Arabs turn deaf ears to Clinton saber rattling

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 16, 1998 | by Jamie Dettmer

He was sporting a neat suit and homburg, not the flowing robes with which movie audiences have come to associate him. At Lawrence of Arabia's side was Winston Churchill, then a minister in Lloyd George's government. It was 1921 and the two were taking time off from the Cairo Conference to tour Palestine. Caught in an anti-Zionist riot, an anxious Churchill turned to his companion and muttered, "I say, Law-rence, are these people dangerous?" He cleared his throat and added: "They don't seem too pleased to see US."

Churchill's wit could serve as a summing up of the general Arab attitude toward Western intervention in the Middle East for the last 70 years. On only two occasions in the 20th century have the Arabs really welcomed the West's involvement in their affairs: during the First World War, when the eccentric T.E. Lawrence overcame the initial reluctance of the warring tribes of Arabia, united them and goaded them on to victory over their imperial masters, the Ottoman Turks; and in 1991, when unlikely Arabists George Bush and Margaret Thatcher convinced the Saudis, Egyptians, Syrians and other Persian Gulf Arabs that it was in their interests to back the West in ousting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.

Bill Clinton may fancy himself a modern-day Lawrence of Arabia, but he and his advisers have little understanding of the Arab mind-set -- a point pro-American Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak emphasized when he remarked recently that the West "does not understand the psychology of people in this part of the world."

One of the major reasons why Lawrence and Bush and Thatcher were successful in their different ways of garnering Arab support was that they were trusted to perform what they promised, and what they wanted to do dovetailed with the needs and views of the Arabs themselves.

For those who know the Middle East, the decision by the Arabs -- the Saudis and the other gulf states -- to refrain from supporting the United States in its latest conflict with Saturn hardly is surprising and all too predictable. A CBS reporter on a nightly news bulletin at the end of February put Arab reluctance down to cowardice -- to the fear of possible Scud attacks from Iraq. Wrong: The Arabs weren't supporting Washington this time around because they didn't trust this administration's resolve.

And why should they? Gulf leaders only have to cast their minds back 17 months to review what happens to those who place their faith in Clinton. Then, as now, the No. 1 foreign-policy crisis was Iraq and the president launched punitive raids in response to Saddam's incursion into the U.N. safe haven in northern Iraq. The air strikes -- amounting to pinpricks -- were targeted illogically on air-defense installations in southern Iraq and, in their wake, the man from Hope, Ark., proclaimed "mission accomplished." Washington applauded politely.

But in northern Iraq the president's name was cursed. The JFK wanna-be had his very own Bay of Pigs -- a disgrace every bit as squalid as the Kennedy desertion of Fidel Castro's opponents was played out in September 1996 in the mountains of northern Iraq. Men and women who relied on U.S. promises and who thought they were in an official alliance with the United States were abandoned and left to the infamous mercy of Saddam and his security goons, who wiped out the one organization that had the long-term potential to topple the Butcher of Baghdad. Probably hundreds of members of the Iraqi National Congress, or INC, the U.S.-backed umbrella body of anti-Saddam factions, died in the towns of Arbil, Qoshtapa, Benislawa, Kifir, Kalar, Sulaymaniyah and Dahuk.

Saddam, a man not noted for his sense of humor, must have roared with laughter when he heard Clinton announce victory: After all, the Iraqi dictator had achieved two of his key objectives -- the neutralizing of the INC and control once again of the north of his country.

The Arabs took note. In a region where power virtually is worshiped -- especially when it is wielded ruthlessly -- Clinton compounded the widespread impression in the Middle East that he's weak and fitful. And the Koran provides, "If you fear treachery from any of your allies, you may fairly retaliate by breaking off your treaty with them."

Of course, Bush and Thatcher had advantages in 1991 -- and not just ones of character. Saddam was the aggressor and the Koran instructs the faithful that "God does not love aggressors." In fact, the Muslim holy book orders believers to "slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you .... If anyone attacks you, attack him as he attacked you." Scriptural authority encouraged the Arabs to throw in their lot with the West against Saddam, the invader of Kuwait.

Now, though, it isn't so clear-cut, and in such circumstances leadership and character are paramount. The disastrous, so-called international town-hall meeting in Ohio featuring the president's top three foreign-policy aides did little to convince Middle Eastern leaders that Washington would have the courage of its rhetoric when the fighting started. Maybe the U.S. raids this time would be more substantial than in 1996 or in 1993 but who was willing to wager that Saddam would not be in power a year hence? And would Clinton? It was time for a U.N. settlement.