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A
lecture delivered to the Gulf Cultural Club by
Abdel
Barry Atwan, Editor Al Quds,
Thursday 17th June 2004
Saeed
Shehabi:
I would like to introduce a controversial speaker. Today
controversial means someone who does not go along with the
status quo. If you don’t go along with the policies of the
main world power, the USA then you will always be regarded
as controversial. It is not a secret to say that some
friends have blamed me for inviting him here. Next month we
will have an American guy. I don’t think anybody will
object. But to have him here is a controversial issue. To me
having him here is not a controversial issue. To somebody
who believes in freedom of expression it is not
controversial to have anybody who disagrees with you in your
view point. I have never seen any word of my articles
published in Al Quds removed and I spoke against
Saddam Hussein harshly. I have never been a fan of Saddam
Hussein in my life. So whatever others say I have
experience. I believe Al Quds has its own independent
policy and allows other viewpoints. It tells more truth than
others – maybe not the whole truth. That is why we are
privileged to have with us Barry Atwan.
Abdel
Barry Atwan:
Thank you very much for your attendance. I am grateful to Dr
Saeed for his introduction. We have been friends for years
and there has always been mutual respect and understanding.
He also used to have very controversial views but inspite of
that it did affect our mutual respect.
Some Iraqis
blamed him for inviting him. I always have problem with
Iraqis, whether they are with Saddam Hussein or against
Saddam Hussein. With people who are with Saddam Hussein I
was heavily criticised because of articles like the ones
Saeed Shehabi wrote. He was very, very critical. Not even
critical. He wrote things about Saddam Hussein that no one
else wrote – not even in Arab publications. Many other
people, Riad Al Rayees put me in a very difficult position
in 1991 –92 when he likened the Iraqi Republican Party to
the Nazis. We published the article and we were criticised.
People who were against Saddam Hussein accused us of being
funded by Saddam Hussein. We talked about the oil coupon
scandal. The list did not actually contain Abdel Barry
Atwan’s name or that of Al Quds. A colleague phoned me from
Paris and asked me about the list. I said if my name is
there then definitely it is false. If my name is not there
it is true. And it was proven to me.
Two months
ago I received a communiqué from the Baath Party accusing me
of being a traitor who is financed by Kuwait and Saudi
Arabia because I published an article against Saddam Hussein
and his regime. So with the Iraqis you cannot win no matter
what your position is. Today a survey conducted by the
American authorities in Iraq they said only two percent of
the people consider the Americans as liberators of Iraq –
only two percent. Al Quds did not conduct this survey. So
who is winning? This is not liberation it is occupation. It
was not aimed at removing Saddam Hussein or making Iraq an
oasis of democracy. It is to occupy Iraq and humiliate the
Arabs and create instability in the whole Arab world. It is
a war simply for the Israeli interests.
And for the
first time I do agree with Anthony Zini, the American Chief
of Staff who said this war is conducted for the Israelis. So
who was right and who was wrong? And what about those Arabs
and Iraqis who criticised us and our position which has not
changed for the last 15 years. I hope now they will
apologise and say we made mistakes. This is an occupation.
Those Americans did not liberate Iraq. I hope all these Arab
journalistic institutions will come out like that. The New
Times said ‘yes, we were deceived, we were wrong, Ahmed
Chelabi misled us, yes we betrayed our profession, we did
not check our facts as thoroughly as we should have.
Today the
congress committee issued its report and said there is no
connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. There
is no role of Saddam Hussein in the September 11 disaster.
So President Bush should apologise and he should resign
simply because he misled the American people and the whole
international community and led them into a war.
Now let us
move to the G8 summit. All these subjects are related.
Before we talk about the G8 summit and what the greater
Middle East means we have to look at the policies of America
and its allies. I believe these policies have only managed
to maintain Israel as the greatest Middle Eastern regional
superpower. If you look at all American policies and
movements in the region you will see they are actually
designated to serve two purposes: cheap oil and to maintain
Israeli superior in its neighbourhood.
Let us start
with oil. The oil is the most important in describing the
American moves in the region. The war in Afghanistan was to
safeguard the oil fields in the ex Soviet Islamic
republics. They want to have a pipeline which will go to the
Indian Ocean. The Iraq was took place simply because America
would like to control the oil in the Middle East. Iraq has a
reserve of 190 billion barrels which could be equal or
higher than the Saudi oil reserves. So Iraq was important
for them.
