The Arab Background & Perspective.

Muhammad Abdullah al-Mutawa', a professor of sociology at UAE University in al-Ain, wrote in Gulf News of June 5, 2009: "The Arab dream of unity and liberation after the First and Second World Wars was characterised by an ambitious development programme, limitless optimism and an eagerness for freedom. This was the dream of many Arab intellectuals, such as Abdul-Rahman al-Kawakebi, who wrote The Nature of Despotism, in which he outlined the type of liberation he desired for his nation. The dream of unity faced many obstacles and challenges, and leaders and intellectuals were prosecuted and executed in Beirut and Damascus before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs were disappointed with the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which was signed by France and Britain to divide and rule the Arab world. The dream seemed to be unachievable when Arabs saw French troops invading Beirut and Damascus, and the British troops occupying Jerusalem and Baghdad.

"The Arab nation found itself in an unviable position. Instead of unity there was division, and instead of freedom there was a foreign mandate. Some Arab countries gained their independence after the Second World War and found themselves in a world divided between two camps - the East and the West. This apparently meant that it was prohibited for smaller nations to go beyond the limits set by major world powers. Some thought that the dividing line between dreams and reality was imaginary and that the political powers were essentially idealistic. What they did not know was that these powers had an agenda of their own that, by and large, did not take into account nationalistic considerations.

"The same scenario was repeated when the US administration in the early 1990s succeeded in using an Arab leader to bring about changes to the political map of the world's most important region - home to oil and natural energy resources, which were in demand in the capitalist world. Regretfully, this scenario was implemented by the late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who thought that he had become the next leader of the Arab nation after the death of Egyptian president Gamal Abdul-Nasser, and the guardian of the eastern borders. He gave foreign powers the pretext to invade Iraq and establish a strong footing in the Arab region after he refused to listen to reason when the late Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, a wise Arab leader, advised him to step down [before the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003].