DAMASCUS/CAIRO, 19 March 2003 — Arab newspapers predicted yesterday that the war threatened by Washington on Baghdad within hours would mean disaster for the Middle East and blamed US President George W. Bush for bringing it about. Bush “has decided the date for the aggression against Iraq, but the world will see a human butchery unknown since World War II,” Syria’s government daily Tishrin said.

“The Iraqi people, under sanctions (since 1990) ..., will be the victims of this American war which will be one of the most murderous in history.” Bush, it added, “thus accepts responsibility for the blood which will flow and the consequences of unprecedented world division.” With hundreds of thousands of US and British troops massed in the Gulf awaiting orders, Bush ordered Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons late Monday to leave Iraq by tomorrow or face war. The Iraqi leadership yesterday rejected the ultimatum.

Bush made his move with British and Spanish backing after failing to secure a majority in the UN Security Council for a new resolution authorizing war over Baghdad’s alleged failure to come clean on its weapons of mass destruction. A Syrian official spokesman, quoted by the state news agency SANA, said Bush’s ultimatum was “in contradiction with the charter, the resolutions and the objectives of the United Nations.” He added, “Any resulting military action will destroy the principles on which international order is based.” Syria is the only Arab member of the Security Council and has consistently opposed a war on Iraq.

Dailies in neighboring Jordan predicted a US attack sooner rather than later. “It is truly sad that a miracle is now needed to avert a war while in our day and age miracles no longer happen and the people of this war-stricken region must hold their breath and wait for zero-hour,” Al-Dustour said. It lamented the “weakness” of Arab governments which had failed to stop a war.

For its part the pro-government newspaper Al-Rai warned that the entire world was facing “a dangerous storm whose cost will be very high”. It expressed fear of “chaos” once US and British troops enter Baghdad.

Newspapers in the Gulf region were also caught between grim resignation to a potentially catastrophic war on Iraq and hope for an 11th-hour miracle from Saddam.

“It’s unbelievable how Bush is ignoring the international community and all his citizens who oppose war. It’s the era of the cowboys, but at least they had a code of ethics,” said Nadia, an Egyptian professional in Cairo. Qatar University professor Mohamed Saleh Al-Musfir said the speech by Bush showed Americans had become “blind” with power, adding that suddenly ending UN arms inspections to wage war was both illegal and unjustified.

In the Gulf, where many states host US troops and some have suggested Saddam should accept exile, some officials and analysts said his resignation might be the only way out. “Either the Arab countries have to go and defend Iraq militarily, which is not possible, or to force the leadership to quit in order to save Iraq,” a senior Gulf Arab official said.

Many ordinary Arabs said Washington was a global bully who wanted to control Muslims, Arabs and world oil supplies. While most Arabs dislike Saddam and would be glad to see him go, they believe Washington has no right to unseat him. Fawziya Mohamed, a fruit-seller in the congested streets of downtown Cairo, said Washington’s approach to Iraq mirrored its policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and spelled nothing but trouble for the region.

“First they want to go and control Iraq and then make the Palestinians accept Israeli control and then they will move on to all the other states in the Muslim world,” she said. Egyptian doorman Ahmed Abdel Hafiz Ahmed spoke for many in the region when he lamented the failure of Arab diplomacy to avert a war in a fellow Arab state.

Arab states have been at pains to convince their citizens they had exerted all efforts to avert war, lest popular anger turn inward and threaten domestic stability. “Arab leaders are useless. They aren’t able to even stop America using their own soil for an attack on Iraq,” Ahmed said.