Hollow Decisions from the Hollow Arab League By Andrew L. Jaffee, August 6, 2003	Home   Search   Forum   Terms

Tuesday, the Arab League decided not to help the U.S. in rebuilding Iraq. This is not a surprising "decision." Why would a group of dictatorships decide to help build a democratic Iraq? Another foothold of democracy in the Middle East--the other one being Israel--would only help to sow the seeds of destruction for the Arab regimes.

Not one of the Arab League members present at Tuesday's meeting in Cairo are democracies: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen and the Palestinian Authority. This was a meeting of dictators, scheming to keep their grips on power over their own peoples.

According to the BBC, the League

...agreed that sending Arab forces "cannot be considered in the current circumstances," the organisation's secretary-general Amr Moussa said.

"We should work to put an end to the occupation and allow the Iraqi people to form a national government," the AFP news agency quoted him as saying.

Occupation? Oh, they've got another occupation to scream about now. Unsurprising. Status quo. This is the usual deflection and drivel produced by the League--what author Barry Rubin calls, "The Blame Game":

For years now, anti-Americanism has served as a means of last resort by which failed political systems and movements in the Middle East try to improve their standing. The United States is blamed for much that is bad in the Arab world, and it is used as an excuse for political and social oppression and economic stagnation. By assigning responsibility for their own shortcomings to Washington, Arab leaders distract their subjects' attention from the internal weaknesses that are their real problems. And thus rather than pushing for greater privatization, equality for women, democracy, civil society, freedom of speech, due process of law, or other similar developments sorely needed in the Arab world, the public focuses instead on hating the United States.

God forbid the League would take up issues like the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, or Kuwait's expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees after the Gulf war. What about economic development in the Arab world? How about democratic reforms? No, instead the League spends its time on things like trying to disprove the Holocaust.

What is a surprise is the BBC's coverage of the Tuesday Arab League meeting:

The Iraq war prompted various initiatives to reform the organisation, including a mechanism to resolve Arab conflicts, a pan-Arab court of justice and a pan-Arab parliament.

But critics say that, without an explanation for the Arab League's chronic failure to implement its own resolutions, such proposals will not be worth the paper they are written on.

And the fall of the Baathist regime in Baghdad has discredited ruling elites across the Arab world, our correspondent says...

Calls for democratic reforms have become widespread, but there is little agreement on where to start or on the content of such reforms, he adds.

Critics argue that without democratic reforms within Arab societies, the League will continue to reflect the failures of these societies: a lack of accountability and failure to uphold the rule of law.

In the strange thinking of Arab dictators, their anti-American logic doesn't even make sense. Again, Barry Rubin:

What makes this [anti-American] strategy remarkable, however, is the reality of past U.S. policy toward the region. Obviously, the United States, like all countries, has tried to pursue a foreign policy that accords with its own interests. But the fact remains that these interests have generally coincided with those of Arab leaders and peoples. For example, the United States may have had its own reasons for saving Kuwait from annexation by Iraq's secular dictatorship in 1991 -- mainly to preserve cheap oil. But U.S. policy was still, in effect, pro-Kuwaiti, pro-Muslim, and pro-Arab.