Attack on Iraq would aggravate anti-West feelings: Scholars

Muhammad Nafik The Jakarta Post Jakarta

Muslim scholars joined the mounting opposition to any intention by the U.S. to attack Iraq, saying it could further encourage radicalism, feelings of hatred and enmity against the West and the U.S. in particular.

Any such military strikes would also worsen the long-standing conflict in the Middle East and create more complicated problems in the world, including hurting the international oil market, they added.

"The impact would be very negative. America should keep out of people's lives in Iraq and other countries," Mahmoud Ayub, a professor from Temple University in the U.S., told The Jakarta Post.

Speaking here on the sidelines of a three-day international seminar titled Islam and the West one year after Sept. 11, which will conclude on Friday, he said that should the U.S. be allowed again to attack Iraq, the world's superpower would seek another strike target among the Muslim nations on the pretext of its war on terrorism.

"The U.S. should not interfere in the affairs of any sovereign state. Therefore, any proposal to attack Iraq should be blocked," Ayub said. "It is an irresponsible policy," he added.

Bassam Tibi, a Muslim scholar from Gottingen University in Germany, said an attack would increase radical movements and further inspire hatred and enmity against the West.

"If the U.S. went ahead with a plan to hit Iraq, fundamentalists would be very happy. They could mobilize support against the West. Therefore, I am against any such plan to attack Iraq," he said.

He told the Post that military action would foment a political crisis in the Middle East, which, he said, could ignite the rise of radicalism.

Former defense minister Juwono Sudarsono also voiced a similar objection to any U.S. plan to strike Iraq in its stated attempt to prevent it from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

"An attack on Iraq would create a series of more unexpected troubles in the world, which should be avoided," he said, before addressing the same seminar organized by the Center for Languages and Cultures of the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN).

"For Indonesia, the immediate impact is that oil prices would soar as the international oil market would be affected by the strikes," he added.

Juwono said the Middle East conflict involving Israel and Palestinians would evolve into a more complicated problem should the U.S. go ahead with a plan to attack Iraq.

"This would become the longest-lasting dispute on earth. I hope the U.S. will not go ahead with an attack," he added.

Juwono also said that toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power through the strikes would not solve the problem, but would instead create new instability in the Middle East. He did not elaborate further.

The professor, from the Jakarta-based University of Indonesia, did not rule out the possibility of rising radicalism and fundamentalism against the West if an attack on Iraq took place.

He refuted the antiterrorism campaign as the reason the U.S. has given to justify military strikes on Iraq, saying, "Israel is the true terrorist backed by America".

However, Juwono did urge Iraq to be transparent on the issue of weapons of mass destruction.

Opposition also came from former president Abdurrahman Wahid, who urged the U.S. to drop its plans, as an attack would further hurt Iraq and other Muslim states.

"I think that Iraq wishes neither to be instructed, nor attacked by the U.S.," he said, declining to comment further.

The Indonesian government has repeatedly objected to plans to attack Iraq as a sovereign state.

Juwono said the U.S. government should win the approval of the UN Security Council before deciding to launch attacks on Iraq.

Germany please check -- I'm not sure if Germany is a member of the Security Council. It's not a permanent member, but might be a "revolving" member and France, two influential members of the Security Council apart from the U.S. and Britain, have voiced objections to any plans for military action.

U.S. President George W. Bush is trying to solicit world support for the plan.

Early on Thursday the White House released a 22-page indictment of Saddam Hussein, accusing him of seeking weapons of mass destruction and backing terrorism in a "decade of deception and defiance," AFP reported.

The document focuses on Iraq's violations of UN resolutions aimed at disarming Baghdad, but makes no new allegations.