Keep in mind that this fellow is a Jordanian, so he has "incentive" to defend Jordan's position, which is not very different than that of Turkey.
Sabri +++++++++++ The Istanbul conference: a post mortem Daily Star, 02/03/2003 While each of the six Middle Eastern states Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Iran and Turkey that met in Istanbul on Jan. 23 to discuss ways to prevent a US war on Iraq has its own fears and concerns, they all agree on one thing: opposition to America’s plan to target Iraq. They realize all too well that they would lose out economically if war breaks out. This is especially true of Turkey and Jordan. Each of the participating countries have their own economic worries which make them unprepared and unwilling to have to withstand the consequences of a new crisis. They also realize that attacking a country with the express purpose of overthrowing its government in the absence of conclusive proof that it possesses weapons of mass destruction would set a dangerous precedent. They know that in the context of America’s declared "war on terror," any nation can become a target. All it needs for a country to be attacked would be for the US to feel threatened. No proof is necessary. This caused all nations that feel threatened to oppose a war on Iraq. Besides damaging economies and development programs, a new war would also destabilize the Middle East because of the expected increase in terrorist acts and regional tensions resulting from competing interests. War will play havoc with security in an already unstable region. America’s agenda for change in the Middle East is as hostile as it is radical. Among Washington’s objectives are changing the Baghdad regime, seizing control of Iraq’s oil wealth, confronting religious-based political systems (even targeting Islam per se) and introducing democratic change by external means. With such a vast array of objectives, it is no wonder that regional countries fear that the impending war on Iraq would only be a prelude to profound changes that would serve the interests of external forces at the expense of their own. But what can Middle East countries do to avert war? The diplomatic influence wielded by any country is necessarily a function of the political clout it exercises in its regional environment. The nations that assembled in Istanbul vary in their political influence as well as in their relations with both Baghdad and Washington. Moreover, they don’t share a common political outlook and direction. With the exception of Iran (and Syria to a lesser extent), all are allies of the United States, which puts them under Washington’s influence and not the other way round. The countries that participated in the Istanbul meeting cannot therefore exercise any appreciable influence on American policy, despite their influence on Arab affairs (Saudi Arabia) and regional conflicts (such as Egypt in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Iran and Syria in the case of Lebanon). Turkey therefore knew beforehand that its initiative in calling the meeting would not have a profound effect. Leaders of participating nations, for their part, realize that they lack the political clout necessary to reverse the American drive to war. That was why they decided not to elevate the Istanbul meeting to summit level. The communique issued at the end of the meeting mirrored the weakness and vacuousness of the Turkish initiative. It called on the Iraqi leadership to honestly assume its responsibilities for upholding peace and security in the region, take concrete and sincere steps to achieve national reconciliation in order to preserve Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, pursue confidence-building policies vis-a-vis its neighbors, respect international borders and boundaries and cooperate with UN weapons inspections. The responsibility of the UN Security Council in preserving international peace and security and its role in determining the degree of Iraq’s cooperation were only mentioned in passing. As a matter of fact, there was nothing of significance in the closing communique save that it absolved the US of responsibility for starting the coming war and laying the blame for any conflict firmly at Iraq’s feet which reflects an unprecedented degree of political and diplomatic bankruptcy. It is obvious that attempts made by Middle Eastern nations to avert a war are directly linked to their foreign policies. We have to remind ourselves, for example, that before it announced its initiative, Turkey was negotiating with Washington about the number of American troops it would allow to cross over into Iraq from its territory. We must also keep in mind that Saudi Arabia officially announced that it would not oppose a UN-sanctioned war on Iraq. After bitterly opposing American attempts to persuade the Security Council to issue a new resolution concerning Iraq, the Syrians finally voted in favor of Resolution 1441. The problem with the Istanbul meeting was not that it was held at ministerial rather than summit level. Its problem was in the contradictions between the interests of the US and those of the six participant states especially as far as providing military assistance to America is concerned. All six countries are afraid that participating in the imminent war would destabilize them and threaten their security. It is a well-known fact that alliances between different nations have to be based on stable and permanent mutual interests. A good example of this is the strategic alliance between America and Israel. Turkey believed that its alliance with the US and Israel was based on the solid foundation of permanent mutual interests. Yet American plans for a new war on Iraq (in light of the results of the 1991 Gulf War) would cause immense damage not only to the Turkish economy, but also to the country’s security by resulting in the creation of a Kurdish entity in northern Iraq that would threaten Turkey’s political and demographic unity. These factors revealed conflicts of interests within Ankara’s alliance with Washington, and raised questions about the pro-American policies pursued by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The post-war era will reveal that Iraq was only a prelude for a widespread process of change designed to eradicate the sources of terrorism, and targeting most of the countries of the Middle East. Turkey wanted to exploit the growing international opposition to war to back its calls for peace and enhance the positions of the countries taking part in the Istanbul meeting. Yet the United States does not seem to care about the anti-war movement or about the position taken by the Turkish parliament when the question of deploying American troops on Turkish soil comes up for debate soon. The US realizes that rhetoric is one thing and action is quite another. Washington knows that it can exert enough pressure on each of the six countries to force them to adopt positions it wants them to adopt. For all these reasons, the Turkish initiative was nothing more than a diplomatic attempt that achieved nothing because it was handicapped from the very beginning by the limited influence wielded by the six participants. Diplomacy can never be separated from politics. Countries cannot exceed the influence they gained through their foreign policies over time. Muna Shuqair, a Jordanian political analyst, wrote this commentary for The Daily Star http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/03_02_03_d.htm
