Emara underlined the importance of differentiating between the military bases imposed by force in the region for aggression and the so-called friendship agreements hammered out with Arab governments.

He pressed for respecting such agreements and taking opposition to them to our government by laying democratic and legal pressures according to the constitution of each country.

Although the participants agreed there were some legal loopholes in agreements sealed between the U.S. and a number of countries in the region, Abul Wafa said the legal viewpoint should not be sidelined.

“This is what the Americans really want, but we must fully understand the rules of international law, which can serve best our cause and will be a trump card in our hands,” he added.

Abul Wafa was responding to remarks made by Hewadey who spoke about the looming U.S.-led aggression on Iraq.

“we are all facing now a moment of truth. Arabs and Muslims ought to look in the mirror to see their true faces, ” he said.

“This aggression on the Arab nation makes all of us feel helpless,” said the famed Hewadey.

He sounded the alarm that the striking of Iraq might be accompanied by other far-reaching targets.

Hewadey asserted that the juristic viewpoint in the issue of attacking Iraq is clear-cut and stipulates declaring Jihad against the aggressors and invaders.

Taking up the view of international law regarding the legitimacy of American forces in the Gulf, Abul Wafa outlined two types of military presence one secured by bilateral agreements and the other taking the form of military occupation.

He, nevertheless, called for resisting the military occupation in the region and for confronting the other form of military presence by showing its violation of the known international law regulations because such agreements were not signed between equals but inked under some sort of duress.

The famed lawyer asserted that the justification of the current military buildup in the region is not substantiated by international law.

The U.S. claimed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but the contemporary international law did not put a ceiling on the countries’ armament but only prohibited the use of banned weapons, Abul Wafa averred.

Taking up the subsequent legitimacy of agreements signed between the U.S. and some countries in the region, Awa said people should differentiate between agreements signed by democratically-elected governments and others inked by dictatorships, asserting that treaties clinched by the latter were null and void.

Awa refuted the U.S. pretext that its war was aimed at democratizing Iraq, arguing that Iraq had been ruled by dictators ever since its independence from the British colonialism.

“Why do they speak now about democracy? Awa wondered.

These allegations are call ungrounded including what U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said about links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, he asserted.

“The real reason behind the American campaign on Iraq is that it poses a threat to neighboring oil-rich countries,” according to Awa.

Awa said the Iraqi danger was fanned by the U.S., which had in the past incited the Iraqi regime to attack Iran and Kuwait and is now trying to hold it accountable for a crime they collaborated in.

He called on all Iraqis to resist military aggression with all their power , stressing that any decent human being, Muslim or non-Muslim, should resist aggression.

Emara disagreed with Hewadey’s contention that there was no battle against Islam, arguing that all that American writings in the wake of the 9/11 attacks confirm that a war is being waged against Islam as a religion and Muslims.

“The U.S. wants to impose its hegemony on the energy resources in the world and that Islam, whether in Afghanistan, Sudan, or the Gulf is the obstacle impeding this.”

On Washington’s attempt to strike Iraq under the pretext of possessing weapons of mass destruction, Emara underlined that the U.S. was the first country in the history of humanity to use such weapons.

He urged for intellectual Jihad against the U.S. presence in the region, asserting that “intellect and word play a pivotal role” in the current juncture.

Giving an in-depth analysis of the Iraq crisis, Bishri said war on Iraq has already begun three months ago, when the U.N. Security Council passed resolution 1441.

He stressed that violation of Iraq’s sovereignty is in itself a no less aggression than war.

Bishri said the U.S. has spent to date from 50 to 70 per cent of the war budget in assembling 200,000 soldiers in the region.

The presence of U.S. troops in the region is illegitimate and runs counter to international law, which honors the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries and rules against meddling in its domestic affairs.

“The question that requires an answer is when will such a war come to an end and what are its domino effects?” Bishri asked.

He stressed that the war in Palestine is between Arabs and Zionists; the war in Iraq between Arabs and America while the war in Afghanistan is between the U.S. and Muslims.

According to Bishri, there are many occupied countries in the Arab and Islamic worlds, including Palestine, Gulf countries and Afghanistan.

Bishri, in addition, saw eye to eye with prominent Islamic scholar Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi on the importance of declaring Jihad against the U.S. troops, which only came to invade Iraq.

He agreed with the renowned scholar that such Jihad is a religious duty on every Arab and Muslim with varying degrees.

Iraqis should resist the U.S. troops by force while Arab and Muslim peoples should pressure their governments not to support the U.S. troops or offering facilities to them, Bishri said.

When some of the participants, called for setting up procedural guidelines for an action plan to resist the foreign presence in the region, Bishri stressed “this is the job of politicians as well as ruling and opposition parties and not the job of the intellectuals.”

Politicians translate intellectual tendency into procedural guidelines, he added.