Wait for that Glorious Spectacle!

November 19, 2013

BY Saeed Qureshi

With one small statement Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has wrecked the nuclear deal with Iran being brokered by the United States in tandem with certain European states.  The entire process that was close to fruition has come to a standstill position. President Obama and the secretary of state Johan Kerry look nonplussed and dumbfounded as if a bombshell has fallen on them. Such is the dictating power of Israel.

Netanyahu wants the entire plant and equipment of the Iran’s nuclear reactor dismantled and shipped to America as was done in case of Libya. Presently Iran is suffering a financial loss of 100 billion dollars per annum because it cannot sell it oil and gas.

In contrast to that appalling discrimination, Israel has a stockpile of atomic warheads besides possessing the capability to fabricate more if it wants to. It has a free-hand to build new housing colonies over the Land snatched from the Palestinian people. It continues to occupy the Golan Heights seized from Syria. Iran is ready to scale down her enrichment of uranium to a minimum permissible level, yet no one listens. Where is the world conscience?

The whole west and specifically America has become the guardian angles of the state of Israel. They are always ready to jump into fray against the Arab states and now Iran at the bidding of Israel that wants all the Islamic states to be debilitated and reduced to client states of Israel as Saudi Monarchy is. Would this gross disparity between Israel and rest of regional states going to last for ever? 

May be a day comes when United States and other patrons of Israel wake up and make amends for the gross maltreatment and injustice inflicted upon the Islamic regimes in the Middle East including Iran. These too have a right to survive as sovereign states.

On the burning question of Iran‘s nuclear program, Israel is not prepared to give an iota of concession to Iran. In the wake of parleys about the Iran’s nuclear potential and enrichment of uranium, Israel’s shrewish and unbending Prime Minister Netanyahu has bitterly lambasted president Obama and John Kerry for reaching a mutually acceptable deal with Iran that would deliver Iran from brutal sanctions.

The way the developments are taking place and also in the hindsight it is manifest that the stiff -necked Israeli prime minister can go to any length to castigate and even dictate the American leadership for decisions distasteful to him. Now this is like a spoiled and unruly child bruising the face of an affectionate father and thus not only humiliating but disfiguring him. Such scars and humiliations inflicted by a stubborn and daredevil Israel is write large on the face of American leaders. 

Ironically United States cannot take independent decisions with regard to international disputes without Israel’s approving nod. A small surrogate state enjoys the audacity and luxury to ridicule her most obliging and abiding mentor as apparent from the stern statements of Netanyahu decrying president Obama and John Kerry.

In the ongoing phase of striking a deal with Iran, some of the negotiators want to throw spanners  in the way for Iran to get  released some of the unbearable and crippling sanctions imposed by United States particularly and other western countries generally. Saudi Arabia is rigidly averse to any kind of concessions or leniency granted to Iran.

Saudis and Israel though religiously poles apart yet regionally in unison, want America and the Western Europe to keep Iran under the back breaking sanctions that have already shattered Iran’s economy beyond redemption so soon. But Saudis and Israel and other anti-Iran cohorts do not realize that Iran has a pollution of human beings that survive on bread and butter and other essential means of sustenance. When they talk of destroying Iran and Syrian their milk of human kindness turns into venom.

Saudi Arabia is displeased with United States because it didn’t launch military attack on Syria for using chemical weapons against the civilian population. Mercifully the western countries particularly United kingdom refused to join America in that brutal onslaught to dislodge Bashar al Assad regime. 

While such a barbarous venture would have pacified Saudi Arabia and Israel, it could have dragged America into another costly yet devastating war. There is no plausible analogy between the military action of NATO and United States in Libya, with that of Syrian situation.

Libya was completely isolated geographically and politically. Col Qaddafi’s army looked like an outfit of Lilliputians in comparison to the combined gigantic military might of NATO member countries and United States.  In Syria, Bashar has on his side, militarily strong and committed allies and battle hardened fighters and warriors like Hezbollah and Iranian soldiers. 

Despite adopting the strategy of avoiding direct involvement in military action on Syria, America could have still remained bogged down albeit killing the civilian along the Bashar forces. With support from Russian, China and Iran, there was a strong possibility for Bashar to hang on for a while.

The prolongation of war would have cost America her image and it could also be costly. It was a legitimate decision by president Obama to call off the attack and give the arbitrators notably Russia to help destroy the chemical arsenal of Syrian. That peaceful option proved to be decisively effective than the use of force.

The Saudi rulers are seething with hatred of secular regimes like Syria in the Middle East. They are hell-bent to weaken and change the present Shia regime in Iran. It is mind boggling that both these countries profess Islam, though with some deep and unbridgeable variations. Blood is supposed to be thicker than water. But viz a viz Iran, the Saudis are ready to get the support of Jewish Israel and Christian west to destroy an Islamic country.

And that situation takes us back in history to the First World War. The then Sharif and Amir of Mecca (also king of Hejaz) Husain struck a secret deal with the Britain not to side with the Ottoman caliphate in the war between Allied and central powers. Ottoman caliph sided with Germany or the central powers.   

The British government promised to Hussein that the territories liberated from Ottoman Empire would be given back to Saudi Arabia. When the war ended all the Arab lands liberated from Ottomans were distributed among the allies. So as a result of this treacherous role, not only that the Saudis did not get anything in return but also the Islamic caliphate disintegrated. 

A similar role is now being reenacted by the Saudi regime against Iran, although here the occupation of Iranian land is not the goal.  Primarily behind such an attitude is the centuries old rancor and race based antagonism of Arabs for non-Arabs, notwithstanding that both profess the common faith to a great extent.

But patently the Saudi Dynasty is un-Islamic in character (monarchy and family dynasty are not allowed in Islam). It would prove as the last outpost for a moribund mode of government.  The so called Arab spring has slowed down by a sudden spurt of circumstances one of which is the survival of the Syrian Alawite (twelver school of Shia Islam) dynastic regime for a while. 

But that certainly is a temporary phase. In the new phase that can burst open again in the near future, the Saud family’s monarchy would be the target for a change to a popular government.  This ultra- conservative regime would be swept away with the strong and inexorable current of a new Arab spring. Wait for that glorious spectacle!