Syrian conditions and Iranian threats

Hours before the arrival of international monitors in Syria, the regime of Bashar Assad outlined a series of conditions limiting the scope of their activity in the country. This story leads the news in most Arab dailies Monday.

“Syria welcomes the monitors with a list of conditions and blames ‘armed gangs,'” reads the headline of liberal daily Al-Hayat, published in London. The article features an image grab of an explosion in the city of Homs, taken from a video clip. The daily adds that Assad has escalated his attack on Syrian cities as well, killing at least 21 civilians Sunday in Homs and elsewhere.

The headline of A-Sharq Al-Awsat, the pan-Arab mouthpiece of the Saudi regime, reads “Assad regime places ‘Dabi delegation’ conditions on the international monitors,” referring to the restrictions placed on the Arab League delegation headed by Sudanese General Muhammad Dabi which was sent to Syria last December.

The daily reports that the Syrian opposition doubts the new delegation’s prospects of success, quoting a member of the opposition Syrian National Council, Ahmad Ramadan, as saying that the government will do all it can to undermine the international monitors. A-Sharq Al-Awsat features a photo of a government tank with red graffiti painted on it reading “Either Assad or the country will burn.”

“The Assad regime continues to play with the international community… just as it played with the Arab League before,” writes A-Sharq Al-Awsat editor Tareq Al-Homayed Monday.

Now, he predicts, Assad will drown the international community in details to thwart the monitors’ mission.

“From the number of monitors to their nationalities, to their movement, to their well-being, and so forth. All Assad wants is to buy time for his regime,” writes Al-Homayed.

“The idea of sending monitors is not bad, but their number is bad. What can 30 monitors, or even 250, do in Syria?”

But the lead editorial in the Arab nationalist daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi justifies the Syrian regime’s wariness of the monitors based on previous experiences of monitoring in Iraq.

“[The monitors in Iraq] before the American occupation of Baghdad acted arbitrarily and insisted on imposing unfair conditions on the regime. They carried out humiliating and provocative actions, including insisting on examining the bedrooms of the president under the guise of searching for weapons of mass destruction which never existed, a fact that Western powers had known,” writes the editor.

Nevertheless, the editor argues that “the mission of the monitors must succeed.”

For Egypt’s liberals, reason for hope

A dramatic announcement Sunday by Egypt’s de facto leader Field Marshal Muhammad Hussein Tantawi, postponing presidential elections until after the new constitution has been drafted and insisting that no parliament members will take part in the constitutional assembly, has been largely welcomed by the country’s liberals.

It was an Egyptian court that first dismantled the constitutional assembly, and Al-Hayat columnist Muhammad Salah warns Monday against the overbearing power of Egypt’s judiciary.

“All the dates designated to enable the political transformation have come into doubt, as one judiciary decision suffices to bring everyone back to square one,” writes Salah.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s establishment daily Al-Ahram reports that the 10 presidential candidates who were disqualified by the central elections committee have begun submitting their appeals against the decision, to be decided tomorrow.

Al-Ahram columnist Muhammad Saadani defends the committee’s decision to disqualify the three leading candidates, Omar Suleiman, Khairat Shater and Hazem Abu-Ismael. His reasoning indicates that the decision may have indeed been politically rather than administratively motivated.

“With the decision of the high elections committee, the bomb which almost exploded in the face of Egyptian society was defused,” writes Saadani in an editorial titled “The removal of the three will prevent a terrible explosion.”

Sayid Badawi, head of the liberal Wafd party, tells independent Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm that the removal of Omar Suleiman from the presidential race has prevented “a second revolution,” adding that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) will “yield its power in time.” With the postponing of presidential elections, many fear that the military is in Egypt to stay.

Rising tension between Iran and the Emirates

A provocative visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week  to the occupied Iranian Island of Abu-Moussa has set off a chain of events that raises tensions between Iran and its Gulf Arab neighbors to dangerous levels.

On Monday, Al-Hayat reports that Gulf Cooperation State foreign ministers are scheduled to meet in Qatar Tuesday to discuss “the repercussions of the visit,” while Iran has issued a tacit threat to the Arab states warning them that “it is better for them to maintain friendly relations” with the Islamic Republic.

The newest round of conflict has raised the age-old dispute over the proper name of the Gulf. Iran insists that it is “the Persian Gulf,” whereas Arabs call it “the Arab Gulf.”

On Sunday, Iranian official Mohsin Reda’i said that “some in the Emirates falsify the name of the Persian Gulf,” Al-Hayat reports.