What’s Politics to Do With It? : Shutting Iraqi athletes out of Asian Games is bankrupt gesture

It’s tempting to extend the international economic boycott against Iraq to sports, but banning the country’s athletes from the upcoming Asian Games casts a political pall over a regional event that should be free of such grandstanding.

The executive committee of the Olympic Council of Asia has unanimously recommended that Iraq be banished from the Asian Games scheduled to begin in Beijing on Sept. 22. The committee also recommended that Iraq be expelled from the council because of its invasion of Kuwait. The full council will vote on Sept. 20. The International Olympic Committee also is likely to study the matter at its meeting in Tokyo on Thursday. But there’s little to be gained here from mixing politics with sports.

Certainly shutting Iraq out of the regional multisport competition appeals to the emotions and fury of the moment. It’s one more way of getting back at Saddam Hussein. He has taken hostages and caused other human and economic hardships in the Middle East and around the world; thousands of U.S. soldiers have answered the call of defending Iraq’s threatened neighbor, Saudi Arabia.

But he also should not have the perverse pleasure of disrupting the Asian Games, which are organized under the auspices of the 38-member Olympic Council of Asia. The OCA, which is headquartered in Kuwait, was headed by Sheik Fahad al Ahmed al Sabah who was killed defending his brother, the emir of Kuwait, against the Iraqi invasion.

Kuwaiti and Iraqi athletes should not have to suffer. Iraq, after all, didn’t have a problem competing with Iran in the Asian Games in Seoul in 1986 when the two were at war. Iraq may be the enemy at the moment but two years from now, at the 1992 Olympics, who knows who will be the disflavor of the month? In general, there’s little to be gained, save perhaps temporary emotional uplift--from shutting Iraqi athletes out, and a lot to lose: the spirit of international sports competition.