Standing Up to the West

In a very short period, Iraq and its president have been able to generate strong emotions around the entire world. While most countries went to great lengths in standing up—economically, politically, and militarily—to Saddam Hussein after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, many Arab and Moslem peoples were emotionally touched by Hussein to the extent of signing up to fight alongside Iraq.

The conflict has produced one of the biggest communication gaps between East and West in recent years, with neither side able to understand the other. What is it that puts the sides so far apart, with so many Arab and Islamic peoples as emotionally supportive of Iraq as the rest of the world is opposed to and repulsed by what Iraq did?

The West saw in Saddam Hussein a disgusting dictator whose occupation of Kuwait was no more than a huge bank robbery. Westerners felt that if the world didn't stop him, they would regret it in much the same way they regretted not stopping Adolf Hitler earlier than they did. The oil connection is simply seen as a side issue by most people in the street in the West.

Arab nationalists, meanwhile, saw in Saddam the first Arab leader who was doing more than just talking about Arab unity, who wanted to distribute Arab oil wealth among Arabs; they saw a leader who was ready to help Palestinians end the Israeli occupation of their lands, and willing to stand up to the American "imperialist" who wanted to control Arab oil, and to foreign "infidels" who are desecrating Moslem holy land in Saudi Arabia—the cradle of Islam.

Understanding the history, economics, religion, and politics of the Middle East is crucial to understanding the Gulf crisis. The history of the Arab world including Iraq, of the Palestinian conflict, and of relations between the West and the Middle East are vital for developing a better knowledge of the reasons behind the positions of Iraq and the rest of the Arab world.

This schism in understanding between East and West is also due to philosophical and cultural differences. The West has traditionally been deeply concerned with individual rights. And although the Gulf crisis is largely about the economic and energy interests of the West, Western leaders and image makers have succeeded in painting Saddam Hussein as a tyrant that has no interest in individual rights. Iraq's dismal human rights record and its decision to hold foreigners against their will plays right into this thinking.

In the East, however, collective and national rights are given much more importance than individual rights. The history of Eastern and Third World countries is full of examples of Western countries taking advantage of their human and material resources. So before people in the Arab world have the opportunity—or, in their perspective, the luxury—to deal with individual and human rights, they feel that there is a need to attend to their own collective rights. That is why Arab nationalism in 1990 has found a hero in Saddam Hussein and the pan-Arab ideology of Iraq's ruling Baath party.

In this sense many Arabs see the occupation of Kuwait not as an oppressive act but rather as a liberating and unifying act. They see in it a Bismarkian attempt to unite an Arab world whose self-imposed leaders are not willing to respond to the aspirations of the Arab masses. The existing border divisions of the Arab world are seen not as a natural separation but instead as a divide-and-rule strategy carried out by the British and the French following the end of World War I.

NOWHERE IS THIS POLICY more evident in pan-Arabist eyes than in the Gulf. Small countries were created and tribal leaders were appointed to run them with the understanding that these small emirates would obey their colonial masters' requests in as far as decisions related to oil prices and supplies are concerned. The more Arab countries there are, the weaker the Arab world; and conversely, unity would spell the much-feared independent power of the Arabs.

The need for unity among Arabs is no less important in the 1990s, as the entire world moves toward economic and political unity. Germany's reunification is virtually complete, Europe is moving toward full economic unity by 1992, and other countries in the world are looking for alliances in order to survive economically.

With such a world atmosphere, Arab nationalists saw in Saddam Hussein's move an attempt to demonstrate his party's pan-Arab ideology, which had been restricted from being spread by political and sometimes oppressive means. Arab presidents, kings, and emirs clung to their thrones at any price. Others had little control over their own resources and were guided by a selfish United States concerned only with its own interests and its ability to obtain a constant flow of oil for as low a price as possible.

From Iraq's point of view, taking Kuwait—which in fact had been part of Iraq and its only waterway to the Gulf—was legitimate. Kuwait had been cut off from Iraq in 1922 by the British colonialists, and in 1961 Iraq had demanded that Kuwait be returned. Britain refused and put pressure on Iraq, which later backed down from its claim and reluctantly recognized Kuwait. A border dispute between the two countries continued to exist—especially in relation to two oil-rich islands in the Gulf—until the invasion.

Saddam felt that Iraq's case grew after the Iraq-Iran War, which cost Iraq hundreds of thousands of lives. From an Iraqi perspective, the small, oil-rich Arab countries in the Gulf owe their political survival to the Iraqi army, which succeeded in defending them and much of the Arab world from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini and the rest of his fundamentalist Islamic clergy. Iran was bent on exporting their version of Islam to the Arabian peninsula and the rest of the Arab world.

The Gulf states' response—as far as Iraq was concerned—was overproducing oil in order to keep oil prices low, and demanding that Iraq service the debts from the loans it had taken out from the Gulf countries. Iraq's interpretation of this disastrous oil policy was that the half a dozen or so ruling families were simply marching to the tunes of the Western industrialized countries, whose own economic interests were to keep oil prices as low as possible.

Economically, a major disparity exists in the Arab world, both between rich and poor Arab countries and within the various Arab countries. As Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf states are racking up billions of dollars from their oil wealth—most of which is deposited or invested in the West—the majority of the Arab world is struggling with poverty and debt.

Foreign deposits of the Gulf states in Western banks have topped $600 billion, while the entire external debt of the Arab world is less than $200 billion. The people of Sudan are literally starving, while Egypt depends on the United States for its grain and is therefore politically unable to take an independent position.

Jordan's external debt is only $8 billion, but this is enough to place its economy, and therefore its political independence, in jeopardy. Jordan—which has the longest border with Israel—and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)—which is trying to fund the intifada—were flying from one oil-rich country to the next literally begging for financial help. And despite the enormous power that was inherent in oil, the leaders of many of the Gulf countries wanted to separate politics from oil, refusing to use oil as a political weapon.

Even after the end of hostilities between Iraq and Iran, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates were busting their OPEC quotas, thus weakening both Iraq and Iran, who were facing a process of economic rebuilding.

WHEN SADDAM'S TROOPS OCCUPIED Kuwait, the Arab world was searching for ideological identity after failure and impotence for decades. Marxism after perestroika and the changes in Eastern Europe were not the answer in the conservative religious Arab world. Islamic fundamentalism was trying to fill the ideological vacuum, but neither Iran nor Lebanon was doing very well as a role model. Its anti-Western attitude seemed out of place in a world that was dominated by Coca-Cola, Hollywood, and designer jeans.

On the leadership level, no Arab leader had been able to capture people's imagination. Not since the late Egyptian President Jamal Abdel Nasser has an Arab leader been looked up to as a source of hope and pride. Libya's Moammar Gadhafi was never taken seriously; Syria's Hafez Assad looked terrible in the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and has sunk in the Lebanese quagmire; and the failure of Egypt's Hosni Mubarek to deliver an Israeli-Palestinian meeting in Cairo seemed to be the last straw for him.

When Saddam Hussein entered the picture, the Arab world was in disarray, the Palestinian problem was far from being solved despite three years of intifada, and the Americans had so belittled the Arabs that during the May summit in Baghdad, President Bush sent the Arab leaders a stiff letter detailing what should and shouldn't be included in their final communique.

In one military move, Saddam Hussein seems to have pressed several key buttons. He touched the Arab nationalism nerve by calling for Arab oil for Arabs. He tapped the Islamic fundamentalist feelings by standing up to the West and by exposing the rulers of the Islamic holy places as willing to invite foreigners to protect the most sacred Islamic land rather than solving the conflict in an Islamic context. Saddam Hussein, who grew up as a common Iraqi and raised sheep as a young boy, captured the imagination of all poor Arabs by calling for the removal of the corrupt Arab sheiks and emirs and the distribution of Arab wealth among Arabs.

The Iraqi leader won the love of desperate and frustrated Palestinians who saw him as the possible savior who had succeeded in worrying the Israelis (something the intifada was no longer succeeding in doing) and who was willing to place the Palestinian cause on the agenda along with his country's claims to Kuwait.

The Gulf events came during a period of disappointment for Palestinians because of the failure of the political process to lead to an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. Almost two years after the PLO had recognized Israel and accepted U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Israel was clearly not interested in giving up any of the territories it occupied; nor was the Jewish state willing to enter into serious negotiations about the future of the Occupied Territories. And the intentions of U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Egypt's President Mubarek to get Israeli-Palestinian talks to begin in Cairo also ran into the intransigence of the Israeli government.

MANY ANALYSTS BELIEVE that had Iraq's invasion of Kuwait taken place while Palestinians and Israelis were involved in talks in Cairo, the Palestinian response would have been very negative. But since the invasion took place after the failure of the peace process, Palestinians realized a very simple Middle East rule—namely that might is right. The muscle flexing of the Iraqi president and then his actual invasion of Kuwait reminded many of the Israeli tactic of creating facts on the ground.

Palestinians' frustration was further increased when they realized the double standard of the United States and the West was demonstrated vividly in front of everyone's eyes. The world that had reacted with little more than lip service to the Security Council resolutions calling for Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and Lebanon was now putting all its energies, armies, naval blockades, and political influence against Iraq. The failure of the United States to respond positively to Saddam Hussein's first initiative calling for simultaneous withdrawals by Israel and by Iraq reinforced this double standard.

Many Palestinians wonder why the United States was supportive of the rights of the Kuwaiti people and ruler but continued to deny Palestinians the right to self-determination. Why is the U.S. government unwilling to negotiate with Saddam Hussein until he first withdraws from Kuwait, while accepting the conditions Israel imposes on Palestinians—such as Israel's refusal to accept a Palestinian state—before Israel is willing to talk? The U.S. double standard is also seen in the continuous focus on the undemocratic nature of Iraq without any reference to the fact that Kuwait had dissolved its parliament and that Saudi Arabia is ruled without concern for democratic principles.

The people of the Arab world have been unable to trust the intentions of the West. If it is principles the West is defending, then why the double standard? If it is interests in Arab oil, then the accusations by Iraq that the U.S. response reflects a neo-colonialist policy rings true.

The case of Iraq and Kuwait must be seen in the larger picture of the Middle East and international oil policies. The crusade that the United States is carrying out shows that it is more interested in what is below the sands of the Arabian peninsula and Gulf countries than with what is on top. The dispute between Iraq and Kuwait is an Arab conflict that should and can be solved by Arabs.

The internationalization of the conflict will only increase fears among Arab and Islamic peoples that the West is bent on enforcing its policy on the supply and prices of oil produced by the Arab world. And only when there is respect for the independence of Arab rights and the equal applications of international law to all parties in the Middle East will the Arab world stop talking about Western hegemony and imperialism.

Daoud Kuttab was a free-lance Palestinian journalist living in Jerusalem when this article appeared.