Why has the plight of Iraq failed to capture the imagination and interest of the Arab world?
By Lamis Andoni
Al-Jazeera
"The US invasion of Iraq marked a dramatic turning point for the Arab world, but the recent partial American withdrawal generated notably little interest across the region. This is partly because it signaled neither an unequivocal end to the occupation nor an explicit continuation of US military control. But the silence also reflects the bitter reality that many have simply tuned out of Iraq.
When Baghdad fell in 2003, it drew comparisons with the loss of Palestine and the dispossession of its people in 1948. And while the US invasion did not lead to, or aim at, colonising the country, changing its name or razing its towns and villages, it did serve to remove a once powerful state from the regional political equation and, in so doing, weakened the Arab world. This emboldened Israel and Iran, while striking a critical blow against pan-Arabism.....
....Perhaps Iraq's plight is too painful for Arabs to acknowledge or maybe the crisis there is too complex to comprehend. But the battle for Iraq's independence is far from over and Arabs must now step up to play their role in it.
If they do not, the US will have achieved one of the aims of the war - the weakening of pan-Arab solidarity - and Iraqis will continue to feel, as one recently told me, that "nothing we do seems to capture the Arab imagination and we feel far from the Arab world"."
By Lamis Andoni
Al-Jazeera
"The US invasion of Iraq marked a dramatic turning point for the Arab world, but the recent partial American withdrawal generated notably little interest across the region. This is partly because it signaled neither an unequivocal end to the occupation nor an explicit continuation of US military control. But the silence also reflects the bitter reality that many have simply tuned out of Iraq.
When Baghdad fell in 2003, it drew comparisons with the loss of Palestine and the dispossession of its people in 1948. And while the US invasion did not lead to, or aim at, colonising the country, changing its name or razing its towns and villages, it did serve to remove a once powerful state from the regional political equation and, in so doing, weakened the Arab world. This emboldened Israel and Iran, while striking a critical blow against pan-Arabism.....
....Perhaps Iraq's plight is too painful for Arabs to acknowledge or maybe the crisis there is too complex to comprehend. But the battle for Iraq's independence is far from over and Arabs must now step up to play their role in it.
If they do not, the US will have achieved one of the aims of the war - the weakening of pan-Arab solidarity - and Iraqis will continue to feel, as one recently told me, that "nothing we do seems to capture the Arab imagination and we feel far from the Arab world"."
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