Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Arabs fear Iraq sectarian violence spill over: Rice

Reading the following text gives one a disquieting sense of how far the United States has fallen. Too many countries are listening politely, posing for a few 8 X 10 glossies and continuing on their own way, not Washington’s way, to such an extent that would be unheard of a few years ago.

The more obvious message is the entire Middle East is in danger of erupting from the chaos in Iraq which can then easily spill over into Russia, China and so on.

-Am

Arabs fear Iraq sectarian violence spill over: Rice

Saturday, February 25, 2006


SHANNON: Arab states fear sectarian violence in Iraq could spill over to their countries, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday while flying home from a tour of the Middle East.

Rice blamed Al Qaeda for the bombing which has ignited three days of Iraqi sectarian violence that has left 130 people dead. She acknowledged the strife posed a threat to Iraq’s political process and took small comfort from the limited achievements of her latest diplomatic tour. She suggested that Al Qaeda planted the explosives, which on Wednesday blew up an important Shia mosque in the Iraqi town of Samarra and ignited a spate of vicious attacks against clerics, mosques and ordinary people.

“There is a concern that the sectarian tensions that outsiders are stoking in Iraq ? that those same outsiders might try and stoke sectarian tensions in other parts of the region,” she said before a refuelling stop in Ireland.

“This is an extremely hard and extremely delicate moment obviously for the Iraqis, there has been a strike against Iraqi unity,” Rice said.

“This makes it harder today and perhaps tomorrow, but I am confident the Iraqis are committed to, dedicated to the formation of a national unity government.”

Three years ago, Rice was a leading advocate for the US invasion of Iraq, alongside other Bush administration officials who dismissed critics that said toppling former President Saddam Hussein would eventually invite a civil war.

On Friday, her plane flew over a country whose infrastructure remains in tatters, whose people live in fear of the bullets and bombs which regularly kill at random and where a Sunni-led insurgency makes governance next to impossible.

US troops in Iraq have no date to return home. Casualties and domestic pressure for them to come home are both rising.

Rice’s trip to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates also underscored the flagging influence of an unpopular Bush administration in the Arab world.

On a tour whose goal was to persuade Arab governments to isolate Hamas and Iran, the United States appeared almost alone in its hard line against both adversaries. Arab powerbrokers, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, rejected Rice’s appeal for them to deny aid to Hamas, the militant group which swept Palestinian elections in January and has been asked to form the next Palestinian government.

Hamas ? whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel ? is expected to take power in a few weeks and has treated threats to pull US aid to the Palestinian government with diffidence. The group has been labelled a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union

No country has pledged it will follow the US policy to withhold aid as soon as Hamas forms a government, according to US officials lobbying for such action. Rice had to settle for the Arab countries agreeing to press Hamas to seek peace with Israel, even though they avoided warning of any consequences should the group remain unmoved.

And while they expressed some concern over the potential for a nuclear-armed Iran, the countries shunned Rice’s call for them to threaten to isolate the Islamic republic if it fails to dispel Western suspicions it is building an atomic bomb.

With Russia, China and many developing countries also resisting the US drive for international sanctions against Iran, only the European Union has moved close to Washington.

While few countries are threatening to isolate Iran, Rice said the world agreed the country should curb its nuclear programmes. “That international consensus is sincere,” she said. reuters


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\02\25\story_25-2-2006_pg7_51