18 April

By Daniel Kimmage

Egypt's "Al-Akhbar": Mahmud Abd al-Man'am Murad wonders whether Syria will be the next target for military action.

     "We have now begun to discuss what will happen if Syria is next on the list of Arab countries slated for American, and perhaps British, strikes. No doubt the contradictory blather that we read and heard before the strike against Iraq was part of an official plan that will soon be implemented against Syria. For many reasons, we feel that Syria is now targeted. No matter how much readiness it demonstrates to cooperate with the Americans, the point is not cooperation with the Americans. The real issue is between Syria and Israel, and it makes no sense for Syria to announce its readiness to cooperate with Israel, which has occupied the Golan [Heights] since 1967."

United Arab Emirates "Al-Bayan": Dr. Shafiq Nazim al-Ghabra asks whether the United States is an ascendant or declining power, and ponders the implications for Arab policymakers.

     "We must be very careful, for our reading of the situation will influence our decisions and our subsequent progress or retreat: If the United States is at the stage of decline and retreat, we, as Arabs, must focus on other calculations and avoid far-reaching alliances with the United States. We must turn toward Europe, China, and elsewhere. But if we are wrong, we will waste time on weak alliances that lead to new defeats for our causes.... If the United States is an ascendant world power in a state of renewal, we must review our calculations and alter them to accommodate a different reality. If the United States is an ascendant power, we will find that northern Europe (Germany and France) will strive to renew their relations with the United States, and not the other way around."

Lebanon's "Al-Safir": Mustafa al-Asir sees Baghdad as the third occupation of an Arab capital, after Jerusalem and Beirut.

     "There was Jerusalem in 1967, Beirut in 1982, and now Baghdad in 2003.

     "Not one day had passed since the fall of the third Arab capital, and the U.S. secretary of defense was already announcing with the hubris of a conqueror that Syria and the Arabs who supported Iraq should take heed of what happened in Baghdad. At the same moment, Israel's envoy to the United Nations, Zalman Shoval, told the Palestinians that they too should take heed of what happened to Baghdad. Why don't Rumsfeld and Shoval look a little farther back and heed the lessons to be learned from the occupation of Jerusalem and Beirut?"

Britain's "Al-Quds al-Arabi": Khalid al-Shami sees Iraqis turning to Islam to fill the political void left by decades of dictatorship.

     "Slogans in demonstrations in the south claiming that the hawzah [Shi'a educational center] in Najaf is the legitimate representative of the people might be just the tip of the iceberg. The Iraqis feel that the world outside of occupied Iraq has betrayed them. Either it has stabbed them in the back, like some of their Arab brothers, or it wishes to starve them, humiliate them, and occupy their country like America and Britain. Those who want to help, like Russia, France, and China, are powerless before American hegemony. The burden of their unimaginable suffering has made Iraqis turn to religion to varying degrees. Adherence to Islam became the only safe alternative to dictatorship. The absence of any real political choices in Iraq for 35 years has produced a void that can only be filled by Islamic thought."