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

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.