JEDDAH, 15 August 2003 — The reason the Kuwaiti government rejected a visit to Kuwait by Palestinian prime minister was not, as Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad claimed, that Kuwaiti officials are demanding an apology for Yasser Arafat’s support of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait back in 1990. This demand is very old. The Iraqi regime that invaded Kuwait has been brought down and the Palestinian president who supported the invasion has been under siege for more than a year and a half in Ramallah. The late rejection of the visit was nothing more than revenge from the Kuwaiti government. Abu Mazen cannot be held accountable for the actions of Arafat or the Iraqi regime.
Kuwait does not want to be responsible for any future financial aid to the Palestinian cause. Kuwait knows that the reason for such visits is to demand some financial assistance. It does not want to open the door for that. But it will not mind offering political support.
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America remains the same; its goals have not changed. What has changed is its behavior and its way of dealing with others. The US government is putting enormous pressure on the Arab world to recognize the Iraqi Governing Council and engage with it. But the US will find it difficult to force Arabs to do so.
In the past, the US used to consider the internal and external circumstances of its friends, and even if they objected to specific US decisions, Washington was understanding. Now there is a much narrower outlook in America, and its decisions must be accepted even if they are harmful to the interests of other countries.
It wants quick results, never mind what others think. Now it finds itself in the peculiar situation of wanting out of a tight spot that, had it listened to its friends, it would never have got itself into, and it wants other countries to pay the price.
Washington’s friends always provided the help it needed. It is hardly fair now to try and pressure them into something that is actively against their best interests, and its insistence on doing so is going to cause even more problems for it.
It should know that not all of the Arab world is like Qatar or Kuwait and willing to roll over at a moment’s notice. The American policy of “if you’re not with us you’re against us” is destroying relations between countries and individuals.
— Muhammad Al-Shibani is a Saudi writer based in Jeddah.
