Saudi-Arabië wil moslimtroepenmacht in Irak

[neruda]

Gepubliceerd op donderdag 29 juli 2004Saudi-Arabië stelt voor om een internationale troepenmacht van uitsluitend islamitische landen naar Irak te sturen.

Het plan werd naar voren geschoven tijdens overleg tussen de Amerikaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Colin Powell en hoge Saudische regeringsfunctionarissen in Jeddah.

De Saudische regering zou al enkele moslimlanden hebben gepolst. Ook zouden de Verenigde Naties en de Iraakse interim-regering zijn geraadpleegd. De details worden nog uitgewerkt.

De VS hebben positief gereageerd op het Saudische voorstel. “We hebben het Saudische initiatief besproken. Het is interessant”, zei Powell op een persconferentie met de Iraakse interim-premier Iyad Allawi. “We verwelkomen het idee van moslimtroepen, als onderdeel of apart van de coalitiemacht.”

Ook Allawi verwelkomt het voorstel, en riep Arabische en islamitische landen op manschappen bij te dragen aan de moslimmacht. Een hoge Amerikaanse functionaris zei dat de moslimmacht niet de door de VS geleide internationale troepenmacht zal vervangen, maar slechts een ‘aanvulling’ vormt. Maar een anonieme hoge Saudische functionaris zei echter dat de moslimmacht wel degelijk de coalitiemacht moet gaan vervangen. Voor de VS zou een islamitische troepenmacht in Irak goed uitkomen, nu de coalitie afbrokkelt. Bovendien is het goed voor het Amerikaanse imago, dat nu nog in de ogen van velen anti-islamitisch is.


Doet dit het of doet die het niet ??

[kelt]

Voor de overleving van het Huis Al-SAud als bewakers van de heilige plaatsen van de Islam.
Voor het prestige dat Egypte eventueel nog over heeft als de "Arabische Supermacht"

--> Het zou eens tijd worden dat dit dossier nu helemaal opgekuist wordt door een regionale coalitie.
Want Irak is een dominosteen die beter niet valt!!!!
(tiens waar heb ik dat nu vandaan 8) )
De VS is zo vriendelijk geweest Saddam opzij te zetten en heeft zelfs een nucleus van het toekomstig bestuur helpen installeren.
De strijd om de harten van de Iraakse bevolking is de VS aan het verliezen,en het voorlopig bestuur kan zich niet permitteren verder afhankelijk van VS-troepen te blijven.Andere middelen moeten gebruikt worden!

[Phrea|K]

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Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door The Economist

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Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door The Economist

[size=4]Prickly, paranoid and occasionally pragmatic
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Aug 5th 2004
From The Economist print edition
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[font=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif]Why is it so hard for Arabs to act together to solve the region’s manifold problems, from the humanitarian crisis in Sudan to the turmoil in Iraq and Palestine?[/font]






[font=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif]SUSPICION of America runs deep in the Arab world. At a Cairo dinner party this week, a sophisticated Egyptian businessman asks why there is so much noise about the humanitarian crisis in western Sudan. “What is it America wants from Darfur? Is there oil there? Uranium?” On the al-Jazeera satellite TV channel, the Arab world’s most popular, an Iraqi commentator suggests that America was behind last week’s bombings of Iraqi churches “because they want to taint the noble Iraqi resistance with the crime and create chaos to continue the occupation.”[/font]

[font=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif]Whether such views are paranoid or, perhaps, cynically savvy, they carry influence. Many Arab governments would sincerely like to help heal festering regional sores such as the mayhem in Iraq and the misery in Palestine and Darfur. Not only would this reduce the risk of infection, it would also improve the strained relations with the superpower. But popular distrust of western, and particularly American, motives keeps getting in the way. [/font]




[font=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif]Take the case of Iraq. After meetings last week with Colin Powell, the American secretary of state, and with Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, suggested that several Arab and Muslim countries were prepared to send an armed force to help police Iraq. By lending Islamic legitimacy to Iraq’s transitional government, such a move could do much to quell the lingering hostility to it, both within Iraq and the surrounding region. This would please the beleaguered Mr Allawi and the equally beleaguered American-led coalition backing him. Government sources in Baghdad were quick to announce that six predominantly Muslim countries (Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tunisia and Yemen) had agreed to send troops, with Egypt offering technical support and oil-rich Gulf states some $2 billion to pay for the operation.[/font]

[font=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif]Yet scarcely was Mr Powell’s plane out of Saudi skies before the caveats blew in. The Islamic force was meant to replace the current coalition, not complement it, elaborated Prince Saud, and even then only at the express request of an Iraqi government that had “the full and clear support of the Iraqi people”. Rushing to Saudi Arabia with more cold water, Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, said that it was simply “not possible” for Arab or Muslim intervention forces to operate under anything but a United Nations command. Yemen flatly denied that it had any intention of sending soldiers to Iraq.[/font]

