Arab Nations See a Double Standard : Reaction: They charge that the U.S. ignores the plight of Bosnian Muslims while targeting Iraq. But Europeans applaud strike.

Arab nations Sunday denounced Washington’s missile strike on Baghdad as part of a Western double standard--targeting Iraq while failing to take action against attacks on Bosnian Muslims.

But European allies generally backed President Clinton’s decision to hit Iraq’s intelligence headquarters in retribution for an alleged plot to assassinate former President George Bush.

Egypt and Turkey, mainstays in the U.S.-led coalition that drove Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991, said that Washington should deal just as severely with Serbian aggressors in Bosnia.

“I wish the position of American policies were as strict toward the crimes that the Serbs carry out against Bosnia-Herzegovina, which violate all legitimacy and international conventions,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Amir Moussa told the government-owned Middle East News Agency.

Egypt has criticized the United Nations for failing to protect Muslim Slavs from attacks and “ethnic cleansing” by Bosnian Serbs.

Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller said: “We have always been for an effective response to international terrorism and cooperation in fighting it, but this should also be seen in Bosnia.”

The 21-member Arab League, headquartered in Cairo, warned that unilateral action without the support of the U.N. Security Council “entails dangers that do not fit with the wish to establish a new world order.”

The strongly worded statement called attention to the plight of the Bosnian Muslims and Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and called for “an end to the double standards of dealing with international conflicts.”

Iran overcame its enmity with Iraq to condemn what it considers a bigger enemy, the United States. Iran’s Parliament accused Washington of a “blatant international aggression” and said the missile strike was “a threat to world peace and security.”

Among European leaders, British Prime Minister John Major called the U.S. attack an “entirely justified” response to the alleged plot to assassinate Bush.

The French Foreign Ministry said that “France understands the reaction of the United States and the motives of this operation.”

A statement by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl called the action “a justified reaction to a detestable attempted act of terrorism.”

Major, Kohl and French President Francois Mitterrand were notified by Clinton in advance of the attack, their offices said.

Opposition leaders in the three European countries argued that the missile attack was not authorized by the United Nations nor valid under international law.

But Russia said the U.N. Charter allows for such action, saying that the U.S. attack stemmed from “a nation’s right to individual and collective self-defense.”