Cheney faces tough talking from Arab states on US goals

MIDDLE EAST:US vice-president Dick Cheney begins a tour of Middle East states today in an effort to bolster Arab support for US policies in Iraq and boost pressure on Iran to cease uranium enrichment.

Mr Cheney's visit to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan is presented by the Bush administration as a "follow-up" to last week's ministerial conference on Iraq held at the Egyptian resort Sharm al-Sheikh. The aim of this gathering was to ease tensions between Sunni Arab states and the Shia fundamentalist Iraqi government.

But the Arabs have made acceptance of the Iraqi regime conditional on reintegration of the country's disaffected Sunni, secular and non-fundamentalist Shia communities through implementation of half a dozen "benchmarks" which would improve intercommunal relations. These include a halt to the de-Baathification programme, which has excluded Sunnis from government, adoption of legislation for sharing of oil revenues, and dissolution of Shia militias. The Arabs believe an end to violence and reconciliation cannot be achieved until these tasks are carried out, while the US argues that they can only be tackled once the ongoing pacification programme has achieved its objectives.

Ahead of the meeting in Egypt, Saudi king Abdullah bin-Abdul Aziz and Emirates president Khalifa bin-Zayed al-Nahyan refused to meet Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki. At Sharm al-Sheikh Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal rejected contact with the Iraqis. King Abdullah is also miffed with the Bush administration because it refuses to adopt and pressure Israel to accept the Arab League plan, put forward by the Saudis, for a regional peace settlement. The proposal calls for Israel to withdraw totally from Arab territory occupied in 1967 in exchange for full normalisation of relations with the Arab world. According to a Washington-based Arab commentator, Mr Cheney will express the "embarrassment" the Arab plan is causing Israel and the US.

Arab leaders are unlikely to be impressed by Mr Cheney's call for a boycott of Tehran and support for strong sanctions. They prefer to see the US talk to Iran with the aim of reducing violence in Iraq and diminishing sectarian tensions in the region.

Having dodged a dinner encounter with US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice at the meeting in Egypt, Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran was "ready to talk" but he argued that there "was no advance planning for a meeting" and there should be "political will" for serious discussions. Dr Rice retorted by saying that the US would "engage Iran on a broad range of issues" once Tehran had stopped nuclear enrichment, an issue which Iran and the Arabs agree should be on the agenda of a high-level meeting.

In addition to the Saudi monarch and the Emirates president, Mr Cheney is scheduled to meet Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's king Abdullah II. The Arabs consider Mr Cheney an unwelcome guest they cannot shun. Writing yesterday in the London-based, pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, the paper's senior commentator Jihad al-Khazen asserted: "I demand that Arab leaders not receive him."

He described Mr Cheney as the "war cabal chief" who exploited the September 2001 attacks on the US to invade and occupy Iraq. Al-Khazen quoted a speech Mr Cheney made to the US Veterans of Foreign Wars in August 2002 in which he defended the coming war on Iraq by claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein threatened the world and saying that his fall would benefit the region.

Al-Hayat belongs to Saudi prince Khaled ibn-Sultan, son of the crown prince and defence minister, and is one of the most influential Arab newspapers.