opening up the gates of hell?

[joe52985]

Link to story (http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/09/05/arableague.iraq/index.html)


CAIRO, Egypt (CNN) -- A U.S. war against Iraq would "open the gates of hell" in the Middle East, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said on Thursday.

is that a threat or a friendly warning of what "others" may do? why must we attack IRAQ anyway, they havnt done much in the past 10 years, and this will really **** up our oil supply am i correct?

[DankNstickY]

yes

:shifty:

[WhiskeyPapa]

That Arab-League guy talks like all Arab countries are part of one big happy family. Those guys hate each other and if it weren't for their even more intense hatred of Israel, they would have destroyed each other by now.

When the US attacks Iraq, all other Arab countries will just sit back and watch. I'm more worried about terrorist retalliation than about other Middle East countries joining with Sadam.

[InfiniteNothing]

I've been hearing reports that they have or are trying to obtain a neuclear wepon. One of my fears is that they will simply fly over in a small plane and nuke san diego. My other fear is that they will use it to bully other nations. They could say "hey do this for me or we'll nuke you".

[Merlin]

Originally posted by kb0wwp
That Arab-League guy talks like all Arab countries are part of one big happy family. Those guys hate each other and if it weren't for their even more intense hatred of Israel, they would have destroyed each other by now.

When the US attacks Iraq, all other Arab countries will just sit back and watch. I'm more worried about terrorist retalliation than about other Middle East countries joining with Sadam.

After the a$$ whopping we handed out last time and most recently in Afganastan, what leader in his right mind would open fire on us? That's right, none of then. They will stand up and openly oppose the US action but won't take up arms. What would they have to gain? Nothing. What would they have to lose? Everything.

[Nija]

Originally posted by Merlin


After the a$$ whopping we handed out last time and most recently in Afganastan, what leader in his right mind would open fire on us? That's right, none of then. They will stand up and openly oppose the US action but won't take up arms. What would they have to gain? Nothing. What would they have to lose? Everything.

or they could just put a little slow down in production of oil :shrug:

that would slow us down enuff for them to see the missles coming :P

[Merlin]

Originally posted by Nija


or they could just put a little slow down in production of oil :shrug:

that would slow us down enuff for them to see the missles coming :P

Between Russian oil, north sea oil and the national reserve I think we'll have access to enough to take care of business. :wink:

[sbp]

Originally posted by joe52985
Link to story (http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/09/05/arableague.iraq/index.html)

is that a threat or a friendly warning of what "others" may do? why must we attack IRAQ anyway, they havnt done much in the past 10 years, and this will really **** up our oil supply am i correct? ho hum same thing was said about the Persian Gulf War. Getting rid of Hussein is in their interest also. He is the one that has invaded fellow Muslim countries. He is the one that kicked out the UN inspectors, defied the UN for years and continues to collect weapons. How is that Iraqi warplanes are flying that weren't a few years ago? Meanwhile the Iraqi population continues to suffer due to the tyrant.

Opening up the gates of hell? More like opening up a can of bs like usual. :dodgy:


from CNN new report
But he warned, "No Arab country will accept any strike on any other Arab country."What are they going to do about it? Nothing.


Moussa said U.S. threats risk inflaming a "background of frustration and anger" over the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"An action against Iraq, with the general opposition of the world, I believe would lead to serious repercussions in this region and perhaps beyond," he said.Same thing was said about going into Afghanistan. And they already are peeved off like usual. http://home.earthlink.net/~sbp777/pics/bleh.gif

[ufcrusher]

Well baby Bush wants to finish what bigger Bush started. Its really simple, "Dubbya" wants to make his Daddy proud. I am not sure what benefit a war with Iraq would have right now...the region is not going to become any more stable by doing this and the US economy is not going to get any better. Who knows and its not worth the rant.

[Grimm]

Like it matters what we think anyway....

Dubya is just going to do what the oil companies tell him to do, like always...

[WhiskeyPapa]

Originally posted by Grimm
Like it matters what we think anyway....

Dubya is just going to do what the oil companies tell him to do, like always...
The oil companies will benefit most if Bush maintains the status quo and leaves Iraq alone. An attack on Iraq has the potential the throw the world oil market into turmoil (which is NOT good for the oil industry), and puts the oil companies' presence in the Arab countries at risk.

[NuTs62]

Originally posted by Merlin


After the a$$ whopping we handed out last time and most recently in Afganastan, what leader in his right mind would open fire on us? That's right, none of then. They will stand up and openly oppose the US action but won't take up arms. What would they have to gain? Nothing. What would they have to lose? Everything.

when push comes to shove.. they will take up arms against the U.S. Think about it, they hate the U.S., and many have been led to believe the U.S. is the root of all evil. Kill us at all cost. They have terrorist suicide bombers to accomplish the goal for their country. they don't like the U.S. presence there.. its just a matter of time..

[Merlin]

Originally posted by NuTs62


when push comes to shove.. they will take up arms against the U.S. Think about it, they hate the U.S., and many have been led to believe the U.S. is the root of all evil. Kill us at all cost. They have terrorist suicide bombers to accomplish the goal for their country. they don't like the U.S. presence there.. its just a matter of time..

