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Iraq's neighbours hope war will be averted

By Atul Aneja

Peace activists light candles in front of the U.S. embassy in Santiago, Chile, recently in protest against Washington's policy towards Iraq.

DAMASCUS Nov. 14. Desperate to avoid a war but keen that Iraq is disarmed, most neighbouring countries are hoping that the U.N. weapon inspections to which Baghdad has agreed on Wednesday take place without a major hitch. The Secretary-General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa said soon after Iraq had conceded allowing inspectors under a new stringent inspections regime that the focus should now be entirely on a successful probe and references to a war against Iraq need to be avoided.

Under the U.N. Security Council resolution 1441 that Iraq has accepted, it has a 30-day time frame within which to declare its weapons of mass destruction. After this period inspectors will scout for its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and are armed with the mandate that they can scan every inch of Iraqi soil to fulfil their mission. Iraq's obstruction to inspections will not automatically result in the use of force against it, but will trigger a fresh debate within the Security Council on this subject.

The United States, however, has already declared that it will not be bound by the U.N. deliberations and would be free to use military force against Iraq unilaterally, if, in its judgment, the use of force was necessary. Most of Iraq's neighbours who have apprehended that they could, at some point of time, themselves become targets of Iraq's non-conventional weapons, would not mind if Baghdad is disarmed. But most countries do not want military force to achieve this objective, because a war with Iraq can threaten their own political survival. Among Iraq's neighbours, Syria and Iran fall in separate category and maybe most affected by a war. The Bush administration has declared the two countries as part of the "axis of evil" because of their alleged support to international terrorism. Consequently, they apprehend that they could be next on Washington's firing line after " regime change" in Baghdad was accomplished. Both countries are, therefore, exerting themselves to ensure that either the war does not take place, or, if it does, they are not necessarily on Washington's wrong side.

Syria, not surprisingly, has decided to back the U.S. sponsored resolution 1441 on Iraq, while it was expected to abstain from the U.N. vote earlier. Syria, Iran and Turkey want to avoid a war on yet another count. All three countries have sizeable minority of ethnic Kurds who also reside in large numbers in Northern Iraq. A war they fear can result in the creation of an independent Kurdish State in northern Iraq. This State, they feel, could, in turn, become the nucleus for a larger Kurdish entity that includes parts of their own border territories where the Kurds reside in strength.

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