Iraqi minister lashes out at Saudi Arabia

[cal04]

Iraq's interior minister delivered a scathing attack on neighbouring Saudi Arabia, saying his country would not be lectured by "a bedouin on a camel" about human rights and democracy. "We do not accept a bedouin on a camel teaching us about human rights and democracy. In Iraq, we are proud of our civilisation," Bayan Baqer Sulagh told a press conference in Amman after talks on boosting border security.The Shiite minister said the oil-rich Sunni-ruled kingdom had several problems of its own to take care of.


"Saudis should first allow women to drive, as is the case in Iraq," he said Sunday, adding that "four million Shiites live like second-class citizens in the Saudi kingdom."He was responding to Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal's accusations that Iran was seeking to spread its influence in Iraq and that sectarian divisions were threatening to break up the country. Prince Saud said last month that splitting Iraq into Shiite south, Kurdish north and central Sunni Arab states would hamper Iraq's Arab identity and drag other countries in the region into the conflict.

The Saudi statements "do not reflect the reality of the situation," Sulagh said. "We understand the scope of these statements and their true objectives."
Shiites make up about 10 percent of the population in Saudi Arabia, and live mainly in the oil-rich Eastern Province near the borders with Kuwait and southern Iraq.

The interior minister's comments came as Arab ministers were preparing to meet in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah to discuss ways to support Iraq, including the possibility of sending observers to monitor upcoming elections. Sulagh's brother was kidnapped by armed men in Baghdad on Saturday, in a move the interior minister said was aimed at pressuring him personally.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051002/wl_mideast_afp/iraqsaudiiran

[tainowarrior]

1. wonderful...conflicts between Arab nations.

Not that the Iraqi minister is totally off mark. I agree with his statements. The Saudi Royal family is full of shit with their Wahhabi interpretation of Islam and the way they treat their citizens.

[IndianaGreen]

3. and the Shias are not that much better

This is like a spat between Justices Scalia and Thomas.

[tainowarrior]

5. I hate to say it

but most of Islam has a problem with more enlightened forms of human rights.

I've read the Koran, and just like the Bible, it leaves room for progressive and reactionary interpretations, so I don't think ISLAM is the problem per say (and obviously, many good Muslims are good progressives as well).

But the majority of Muslims continue to support the most austere, most backwards interpretations of their religion. And this is a problem, I think, that somehow must be related to the fact that the Islamic world didn't have an Enlightment (therefore religion continues to take precedence over secular/rational science/government) and didn't have a Reformation (there is no culture of seperation of church and state).

I strongly believe that the political philosophies that arose from the Reformation and the Enlightment in Europe strongly dictate why Western nations are, by and large, more enlightened on issues of democracy, secular liberalism, and human rights.

I'm sure I'll get flamed by Muslims, but it's the truth. When Sha'ria is the law, and when Sha'ria is interpreted by mostly austere, conservative Imams and Ayatollahs, you're bound to have, quite frankly, stupid laws that say a woman must be in a Bee-Keeper suit and that they can't drive. I don't want to hear about how this is not Islam, when it's the law in Saudi Arabia, where the Islamic holy cities are held. I don't want to hear it's not Islam's current interpretation styles, when Iraq was the most advanced Muslim society, and even they were horrible to their women.

Something needs to happen in the Muslim world, but sadly, our policies over here don't help. They help the radical-conservative-extremist side of the society to justify its stupid restrictions.

[Voltaire99]

9. The Muslim world can wait; the horrors of the West are quite sufficient...

...to occupy our energies.

The late Edward Said observed that westerners are awash with feelings of superiority when writing their Orientalist perspectives.

Well might we help "the Muslim world," were we not living in our own backward society in which the poor wash up dead after hurricanes and half our fellows wish to teach the rot-brained creed of Intelligent Design to children.

Systemic poverty, enshrined racial and gender inequality, official indifference to suffering, a fraudulent electoral system, political choices running from center-right to far-right, a culture of rape, inchoate gun violence, a drooling media, mass exploitation in the satanic mills of our Wal-Marts...

Something needs to happen in the United States. Please help the cause of bringing the fruits of the Enlightenment here. The Constitution is a nice start, you know, but hardly, I think, enough.

[tainowarrior]

10. I'm in complete agreement

we got our work cut out here in the good 'ol USA. And I don't mean to sound Euro-centric, far from it.

But, purely from a detached political analysis, I do believe the West's political development owes much of its advancement due to the Enlightenment and the Reformation. I think scientific logic and the ability to seperate the church from state are two crucial factors of any advanced, liberal-democratic state. It's the only two things that have allowed multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic nations to coexist without one group slaughtering the other (and even then, the balance is fragile).

But, in Middle East Islamic nations, there is no balance at all. Either you conform to the Imam's or Ayatollah's dictates, or quite literally, the cut your head off.

In that sense, the Islamic countries are worse off, and it doesn't give me any Vidalisian sense of superiority to say so. It's saddening that it's happening, and it's sad that we here in the West also have our moral failings that we don't work on.

[tainowarrior]

11. I'm in complete agreement

we got our work cut out here in the good 'ol USA. And I don't mean to sound Euro-centric, far from it.

But, purely from a detached political analysis, I do believe the West's political development owes much of its advancement due to the Enlightenment and the Reformation. I think scientific logic and the ability to seperate the church from state are two crucial factors of any advanced, liberal-democratic state. It's the only two things that have allowed multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic nations to coexist without one group slaughtering the other (and even then, the balance is fragile).

But, in Middle East Islamic nations, there is no balance at all. Either you conform to the Imam's or Ayatollah's dictates, or quite literally, the cut your head off.

In that sense, the Islamic countries are worse off, and it doesn't give me any Vidalisian sense of superiority to say so. It's saddening that it's happening, and it's sad that we here in the West also have our moral failings that we don't work on.

[IndianaGreen]

2. From civil war to regional conflict

Not only do we have an insurgency and budding civil war in Iraq, but now we have the opening salvo in what could become a new Persian Gulf War involving Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

Are we better off today than we were before Congress voted for the Iraq War Resolution?

[ECH1969]

4. A bedouin on a camel?

These countries aren't too friendly.

[enigma000]

6. Good for him

The Iraqi government, and much of its people, must be getting really pissed off at their fellow Arab "brethren" turning a blind eye to the troubles in Iraq. The Iraqis have committed major sins in the Arab World: non-Arabs in positions of power, non-Shiites in positions of power and let's not forget elections that were at least somewhat legitimate.

[daleo]

7. The current Iraqi government is also a puppet of western military powers

That would be a pretty big sin in the eyes of a lot of Arabs. Although several other Arab powers are pretty compromised by their relationships with western powers too.

[enigma000]

8. True, so are many others

But the Saudis and Egyptians and Jordanians may be official Western allies, many of their actions suggest otherwise. And their populations are far from pro-Western.