The Muslim Countries Neglect Iraq

When the US army’s man in charge of finding Osama bin Laden, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, recently portrayed the US-led war on terrorism as a religious struggle between a ‘Christian America’ and ‘Satan,’ Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld remarked that the US was a country where everybody has freedom of speech, adding that these were the general’s personal views. Yet Mahathir was bombarded with harsh criticisms from all corners of the globe.

Though Mahathir’s statements dominated media coverage of the summit, there is a very important point that we shouldn’t overlook: The Muslim countries failed to address the situation in Iraq. The OIC summit neither developed any proposals for Iraq’s reconstruction nor issued a common declaration on the issue. The summit failed to even respond to Turkey and Pakistan’s joint diplomatic initiatives to forge a unified OIC position on Iraq. Ankara also wanted the summit to establish an eight-country special committee to deal with Iraq during the country’s transitional period. However, this proposal was also ignored. But why? According to prominent Iranian journalist Amir Taheri, the answer is as follows: ‘The Iranians did all they could to sabotage the Turkish move. The idea of Turkey gaining a position of leadership on Iraq, and on behalf of the entire Muslim world, was too much for them. Also, the Turkish effort was derailed because several Arab countries weren’t prepared to give a non-Arab state a leading role in Iraq, an Arab country.’ The United Nations and a group of Arab intellectuals are set this week to release an Arab region humanitarian progress report, the second in a series. Last year’s report clearly laid out the factors holding back the Arab world: Despite the fact that Arab countries make up 5% of the world’s population, they only produce 1% of the books. However, religious books published in these countries are approximately three times the world average.

As a matter of fact, the Islamic countries’ leaders, who for years have maintained the status quo so as to better cling to their ruling elite priveleges, have failed to navigate the most critical course change in their history. In the process, they have forsaken Iraq.”