Sunday, March 20, 2005
Iraq puts its foot down
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said March 20 that Iraq was temporarily recalling its ambassador to Jordan for "consultations." The decision comes two days after Shiite protesters, demanding an apology for alleged Jordanian involvement in a suicide bombing in the city of Hillah, raised the Iraqi flag over the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad.
Link($).
Austin Bay has more:
Iraqis are sick and tired of Zarqawi’s and Al Qaeda’s murder and destruction and they want other Arab Muslim countries to take strong action. This hatred for Zarqawi isn’t a new phenomenon – I heard similar comments last summer in Baghdad. Now –after the Iraqi elections– the Iraqi people feel confident enough to demonstrate in the streets. That means they attract cameras– even Al Jazeerah’s.
The demonstrations are another huge political defeat for Al Qaeda. The demonstrations make the point that Al Qaeda kills Arabs, Al Qaeda kills Muslims. Washington fretted -and quite correctly– that the coalition was losing the “information war.” Since January 30th, the Iraqis have been winning that war.
Will Jordan crack down? The Jordanian government is no friend of Al Qaeda. What the Iraqi pressure does, however, is put pressure on Jordanian imams and Al Qaeda sympathizers. “Hey, it’s not New York you attacked, it’s Hilla.” A free, stable Iraq will ignite an economic boom in Jordan, and the Jordanian business community knows this. The last thing the Jordanian government and business establishment want to do is anger and alienate the Iraqi electorate. (Yes, electorate– no longer simple “the Iraqi people,” but the Iraqi electorate.)
People who refuse to see the connection between the removal of Saddam Hussein and the other changes sweeping the Middle East are blinding themselves on purpose. One might deplore those changes if one believes that "stability" and freedom from collateral damage are the highest values where Arabs are concerned, but it is essentially impossible to make the case that these changes would have occurred without the intransigence -- yes, the intransigence -- of the Bush Administration in the face of the crimes of Saddam and the disdain of the internationalists.
CWCID: Austin Bay link via Glenn.
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