WASHINGTON, 11 September — Under the shadow of Sept. 11, the National Council on US Arab Relations and the US-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee held its annual Mideast Policymakers Conference in Washington yesterday.
"We know of no other moment in recent memory when the friendship, alliance, and strategic partnership between Arabs and Americans has been as maligned and misunderstood as it is at president time," Dr. John Duke Anthony, president and CEO of the NCUSAR told Arab News.
Speakers included Gen. Tommy Franks, commander in chief of the US Central Command; Gen. Anthony Zinni, the Bush administration’s special envoy in the Middle East; Ambassador Hussein Hassouna, the highest-ranking League of Arab States’ official in the United States; and numerous other US and Arab policy makers.
Sept. 11, said Gen. Tommy Franks "was not only an attack on America, but on 80 nations in the world. The difference between the Sept. 11 attack, and other terrorist attacks that took place in Beirut, Kenya, Tanzania and the USS Cole, is that this attack awakened the world," said Gen. Franks.
These attacks, said Dr. Ahmad Turkenstani, director of the Virginia-based Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies in America, were aimed at both the US and Saudi Arabia. "Osama Bin Laden wanted to create this rift. (The attack) was also directed against the Saudi government, the Saudi people and our relationship with the West."
Nawaf Obeid, author of "Oil Kingdom at 100", added that US reaction to Sept. 11 has produced counterproductive attacks between old friends.
"The more the US has attacked, the more the Saudis have become confrontational. This US ‘press campaign’ against Saudi Arabia plays in to the hands of the extremists."
Arab League Ambassador Hussein Hassouna said Arabs, "want to track down the terrorists who did this horrible crime," but "we do not accept the notion of collective guilt. We — as Muslims — should not all be blamed for what the terrorists did on Sept. 11."
Dr. Shibley Telhami, a Mideast expert at the University of Maryland, said that by virtue of the continual unrest it causes, Mideast terrorism could not cease until the Israeli-Palestinian problem is resolved.
"Due to its relationship with Israel, we understand that the US needs to be there to help its friend. But this also means that when Israel is on top and the Arabs are on the losing side, that Arab anger will be transferred to the US."
On the possibility of a US attack against Iraq, Dr. Telhami reminded the audience that "there is no way one can guarantee what the area will look like the day after a (a US attack). But what is sure is that the longer the Palestinian-Israeli issue remains unresolved, there will be continued violence in the region."
"Israel is waiting for an attack on Iraq, which it views as an opportunity to be exploited," said Aronson.
Ambassador Chas Freeman, president of the Middle East Policy Council, said he believes Iraq, like North Korea and Iran, seeks to develop nuclear and chemical weapons, but wondered why Americans think that changing Iraq’s regime would change this policy?
"Isn’t it possible that a democratically-elected government in Iraq might be interested in developing weapons of mass destruction, just as a democratically elected Israel has done?" he said.
