Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

----------
Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
A coalition for Iraq
The WI8hiogtOD
POst
Vice President 'DickCheiley's
recent tour of the Middle East
createdthe public impression
that the Arab governments in
the area are united and unmovable in
their opposition to a U.S. military campaign
to oust Saddam Hussein. Such a
campaign, they declare, would be a catastrophe
for the region; moreover, the
.Bush administration shoùld not even
,consider it unless and until it can put
an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
No doubt the Arab summit meet-
!Pf scheduled for this week will propel
this rhetoric to its highest pitch ~ and
"cause some in Washington to conclude
, that it will be impossible to build a co-
, alition to confront the Iraqi regime.
That conclusion would be wrong.
The United States can, and should, create.a
Consensus over the course of the
'next few months for freeing Iraq.is
from the Saddam Hussein dictatorship.
Th do so, however, it must patiently
pursue several intermediate steps, including
one or two it is unreasonably
resisting. .
The Îust trick, which administration
officials already know well, is to ignore
most of the Arab public rhetoric, while
~ clear in private meetings that
the Umted States can no longer tolerate
the status quo in Baghdad. Arab governments
shout their opposition to,
confronting Saddam Hussein in part
becausethey
fear that the Bush adMinistration,
like its predecessors, will not
fClUowup on its threats, or will content
itself with militarr half-measures that
leave the dictator m power. If they are
assured that any U.S.campaign will
not stop $hort of destroYing the Iraqi
, n:f:me. a~d that it will bf;, acco~plished
Wlth an overwhelmmg force
that can quickly achieve a military victory,
one oftheir largest concerns will
be assuaged.
While insisting on its goal, the administration
must also avoid falling into
the trap of accepting an Israeli-Palestinian
settlement as a p~ondition
'to action. Such a settlement is worth
pursuing on its own merits, and the administration
has been right to step up
its efforts. Yet the sad fact is that while
some kind of truce may be patched together,
a larger Israeli-Palestinian
peace may not be achievable in the
near future. Linking progress there to
Iraq might even worsen the already
dim prospects for a settlement, since
Saddam Hussein enjoys strong support
among the Palestinians and their leaders.
Conversely, if the Iraqi regime
were finally replaced by a moderate
government that renounced ~errorism,
Palestinian hard-liners might be more
inclined to abandon their destructive
quest to achieve statehood by violent
means.
o
The hardest part of building a coalition
fot change in Iraq is forging a plausible
vision of .what kind of govern-
,ment would replace Saddam Hussein
and how such a government would be
put together. Once the news conferences
are over and the doors are
closed, this is the subject of greatest
concern to Iraq's neighbors - and the
one where the administration has been
slowest to offer answers. That is partly
because answers are not easy; there are
no readily available and credible alternatives.
Still, the administration can
commit itself to a process. It can offer
- in public - a vision of Iraq as a state
~t is united, but respectful of minor-
Ities, and pledged to peace with its
neighbors. It can build confidence in
the likelihood of that outcome by fully
developing and embracing a post-Saddam
scheme of reconstruction, peacekeeping
and --:yes - nation-building.
As a start, that would mean dropping
the .pointless resistance to such a project
ln Mghanistan and using greater
U.S. engagement in civil affairs and
peacekeeping there as a model of what
could be done in Iraq. If the Bush administration
would commit itself. not
just to destroying rogue regimes but to
a long-term effort to help build better
ones, winning support in the Middle
East might turn out t6 be relatively
easy - even if some leaders never say
so in public. '
z
-'
-<
z
o
~
z
cG
I.LI
I-
~
cG
I.LI
i2
cG
::>
o
u
N
o
N
-'
cG
>.
-<
ao
N
::>
Cl
TURQUIE
"NOtr~arrnée,.un produit d'exportation ?"
EII'vlslte à Istanbul, le financier George
Soros a expliqué que le seul bien turc
comp6tltlf su; les marchés extérieurs eat
le 8OId8t. ,Ce lÔIe de "petit gendanne"llOUItve
l'indignation du quotidien CUmhu1lyet.
..., Lars de sa visite à Istanbul, George Soros
::>. a prodigué des conseils en or à une bro-
-