Don't confuse the actions of the desperate radicals (suicide bobmers)with the everyday person. Very few actually want to die and very few leaders want to see their country/power base/fortune destroyed. And after what happened to Iraq last time and Afgan. recently there is really no doubt as what the outcome of taking up arms against the US would be. Rhetoric is one thing but there is very little incentive for anyone to get into a war that they can't win.

[Merlin]

Sorry for the long article, but is seems pretty relevant to the thread...I would put a link to the article but you would need a paid subscription to access it.

From this week's Economist....
Revolution delayed
Sep 5th 2002
From The Economist print edition

An American strike on Iraq will not ignite the Arab street. On the contrary, it may nudge some societies towards the modern world


IT TOOK less than a year for the felling of the twin towers to transform the political geography of Central Asia. But it was not, of course, the people or the grievances of Central Asia that lay behind the attacks on America. All the suicide attackers were Arabs. Fifteen of the 19 were Saudi Arabians, like Osama bin Laden himself. In the year ahead, the biggest consequences of the attacks on America are likely to be felt in the Arab world.

Mr bin Laden (if he is still alive) might welcome that. Possibly, he intended all along to draw America into an Islamic civil war. His aim, in the view of Michael Scott Doran, professor of near-eastern studies at Princeton University, was to provoke an international military crackdown, which he and his followers could exploit for their particular brand of revolution.

“The script”, says Mr Scott Doran, “was obvious: America, cast as the villain, was supposed to use its military might like a cartoon character trying to kill a fly with a shotgun.” Muslims everywhere would be shocked by how nonchalantly America caused their brothers in the faith to suffer and die. That would open a chasm between state and society in the Middle East. Governments allied with the West, many of them repressive and corrupt, would drown in a sea of hostile opinion.

Are events following Mr bin Laden's script? Not quite. Or, safer to say, not yet. America's war against the Taliban in Afghanistan did indeed anger many Muslims. It rocked the House of Saud. It made General Pervez Musharraf feel he had to tighten his military dictatorship in Pakistan. But no regime friendly to the West has yet been swept aside by a tide of Islamic rage. So far as any outsider can discern, none looks even near that point.

What this suggests is that if the American cartoon character packed up his shotgun and walked away now, the Arab world might well plod on in its familiar pattern, pretty much unscathed by September 11th and all that flowed from it. But George Bush's administration shows little desire to turn its back, or its cheek. It is, rather, marching towards Iraq and the sound of gunfire. The big question now is therefore whether an American-led war to remove Saddam Hussein will give Mr bin Laden the victory he was denied when the Americans removed the Taliban.
In truth, nobody knows. The famous “Arab street” is undoubtedly hostile to the notion of America waging war in Iraq while appearing to do so little to impose peace in Palestine. But since when has public opinion changed regimes in the Arab world? Iran had a popular revolution against the shah in 1978. But one of the most striking things about the recent history of the Arabs is the durability of the supposedly fragile monarchies and dictatorships that misgovern them.

Jordan, arguably one of Iraq's most vulnerable neighbours, is a prime example. More than half its people are Palestinians, who in the 1970s fought a civil war with the other half. The little country has seen riots and assassinations. For all that, the Hashemite family which the British installed as monarchs of the country Winston Churchill invented in the 1920s has stayed in power ever since. King Hussein lost a war, east Jerusalem and the West Bank, to Israel in 1967, but remained on the throne. He also remained when he made an unpopular peace with the Israelis in 1994. After his death in 1999 the succession passed smoothly to his equally pro-western son, Abdullah.

Jordan is by no means exceptional. The scions of Ibn Saud have controlled the Arabian peninsula and its oil wealth for a century. And in recent decades the formerly “revolutionary” republican regimes of Egypt, Syria and Iraq itself have settled down to an outwardly stable dynastic rhythm. Hafez Assad ruled Syria for 29 years and then bequeathed absolute power, as if the country were a private possession, to his son Bashar. The assassination of Anwar Sadat by Islamic militants in 1981 did not prevent his deputy, Hosni Mubarak, from assuming the presidency of Egypt and clinging to it ever since. A junior Mubarak is now being groomed to take over. Mr Hussein himself has been Iraq's absolute ruler for almost a quarter of a century, and a favoured son, Qusay, stands ready to inherit. The popularity of these regimes may wax and wane—but, practised in repression, they have never relied on popularity in order to survive.

This is not to say that they can survive unchanged forever. Nor should they: having crushed freedoms, squeezed the breath out of opposition parties, and in most cases delivered precious little prosperity by way of compensation, it would be disappointing as well as peculiar if they did. But why expect an American war on Mr Hussein to start knocking over dominoes that managed somehow to stay upright despite Arab-Israeli wars, the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf war and two Palestinian intifadas?

