Author: Rashmee Z Ahmed
Publication: The Times of India
Date: October 11, 2001
Prime Minister Tony Blair is fighting
a frenzied rear guard propaganda war with Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden
even as Britain has been trying to address the growing anxieties across
the Muslim world by promising that any future military action in the war
against terrorism will be within the bounds of international law.
The British promise, which came
a day after the U.S. informed the UN that it reserved the right to target
"other (terrorist) organisations and other states", was made even as Mr
Blair continued his self-proclaimed "dialogue of differences" across cultures
with a tour of West Asia, giving interviews to Arabic TV stations and Pashto-language
radio. This has resulted in a domestic political disquiet as the U.S. has
said that its undefined war may extend to Iraq. Such an event may unwittingly
drag the UK into a battle of attrition.
However, a new British government
policy document released Wednesday insisted that the war on terrorism would
not focus on other countries right now. Mr Blair, whose battle for the
Arabic airwaves has included repeated references to the Koran, saying "shukran"
or thank you in Arabic and submitting himself to a tough interview with
a reporter from Abu Dhabi television on Tuesday, declared that the Western
world was keen to recognise the mistakes it had made in the past, especially
in Afghanistan. He touched upon the Muslim world's hot-button issue, the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, just as Osama bin Laden did in his now-famous
Sunday broadcast.
Challenging his Arab interviewer's
sly reference to Israeli occupation and whether or not that could be classified
as terrorism, Mr Blair, defining terrorism, said, "Certainly, people flying
planes full of fuel into offices full of innocent people." He committed
himself to working closely and in a sustained way for a Palestinian state
alongside the U.S. Questioning Bin Laden's commitment to the Palestinian
cause, he said Bin Laden a the Taliban were misusing the Palestinian cause
to justify the killing of thousands of people. "I don't believe that there
is any decent Palestinian that wants to see that as answer," he remarked.
The Americans, he said, should be
believed when they claimed that they had a. blueprint for a separate Palestinian
state long before the September 11 attacks. However, he pointed out that
Israel too must be able to live in security with its Arab neighbours.
Mr Blair's third coalition- strengthening
mission in as many weeks included talks with Sheikh Zayed, president of
the UAE, which was one of only three states to recognise Afghanistan's
Taliban regime till a fortnight ago. He has been trying to persuade the
UAE to choke off the financial pipeline that keeps Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda
network in funds. But even as Blair played a role that the U.S. media and
much of the wider world is starting to mockingly call "America's roving
ambassador", he has already had a taste of Arab anger, having been forced
to cancel a planned visit Egypt.
