Hazhir Teimourian - Middle East Analyst and Commentator
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Tell me, Kurt, is he really like the Fuhrer?

The Times, 11th January, 1991

The unexpectedly long negotiation session on Wednesday in Geneva between the United States and Iraq had confounded the Arab world, shaking some and elating others, only to end in confirming entrenched convictions. Yet, the public reaction of leaders and their mouthpieces in the press yesterday was muted and pious. There was still time, and president Saddam Hussein would probably not make up his mind until the eleventh hour of next Tuesday, when the United Nations deadline runs out. In the meantime, the Secretary-General of the UN will have a chance to try his good offices this weekend in Baghdad.

An exception that betrayed the true feelings of its source came from the Kuwaiti government in exile in Saudi Arabia. "We're so glad", he said, "that no concessions were made to Saddam. We were really frightened in case the Americans had decided to force us to give away the islands of Bubyan and Warba to Iraq". The language was decidedly not diplomatic, for it showed the vulnerability of the Kuwaitis to pressure from Washington, or even Riyadh.

A prominent columnist in Egypt showed that he was under no restraint from the government of president Husni Mubarak. Moussa Sabri, writing on the front page of the mass circulation Al Akhbar (The News) daily, wanted Saddam Hussein to be captured alive and tried "for crimes against the Iraqi and Arab people, crimes of murder, assassination, etc".

In Iraq itself, the tightly controlled press felt that it did not have to refer to the failure of the Geneva talks directly. It settled for the usual bombast, quoting from the leader's latest speech that the Americans would soon swim in their own blood, that millions of Iraqis longed for the coming battle. It would be "the mother of all battles".

Equally forceful language was used by the press across the western border in Syria, whose government has recently been less than forceful in its proclaimed adherence to the aims of the anti-Saddam coalition. Warning Saddam to think again before he plunged the Arab "nation" into a catastrophic war, the government newspaper Tishrin said that force would definitely be used to evict Saddam from Kuwait if he did not withdraw. Syria has sent some 20,000 troops into Saudi Arabia and the renewed enthusiasm to be a proper ally for the coalition will probably result in increased financial help from Riyadh.

Algeria, the professional mediator of the Arab world, aimed its comment at the West and said that, should there be war, Iraqis were "undoubtedly willing to die if they could only choose between capitulation and death". Foreign minister Ahmed Ghozali said that the Iraqis knew that they were a Third World Country and that they faced "the greatest military power". However, a new peace initiative was necessary and the Americans better agree to the linkage with the Palestinian problem demanded by president Hussein. In Algiers, it was said that the government was preparing to enter the arena in partnership with France after the expected failure of the Perez de Cuellar trip to Baghdad.

Another apparently eager mediator is believed to have a greater chance of success. Austria's president Kurt Waldheim, a former General-Secretary of the United Nations, is currently shunned by Western states on account of allegations regarding his conduct as a Nazi army officer. But he is held in great esteem by Saddam, who was brought up to adulate Hitler. According to Germany's Bild newspaper, several Arab governments have asked him to intercede in Baghdad. Waldheim journeyed to Iraq soon after the invasion of Kuwait and succeeded in obtaining the freedom of all Austrian citizens held hostage there. A cartoonist's comment at the time has become a classic of its type. It showed an old Wehrmacht comrade of Waldheim welcoming him back at Vienna airport and whispering into his ear: "Tell me, Kurt. Is he really like the Fuhrer?".

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