Egyptian election flurry and suspicions of Iran

The first contingent of an international monitoring team is scheduled to arrive in Syria Sunday, but the Arab media is focusing on the escalation in violence against civilians as the fragile ceasefire quickly unravels.

“Homs bombarded the day of the decision on international monitors,” reads the headline of Saudi-owned daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat. The report is accompanied by an image grab from an opposition Youtube video depicting — in what has become a typical image in past months — a black plume of smoke rising from a residential neighborhood in Homs.

The newspaper interviews Basma Qadmani, a spokeswoman for the Syrian National Council (SNC), the opposition’s main political body, who refers to the growing number of Syrian refugees fleeing to neighboring countries. Lebanon has already absorbed an estimated 20,000 refugees. Qadmani asserts that all refugees will return to Syria when hostilities end, adding that the Assad regime bears responsibility for internationalizing the crisis through mass deportation of civilians from their homes.

Arab-nationalist daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, published in London, leads with reports of tens of thousands of demonstrators on Friday across Syrian cities and towns, with five protesters killed in clashes with government forces.

Al-Hayat columnist Elias Harfoush comments Sunday on the widening gulf between Iran and Turkey, noting that their treatment of Syria serves as a good indicator of the crisis. The Turkish regime, although Islamic, is thoroughly grounded in democracy; whereas the Syrian regime, backed by Iran, “rules through the power of slogans and disparaging national rights and demands.”

“This clash has brought Ankara, little by little, to defend its regime’s democratic values in the face of the Syrian regime’s excessive oppression of its protesters’ demands.”

Iran’s nukes — breakthrough or deception?

Liberal daily Al-Hayat, published in London, reports that significant progress was achieved in talks on the Iranian nuclear program held Saturday in Istanbul, Turkey.

“The Istanbul round begins with a breakthrough; praise for ‘bold’ Iranian proposals,” reads the headline of Al-Hayat. A-Sharq Al-Awsat, with a more neutral headline, reports that “The 5+1 agree with Iran to continue negotiations in Baghdad.” Both dailies feature photos of European foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton with chief Iranian negotiator Said Jalili in Istanbul, and quote Ashton’s spokesman Michael Mann as saying that the atmosphere in this round of talks was completely different.

But A-Sharq Al-Awsat editor Tareq Homayed mocks US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s optimism on the Iranian negotiations, and her reference to an Iranian fatwa (religious opinion) whereby nuclear weapons are religiously banned according to Islam.

“As long as fatwas are taken into account in politics, an ‘international security council for fatwas’ should be established!” declares Homayed ironically.

“If Iran has used religion, sectarianism and even the Palestinian issue as playing cards in the region over the past three decades… how can we trust today the statement by the Supreme Leader that there is a fatwa than bans nuclear weapons?

“If this fatwa is one of the parameters of dealing with Iran,” concludes Homayed, “by God, we are facing a real disaster in this region of the world.”

Meanwhile, Al-Hayat reports on its front page that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a regional union of six Arab Gulf states, has filed a complaint against Iran to the UN over a provocative visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the disputed Persian Gulf island of Abu-Moussa last week, which Iran seized from the United Arab Emirates in 1971.

Egypt’s leading presidential candidates are rejected

The Egyptian presidential race is still making major headlines in the Arab media Sunday. On Saturday, Egypt’s central election committee revoked the candidacy of three leading candidates: Mubarak’s strongman and chief of intelligence Omar Suleiman, Muslim Brotherhood candidate and multimillionaire Khairat Shater, and Salafist candidate Hazem Abu-Ismael. According to A-Sharq Al-Awsat, the dramatic decision has “added heat to the Egyptian political scene.”

According to an opinion poll conducted by the independent Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm Saturday, 38% of Egyptians have not decided who to vote for. But out of those who have, the majority — perhaps surprisingly — said they would vote for Suleiman. Suleiman was removed on a technicality: not having garnered enough signatures for his candidacy in the province of Asyut.

Abd Al-Rahman Rashed, director of the Dubai-based news channel Al-Arabiya, writes Sunday that the stormy Egyptian political scene is not atypical for democracies worldwide.

“This is democracy. Most elections are fraught with pitfalls; where serious matters are mixed with statements about money, sex, citizenship, and biographic details.”

Rashed also points to the ironic fact that although the Egyptian revolution was led by the younger generation, all the presidential candidates are older men.