West draws varying responses from them

By Kesava Menon

MANAMA (BAHRAIN) APRIL 5. Over the past couple of weeks, three West Asian leaders have put on display their strategies, styles and approach. One of them has shown off all the Third World flamboyance of the 1960's, another has reiterated that principled anti-colonialism is a living phenomenon and the third has show- cased the skills that developing countries are trying to employ in the post-Cold War world. The jury is still out on the question of who, or which approach, was the most effective.

As of the moment, it would be an easy bet that most would consider Libya's strongman, Col. Muammar Gadhafi, to have been the least effective. At the recently concluded Afro-European summit in Cairo, the good Colonel was at his flamboyant best. A colourful dress, women bodyguards and quarters in a tent pitched on the grounds of the Egyptian President's palace were not the all of it. When the leaders gathered at the conference hall, full of mushy sentiment at the supposedly bright prospects for Afro- European relations, Col. Gadhafi tore into them for ignoring the effects of colonialism and Europe's imperialist approach to his native continent. In telling them that the presence of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean was incompatible with the rosy talk of a future tourism boom along its coastline, the Libyan leader was this favourite game of telling the West to put its money where its mouth was.

Some of the Western leaders were reported to have been flabbergasted. When Col. Gadhafi had received them in his tent, his approach was conciliatory and he was willing to discuss closer relations. At the end of the show, most of the Europeans appeared to have decided that the Libyan leader had merely been presenting a split persona, one for the audience in his country and continent and the other for the money bags from the West. Col. Gadhafi is believed to have retreated from hands-on control of his country's affairs, preferring to assume the role of a philosopher and guide. The ministers who run his country day-to- day are said to be more attuned to the sensibilities of those who can offer Libya more trade and investments. So, it may well be business beneath the surface but Col. Gadhafi, for one, is not about to let the people of his country, his continent or their Western interlocutors forget that there are a lot of unresolved issues between them.

Yet another U.S. administration's cajolery has bounced off the Syrian President, Mr. Hafez al Assad's rock-like principle. Circumstances surrounding the meeting between Mr. Assad and the U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton, last week had suggested that negotiations (between Syria and Israel) had produced a package which met most of Syria's demands and one which Mr. Assad could live with. Subsequent reports make clear that Syria could have so much of the Golan Heights right now that the rest would not matter. Mr. Assad was having none of it. For nearly 33 years he has demanded that Israel return every inch of the territory it conquered after June 4, 1967 and Mr. Assad was not about to let them retain even a sliver of it. That took extraordinary resilience.

Syria's economy is in a shambles, its military is badly equipped and it needs to improve its international standing before the uncertainties of a power transition set in. There is not much hope that Syria will get the sort of U.S.-sourced financial and military package that Egypt qualified itself for when it made peace with Israel. But it surely made matters worse when Syria rebuffed a U.S. President who is desperately eager for a deal between Syria and Israel. Investment and assistance from other sources will also be more readily available when Syria has come to terms with its neighbour. But Mr. Assad has the long range view on Syrian and Arab interests and he is willing to wait it out if necessary.

Egypt's President, Mr. Hosni Mubarak's transition from the third worldism of Mr. Gamal Abdel Nasser into whatever else has replaced it was made easier since his predecessor, Anwat Sadat, had already taken the first steps. Over the 1990's, Mr. Mubarak had leveraged Egypt into the role of an intermediary between the Arab world and the West. His country's prestige has been retained, or even restored from the Arab perspective, and though some may disagree, he has done it without turning into a completely unthinking client of the West. In the process, Egypt has no doubt become the second largest recipient of U.S. military and financial assistance after Israel but that has not led to the internal transformation of the country.

By any reckoning, Egypt remains a part of the Third World while its President has obtained a place for himself at the dinner tables of the first.

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