-->Gulf states may be next: British MP

JEDDAH: In an exclusive interview with Arab News on Tuesday, British Member of Parliament George Galloway said he had evidence that one motive for the war on Iraq is the eventual partition of the Mideast.

“Here in the Houses of Parliament there are people who have never set foot in an Arab country openly discussing the partition of Gulf States,” he said in a telephone interview from London.

“They talk about whether it should be one country, two countries, three countries, even four countries. They openly discuss changing the boundaries of old countries, creating new countries removing this and that leader,” he added.

Speaking about George W Bush, Galloway said that he was unimpressive. However, “the

“These people have decided that Arab countries must metamorphose into countries acceptable to the US. That means they must change their way of life, their culture, even their religion. It’s openly stated in the American media that the Qur’an itself has to be changed, because in it there are concepts of justice and resistance which are completely unacceptable to the new American century.”

Galloway argued that the British people and British soldiers were told that the Iraqis would be garlanding the GI’s who came to “liberate” them. “Of course, none of that has happened. The Iraqis, even in the south of the country, even the so-called disaffected Shiite population, have resisted.”

“If the people in Arab countries could truly choose a representative government, then that government would be forced by public opinion to take a very different line on the assault on Iraq, betrayal of the Palestinians and so on. The US would not allow any such democracy to take root.” Prime Minister Tony Blair, Galloway said, gambled everything on the invasion being a short, sharp and relatively bloodless.

“None of these conditions is currently being met. The spin-doctors in Downing Street boasted that it would be a six-day war, an allusion to the apparent triumph over the Arab armies in 1967. He is ignorant of the fact that when the six-day war ended, the 35-year war between the Arabs and Israel began.” “On Al Jazeera and other Arab channels, we are seeing an entirely different war than that on BBC. That’s the war that is being seen by the audience where the consequences will be most felt. —AN

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_27-3-2003_pg4_12

<ul> ~ Quelle</ul>