Mubarak warns against US attack on Iraq

Amid growing concern among moderate Arab leaders about a possible United States strike, Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, warned yesterday of "disorder and chaos" spreading throughout the Middle East if the US attacked Iraq.

But Israel is pushing hard for a US attack, with its deputy internal security minister, Gideon Ezra, telling The Scotsman yesterday that he sees "many advantages" coming from it. It could enable Israel to move even more aggressively against Yasser Arafat’s regime, he said.

President George Bush yesterday was trying to juggle the demands of a third key ally in the region: oil-rich Saudi Arabia, whose rulers have been deeply disturbed by a wave of anti-Saudi sentiment sweeping the US in the wake of the 11 September terrorist attacks.

But as Mr Bush promised "eternal friendship" to the Saudi leadership, a senior adviser to the kingdom’s foreign minister repeated the strong Saudi objections to an attack on Iraq. Not a single US ally in Europe or the Middle East supports a war there, he said.

The Israeli security minister, Mr Ezra, said that a US example in Iraq could encourage Israel to follow suit against the Palestinians. "The more aggressive [the attack] is, the more it will help Israel against the Palestinians, on the understanding that what is good to do in Iraq, is also good to do here," he said.

He said that a US strike would "undoubtedly deal a psychological blow" to the Palestinians and added that the establishment of a democratic government in Iraq would raise possibilities for a spread of democracy in the Arab world.

A US strike would "calm down the entire region" by eliminating "the extremism of Saddam".

It was the clearest statement in favour of a US attack against Iraq since Israel decided to mute its public urging of military action about two weeks ago. The foreign minister, Shimon Peres, said then that while the operation would be "quite dangerous, postponing it would be more dangerous".

Israel is bracing for the possibility that Iraq could fire missiles against it armed with non-conventional warheads in the event of a US attack. But the army chief of staff, Moshe Ya’alon, has played down the threat, saying he "is not losing any sleep over it" and that Israel, which has developed anti-ballistic missilie systems since the 1991 Gulf war has "complete capability to defend itself."

Mr Mubarak, meanwhile, made the Arab case in an auditorium packed with university students in the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria.

"I told the American government that if you strike at the Iraqi people because of one or two individuals and leave the Palestinian issue [unsolved], not a single [Arab] ruler will be able to curb" the popular backlash, he said. "There might be repercussions, and we fear a state of disorder and chaos may prevail in the region."

Mr Mubarak said that all Arab states were unanimous in the opposition to an attack on Iraq, which would result in the deaths of many Iraqis.

Egypt, which joined the US coalition in the Gulf war, and Jordan, which did not, are considered vulnerable to a popular backlash from US military action because of their regime’s close ties to Washington.

Jordan’s edginess at being accused of serving US interests at the expense of Arab ones flared up early this month when it shut down the Amman offices of the Qatari-based al-Jazeera television station. Al-Jazeera had broadcast an interview with an academic who claimed that the late King Hussein had long been on the CIA’s payroll.

Palestinian Authority leaders, meanwhile, say that they are worried that Israel will exploit the attack in order to take even tougher measures in the West Bank. "I’m afraid that with a government like Sharon’s that is not restrained, the situations during a war might allow them to do more atrocities than now," said the labour minister, Ghassan Khatib.

Some Israelis are also fearful of the impact on the Arab world. Dave Kimche, a former director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, said that while Iraqi nuclear weapons would pose a "mortal danger", an American attack’s fallout on the region as a whole could harm Israel.

"It could be very dangerous for Israel if Jordan were to collapse," he said.

US relations with Saudi Arabia have been rocky since 11th September, when it emerged that most of the suicide hijackers responsible for the deaths of several thousand Americans were of Saudi origin - along with their alleged leader, Osama bin Laden.

They have been hit hard recently by a law suit brought by US families of the victims alleging that Saudi Arabian leaders backed bin Laden, and demanding multi-billion compensation payments.

Mr Bush made a show of receiving the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar, yesterday on a visit to his Texas ranch.

Mr Bush also called the Saudi leader, Crown Prince Abdullah, to assure him of the "eternal friendship" of their two countries. But Saudi Arabia, which during the Gulf war welcomed US troops to protect it from Iraq, joined Mr Mubarak in repeating its opposition to a US attack on Baghdad.

A Saudi foreign policy adviser, Adel al-Jubeir, said that the Saudis felt strongly that President Saddam should be dealt with diplomatically. "We don’t believe that the case has been made in terms of a war against Iraq, and we don’t think that people have thought through all the consequences," Mr Jubeir said. "There is a process under way with the UN to bring the inspectors back in, unfettered," he said, echoing the suggestion of James Baker, the former US secretary of state.

"We believe it will succeed, and if it does, the objective [of searching for weapons of mass destruction] will be achieved without firing a single bullet or losing a single life."