If the views expressed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Riyadh yesterday represent a genuine re-engagement with the Middle East, then the entire world — and not only the Middle East — should be considerably encouraged. With civil conflict in Iraq, Sudan and Somalia and also hanging over the Palestinians and even the Lebanese, plus the continued Israeli oppression of the Palestinians and occupation of their land and the threat of Iran and Syria being the next areas of conflict, the wider Middle East is the world’s most dangerous region. American commitment to solve just one issue would be a boon. In fact, although a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue would not immediately translate into peace in Iraq, let alone Somalia, the problems are all more or less interlinked. Solve one and it enables a second to be solved which in turn opens the door to a third and so on.
That is why it is good to hear Rice saying that the US still believes in a single united Iraq free from outside interference, that it plans to strengthen its efforts to find peace between Palestinians and Israelis and set up a Palestinian state, that it is listening to what Saudi Arabia is saying on the Middle East, that this “rather challenging time” could become “a time of opportunity.” These are the views of every fair-minded Arab. We are talking the same language. It is good to know that Washington has not been swayed by siren voices singing that Iraq should be allowed to break up.
But to what extent is Rice just another siren, mesmerizing the Middle East with pleasing songs while dragging it onto the rocks of fresh conflict because of her own country’s incompetence? Too many times we have been duped into believing peace between Palestinians and Israelis is on the horizon, only to have the flames of hope doused by inaction or fresh provocation. Only a masochist would be an optimist again, especially when the news from Iraq is so grim. How can anyone be encouraged when violence there is at record levels (seen in yesterday’s murderous car bombs in Baghdad) or when the UN reveals, as it did yesterday, that more than 34,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in 2006?
The chasm between these good intentions and bloody violence has to be bridged. That means action by the US and those others who have influence in the various conflicts. But it also requires commitment from those directly involved. As the Kingdom’s foreign minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, said yesterday, the Iraqis themselves have to be committed if peace is to happen. Outside parties can make things worse (and have done so) but they cannot make them better without an Iraqi will for peace. The same is true for the Palestinians; there will be no breakthrough with the Israelis if they are not united. It goes for the Arab world as a whole, too. No one, not the US, not the UN, not anyone, is going to deliver the peace and justice the Arab world should have as a right without first being confronted by a unified Arab voice that demands it. That is the imperative.
