Dailies and periodicals” “

The debate on “post Saddam” and the consequences the war might have on the international scenario continues in the main international dailies. Thus, Pierre Hassner writing in Le Monde (26/4) comments: “The verdict that history and morality will pass on the war in Iraq will depend, first of all, on its consequences for the Iraqi people and for the Middle East as a whole – beginning with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict –, in terms of the progress of democracy and security. In the contrary case, it will depend on culture clash, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction”. For the time being, however, stresses the author of the article, the war is the object of “an almost metaphysical dispute, whose protagonists have had, in the USA, the ideological champions – linked to the Bush administration – of the ‘benevolent empire’ and a new bipolar conflict with the ‘axis of evil'”. The Herald Tribune (28/4) also focuses on the “challenge of the Middle East . “It’s difficult to imagine – writes Marwan Measher – a more precarious – or a more promising – time in the Middle East. Will Iraq become a secularized democracy or a new theocracy? Will the change of the Palestinian leadership favour the necessary reforms and peace with Israel, or will the revolving door of violence and enmity continue to revolve?”. La Croix of 24/4 analyzes, on the other hand, the relations between France and the USA, already “tense” before the war and even more fraught now. “The USA will not forgive France”, is the front-page headline of the French daily. Stating out from the US rejection of the French proposal for the lifting of the sanctions against Iraq, and the consequent French decision to continue in its policy of the “defence of international legality”, Bruno Frappat asks: “Will the resentment damage the axis of Franco-American relations?”. The Italian press too is busily discussing the American attitude to post-war Iraq. Referring to the speech that Bush is due to give at the White House next Thursday, Ennio Caretto ( Corriere della Sera, 28/4) comments: “It will be the end of a dramatic chapter, and the beginning of a new, perhaps sill uncertain phase. The President will say that the time has come for the reconstruction of Iraq and for the negotiations in the Middle East, but not the time for peace, because the war against terrorism, begun immediately after 11 September, is destined to continue”. “Washington-Paris, ugly duel” is the title of the editorial by Vittorio E. Parsi in Avvenire of 25 April, analysing the state of relations between the USA and France, thrown into crisis by the conflict in Iraq . “A healthy dose of realism is necessary for everyone – writes Parsi – . America above all must consider that France is an important member of the European Union, and consequently a hostile attitude to Paris (however well motivated) would have negative repercussions on the relations between the USA and the EU as a whole. Paris, for her part, would do better to shelve its wish to make Washington pay a steep price, in the delicate situation of post-war Iraq, for her victory in the field. France – he concludes – must resign herself to the idea that the foreign policy of Europe cannot be the simple echo of what Paris (and Berlin) decides”. To the democracy born from the ashes of a dictatorship the distinguished writer Mario Vargas Llosa devotes a reflection in the Spanish daily El Paìs of 27/4. Vargas Llosa draws a parallel between the situation of Cuba and that of Iraq, Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein. He also comments on the harsh repression of scores of dissidents by the Cuban regime in recent times. “ The protests against what has happened in Cuba – he observes – have had an unprecedented scale throughout the world and, for the first time, some have come from diehard champions of the Castro regime and from various European Communist parties and intellectuals”. According to Vargas Llosa, “there is no doubt” that the death of Fidel Castro will be followed not by “ another dictatorship“, but by a democracy that will be “supported by all Cubans”. The difficulty of establishing a democracy in Iraq, on the other hand, will derive, in his view, from the great ethnic and religious differences inside the country. But that does not mean that a dictatorship can eliminate these differences “by preventing them from being openly expressed”: “For a society in which ethnic and religious differences abound, the flexible system of reciprocal concessions represented by democracy is the only one that may save the integrity of the country, by permitting the decentralization and the regional, ethnic and religious autonomies that make co-existence possible”.———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1102 N.ro relativo : 31 Data pubblicazione : 30/04/2003