War Underscores Deep Schism Among Arabs

Eighteen days of war have left many Arabs baffled and uncertain.

Their demonstrations have yielded little except headlines. Some of their leaders call for a cease-fire but continue to offer the United States support. Their imams disagree about whether the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq justifies jihad, or holy war, in response. They even find it difficult to know who’s winning the war when the Iraqis say one thing and the Americans another.

Although united by their sympathy for the Iraqi people and their outrage at the United States, Arabs have lost the elation they felt in the first days of the war when the Iraqi army neither surrendered nor crumbled. Now the war and its searing images of civilian casualties have become part of daily life. Except for the young men who go off to join the Iraqis, most Arabs begrudgingly acknowledge, there is nothing that they can do to assist the fight or to affect their governments’ policies.

“Frankly, it’s frustrating and dispiriting,” said a political activist in Cairo, who declined to be named. “Most of the regimes in the Arab world have no legitimacy. They’re scared to open up society because they’d be swept aside in any popular election. So what can people do to make themselves heard? Stop buying Pepsi?”

Political analysts say the war has underscored the great divide between the Arab people and their leaders, whose hearts are with Iraq but whose minds and wallets are often with the United States. This split leaves pro-American presidents, emirs and kings vulnerable if the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq leads to democracy sweeping through the Middle East, as U.S. national security advisor Condoleezza Rice has suggested.

“Everyone knows the system is broken in Arab countries, but no one knows how to fix it,” said Abdel Moneim Said, director of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategy Studies here.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, one of America’s closest political allies in the Arab world, has called for a cease-fire and U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in an attempt to show his people that he is as much against the war as they are. But when his demand falls on deaf ears, it only serves to remind Egyptians of his inability to influence his American friends, analysts say.

Similarly, King Abdullah II of Jordan risks being perceived as weak when he labels U.S. attempts to overthrow Hussein an invasion and calls Iraqi victims martyrs -- while allowing U.S. special operations troops to launch missions against Iraq from his territory.

To further compound a credibility problem with his people, a few days after saying he would not close the Iraqi Embassy in Amman, he expelled five Iraqi diplomats. A few days after that, the king said Iraq could replace three of them.

Convinced that their leaders have not leveled with them, many Arabs have turned to their religious leaders for guidance on how to respond to what they consider an unjust and immoral war.

Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, grand sheik of Al Azhar University, was asked at a news conference in Cairo last week if jihad is justified in this situation. His long, convoluted response did little to lessen public perceptions that he was a mouthpiece for government policy.

In Saudi Arabia, one sheik called for jihad while another said it was an unacceptable response. In the Iraqi city of Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani urged people not to interfere with American troops, even as an edict he had signed hung on the door of his mosque, saying Iraqis would “stand together against any invasion.”

Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the 22-member Arab League, is said to be so frustrated by the Arabs’ inability to move beyond self-interest in taking a position on the war that he is considering stepping down.

When the league’s foreign ministers met in Cairo in the first days of the war, their main concern seemed to be more about controlling demonstrations than stopping the war.

Political observers say the war has left the Arab League more divided than at any other time in its 58-year history, splintering it into factions. In one, Persian Gulf states are offering the U.S. access to bases and open support; in another, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are quietly supporting the United States while denouncing the war; and in a third, Syria and Lebanon are spearheading opposition to Washington.

The only Arab institution that has marched in step with Arab sentiment during the war is the state-controlled press. Unrelenting in its unflattering characterization of the United States and President Bush -- one newspaper said both Bush and his father were “butchers” -- it runs graphic pictures of civilian victims on the front pages and often gives more credence to battlefield assessments made by Iraqi officials than by U.S. briefers.

The Bush administration, through its embassies, has complained to some of the governments that the stilted news coverage inflames Arab public opinion.

Replied one Arab columnist: “Washington has ignored Arab public opinion for two years. Why does it all of a sudden care?”