[font=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif]To find reasons for the hasty retreat, look no further than the opinion pages in the Arab press. The troops offer was not really Saudi, said the popular London-based daily, Al-Quds al-Arabi, “but rather American orders clothed in Saudi garb so as to be more acceptable to other Muslim and Arab countries who are keen to please the American administration and fend off its official pressure to introduce reforms”. Talal Salman, editor of the Beirut daily, Al-Safir, commented acidly: “Washington has discovered that there are ‘unemployed’ Arab armies that have no duties, save to subdue Arab masses, and that those Arab armies could be employed in saving the United States from the Iraqi quagmire.”[/font]

[font=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif]The Arab response to the Darfur crisis has been similarly fork-tongued. Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt have dispatched planeloads of aid to the stricken region but also lobbied to ensure that the UN Security Council refrained from threatening sanctions against the Sudanese regime, which is largely responsible for creating the mess. Sudan’s Arab neighbours do have an interest in supporting the government in Khartoum. They do not want Iraq-style chaos next door that could ensue if it falls. But they are also exposed to public pressure to prevent another western intrusion into Arab land. [/font]

[font=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif]Sudan’s interior minister, General Abd al-Rahim Hussein, accuses America of fomenting unrest in Darfur “just as in Afghanistan and Iraq”. Another minister suggests America is acting under “Zionist pressure” to intervene. Such views echo widely. The West, insists Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, is exaggerating the humanitarian crisis to find a pretext for invasion. A commentator in Syria’s state-owned daily, Al-Thawra, says that while America sheds “crocodile tears”, its real plan is to “swallow” another chunk of Arab real estate. [/font]

[font=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif]Peace-minded Arab governments have been similarly hamstrung over recent travails in Palestine. Egypt and Jordan, both American allies with strong ties to the Palestinians, have long since quietly concluded that Yasser Arafat has become an obstacle to progress. But Israel’s impounding of the Palestinian leader, along with America’s support for this and other harsh policies, has made it harder for his old friends publicly to tell him to step aside. This week Jordan’s King Abdullah got embroiled in rows among fellow Arabs after accusing the Palestinians’ leadership of being weak and divided. [/font]




[font=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]Egypt as middleman[/font]
[font=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif]This is not to say that Arab governments have always failed to help resolve such problems, when they can do so discreetly. Egypt is again hosting a round of closed talks to patch up bitter disagreements between Palestinian factions, and has committed itself to helping secure Gaza in the event of an Israeli withdrawal. It has supported France’s deployment of troops along the Chad-Sudan border, and itself sent advisers to join the small Darfur monitoring force run by the African Union. The Arab League has also taken a belated interest in Darfur, scheduling an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers to discuss the issue. Libya has helped speed relief supplies to the region and now appears to have agreed to sponsor peace talks between the Darfur rebels and the Sudanese government.[/font]

[font=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif]Fellow Arabs have also grown more solicitous for the welfare of Iraq. The increasingly indiscriminate savagery of the Iraqi insurgents and their increasingly radical Islamist overtones appear to have persuaded many non-Iraqi Arabs of the need to tame them. However faint-hearted, the Saudi troops initiative was a sign of this new urgency. Mr Allawi also got a warm reception during a recent tour of eight Arab capitals. Kuwait and Iraq have ended a 14-year hiatus in diplomatic relations. Even Syria, which has long been accused of turning a blind eye to the infiltration of jihadis from its territory, has promised to seal its borders better, and perhaps even to expand the capacity of pipelines taking Iraqi oil to its Mediterranean ports.[/font]

[font=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif]Obviously, all the region’s problems could be dealt with more effectively if there were more trust in the atmosphere. And what would it take to create it? More western sensitivity to Arab concerns and a less blinkered Arab prickliness about the sacredness of sovereignty in countries with vicious regimes—and about the nobility of “resistance” to any government that is friendly to the United States.[/font]

Source: The Economist

Ik onderschrijf de conclusie van dit artikel uit The Economist.... 8)

[senator]

Een aanvulling zie ik wel gebeuren.
Het zou wel goed zijn voor de stabiliteit, maar compleet vervangen, zo zot zijn de amerikanen nu ook weer niet.
Het beste voor de irakezen is nochtans een complete moslim troepenmacht (ze mag al dan niet een puppet zijn van de amerikanen), maar dat zie Bush&co niet toestaan.

Tis in alle geval het beste voorstel in maanden.