Gaddafi
of Libya. I still did not understand the reason of such a quarrel. It seems
that Gaddafi reminded the other leaders of something King Fahd told him some
days prior to the first conflagration of the Gulf: Saddam intended to invade
Saudi Arabia, he said. His tanks were ready on the boundaries. So, in order to
defend his country, King Fahd was ready even to make alliance with the devil!

That did not please Crown Prince Abdallah, who
retorted with harsh words: Saudi Arabia is not a puppet of imperialism, he
said. It is a Muslim country. Who brought you to power? You lie, while you know
you're going to face God.

Apparently, Gaddafi did not use the right words.
Maybe had he forgotten what the Saudi King told him exactly, but remembering
only the meaning, he put it clumsily in his own words. To say that the leader
of the first Muslim country spoke of "alliance with the devil", even
with the best intentions in the world, could only lead to misunderstanding in a
situation that was not lacking disturbance. Of course, everybody understands
perfectly that a Saudi King could be so angry if he judges that his country is
in menaced of invasion by his neighbor. Anybody in such a situation could
perfectly and rightly speak of alliance with the devil if it is necessary to
defend the country. That's also what Gaddafi likely understood, but after 12
years, he did not choose the right words to express it, which irritated the
Crown Prince.

But, let's imagine - just imagine- that King
Fahd really put it that way, what's the big deal? We know he is a Muslim
leader. Couldn't a Muslim leader utter such words without meaning them in their
literal sense? Isn't the King a human being? If he is, why shouldn't he be
angry, and once angry, utter words he does not necessarily mean? And who is the
devil here? America? Of course, neither King Fahd nor Crown Prince Abdallah
could think of their first ally this way. If not, what's the difference between
them and the Iranian Mullahs?

So, in all cases, excesses of language, anger,
forgetfulness, and misunderstandings are our human lot, whatever our social
function or rank.

The conclusion of all the previous commentary
is - as you imagine- a sad one.

The Arabs gathered to tackle rationally a very
dramatic and thorny subject. Objectively, we were not expecting a miracle,
knowing very well what are the limits of the Arab game, courteously labeled
"common work". But  was
it a dream to wish at least

 some honorable and courageous stance, to
save the face? Instead of which, they offered us the tragi-comic cartoon of a
quarrel for nothing, and a shameful silence about the only wise proposition of
the meeting, emanating from Sheikh Zaied, of the U.A.E.

Indeed, it is a pity that Sheikh Zaied waited
until the last moment to submit his plan, although it is said that they were
all aware of it. Gaddafi was right to say that the real problem is between the
Arabs themselves, not between Iraq and America. But would he have agreed on the
sole Arab plan able to avoid war, in weighing upon the Iraqi government to do
something for the safety of the Iraqi population?

Just read the UAE plan. There is absolutely
nothing dishonoring in it, whether for the Iraqi people or the Iraqi
government. Four points deserve to be retained:

"1- The Iraqi leadership decides to step
down and leave Iraq within two weeks starting from its acceptance of the
initiative on the condition that it enjoys all the suitable privileges.

2- Providing legal assurances for the Iraqi
leadership that it will not be subject any sort of legal action whatsoever, on
condition that these assurances be respected locally, regionally, and
internationally.

3- Issuing a general and comprehensive amnesty
that should include all Iraqis, inside or outside Iraq

4- The Arab League, in cooperation with the
United Nations Secretary General, should take charge of supervising the
situation in Iraq for a transitional period during which all necessary measures
should be taken to bring things back to normal, the way the brethren Iraqi
people opt to take."

These are the proper terms of the initiative. I
just wonder: What do they want more? By "they" I mean everybody: the
Iraqis, the Arabs, even the French, the Russians, the Chinese...In a word, all
those who claim that they want to avoid war.

If such an initiative is not workable, then
nothing is in the "Arab common work". Nothing in the present. Nothing
in the future, as we see it. For if a whole Arab summit cannot convince one
single person - Saddam, that is - to give up his quixotic, vain, and dangerous
game, and to exit honorably, then it would be much more practicable and highly
efficient to order the President of the United States of America to resign and
leave immediately the White House, for the Arabs do not want him in there.

And he certainly will obey the order.

In avoiding even to utter a single word about
that courageous initiative of Zaied - who cannot be suspected of nourishing any
personal animosity towards Saddam, since he was the first Arab leader who ended
the boycott after the Gulf war, which in itself was considered then as a bold
gesture-, the Arabs did neither serve the Iraqi people, nor the purpose of
peace. The choice they made instead was merely a painkiller when the case needs
a surgery. They decided to send a troika to the Security Council! What for? Do
we need more palaver, while everybody knows that the simplest way is just to
put Saddam before the accomplished fact? What would he do if the Arab leaders
refused to deal with him as they did once with Egypt, who signed unilaterally a
pact with Israel (Camp David's accords)? Couldn't they send their troika to
Baghdad to inform Saddam that nobody in the region wants to deal with him
anymore as a President, and that he would be welcome if he chooses to go into
exile in an Arab State, with granted safety from an Arab summit? Is an Arab
summit's will nothing compared to Saddam's megalomania? How 21 representatives
of the Arab states accept to be thus ridiculed in the eyes of the world because
Saddam wants to stay in power, even if that will cost the Iraqi people and the
entire region a bloody war, that nobody can evaluate its consequences?

For indeed he will stay. Indeed he thinks
already that he is the winner. Winner of what? Go and ask him. Since 1979 -
date of his putsch- this man did nothing but wage war after war, and
"win" them all. The Iraqis know it. They do not even discuss the
matter: He is the WINNER. Even if millions of Iraqis are dead because of his military
ambitions. Even if in 24 years of his rule, he has only succeeded in
transforming Iraq from a moderately comfortable country with tremendous
perspectives due to its wealth, into a cemetery... a battlefield after the
battle, where vultures are fighting to tear up the corpses.

Imagine; just imagine what could a wise
leadership have done of all the possibilities we know in this rich and
beautiful country. And look today at the Iraqis. Look at this great, noble, and
generous Arab people. Look at their orphaned children. Look at their widowed
women. Look at their poverty, at their sickness, at their misery. In what name
are they undergoing this plight? What is their mistake? Who has the right to
treat them this way? Is Saddam a man from them and like them or is he a zombie,
denying them any normal life, because insensible to their misery, he just
doesn't think them worth to live as human beings?

What human beings am I talking about? Can a
zombie feel or know or perceive anything human or related to human life? For if
he does, he wouldn't be Saddam Hussein, would he?

 

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