The second
thing we know that the future war will be an economic war.
It could not be a political war. There are two powers which
could take a competitive part vis a vis the USA:China and
Europe. If we look at China there is a common factor between
China and Europe – they are both dependent on imports of oil
as they do not have oil of their own. The USA which consumes
by itself, 20 percent of world energy would like to control
the future economy. If you want to compete with China –
some people suggest that in 2025 it will be the greatest
superpower – and compete with Europe you have to put your
hand on the oil reserves in the world.
In the past
the USA used to control Europe by the Soviet threat. Now
they cannot use the nuclear umbrella because there is no
Soviet threat – the Eastern bloc collapsed and Moscow is not
a threat anymore. That is the reason for the war in Iraq.
Another point
will show how important the oil is. If you at the price of
oil in 1978 it was $35 a barrel. For 30years the price of
oil is going back. But if you look at the value of the
dollar and other commodities you will see that the Western
world is getting the oil virtually free. According to the
latest estimate the price of oil should be, in line with
inflation, $100 a barrel. Why is it $35.
To make it
simpler look at a little car the Volkswagn which used to
cost $2000 – now it is at least $20,000. For anything else
the price has increased five fold, eight fold, ten fold. The
only one commodity for which the price is going back, rather
than forward, is oil.
When the USA
talks about reforms we believe they are not serious. Why are
they not serious? Because if you have independent, elected
governments in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq and other
countries they would not accept such cheap oil prices. They
would not accept. They might deal with a corrupt government,
a dictatorship which can actually co-operate with them when
it comes to the oil. Even before the G8 they started
talking about reforms. Why did they start talking about
reforms? They realised that these corrupt governments are a
burden on international security. Globalism does not only
apply to the economy and to the media – it can also apply to
terrorism.
The USA and
the Western powers realised that they are maintaining,
financing and supporting corrupt Arab regimes in the Middle
East. This will create more of Al Qaeds, more violence, more
of September 11th. So they can’t continue like
that.
America and
the Western world asked a simple question – why do they hate
us. They hate us because we support Arab corrupt regimes
and because we invade Iraq and we support Iraqi atrocities.
But they did
not say that we should amend these foreign policies and stop
our support for these regimes. They accepted the
recommendation that we spend a billion dollars to finance
the media and the pr campaign to rectify the American image
and advocate American and Western values. They said this
amount of money should be doubled. They said we should not
stop our support for the Israeli atrocities and admit that
the occupation of Iraq was wrong. They did not say that our
war against Afghanistan is a complete failure. They did not
say our support for these corrupt regimes is making people
hate us. They set up Al Hurah and financed a lot of Arab
satellite channels which are trying to imitate the Western
media.
The problem
is not with the messenger, the problem is with the product.
The salesman cannot market your product because your product
is rotten no matter what money you spend. If they realised
that by supporting corrupt regimes which limit the freedom
of expression in the Arab world people turn to an
underground opposition. People turn to violence. The problem
is that when all the Arab leaders are aging and have been in
power for twenty or thirty years how can you have change
there. They do not want to leave office. They want to rule
in their oppressive way until they drop dead. We notice the
youngest one, Muammar Al Qathafi, has been in power for 35
years.
When they
suppress democracy and opposition the people become
terrorists. The 11th of September (whether we
agree with it or not) was the first time that people (and I
am quoting the Economist here) said to America you have been
interfering in our affairs for so long and we have not done
anything to you. This is the first time we are going to hit
back. This was the first time that certain Arabs, whether
we agree with them or their methods or not, managed to say
to the Americans we do not approve of what we are doing.
All this talk
about reform is due to September 11. Before September 11 we
never heard the Americans talking about democracy in the
Middle East. We never heard the G8 talking about reforms and
democracy in the Middle East. I do not want to say it but I
have to say it we are grateful to 11 September because it
threw a big stone into a rotten lake. Again I disagree with
what happened on September 11 but when did they talk about
democracy, reforms and human rights violations. Human rights
violations existed in all Arab countries, people were
tortured and imprisoned for years without any trial but
nobody talked about it.
So now they
are talking about it because the war against terrorism is
not successful. They realised that supporting these corrupt
dictatorships is creating more violence and more terrorism
so they started talking about reforms and democracy.
