The Arab press was not convinced that the Iraqi handover of power will make a meaningful difference. Rasha Saad shares some examples Throughout the week, the focus of the Arab press was the handover of power to the Iraqis. The abrupt transfer, which occurred on Monday instead of Wednesday, was widely commented on. However, the majority of stories were about the challenges henceforth facing Iraq. The biggest challenge cited was security especially after a wave of attacks on Thursday and Friday in Mosul and Baquba which killed more than 100 people and wounded more than 200 others. Arab commentators also focussed on internal divisions among Iraq's diverse ethnic and religious groups which, they say, might lead to civil war if not dealt with wisely. On the security issue, British writer and Middle East expert Patrick Seale believes that to save America's reputation, the US may have to accept that Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's regime may turn out to be not all that different from the government the US overthrew. In "Can Iyad Allawi deliver security?" Seale wrote in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper on Friday that there had been disagreements over the size of the new Iraqi force during last week's meeting between Allawi and US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of America's war in Iraq. Wolfowitz, wrote Seal, wants to put a ceiling on the new Iraqi army and equip it with only light weapons. Allawi, though, says that to have security, the US must allow Iraq to rearm itself. Allawi thus wants to be allowed to set up a force of 250,000 men who have tanks, missiles and aircraft. Seale argued that in the minds of people like Wolfowitz and his neo-conservative colleagues, the war was fought to weaken Iraq permanently and if possible to break it up into statelets so as to prevent it from ever challenging Israel or America's strategic interests in the Gulf. "To accept the formation of a new Iraqi army, essentially a revival of Saddam Hussein's army, would be to deal a deathblow to these neo-con hopes." Thus, Seale proceeds, the US finds itself in a dilemma. Although it cannot by itself restore security in Iraq, it is reluctant to see the re- emergence of a strong Iraqi army at the service of a strong central government in Baghdad. Yet the US, he believes, has no real choice. If it is to achieve some measure of stability in Iraq before the US presidential elections in November, then Allawi is its only hope. If he fails and the insurgency continues at its present level, US failure would be total. Seale adds that there is no alternative strategy in sight. In the daily Asharq Al-Awsat, renowned Egyptian writer Fahmy Howeidy pointed to internal divisions among Iraqis. On Wednesday, Howeidy wrote that he believes a difficult test faces the Sunni-Shia relationship and ties between Kurds and Arabs. Failure, according to Howeidy, will inevitably lead to a catastrophe. "If this happens, then while Saddam Hussein succeeded in destroying the Iraqi society and the occupation came to destroy the state, internal divisions will also have a role in tearing the country apart unless loyalists in Iraq move to stop it." Howeidy also cited a statement circulating in Iraq and signed by an unidentified group that six Shia truck drivers who were transporting tents to "Al-Falluja battalion" which is cooperating with American forces in the Sunni city, were stopped by gunmen calling themselves "The Holy Warriors" or Al-Mujahideen. The drivers fled to a police station which, according to the statement, handed them over to religious hard-liners who ordered their killing. The incident triggered demonstrations of a couple of hundred Shias in Baghdad carrying photos of the bodies of the victims. During the demonstration, which attracted foreign reporters, rumours had it that three others were killed, and that the Mujahideen had asked for a ransom. According to Howeidy, the story sounds far- fetched after the police officers and one of the hard-liners named in the statement, Abdullah Al- Janabi, vehemently denied the charges. A Muslim scholars association refrained from commenting on the issue because it did not find evidence that the drivers had in fact been killed. It was also unclear that, if they were killed, was it because they were Shias or because they were cooperating with the Americans. "I do not exclude the possibility that it was part of a campaign to add more mines to the relationship between Sunnis and Shias and thus have it explode onto the internal scene," wrote Howeidy. "It would divert the attention of the Iraqis away from the catastrophe of the continuing occupation and the powerplay of the handover." Lebanese writer Talal Salman reflected a dim view of Iraq's future even after the transfer of power. In Monday's article in the Lebanese Assafir, Salman described the handover of US authority to the interim Iraqi government as a "dreadful bloody carnival. Neither Iraqi President Ghazi Al-Yawar nor [Prime Minister] Allawi can claim that they are in power or are the decision-makers in Iraq. "What does sovereignty mean in a country whose lands are occupied, when the US defense secretary declares that he will increase the number of troops in Iraq and when the occupation generals do not hesitate to imitate the Israelis as they hover overhead with their military aircraft to flatten houses and whole neighbourhoods in populated cities that are deprived of food under the pretext that they shelter terrorists who come from abroad?" Salman also attacked "terrorists" who have failed to kill one American soldier, unless by mistake, and who are deliberately seeking to torch Iraq in blind inter-Arab Muslim strife. "How can the Iraqis who are threatened with genocide because of their race and sect but rarely for their political stances, become sovereign?" Salman was also angered by Abu Mos'ab Al- Zarqawi whom the US blames for a series of attacks on its forces and on Iraqis. According to Salman, Al-Zarqawi seems to be a supporter of the US occupation who "carries out its dirty work and thus helps cleanse its face". Wrote Salman, "With his calls for mass slaughter and charges of mass apostasy, Al-Zarqawi is also an extension of Saddam Hussein's tyranny and the occupation altogether. He is calling for a jihad to force the Iraqis into a civil war, a war that will help the occupation portray itself as the rescuer of the Iraqis from mass slaughter. What is the value of sovereignty for those killed or who will be killed?" In Al-Hayat on Sunday Saleh Beshir said the transfer of power will lead to a "crippled independence" and with the resistance to the occupation turning Iraq into an arena of fighting, Iraq is suffering from mortal blows. Beshir believes that the intensity and wide- ranging operations of Al-Zarqawi's group puts it at the forefront of anti-occupation resistance. "Al-Zarqawi's agenda," says Beshir, "is not about Iraq but is an overall strategy aimed at fighting the Crusaders and Jews and in which political entities and states are sacrificed. "The worst-case scenario is that Iraq becomes a central zone in the war on terrorism, and that it will not enjoy stability until the war ends -- something that the US said might take a century." .
