Easier said than done, but it's being written and talked about, notes Rasha Saad Pundits conceive signs of a new horizon in Iraq. For Amir Taheri it seems there is a general consensus developing among several Arab powers that stabilising Iraq under a new system is in everyone's interests. Taheri argues in his article in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat that several Arab powers that have shunned a new Iraq since the fall of the former president Saddam Hussein in 2003 have announced a change of policy, including plans to open their embassies in Baghdad. He said that at least four of them have issued invitations to Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki for official visits, reversing a policy under which the Iraqi leader was treated as a pariah. "When combined, the two events could indicate the realisation in Arab capitals of the impossibility of replacing Al-Maliki with a man of their choice," Taheri explains, citing a shift in the attitude of Iraq's neighbours Iran, Turkey and Syria. Taheri said Tehran had rolled out the red carpet for Al-Maliki, ending the chill that had marked Iran's stand after it failed to impose its candidate in Baghdad as prime minister. According to Taheri, two of Iraq's neighbours, Turkey and Syria, have also indicated what could amount to significant changes in their hitherto negative postures on a new Iraq. Turkey, wrote Taheri, "has feted Al-Maliki with great pomp and publicly abandoned its threat of military intervention against Turkish-Kurdish terrorists based in northern Iraq. Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan has gone out of his way to throw his support behind Al-Maliki and promised joint action against terrorism." However, the Iraqi paper Az-Zaman wrote that as far as the government is concerned, it is clear that it does not have the capacity to rule. "The few upright and honest officials in its ranks are undermined by the heavy presence of militias and their representatives as well as rampant corruption and absence of personal security," Az- Zaman said. The editorial said the Iraqi government was feeble, as was the opposition. It wrote that it was not difficult to put such a government under the hammer. "But whether you are in the opposition or in the government, your quarrels and differences will fail to feed Iraq's hungry and its patients." In a comparison between the government and the opposition, Az-Zaman wrote that the two have offered Iraqis nothing but words. The government is being lashed for its sectarian policies. The opposition, which criticises sectarianism in theory, translates it into reality in practice. "The government is criticised for pursuing non-Iraqi agendas, described normally as pro- American or pro-Iranian. But those opposing it are not embarrassed at all to turn themselves into foreign lackeys," wrote Az-Zaman. Focussing on the row between Syria and Saudi Arabia, Jamil Theyabi wrote in the London- based, pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat that barely 48 hours after the verbal assault in which Syrian Vice-President Farouk Al-Sharaa criticised what he called Saudi paralysis, the Saudi government responded with a media blitz. "Is Syria suffering a serious deficiency in political skills, diplomatic subtlety and the essential art of managing international relations? Have pressures from all sides shaken the foundations of whatever a role Syria used to play on the Arab and international fronts?" asked Theyabi. According to Theyabi, the Saudi response bore some clear messages emphasising Saudi Arabia's long silence at Syria's "political games". "There is no excuse for Al-Sharaa's assault on Saudi Arabia's regional and international politics, especially since the attack was out of sync with all efforts to unify the Arab stand at such difficult times. "With all the tension, turbulence and pressure from major powers with interests in the region, and well-founded fears of a new war that threatens to destroy the region, Al-Sharaa's assault could not be more poorly timed," Theyabi wrote. In all cases, Theyabi argues, the loud verbal saga cannot serve an Arab accord or collective action. Theyabi suggests that Syria should tone down its assault. "What would Syria lose if it simply announced that Al-Sharaa's assault was no more than a slip of the tongue? Would such a gesture not lower the heat and tension and bring some sagacity into the Syrian position instead of placing Syria in more isolation?" Also in Al-Hayat, Ghassan Cherbel wrote on the row between Hamas and Fatah. In "Saving Hamas from its victory" Cherbel wrote, "two months after its military victory [in Gaza], Hamas is discovering that it has become the only authority in a place that is besieged and booby trapped." He said that Hamas was discovering that it does not possess the ability to break the blockade, that its victory had effectively placed it in a state of isolation, and that its traditional alliances cannot help it emerge from this predicament. There is one man, argues Cherbel, who can save Hamas from its victory, and that is Mahmoud Abbas. "After what happened in Gaza, Abbas has become stronger than he ever was before. He is stronger in terms of addressing Fatah, and in terms of addressing Hamas which has fallen into a game of cease and desist and which has recorded a victory with no horizon. He is stronger in addressing the international community which considers him the only acceptable negotiator." Abbas cannot deny Hamas's sacrifices, nor can he ignore its representation [of the Palestinian people] or influence in the Palestinian arena. At the same time Hamas cannot ignore the quagmire it has propelled itself into regardless of its justifications and the circumstances of its opponents. "The Palestinian reality is extremely complicated but the direction of the Arab and international winds are known. Hamas once again needs the cloak it tore off. It needs Abbas's cloak, and it has to pay the price of victory," Cherbel wrote.
