Peace treaty was approved between Iraq and Kuwait

The twenty-first century will be much more dynamic than the twentieth. The events are changing so fast, that it is hard to watch them all. Afghanistan, the conflict between India and Pakistan, the Mideast, and Iraq and so on. By the way, mass media outlets have kept silence about Iraq lately. Everybody was stalking about the beginning of the American operation against Iraq before, but now this issue vanished from television and newspapers.

The latest outburst of attention towards Iraq was connected with Dick Cheney’s Mideast tour. The goal of the tour was known in advance: to set up the new ant-Iraqi coalition, like it was in 1990, before the Gulf War. Cheney succeeded at that time, but judging by the results of his recent tour, the USA failed to get what it wanted. The Arab world gave it to understand that it would be better to settle the Arab-Israeli crisis, and then start with the coalition against Saddam Hussein.

It seems that only experts were aware of the discrepancy between the USA and Saudi Arabia before Cheney’s tour. Saudi Arabia is the key country for any operations against Iraq because of the fact that Saudi Arabia borders on it. Cheney’s accomplishment is the fact that the real leader of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Abdullah, agreed to visit the USA, taking into consideration the fact that he refused to do it last June due to the American support of Israel in its struggle with the Palestinian national administration.

The Arab experts say that the outlines of possible deal between America and Arabia are getting more real. If Baghdad does not allow the UN inspectors to gain entry to Iraq, then the Americans will refuse from the military operation, and start looking for other ways to overthrow Saddam and his regime, and the Arabs will render their assistance in it. But this will be possible to happen, if the Americans restrain their traditional Mideast ally – Israel, and push it for establishing peace with Palestine, even if the incumbent Palestinian administration will have to be changed. This is possible to happen, judging on the latest events in the Middle East. The situation is out of control after another act of terrorist in Israel, but this is a different story, let’s get back to the events around Iraq.

Condoleezza Rice stated in her interview to the Arab al-Musawar newspaper on March 14 that the American administration had not made its final decision pertaining to the beginning of the operation against Iraq. She stressed that there should be all possible efforts taken in order to make Saddam Hussein execute the international obligations, namely, to allow the international arms experts to gain entry to Iraq.

Condoleezza Rice believes that a lot of problems would disappear, if experts checked the program of production of arms in Iraq and concluded that Iraq did not possess mass destruction weapons. The US security adviser mentioned that Hussein still refused to recognize Kuwait, that he was constantly threatening the neighboring countries and dreadfully treated his own people.

Condoleezza Rice is wrong about the latest point she made. Saddam Hussein caught the initiative of the United States. Saddam was silent during the Beirut summit, and it was not incidental. There was a peace treaty approved between Iraq and Kuwait before the summit was over - the first peace treaty since the Gulf War. As Qatar’s Foreign Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, stated, the contradiction between Iraq and Kuwait had been exhausted, there was the new treaty concluded, the conditions of which were acceptable for both parties. BBC reported, the new treaty contained Iraq’s obligation not to invade the territory of its neighbor, like it happened in 1990.

What can Washington do now? If Iraq allows the UN inspectors on its territory, then it will take the wind out of America’s sails, and there will be nothing left for the USA, but to bomb Iraq without any reason for getting its cheap crude.

Dmitry Litvinovich PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov