15 March

By Daniel Kimmage

Kuwait's "Al-Ra'y al-'Amm": Dr. Abdallah Muhammad al-Hamadi questions whether the "Arab street" really stands behind the Iraqi regime, and wonders who stands behind the demonstrations in the Arab world.

     "What is strange is that these same demonstrators suffer terribly from unemployment, poverty, and economic decline in their homelands. The ruling regimes continue to commit the most heinous crimes against their people. Yet they do not march in the same street to change their circumstances and demonstrate against their governments. The demonstrations that took place in those streets represented nothing more than a directive from the fearful governments that own those streets!

     "True Arab public opinion is afraid to express itself freely. In the depths of its soul, however, it is ready and willing to sacrifice for change, renewal, and freedom from despotism. It wants to live under democracy but it cannot. Forces in the West may be able to do something, as they were the ones who set up the current leaders."

Britain's "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" (pan-Arab, Saudi-owned): Sa'd bin Tafla al-Ajami discusses the mood in Kuwait.

     "While on a business trip in the Gulf last week, I noticed that the countries of the Gulf are more anxious than Kuwait despite the fact that the Kuwaitis are closer to the line of fire than any other country. Whenever I was asked about the situation in Kuwait, I replied that Kuwait is anxious, but not alarmed.

     "But why should Kuwait be almost indifferent? Are they unaware of what might happen on their border? Kuwaitis exchange jokes over their cell phones about the war. They express their views freely, airing contradictions to the point of open conflict. Some of them reject the war, others would forbid it. Some have issued Islamic legal rulings to support it. These are challenged by other rulings that match al-Azhar's fatwa that a jihad is necessary to defend Iraq. In truth, the contradictions are to the benefit of Kuwaitis, whose mouths have not been gagged under the pretext of 'the delicate stage and difficult circumstances that the country is now experiencing' -- the cliche that Arab dictatorships have used for the last five decades to oppress their people. Kuwait is in a state very close to ordinary life, in fact, if one doesn't mind 'the delicate stage and difficult circumstances that the country is now experiencing.'"

Lebanon's "Al-Nahar": Thana' al-Imam discusses renewed interest in religion and weapons in Iraq.

     "If you were to visit Baghdad after an absence of several years, you could not help but notice two phenomena -- the spread of religion and arms among Iraqis -- that indicate what may come after a possible American strike.

     "Driven by the disappointments of the blockade, Iraqis have taken refuge in piety. According to a poll that 'Al-Nahar' conducted in the street, more than 70 percent of them now pray. Even the elite is praying, as artist Mukhlid al-Mukhtar, director of the Saddam Center for the Arts, explained to us. Al-Mukhtar himself hardly looks like someone who prays -- his hair is long, he was educated in Italy, and he paints. But he was not embarrassed when he excused himself to perform the afternoon prayer.

     "Abu Nasrin (27 years old) wants to 'buy a gun.' He says, 'It's really expensive -- $500. But your life is worth more.' When asked whether he expects fighting in the streets, he rejects the possibility that [the Americans] will reach Baghdad. But 'the Americans are paying money' to Arab countries...so they might come in from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey.... Syria is the only country that will stand with us, God willing.'

     "These two developments make for a frightening spectacle in light of what might happen in the country after a strike. The Americans seem not merely short-sighted, but blind."

Kuwait's "Al-Qabas": Ali Ahmad al-Baghli ridicules recent fatwas in defense of Iraq from Egypt's Al-Azhar University and Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an influential Egyptian cleric who currently resides in Qatar.

     "Thank God our brothers in the traditionalist movement have joined their brothers al-Qaradawi and the Islamic Research Academy at Al-Azhar in rejecting the foreign presence and the imperialist, Zionist, crusader attack on Iraq and the Muslim countries....

     ...I'm not going to discuss Shaykh al-Qaradawi. He attacked endangered Kuwait, which was swallowed up by Saddam and compelled to request the assistance of a foreign ally when he and his ilk abandoned it. He left aside the country that took him in -- Qatar -- and its contingent of foreign forces despite the absence of a palpable threat. Instead, he attacked Kuwait! Nor will I discuss those at the Islamic Research Academy at Al-Azhar University, who vilified the crusaders and neo-imperialism, even though their senior scholar once justified President Sadat's peace with Israel [with the Koranic verse] 'but if the enemy incline toward peace, do thou (also) incline toward peace..." We know this academy and its scholars for what they are -- fatwa tailors.

     "And let's not discuss the members of the traditionalist movement, who supported the Afghans, Bosnians, and Chechens, and now want to abandon Kuwait in the jaws of an atheist regime that has no respect for pledges, accords, or morals. Perhaps the reason is that none of their leaders suffered the miseries of the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait, which surpassed in its brutality and disdain for Islamic principles and customs the Russian occupation or Serbian cruelty they fought so fiercely!