Abdul Hamid Shocks Kuwait and Jordan with Claims on their Territories

Bahrain Daily News reports, The president for a month of the Interim Governing Council, Muhsin Abdul Hamid (leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood), was asked at a news conference in Baghdad what the future Iraqi government would do about Iraqi territories usurped in the past by Jordan and Kuwait. Abdul Hamid, who is a loose canon and should resign, said, "We need our Arab brothers around us. Now, we cannot discuss this matter with them at all, but in the future, we'll see . . . for every conversation there is an appropriate occasion."

This is one big problem with the Middle East, which is that so few countries want to stay within their present borders. Ariel Sharon's Israel now wants nearly half the West Bank, and says it intends to keep parts of Syria, and regrets having hastily given up on keeping parts of Lebanon, and who knows about the future. Syria is reluctant to withdraw its "peacekeeping" troops from Lebanon, which it has long wanted to annex. Now even liberated Iraqis are hungrily eyeing parts of Jordan and Kuwait! (Adnan Pachachi, a venerable Arab nationalist politician, has in the past also expressed a desire for Kuwait, though he has more recently given that sort of thing up).