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Opinion

A daily selection of views from the Middle East and North Africa, compiled and translated by The Daily Star
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Arab Press

Al-Anwar (Beirut)

The United States is asking the UN Security Council for support in Iraq, columnist Rafik Khoury said Friday. Without Washington’s current crisis in Iraq, it would have been difficult for US Secretary of State Colin Powell to convince US President George W. Bush to seek a return to the legitimacy of the United Nations and the Security Council.
“But, while Washington is asking other countries to contribute money and men to the Iraqi war effort, it is not prepared to make any concession of its own like abandoning the leading role in Iraq,” Khoury added.
Meanwhile, the draft resolution submitted by Washington to the Security Council actually reflects the impact of the unrest in Iraq on the “ideological battle” within the US administration. “The draft resolution changes nothing in the equation, as required by France, and does not lead to the formation of an Iraqi law and order force. Also, it does nothing to pave the way for a new Iraqi constitution serving as prelude to UN-monitored general elections.
“What is taking place in Iraq now has actually not changed the attitude of Washington’s neoconservatives. They still see Iraq as a theater for a geostrategic war which will decide whether or not the US will come out victorious or defeated in the eyes of the region and the world.
“US Assistant Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in a recent Wall Street Journal article that the terrorists who blew up the UN headquarters in Baghdad last month and those who planted the car bomb that killed Shiite cleric Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim last Friday did not want to cause casualties as much as to destroy what they hate most: an Arab country free of their hegemony and serving as a model to the Arab world to copy,” Khoury said.
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Ad-Dustour (Amman)

Iran seems to follow in Iraq’s footsteps in its relations with Arab countries and the United States, columnist Oraib Rantawi said Friday.
“It seems increasingly likely that, despite the problems it is facing in Iraq, Washington is exerting increased pressure on Tehran in much the same fashion as it did Baghdad.
“Iran is now slammed with an international campaign targeting its nuclear program. Washington wants the entire dossier of Iran’s nuclear research put before the UN Security Council and wants the international community to start issuing resolution after resolution, exerting pressure on the Iranians in the same way as the Americans did to Iraq before dealing it the final blow.
“Already the International Atomic Energy Agency … is speaking of an Iranian breach of the international rules governing the use of nuclear power and claimed that some questions about the nuclear program had not been answered by the Iranians. This is reminiscent of similar questions that the IAEA said Iraq had not answered and which had served as an excuse for the US-led offensive against Baghdad. Meanwhile, the country that is working overtime to line up the entire world against Tehran, claiming that it represents a threat to mankind, is none other than Israel.”

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/06_09_03_i.asp