WGNNews.org Posted : November 15, 2002
Nov. 14, 2002
So is it war?
BY BRET STEPHENS
The war plans are on the president's desk and, by any
measure, the force assembled in the Persian Gulf is immense
Tens of thousands of troops, three
aircraft carriers, hundreds of fighter and attack jets,
dozens of bombers and 575
cruise missiles are poised to strike Iraq following
its refusal to open suspected weapons sites to United
Nations inspectors. Predictably, Saudi Arabia will not allow
the US to launch strikes on its neighbor from the Prince
Sultan air base. But smaller Persian Gulf states are proving
amenable, and 15 nations have joined the US-led coalition,
despite resistance in the UN from France and Russia.
THE PALESTINIANS: SHALL WE DANCE? -
If an
American attack on Iraq - and an Iraqi attack on Israel -
puts the Jewish state in a quandary, something similar goes
for the Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority is
instinctively sympathetic toward Iraq; the Palestinian media
speak of "our sister Iraq." And to date, Saddam has given
the Palestinians some $25 million; $10,000 apiece to the
families of suicide bombers.
"The same feeling that engulfs the Palestinian street
also engulfs the Iraqi one," says Mordechai Keddar of the
Begin-Sadat Center at Bar-Ilan University. "They are in the
same ditch, fighting the same powers, with no support from
the Arab world."
