CAIRO: US attempts to rally Arab support for military intervention in Iraq have fallen on deaf ears in Egypt.

Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher has accused US President George Bush of attempting to “rewrite the rules in the middle of the game” — referring to his move to obtain a new United Nations resolution on Iraq. Maher emphasised that Egypt is firmly against any military action, and said Iraq should be dealt with according to existing UN resolutions.

“I do not think there is a necessity to change the rules...what is important is to have the inspectors back in Iraq as soon as possible,” he said. “I believe we should work on the assumption that the Iraqi government is willing and will continue to be willing to accept the return of the inspectors without conditions.

The position taken by Egypt is critical. When the US needed Arab support for its 1991 military campaign against Iraq it turned first to Egypt. This time round, however, Egypt is refusing to be any part of it.

“Egypt has affirmed from the start that no country has the right to intervene to overthrow the government in a sovereign country,” the state-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA) quoted President Hosni Mubarak as saying.

Arab regimes are concerned that the US wants to redraw the political map of the Middle East. They fear that after Saddam is toppled their regimes may be next.

But it is not the US that these regimes fear most. Frustration over two years of the Palestinian Intifada and US meddling in Middle East has brought temperatures on Arab streets to a boiling point.

“The true danger to the region arises from the likely response of the people to any military strike on Iraq...and no one can control or ignore this matter,” Mubarak said.

Strategic analyst Hassan Abu Taleb says he is particularly worried about public reaction to reports that Israel will participate in a military operation. “Considering the collapse of peace efforts and Israel’s mounting repression of the Palestinians, the spectacle of an Israeli-aided offensive against an Arab nation can only generate incalculable anger in Arab capitals,” he said in a recent editorial comment.

On the economic front, there seems little incentive to jeopardise the status quo. Egypt is a major trading partner of Iraq under the United Nations oil-for-food deal which allows Baghdad to sell oil to buy food, medicine and humanitarian items for a people suffering under more than a decade of UN sanctions.

Egyptian non-oil exports to Iraq reached 1.7 billion dollars last year, compared to just 158.9 million dollars in exports to the US, according to official figures. But many more dollars come from the US

The figures on Iraqi trade with Iraq are somewhat misleading, says economist Magdy Sobhy, explaining that Egypt is primarily a conduit for goods from other countries. “Most of these exports are not Egyptian goods, so you have very low added value to the economy,” he told IPS.

The US gives Egypt military and economic aid worth about two billion dollars a year as a part of the 1978 Camp David Accord. The US cannot stop this assistance, but it can slow down disbursement and cut down any additional aid or trading privileges. If push comes to shove, says Sobhy, Egypt would be better off with Washington.

The uncertainty over war is deepening Egypt’s economic recession by keeping away tourists and foreign investment, Sobhy says. There is little appetite for a war even though some Egyptians point to the benefits of a short war for Egypt. A short war followed by a new stable government and the lifting of sanctions would bring swift recovery and new opportunities would open up.

In 1990 some two billion Egyptians were working in Iraq, filling positions vacated by Iraqis sent to the front lines in the war against Iran. These workers could once again find jobs in Iraq a decade after their expulsion on the eve of the 1991 Gulf War. Additional labour would be required to repair the country’s damaged infrastructure.

A short war may offer positive scenarios, but a long conflict or one that fragments Iraq into Kurdish, Sunni and Shia states would increase regional instability, analysts say. One analyst warns that if Saddam Hussein launches Scud missiles into Israel and provokes a retaliatory strike, it would “open the Gates of Hell.”

Islamic leaders condemn Bush’s threat of war on Iraq. Sheikh Mohammed Sayed el-Tantawi, head of Egypt’s most prestigious Islamic institution, the Al-Azhar mosque, has warned Muslim countries against allowing the US to use their land or other facilities for a strike on Iraq.

“We are with the Iraqi people and against any aggression on them,” he said. “We will not accept any oppression of any Muslim or Arab country,” the Grand Sheikh said in a recent statement.—Dawn/InterPress News Service.