Millions of Arabs, it is true, admire the Iraqi dictator's defiance of America and Israel. That does not mean that they would respond to his downfall by marching on their own governments. Many of those who admire him from afar are at the same time shrewdly aware of how dreadful it is to be an Iraqi. This is why Mr Hussein has never attained the status of a Nasser, who until the 1967 defeat by Israel was a genuine hero to all Arabs. Nor, having for most of his career espoused the secular nationalism of Baathism, can Iraq's dictator convincingly pose, like Mr bin Laden, as a champion of the Islamic alternative. It is anyway far from obvious why the average Egyptian or Saudi would blame his own government for an American attack on Iraq. These supposedly pro-American governments have already taken evasive action by making their own opposition to such a war crystal clear.

Given all this, the prospect of Arab regimes collapsing the moment America strikes Iraq looks fairly remote. It would be even more remote if America won swiftly, without inflicting heavy casualties. Since a war in Iraq entails so many imponderables, it would be folly to be confident of such a victory. But it would also be foolish to rule the possibility out. In Afghanistan, American technology soon dismantled the enemy's will to fight. And there is plenty of evidence from the Gulf war that the will of many Iraqis to fight for Mr Hussein has limits. Most of his soldiers surrendered at the first opportunity. Many of his civilians then tried to overthrow him. Abandoned by America, at the behest of Saudi Arabia, their uprising was crushed. The subsequent repression has not diminished their loathing of the man.

That Saudi request, in 1991, for the Americans to leave Mr Hussein in power, is telling. Are Arab rulers afraid that a war will go horribly wrong—drawing in Israel, bringing pro-Saddam protesters on to their own streets, provoking a post-war civil war inside Iraq, accelerating its collapse into warring sectarian fiefs? Or are they afraid of the opposite: that the war will go horribly right?

The latter, say members of the Iraqi opposition in exile. They, of course, have an interest in saying so. All the same, the Iraqi National Congress, the umbrella group that represents most of the opposition factions, has drawn up what looks like a promising blueprint for a post-war Iraqi order. It is based on two ideas: democracy and federalism. The opposition argues that as a nation with deep national and sectarian divisions—Shias, Sunnis, Kurds—Iraq can stay whole only by loosening the grip of the centre and devolving power to autonomous provinces.

Awkward for some
This idea has special resonance with Saudi Arabia. It is, in point of fact, anathema. Like Iraq, Saudi Arabia is a complex tribal society, which has resolved its problem of diversity by imposing authoritarian control. The Saud family enforces its will from the centre, deriving legitimacy from its claim to implement sharia law and represent the global interests of Islam and the ummah, the community of believers. Against such a background, Saudi Arabia's misgivings about an American war in Iraq are understandable.

An unhappy ending—one, that is, in which Mr Scott Doran's cartoon-character America follows the bin Laden script and nonchalantly causes Muslims to suffer and die—would strengthen the feelings of those Saudis already sympathetic to al-Qaeda. If Iraq disintegrated, the Shia population of Saudi Arabia might follow the Iraqi example and start to think about secession too. As for what the West would construe as a happy ending—the emergence of a federal democracy in Iraq—this would complicate the Saud family's efforts to maintain its totalitarianism. In its heart, the House of Saud wants nothing to change and history to stop.

The Saudis are not alone in that. Many of the critics of an Iraqi war in the West also say that it will bring instability, implying that the stability of the Arab world is a self-evident good. The paradox is that most ordinary Arabs privately concede that the form of stability provided by the Assads, Husseins, Mubaraks and Sauds is not so good, a blend of corruption and repression that has succeeded mainly in holding the Arabs back. Might the chasm which Mr bin Laden planned to open between state and society in the Islamic world turn out to be highly desirable, if—contrary to his script—it encouraged a turning towards political modernity?

It is possible. The suicide bombers of al-Qaeda made the opposite judgment, reckoning that by drawing America into action against Muslim countries they could win recruits for an Islamic revolution. America has certainly not made itself popular in the Muslim world since September 11th, and may become less popular still in the course of a military intervention in Iraq. On the other hand, the Arab perception of America's aims could swiftly change if (as is probable) the Iraqis were then to celebrate the downfall of Mr Hussein as joyfully as Afghans celebrated the downfall of the Taliban; and if (as is possible) America followed up quickly with an intensified push towards peace in Palestine.

Many westerners would call this wishful thinking. In fact, it is less fanciful than the idea that Islamic radicalism is poised to overthrow the secular regimes of the Arab world the moment America gives Iraq a push. Violent Islamic radicalism of the al-Qaeda sort has been in decline in most parts of the Middle East for at least two decades, and no amount of anti-American feeling seems likely to switch this trend abruptly into reverse. Armed Islamic movements have been suppressed in Egypt and Algeria. With the possible example of Hizbullah in Lebanon, Arabs never imported the Islamic revolution preached from Iran, and Iran itself is now retreating from it.

“Violence”, argues Gilles Kepel, a professor at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris, “has proven to be a death trap for Islamists as a whole, precluding any capacity to hold and mobilise the range of constituencies they need to seize political power.” Arabs are no fools. The violence and audacity of September 11th may have captured the imagination of many of them. Far fewer believe that waging war on America and turning their back on modernity is a cure for their desperate problems at home.