Walid Phares on Arab League on National Review Online - Taking Care of League Business


Phares puts the ball back in the Arab League's court, concluding with three fair questions:

1) Speaking of withdrawal from Iraq, shouldn't the Arab League be asking Syria — a League member — to withdraw from Lebanon? That small country was invaded in 1990 by an Arab army following an Arab League decision — which, let us remind Mr. Mahmassani, was never authorized by the United Nations. Since 1976, the Arab League has sponsored armed interventions in Lebanon quite independently of the U.N. Worse, it legitimized the onslaught of the Syrian forces in Lebanon — complete with 15 years of shelling, massacres, kidnappings, and terrorism, and the forceful imposition of a new regime in October 1990.


2) The League's representative warned against the "harm that could be caused to the peoples of the region." But the League shows such thoughtfulness only to certain populations. Kurds are not on its list, nor are the Berbers or the Copts. The Kurds are massacred by the Iraqi regime, the Algerian government suppresses the Berbers, and the Copts are persecuted by both their own Egyptian government and by fundamentalist organizations. The list goes on. Despite a range of atrocities stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, the League has remained heavily silent.


3) Last but not least, the Arab League charges that its people do not want change, especially if it comes from the outside world, and particularly if it is to be at the hands of the United States. It claims that Arab matters are settled among and by Arabs. But if that's the case, why don't we call for free elections in Damascus, Riyadh, and Tripoli, and learn more about the real will of the people of the region? Let's grant the masses there what the League wants to grant the Palestinians — nothing more, nothing less. Why should the United States be urged to intervene in one Arab matter (the Palestinian one) and not in another one (Iraq)? Are the Kurds and Shiites second-class communities?