31 January 2014
Source: Khilafah magazine
What was considered unthinkable only a few months ago finally came to
pass as America and Iran began the process of normalising ties. On
November 23 2012, a deal was reached in Geneva, Switzerland and made
public by US officials. The agreement was not a final settlement on all
outstanding issues, but regarded as a first step. In return for about $7
billion sanctions relief, Iran has agreed to halt its nuclear
activities for the next six months.
Unlike previous talks, the Geneva talks were conducted in a different
atmosphere. In the past, the US usually left direct negotiations to
other countries of the P5+1 (US, Russia, Britain, France, China plus
Germany). This time, US officials at the highest levels negotiated
directly with their Iranian counterparts, the first such meeting since
1979. On this occasion, the US did not renege on the talks as has become
common practice but was rather interested in a settlement. These talks
came soon after Hassan Rohani, the newly elected president of Iran, make
his first trip in his new role to the 68th Session of the United
Nations General Assembly in September 2013. A sense of change has been
in the air.
These events have been quite unprecedented. Why is the US warming up
to Iran in this way? Why is Iran making these overtures whilst it has
always called the US, the Great Shaytan? As Muslims, we should always
diligently pursue international developments so we can assess what is
really going on behind the scenes. Understanding the objectives of the
global powers and their political plans in our countries will ensure the
correct political path is followed to liberate the Ummah. With this in
mind, we should understand the political context in which this agreement
between the US and Iran took place in, and what this means for the
region and the Islamic Ummah as a whole.
The Iraq and Syria Conundrum
These talks and agreements are taking place after a decade of war in
Iraq. When the US invaded Iraq back in 2003, none of its military
options ever envisaged a long term US military presence. US military
plans envisaged the complete capitulation of the Iraqi army with its
precision guided munitions. The US expected Iraqi civilians to welcome
them for liberating them from Saddam Hussain. Whilst the Iraqi Army was
brushed aside after a month, the welcoming party never arrived, an
insurgency began which only got worse as the years progressed. By 2005,
the US was marred in an insurgency that it could not end, and US
military planners started looking for an exit strategy that could save
them face. America dealt with this in three ways: it enlisted the help
of regional nations bordering Iraq, notably Turkey, Syria and Iran. It
divided the insurgency by playing on ethnosectarian divisions and
constructed a political architecture with the help of various
opportunists, corrupt groups and individuals.
The US has been working for some time to reorient its posture by
reducing its military footprint and consolidating the political
architecture it has created. What made these talks even more urgent were
the Arab spring and particularly the Islamic revolution in Syria. The
Arab spring has seen America’s architecture challenged in the Middle
East, as a result the US was forced to work with liberal Islamic groups.
Whilst in Egypt, America has somewhat controlled the revolution by
bringing in the military, in Syria the Islamic groups continue to pose a
formidable political challenge to America in the region. America is
desperately trying to keep Assad in power, whilst the rebels continue to
make significant gains.
It is in this context that Iran plays an important role to US plans.
Without Iran involved in such a plan, America’s political hegemony will
simply fall apart. In Syria, Hizbullah members have admitted that
without Iranian support the al-Assad regime would have fallen a long ago
to the rebels. As such America is working hard to normalise relations
between both countries.
The Middle East from Tehran
Iran’s ambitions in the region are to dominate it. This has been
outlined by various politicians in Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister
Manouchehr Mottaki, said in 2009: “Iran is emerging as a regional superpower given the increased role Tehran plays in international affairs.”
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said:
“We are rapidly becoming a superpower. Our strength does not come
from military weapons or an economic capability. Our power comes from
our capability to influence the hearts and souls of people, and this
scares them.”
Iran’s main tools to achieve this include making itself the official
representative of the Shi’ah globally i.e. the Shi’ah crescent and using
this as a pretext to interfere in countries with significant Shi’ah
populations. This is a key aspect of Iran’s strategy to deal with Saudi
Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s Eastern provinces are where the Shi’ah mainly
reside and are also the areas that contain Saudi’s oil fields. Iran has
on a number of occasions supported uprisings in order to weaken Saudi
Arabia. A similar policy has been used in Bahrain where a Sunni minority
rules over a Shi’ah majority. One of the reasons Saudi immediately sent
its troops into Bahrain during the Arab spring was due to the fact that
Iran would use the instability to weaken the rulers of Bahrain.
The Iranian regime maintains close ties with the Syrian leadership in
order to act as a bloc in the region.
These ties include military,
economic and political ties. Iran has transferred significant weaponry
to prop up the al-Assad regime and has provided oil and gas at reduced
prices due to the lack of energy reserves in Syria. Political ties can
especially be seen in Iran’s intervention in the Syrian uprising when
the al-Assad regime was on the verge of collapse. Without the Iranian
intervention, through deploying its Revolutionary guards (IRGC), the
Syrian regime would have collapsed.
Iran’s major challenges in the region include Saudi Arabia and Israel
– who are also attempting to spread their influence in the region. Iran
also faces challenges from the world’s superpower the USA, who does not
want to share the region with anyone. Iran’s policy has often shifted
between not trusting the US to trying to engage with the US, in order
that it is taken seriously in the region. In a BBC documentary in 2009
on the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution Muhammad Khatami,
President from 1997-2005 outlined the various attempts made by his
administration to normalise relations with the US. Khatami outlined
Iran’s sharing of intelligence with the US on targets in Afghanistan
after the US led invasion. Khatami highlighted Iran’s central role to
the Northern alliance taking over Kabul and the help Iran gave the US to
create the new government in Kabul. Khatami said that if the US
attacked the Taliban this would be in Iran’s interests. Another attempt
to normalise relations in 2003 was spurned by the US.
