Friday, Jul 4, 2008
The Arab street that once rallied for Iraq is strangely quiet, although anger and frustration sometimes boil up.
Feb 7, 2003 | If Colin Powell's evidence against Iraq didn't persuade the United Nations Security Council to back the Bush administration's war plans immediately, it certainly cannot be expected to ease the skepticism that prevails in the Arab world. Not surprisingly, there is little enthusiasm in the region for a war. Distrust of America's motives and of its evidence against Saddam Hussein runs deep, and the perceived imbalance between the tough U.S. approach toward Iraq and its hands-off attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict causes further misgivings in the famed Arab street. But with war apparently imminent, and with tens of thousands of demonstrators on the streets in Europe and the United States, the mood here is strikingly subdued. Apathy seems to have won out over anger and frustration for now, and Saddam Hussein has gone from "liberator" to "just another dictator."
In this cold and wind-swept Jordanian capital, most people choose to ignore their own government's cautious prewar cooperation with the Bush administration. During the Gulf War in 1990 and 1991, Jordan and the Palestinians who make up more than half the kingdom's population were open in their sympathy for Iraq. In the run-up to the war, mass demonstrations in support of Saddam Hussein took over the streets, and posters and toys using his likeness appeared everywhere.
But Jordanians and Palestinians paid a heavy price for backing the losing side. The Gulf countries expelled Palestinian workers and their families to Jordan; some of the workers had spent decades, or had even been born, in those countries. The oil sheiks cut off the money supply to Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization, and they withheld diplomatic and other support. Only recently have some of the Gulf countries restored their ties to pre-Gulf War levels, while the Iraq trade has somewhat recovered because of the U.N.'s 1998 oil-for-food protocol. U.S. aid to Jordan has also risen to unprecedented levels -- $235 million in civilian aid last year and some $200 million in military support.
This time around the new king, Abdallah II, is carefully steering his country into the American orbit. The Washington Post reported last week that Jordan, which shares a border with Iraq in the middle of the desolate Syrian desert, will allow a limited U.S. military presence. It was said mainly to involve the stationing of air defense personnel and search-and-rescue teams. Jordan would also allow American planes to cross its airspace on their way to Iraq.
A Jordanian spokesman immediately denied the report, but the turnaround in the kingdom's position seems clear. Former Foreign Minister Awad Janani acknowledges that his country has become "much more moderate" in its position on Iraq. "We learned our lesson from last time," he told Salon.
As in other Arab countries, the government has seriously tightened regulations in order to suppress street protests. Particularly in Jordan and Egypt, this was at first a way to dampen public expressions of anger over the Palestinian intifada. Such outpourings often have a way of turning against the regime itself. Now, the same restrictive rules also apply to pro-Iraq demonstrations, and few seem willing to risk arrest for Saddam.
In Amman, at the first authorized demonstration against a war on Iraq, just a few thousand people turned up for an orderly march through the capital's upmarket Shmeisani neighborhood to the local U.N. headquarters. The demonstrators were carrying red-and-green banners of the Islamic movement and white placards condemning "the official Arab silence on Iraq," and all along the way they were hemmed in by a cordon of baton-carrying police in helmets and camouflage dress. Passersby in this modern residential and commercial neighborhood didn't rush to join in -- instead, they hurried away. The turnout must have been disappointing for the organizers, taking into consideration that all the powerful professional associations in the country took part, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood, the most potent political force in the land.
While the conventional wisdom holds that Saddam's secular Baath regime and Islamic extremists regard each other with suspicion, the presence of the fundamentalists in the protests suggests that two sides are willing to put aside their differences and to join in battle against the United States. "We all hate the U.S. for what it is doing in the region," says Dr. Mohammed el-Oran, chairman of the Jordanian Medical Association and head of the Al-Ard political party, which he says is "very close" to Iraq's Baath party. As protesters chanted for "war, war, war against the Jews," and their banners proclaim the U.S. "the head of the snake," El-Oran blithely refuted the reports that his country will cooperate with the U.S. "We will not allow any American soldiers to cross Jordan to attack Iraq," he blusters. "If they even try they will be dead before they reach Iraq. They will be killed."
Such views neatly dovetail with those of fundamentalist Jordanians. Last year a meeting of Islamic scholars in Amman issued a religious edict, or fatwa, warning that support for the U.S. plans was un-Islamic. "It is considered a crime against Islamic sharia law what ruling governments have adopted in outlawing Jihad and preventing Muslims from fighting the aggressor U.S. invaders," according to the fatwa. "It is not permissible for any Muslim to help Americans in any way possible, whether by guiding him or her to roads that harm Muslims or filling their planes or cars with fuel or selling the aggressor a piece of bread or even giving them water."
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