By Osama El-Sherif
IT IS not everyday that we, the Arabs, find ourselves inclined to support the armies of the United States of America and its western allies. Even if we don't publicize our sentiments, deep inside we somehow admire the fact that strong policies are backed up by strong actions. Maybe because we lack both!
Take the case of Kosovo and Yugoslavia for example. The Serbs have been butchering Muslims in Kosovo for many months and diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful settlement to the issue were repeatedly dashed by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. Unimaginable things have taken place in the beleaguered province with the aim of "purifying" the area of its ethnic people, who happen to be Muslims.
When all attempts failed, the United States and Europe, through NATO, launched intensive air strikes against Yugoslavia to force a political settlement. No one can say that diplomacy was not given a fair chance to resolve the Kosovo problem. The military option became the only one to stop a humanitarian tragedy.
The Arab and Muslims worlds stood at the sidelines and did nothing to intervene. Even as hundreds of thousands of Kosovars crossed into neighboring countries to flee Serbian atrocities, Arab and Muslim states remained passive, failing to do the minimum which is to send medical and humanitarian assistance.
Ironically, Israel became the first country in the region to send medical aid to help Kosovo refugees. A number of Muslim and Arab governments, such as Iran, Iraq and Indonesia, have denounced the NATO operation for their own political reasoning. But this is one case where political considerations should not supercede humanitarian, ethical and religious ones.
Denouncing NATO, for working outside UN mandate, will not stop the pogrom in Kosovo. Russia and China would have prevented the Security Council from sanctioning a military strike against Serbia. The price of inaction would have been intolerable. There is no doubt that the Kosovo issue is a complicated one for Europe and its US ally.
To allow Milosevic to carry out his heinous crimes against ethnic minorities in Serbia would pose a challenge for the new Europe that is emerging. On the other hand, the military option will only succeed if it leads to a just political settlement. Milosevic's defiance and his continuing to carry out his policy of purging Kosovo's Muslims pose a real dilemma for NATO countries.
The question is how long can Milosevic sustain the bombardments before he accepts a political settlement? And if he remains defiant, what will NATO do then? A land operation is becoming more of a necessity than a remote option. And that is an option that NATO leaders would like to avoid at any price.
One cannot but draw comparisons between the latest NATO attacks and the on-going campaign against Iraq. The fact of the matter is that both cases are different. But they are also similar in many ways. Lack of a common Arab policy on Iraq has allowed foreign powers to intervene. Many Arabs feel Baghdad is being denied a political way out of its ordeal. And there is no doubt that US and British objectives in Baghdad differ greatly from those in Yugoslavia.
A cruel and non-selective UN embargo is behind the humanitarian tragedy in Iraq. One can hardly blame the Iraqi regime for the death of thousands of Iraqi children every month. Still, Arab leaders are unable to adopt a united policy on Iraq that would spare Iraqi lives and Iraq's territorial integrity while removing Saddam Hussein from power.
But if the issue of Iraq is divisive by nature, it is not the case with Yugoslavia. For how can we ignore the plight of hundreds of thousands of helpless Muslims in Kosovo? What could have been the alternative to military intervention when Belgrade has rejected numerous initiatives to find a peaceful solution that would keep the province within the Yugoslav federation but protect the rights of its ethnic citizens?
It is ironic that some voices in the Arab world have come out in defense of Milosevic and Yugoslavia as friends of the Arabs and their causes. If it was so, why is it that not one Arab, or Muslim initiative was offered to intervene with the Serbian strongman to alleviate the suffering of Kosovo's Muslims and propose an alternative to Western diplomacy?
Arab intellectuals in particular are loathsome to condone anything that has to do with the United States and the new world order it has created and is selectively enforcing. But since the Gulf war and the collapse of the Soviet camp we have been in a state of limbo. Many of us are still thinking of terms of Cold War semantics failing to recognize that our anachronisms are behind our inability to find a forceful role in today's world.
The truth of the matter is that one can afford to agree with US actions in Yugoslavia while disagreeing with its policies in Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Palestine and elsewhere. America's European allies disagree with it on many issues, including Iraq and the Palestinian issue.
Why can't we do the same? It is indeed saddening to find ourselves in a state where we are unable to extend even symbolic assistance to thousands of needy Muslims while handing that responsibility to Europe and the United States. The Kosovo conflict, just as Iraq and others, has again highlighted Arab weakness and Muslim disunity. One wonders if not having a policy is worse than backing a controversial one.