On the issue of Iraq, the BBC documentary included an interview with Khatami and quoted him:
“Saddam Hussein was our enemy, we wanted him destroyed, lets repeat the
Afghanistan experience in Iraq, let’s make it 6 plus 6, the six
countries bordering Iraq and America and the security council members
and Egypt – look at Iran as a power that can solve problems rather than
as a problem itself.” Whilst Iran was keen to take part in removing
Saddam Husain, the US spurned the country’s help. Despite this, it was
Iran’s patron the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), a group
created in Tehran in 1982 that gathered the Shi’ah factions to join in
the US constructed political system. This then ended the insurgency in
the south of Iraq and allowed US forces to concentrate on the insurgency
in central Iraq. Through promises of positions in government, bribes
and rewards, the US co-opted pro-Iranian elements into its solution for
Iraq. Iran came to America’s rescue when it could have bled the US to
death.
The Middle East from Washington
America’s fundamental challenge has been on how to deal with Iran’s
ambitions and as a result, US policy has regularly shifted between
containment, engagement and aggressive bellicose language. Iran’s
ambitions to dominate the region directly conflict with US aims in the
region, and this has always been America’s fundamental problem with
Iran. On many occasions, the US has been able to use Iran to achieve its
aims in the region. However many within the US political class do not
trust Iran and as a result, attempts to normalise relations with Iran
have never been successful due to the opposition within America’s
political class. The quagmire in Iraq and then Afghanistan and now Syria
has forced America to engage with Iran openly as it needed to save
itself in the region, after being humiliated, militarily, by the Ummah.
The threats of regime change by the neoconservative administration very
quickly gave way to engagement with Iran on common issues. America’s
fundamental problem is how to deal with Iran, should they be engaged in
order to influence them or should they be contained to curtail their
regional ambitions.
America until now, achieved much of its interests in the Middle East
by creating a balance of power in the region through pitting different
nations against each other. The US needs to contain Israeli expansion in
the region, for which Iran has played a central role. It has also
needed to contain Iranian ambitions for which the US uses Israel. To
stem both nations the US supports Saudi Arabia, who in turn supports and
provides arms to groups in the region against Iran and Israel. This
ensures the US doesn’t need to militarily intervene. This also explains
why the US has always been against Israel’s continued push for military
strikes on Iran’s nuclear installations as this would significantly
strengthen Israel. For the US, Iran’s ambition of a Shi’ah crescent cuts
right through the Muslim world and this sectarian division keeps the
Ummah not just divided on sectarian lines, but pitted against the Shi’ah
rather than the America.
After using Iran’s ambition in the region to justify US military
presence in the Middle East, now America finds itself struggling to
create a stable political architecture in the region post the Arab
revolutions.
A Marriage of Convenience
For Iran, normalising ties with the US gives it the influence it so
craves in the region and for the US it allows it to keep the Muslims
weak by pitting Shi’ah against Sunni. This is a vicious plan concocted
in Geneva by both Washington and Tehran. It proves once and for all
there is no ideological call or spreading of Islam by Iran, neither is
there really any promotion of Shi’ah Islam. Iran’s interests are
nationalistic, they are merely for Iran to dominate in the region. The
only factor that Iran uses to judge which policies to pursue are those
that will give Iran dominance in the region and Iran is prepared to use
any pragmatic means to achieve this. This is why its Shi’ah crescent
policy is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. This is
because in reality, Iran does not extend support to all Shi’ah globally
but only to those that will aid it to achieve it dominance of the
region. Iran has not extended support to the Shi’ah in Azerbaijan or
Tajikistan even though they are oppressed, as they do not achieve her
objectives, whist the Shi’ah in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia receive
considerable support as they are central to Iran’s aims of dominating
its region.
Conclusion
These deals between American and Iran are part of a sinister plan to
bolster Iran in the region so America can use Iran to keep the Ummah
divided along Shi’ah Sunni lines. Iran is serving America well in Syria,
where without Iran’s support, Assad will fall paving the way for an
Islamic alternative in Syria. The prospect of an Islamic Khilafah
emerging in Syria post Assad is what is driving American policy makers
to bring Iran from the cold. Politicians and thinkers across the Middle
East need to raise their voices against sectarianism and for unity upon a
political system not based on sectarian principles. Unity upon Islam is
for all Muslims and not only Sunni’s and Shi’ah. Any state for only
Sunni’s or Shi’ah itself cannot be Islamic.
What we are witnessing is the culmination of a marriage of
convenience that will save US blushes after a decade of failure in the
Middle East. Iran has now shown its true colours and also proven that’s
its ambitions are merely interest driven and has nothing to do with
Islam. For the moment, only the nuclear aspects of this US-Iran marriage
have been revealed. Iran’s support for proxy groups, its role in Syria
and US tools in the region have in all likelihood been discussed and
will never be revealed. But, what is for certain, is that it is Iran
once again and not Israel or Saudi Arabia that is coming to America’s
aid to maintain its hegemony in the region.
Adnan Khan
Link:
http://www.khilafah.eu/kmag/article/iran-helping-america-middle-east.
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