I was really
disappointed that they do not want democratic regimes in the
Arab world – they want to change the existing regimes. But
in the communiqué of the G8 it seems that the Americans
accepted that the reforms should come from inside, not from
outside. They accepted that the reforms should come from
within the ruling elites in the Arab world. They think that
these governments will accept reforms and they want to work
with those governments. I believe this is nonsense. These
regimes are beyond reform. How can you reform the government
in Saudi Arabia which is a family of 20,000 which has
everything.
It is
extremely difficult to have reforms. It seems that the Arab
government managed to convince the Americans and the
European countries that the best thing is to deal with them
and they will reform. We have witnessed President Mubarak
of Egypt visiting all European countries and saying do you
want the Algerian experience to be repeated in Saudi Arabia
and in Egypt. But if you look at the Algerian experience you
will see that the problems in Algeria did not start because
of reforms. They started because of the lack of reforms. In
Algeria there were elections and 86 percent of the votes
went to the Islamic Front. The problem started when the
government said no more elections. So the problems did not
start because of the reforms but because of the suppression
of reforms and democracy. Hundreds of thousands of people
were killed because the military establishment did not want
to lose power and they wanted to stay in control and that is
why they changed the whole thing.
The talk
about al hussisiya Arabia – we have a special status in the
Arab world. We do not hate democracy – we hate the reforms
especially because they are coming from the United States.
The USA is talking about reforms so they should be
rejected. But they take cars, computers, money from the USA
– so when it comes to democracy why don’t you want it? The
Arab world is full of people who were agitating for
democracy before the Americans uttered one word about it.
Do the Arabs
believe that corruption is part of their identity? Do they
have to keep this identity? Do they have to stay corrupt and
autocratic because if they don’t their identity will be
tarnished by Western democracy?
I believe
they don’t want democracy. They want a democracy they
applied to Afghanistan. They want to export this kind of
democracy to the Arab world. Arafat is the elected leader,
you have to respect that. They say no, he is not a good
leader, he is supporting terrorism. Yet he came to power
through a democratic process which was supervised by the
Americans. They want to impose certain governments and
certain regimes on us. In Afghanistan Karzai does not even
trust the Afghans to protect him – he is protected by the
CIA. Now the Prime Minister of Iraq says he is not ashamed
to have been a CIA agent. This is the kind of people they
want to impose on us in the name of democracy. Ayad Allawi
said yes I was co-operating with the CIA in 1990. The man
said that. He said we were launching attacks against the
regime and the CIA have a report that has been published
which said Ayad Allawi sent bombers to Iraq during the time
of Saddam’s regime and they actually killed children.
This is the
time of government they want to impose on us in the name of
democracy: Karzai, Abu Mazin, Ayad Allawi. God knows which
government in Egypt is waiting to take over. They used these
reforms in their argument for the Iraq war because they
wanted the Arab regimes to support them in the Iraq war. But
the Iraqi people did not receive them with flower, music and
dancing in the streets. So they use these reforms to
terrorise Arab governments so that they will co-operate more
with them.
We notice
that Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia knew about the Iraq war
before Colin Powell the US Secretary of State. Prince Bandar
said yes, we will co-operate, we will open Saudi Arabia to
you for the invasion of Iraq. We will lower the oil prices
to help the American president win the next election. Now
we don’t hear anything about democracy in Saudi Arabia.
Colin Powell said three days ago we are going to help the
Saudis in their war against terrorism and they should do
more in this war. They closed the Al Harimeen charity which
is headed by the king. It was the most moderate charitable
organisation in the Arab world but they did not say yes
Saudi Arabia is going well to combat terrorism but at the
same time they should introduce reforms. They did not say
there are reformers who believe in peaceful means to bring
about change. They did not say these people should be
released. They said they should do more against their own
society in order to combat terrorism. As long as you are
doing what the Americans ask you to do, you are a good boy.
If you are not doing what they want you to do you are a bad
boy and we must introduce reforms.
So I believe
these reforms are being used to give more concessions to the
Americans in the region so they can get cheap oil. Saudi
Arabia increased its production by 2 million barrels and the
price of oil dropped from $43 to less than £35 and it is
going down and down.
Suddenly we
noticed that when they started talking about reforms the
Egyptian government maintained good relations with Sharon.
