Panel Offers Chance for Public Arab Critique of U.S. MidEast Policies
by Jim Brown
December 13, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Arabs and Muslims are offering their perspectives on the recently completed, bipartisan Iraq Study Group report. The Washington, DC-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, recently hosted a panel discussion on the report submitted by the Baker-Hamilton Commission, which calls for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by early 2008 and urges direct U.S. talks with Iran and Syria. One of the experts on the panel -- which convened at the National Press Club and was aired on C-SPAN2 -- was University of Maryland peace and development professor Shibley Telhami, who said that in the Arab world the Arab-Israeli conflict remains the core prism through which Arabs see the United States.
In his latest poll of six Arab nations, Dr. Telhami said he asked people which of the following steps would most improve their views of the U.S. -- withdrawal from Iraq, withdrawal from the entire Arabian Peninsula, pushing for democracy in the Middle East, giving the Middle East more economic aid, withholding aid from Israel, or brokering Arab-Israeli peace based on the borders established after the Six-Day War of 1967.
"The number-one answer, by far, across the six countries is brokering Arab-Israeli peace based on the 1967 borders," Telhami shared. "Above withdrawal even from the Arabian Peninsula, above pushing for democracy, above all others."
According the to the Maryland professor, general reaction in the Arab world to the Iraq Study Group report was "welcoming and favorable." He contends that most Arab governments want a change in U.S. policy in the region, even though some of them are uneasy about U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
"Part of the problem here is that governmental interpretations of what might happen if the U.S. rapidly withdraws from Iraq is that the civil war will escalate in Iraq," he said, "and that's something they don't want to see because it puts them in a difficult position, even aside from the humanitarian crisis in Iraq itself. That is not where most public opinion is in the Arab world."
Dr. Telhami says a majority of the Arab world believes that the Iraqis are likely to find a way to come together should the U.S. withdraw. A minority -- about 25 percent, he says -- believes civil war will escalate.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Syrian government who also spoke at the CAIR panel discussion says his country wants to help the Iraqis put an end to their internal strife. But he adds that Syria does not want to help the United States.
Critical of U.S. Middle East Policies
Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha says from his perspective, there is both good and bad in the report.
"One of the good things is that [the report] is a summary official admission of the astounding failure of the U.S. policies in Iraq in particular and in the Middle East in general," said Dr. Moustapha. "And it is a public invitation to the U.S. administration to reconsider its policies in the Middle East and start thinking outside the box."
And those policies, according to the Syrian ambassador, have brought little success in his area of the world. He claims that prior to the Iraq War, people in Iraq never killed each other because of sectarian loyalties; and he also claims the current sectarian violence in the country is "the direct outcome of the policies of the U.S. occupation of Iraq."
"The U.S. enterprise in Iraq has failed," Moustapha stated, adding that that failure does not stop there. "Actually it's the U.S. enterprise across the Middle East, in the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, in Iraq, towards Syria, towards Iran.
"Wherever the United States wanted to apply the Bush doctrine and the neo-conservative policies and ideologies, they miserably and dramatically fail," he added. According to Moustapha, Syria wants to help and engage with the Iraqis, but he made it clear to the Baker-Hamilton Commission it "is not looking for a deal with the U.S."
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
