Arabs See American Weakness, Defeat
Thu, Dec 7, 2006 at 7:42:37 am PST
No surprises here; the Arab world sees the Iraq Study Group report as more evidence that America is exactly how Osama bin Laden described us: a paper tiger. Arabs say report shows Bush’s failure.
CAIRO, Egypt - Many Arabs on Thursday interpreted an American advisory panel’s bleak assessment of President Bush’s Iraq policies as proof of Washington’s failure in the Middle East.
But others worried about the consequences if the U.S. follows the Iraq Study Group’s suggestions, warning that the report could fuel insurgents and others vying to fill Iraq’s security vacuum.
“This report is a recognition of the limitation of American power,” said Abdel Moneim Said, head of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic studies in Cairo. “In the short term, America will highly suffer the loss of its reputation and credibility in the region.” ...
Mustafa Bakri, an outspoken critic of the U.S. and editor of the Egyptian tabloid Al-Osboa, told a state-run television show that the report indicated “the end of America.”
Bakri, who supports Syrian President Bashar Assad and the former regime of Saddam Hussein, urged Arab countries to “capture the moment as America now is in its weakest period.”
The Iraq Study Group’s report was the top headline in many Arab newspapers on Thursday, including the Egyptian opposition daily Al-Wafd, which declared: “Bush confesses defeat in Iraq.” The paper’s editor-in-chief, Anwar el-Hawari, predicted that at the very least, the Middle East will not hear from Bush for the coming 24 months.
“Practically, this means that this is the real end of Bush rule, his policies and the neo-conservative groups. This also means that the coming two years left in his term will be a period of a political vacuum,” he wrote.
Joseph Samaha, editor-in-chief of Lebanese opposition daily Al-Akhbar, said that, even before the study group’s report found shortcomings in the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, Arabs had already concluded that Iraq had turned into a “holocaust for American claims.”
But others warned that insurgents and countries including Iran were taking advantage of Bush’s failures and the spiraling violence, and their influence would increase if the U.S. leaves. “Al-Qaida must smell victory, but its a negative victory that comes from the defeat of America in Iraq,” Said of the Al-Ahram center said.
