US embassy cable - 04AMMAN2655

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 002655 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE  FOR  NEA/ARN, NEA/PA, NEA/AIA, INR/NESA,  R/MR, 
I/GNEA, B/BXN, B/BRN, NEA/PPD, NEA/IPA FOR ALTERMAN 
USAID/ANE/MEA 
LONDON FOR GOLDRICH 
PARIS FOR O'FRIEL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
 
TAGS: KMDR JO 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON THE SHI'A "INTIFADA" IN 
IRAQ 
 
Summary 
 
-- Lead story in all papers today, April 6, highlights 
developments on the Iraqi front and the escalating 
tensions in Shiite areas of Iraq.  Majority of 
commentaries talk about these events, anticipating a 
"hot summer" for the "occupation" forces in Iraq. 
 
Editorial Commentary 
 
-- "The soldiers of God and the soldiers of the devil" 
 
Columnist Khaled Mahadin writes on the op-ed page of 
semi-official, influential Arabic daily Al-Rai 
(04/06):  "When the Americans and the British started 
their unjust war on war a year ago, their planes, 
their tanks and their missiles did not differentiate 
between Sunnis and Shiites, between Arabs and Kurds, 
or between Christians, Muslims, Turks and Assyrians. 
It was a war of racist extermination that targeted all 
Iraqis..  And when the grudging colonialists invaded 
Baghdad, they started another war against Iraq's 
Arabism, Islam and history, during which they deluded 
themselves into thinking that the one with the power 
of death can impose the results and the reality that 
one wants.  All that until the Iraqi national 
resistance started its counter war against the 
invasion and the occupation, determined to liberate 
Iraqis and Iraq from humiliation and degradation.  Two 
days ago, a new chapter of the Iraqi popular 
liberation war started, where it is no longer possible 
to talk about a Sunni triangle or rectangle, for the 
scope of the resistance has widened to include all of 
the Iraqi territory from the east to the west and from 
the north to the south..  The call for self-restraint 
that some people are addressing to the Iraqis is false 
and malignant and is in conspiracy against Iraq and 
its people.  Instead of calling on the forces of 
invasion and occupation to respect the Iraqi people's 
religion, mosques, dignity, life and rights, these 
people address such calls to the Iraqis, calls that 
feed right into the lap of the occupiers' interests 
and works against the Iraqis' right to resistance and 
their duty to fight back those who fight them.  And 
here meets the will to fight in Lebanon, Palestine and 
Iraq against the invasion and the occupation and 
against the extermination being exercised by the 
Americans, the British and the Israelis, as well as 
against the same racist measures that do not 
differentiate between Iraqis, Palestinians and 
Lebanese except in as much as these people reject 
hegemony, occupation and surrender." 
 
-- "The Shiites' Intifada" 
 
Daily columnist Basem Sakijha writes on the op-ed page 
of center-left, influential Arabic daily Al-Dustour 
(04/06):  "There lies many a meaning in Muqtada Al- 
Sadr's response to the American escalation and talk of 
`terrorizing the enemy'.  The political group of the 
Shi'a rejected the occupation right from the 
beginning, but continued to talk of a peaceful 
expulsion of that occupation.  But now, this group 
developed its scope of action and turned it into 
violent responses, which means that anticipating a hot 
summer for the American occupation would be 
justifiable, particularly with the escalation of the 
traditional Iraqi resistance that seems to have set 
the failure of Bush's presidential campaign as its 
main objective..  What happened the past two days, 
something that is likely to develop over the next few 
months, reflects the failure of the Americans in 
managing Iraq's multi-complex issues and indicates 
that a hot summer awaits the occupation forces." 
 
-- "A blazing hot summer awaits Iraq" 
 
Daily columnist Urayb Rintawi writes on the op-ed page 
of center-left, influential Arabic daily Al-Dustour 
(04/06):  "America's defeat in Iraq is internationally 
forbidden and America's victory in Iraq is undesired 
by most countries of the world and the region.  On the 
regional level, half the countries surrounding Iraq 
find no interest of theirs to see the success of the 
American project in Iraq, not for any reason other 
than that it would mean that they would be become the 
next targets of the campaign of the Christian right- 
wing and the neo-conservatives in the White House and 
the Pentagon.  On the international level, many 
European and Asian countries brace themselves for that 
day when Washington unilaterally holds the reins of 
power and world markets, as it holds the reins of 
military superiority today.  Yet, the alternative to 
the American project in Iraq seems so scary, in fact 
terrifying.  For many of the countries surrounding 
Iraq and for many European and Arab countries, the 
resistance in Iraq remains without identity, program 
or vision and is stamped, at the least from the point 
of view of the media, with an extremist fundamentalist- 
Salafi-Wahabi aspect..  Between these two projects on 
the extremes lies a potential third project that is 
based on rejecting the occupation and the legitimate 
resistance to it - some of the resistance in Iraq is 
illegitimate, incomprehensible, and even criminal - on 
the one hand, and on presenting a vision for the 
future of Iraq founded on democratic rules, respect 
for human rights, modernization and peaceful approach, 
on the other.  That is why we find that some 
countries, like Iran, Saudi and Syria, are reassured 
by Washington's dilemma in Iraq.  In fact, some of 
them are settling scores with the United States 
through Iraq.  This escalating tension among the 
Iraqis, Sunnis and Shiites, on the one hand and the 
American occupation on the other is but an expression 
of this tense relationship between the Iraqi neighbors 
and Iraq's occupiers.  It is very likely that a hot 
summer awaits Iraq and the Iraqis." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
GNEHM