RIYADH: In an attack on US policy in the Middle East, former Saudi ambassador to Washington Prince Turki Al-Faisal on Saturday said President Obama had until September to push for a settlement of the Palestinian issue.If nothing happens by then, then the US president has to make "the morally decent" gesture and recognize Palestine as a sovereign independent state, he said.
Prince Turki also attacked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for sending out "confusing signals" on nuclear nonproliferation in the Middle East, describing them as "unacceptable."
He also said that the US had lost "the moral high ground" it had acquired after 9/11 in the Middle East because of its "negligence, ignorance and arrogance."
Prince Turki, who now heads the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, was speaking in Riyadh at a symposium to mark the 35th anniversary of Arab News. The event was also attended by diplomats and Saudi business figures as well as Prince Faisal bin Salman, chairman of Arab News' parent company, the Saudi Research and Marketing Group (SRMG), Khaled Almaeena, editor in chief of Arab News, and other leading SRMG figures.
In his hard-hitting speech, the prince said that there had to be a UN resolution guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Iraq to prevent some of its neighbors from trying to seize parts of the country. He accused Iran in particular of having territorial ambitions there. He also accused Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki of trying to hijack the recent elections. On Afghanistan, he said the policy there had to shift from nation building to destroying the terrorists.
He added that a UN resolution on Iraq's territorial integrity is the only way of thwarting the "sinister" designs of those of its neighbors intent on exploiting its conflict to their own advantage. The "forces of evil" are still very much alive and active within the country, he said.
Making a grim prediction of upcoming events in Iraq, he asked his audience to imagine what would happen "once internal strife and fighting escalates." Making matters worse has been the "deliberate effort on the part of the incumbent Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki to hijack the result of the elections and deny the Iraqi people their legitimately elected government."
The consequences, he said, would be more bloodshed and potential civil war. He said there has to be international guarantees ensuring Iraq remains a functioning sovereign state. The alternative would be "regional conflict on a scale not seen since the Ottoman-Safavid wars of the 17th and 18th centuries."
It was the Obama administration, however, that bore the brunt of his criticism. Prince Turki said President Obama had proved eloquent in his vision of a two-state solution of the Palestinian issue, but this was not enough. He has to be "equally eloquent" in implementing it. The US has to be the "Big Bear pushing us all" — Israelis and Arabs alike — to make it happen, he said. "It is not enough to talk the talk. He has to walk the walk."
If there is no resolution by the September deadline set by the Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo earlier this month, the US should recognize the Palestinian state "and then pack up, leave us in peace and let the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese negotiate directly with the Israelis." From Obama there must be "no more platitudes, good wishes and visions, please."
In Afghanistan, the prince called on the White House to likewise change its policy. "The inept way in which the US has dealt with President Karzai beggars belief." The result is that both sides are resentful of each other with a "sour taste in their mouths." The aim has to be to destroy the terrorists, then withdraw and leave the Afghans to sort their country out themselves.
"The US should hunt down the terrorists on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, arrest them or kill them and get out and let the Afghans people deal with their problems," he said.
A continuing US presence only fuels the conflict. "As long as GI boots remain on Afghan soil they remain targets of resistance for the Afghan people." The Taleban of today, he said, were not the same a decade ago. They are no longer exclusively Pashtun warriors. "They are now any and every Afghan of whatever ilk who raises arms against the foreign invaders," he said.
By declaring them the enemy "America has declared the people of Afghanistan enemy," he warned.
On Iran, the prince said that the international community's stance over its nuclear ambitions has been on the wrong footing since the start; the "reset button" needs to be pushed. The stick and carrot approach will not work and there has to be a level playing field, he said. "You cannot ask Iran to play on one level while you allow Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea to play on other levels."
He was highly critical of the way in which the US has handled the nuclear issue and its wider regional implications, singling out Hillary Clinton in particular. She has damaged efforts to make the Middle East nuclear-weapon-free when — following the UN's Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in New York at the beginning of the month which supported the idea — she said that the conditions for such a zone do not as yet exist.
"I hope President Obama, who has made universal disarmament his goal ... will find the way to correct his secretary of state's nullification of making our area free of weapons of mass destruction," the prince said.
The speech is not the first occasion that Prince Faisal has criticized the Obama administration. In May last year, in an interview with the German press agency DPA he said that President Obama had said "all the right things" about the Palestine issue, but "what we need now is some action." Last September, he labeled Obama's talk about energy independence as unrealistic "demagoguery." However, on Saturday diplomats and others attending the symposium were in agreement that it was the most hard-hitting to date. There were noticeable deep intakes of breath in the halls when he referred to American "arrogance."
On a lighter note, responding to a question about reported efforts by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to whip up anti-Saudi sentiment, he was decidedly unperturbed. He said that Lieberman had done more to serve the Arab cause than any other Israeli — a reference to Lieberman's extreme political views and the distaste with which they have been received, particularly in Europe.
By MICHEL COUSINS | ARAB NEWS
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