He has problems in his party, he has problems in government.
The Egyptian government is now trying to contact him and
befriend him. If you are not going to co-operate you know
what will happen and the mujahideen are waiting to more in.
Like the Gulf
states if you maintain good relations with Israel you will
be under American protection and you will have troops to
protect you. If you are good with the Israelis and you
maintain diplomatic relations with them you are immune from
criticism and you can benefit financially. Because the king
of Jordan was a good boy the aid to Jordan suddenly jumped
from $150 million a year to $750 million a year – this is
cash. And also the American government exerted pressure on
Saudi Arabia to finance Jordan by giving it $403 million of
free oil. They don’t like Jordan, they don’t like the
regime, they don’t like the people but they are giving this
free oil or oil at a very reduced rate.
Once you are
helping American foreign policy to make Israel the strongest
state in the region or to support the so-called peaceful
solution according to the Israeli point of view you are a
good boy. Sharon is in the White House every six months.
What amazes me is that we started this process of the Oslo
Agreement and when it did not work we had other plans, then
the road map and now we have ended with the Sharon plan.
Nobody is talking about the road map. We are now talking
about the Sharon plan and everybody is adopting it. In the
end the Israelis imposed their will on the whole
international community because the American administration
is supporting them. President Bush gave the Israelis gains
which no other administration gave them. First he said
Israel is a Jewish state, second Israeli has a right to
annex settlements so they legitimised the settlements which
were once considered illegal. They dropped the right of
return for six or seven million Palestinian refugees. This
is the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict. So that is how we
have ended up.
How can a
multi-racial, multi-cultural state like America support a
racist state in Israel? This is supposed to be the most
civilised country on earth, a country of immigrants
regardless of culture or religion and they managed to
produce the greatest super power. Yet despite that when it
comes to Israel and Sharon they managed to change their skin
and their attitudes and actually advocate a racist state, a
state for the Jews only. Why did they not apply the same
thing to South Africa, a state for whites or blacks only.
Europe is now having to be a multi-cultural state. Yet
Israel is above international law, above all principles.
I don’t think
they will introduce reforms. In a country like Saudi Arabia
people will ask them which has at least $1005 billion of oil
revenues in the last twenty years, where is our money. They
will ask when you have a democracy and an elected parliament
why there are no good hospitals and schools, why is the
unemployment 25 percent, why don’t we have an economic
infrastructure. Where is our money? They will ask the
Egyptian president the same thing and the Syrian and the
Jordanian. If we have real democracy it will lead to the
trial of these regimes because once the democratic process
starts it will not stop. You cannot stop it in the middle.
You have to go to the full course and if you go the full
course all these regimes will be tried.
They used to
say no democracy because we are fighting Israel. The last
war with Israel was 30 years ago. Why have we ignored the
last 30 years? Why didn’t we have good jobs for people, good
hospitals why didn’t we have a proper development plan. Why
is a country like Thailand exporting more than the whole
Arab world. Why is their GP more than the whole of the Arab
world. So these regimes will not change. But there is a wake
up call for the people of the Arab world through the
satellite channels and the information revolution. Now
people can have a computer and read the latest news. The
people in the Arab world are starting to talk through the
internet and the satellite channels. Nobody listens to the
officials channels where the leaders used to talk for three
hours. Now they have nothing to say. People do not listen to
them because they know they are lying. The people are
talking to their leaders through Al Arabia and other
satellite channels. They are saying we are fed up with you.
I cannot see
a smooth transition of power in the Arab world. I cannot see
a peaceful transition of power. I can see the governments
clinging to power and the people objecting. There will be
problems. I was invited to the Al Uroba club in Bahrain and
I said that when the change comes it will be violent as the
regimes will not change. You can see what is happening in
Saudi Arabia which was supposed to be the most stable
country. People were killed in the day time. Foreigners were
kidnapped and used to threaten the regimes. It never
happened, not even in Beirut. I worked in Saudi Arabia for
three years I could not believe these things were happening.
In Morocco there were attacks against certain targets. The
people are boiling, they are frustrated.
I am sorry to
paint such a pessimistic picture about our part of the
world. The G8 will not bring reforms and what is happening
in Saudi Arabia and Iraq will actually happen in Kuwait,
Egypt, Syria etc because there is no other way. | 
