RI, Egypt ask U.S. to go to UN on Iraq

Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia and Egypt agreed on Sunday that the United States must obtain approval from the United Nations before going through with its plan to attack Iraq.

In a joint statement issued in Cairo by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his visiting Indonesian counterpart Megawati Soekarnoputri, they said the Iraq issue should be resolved within the UN framework.

The two heads of state also urged Baghdad to comply with the UN resolution on weapons of mass destruction and ensure that it had eliminated any dangerous weapons, Antara reported.

Megawati ended a three-day visit to Egypt on Sunday, part of her two-week whirlwind tour of Africa and eastern Europe.

Indonesia and other Muslim nations as well some European countries, including France and Germany, have expressed their objections to U.S. President George W. Bush's desire for military action against Iraq and for toppling its powerful ruler, Saddam Hussein.

Bush has challenged the UN to strip Iraq "immediately and unconditionally" of weapons of mass destruction and warned that the U.S. would take unilateral action if the world body failed to act or Baghdad refused to disarm.

Muslim scholars here have told the UN to reject any American plan to attack Iraq and not to allow it to be dictated to by the U.S. over this issue in order to restore the world body's credibility and integrity in creating and maintaining peace on earth.

Analysts said here on Sunday that the conflict between the U.S. and Iraq had nothing to do with Islam or Christianity and the issue should be considered a serious concern by every nation to prevent a possible strike on Baghdad by the U.S.

They said the Muslim world and its associations, such as the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), appeared ineffectual in countering any possible attack on Iraq due to their weak position in the international political arena.

"It's not a religious war. I would say it is an economic conflict as Iraq has huge oil resources and the U.S. wants to affirm its world economic power, including the Middle Asian region," Solahuddin Wahid of Indonesia's biggest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama told The Jakarta Post.

Another Muslim scholar, Riza Sihbudi, who is a prominent Middle East expert, said the Iraq issue was not a religious conflict. "Iraq is a secular state despite the fact that it is a predominantly Muslim country," he added.

However, he said it would be difficult to separate the Iraq issue from Islam since the war on terrorism often targeted Islamic countries, while Israel, one of those suspected of possessing nuclear weapons, was exempt from inspections.

Riza admitted the Muslim nations were politically weak in their attempts to block a possible attack on Iraq, but said the U.S. would face a significant hurdle in doing so without support from Arab countries.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and their Muslim neighbors backed the 1990s U.S. war against Iraq with funding and other facilities, he added.

Mochtar Pabottingi, a researcher from the National Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said: "We cannot expect much from Muslim countries on the Issue of Iraq because they don't set a good example for others. For an instance, they oppress their own people and are authoritarian and corrupt".

"Some of them, like Saudi Arabia and others, allow themselves to be dictated to by America," he added.

Similarly, Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) rector Azyumardi Azra said that any air strike on Iraq would be an act of violence against humanity, and as such should be a cause of concern for all world communities.

Solahuddin, Mochtar and Azyumardi all urged the U.S. to stop practicing double-standards in dealing with Gulf and Middle East conflicts, saying if America was sincerely against weapons of mass destruction, it would also target Israel.