13 February 2014
Source: Middle East Monitor
The military coup in the Egypt will come to an end soon and judges
who support coup leaders in cracking down on activists should rethink
their alliances, a statement from the Muslim Brotherhood said.
The group said its expectations are based on the data of the "ailing
moral, economic and political" situation facing Egypt locally and
internationally.
The statement warns judges working under the military leadership
saying: "Generals who are using you to deter and oppress the people will
leave you alone facing them. You should correct yourself before it is
too late. Leave the boat of the coup and join the revolution before its
leaders turn on you.
"When there are fair judicial boards, there is stability in the
society," the statement said. "There the weak do not despair while
claiming their rights."
Based on justice and fair judiciary, all democratic countries
separate legislative and executive systems from each other and make
judicial systems independent. "This is to afford all guarantees for
judges in order to be able to achieve justice," the statement said.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/9731-muslim-brotherhood-military-coup-will-collapse-soon-because-of-oppressive-judiciary.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Israelis fume over EU parliament president 's water remarkIsraelis fume over EU parliament president 's water remark
February 13, 2014
Source: Yahoo News
Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli
newspapers bristled Thursday after the European Parliament president
criticised the Gaza Strip blockade and suggested that Israelis received
four times more water than Palestinians.
The spat erupted
Wednesday after the far-right Jewish Home party stormed out of
parliament in protest during a speech by Martin Schulz, and it made the
front pages of Israel's main newspapers.
Most commentators were furious about figures mentioned by Schulz over water usage.
"How
can it be that an Israeli is allowed to use 70 litres (18.5 gallons)of
water per day, but a Palestinian only 17," Schulz asked.
But he also admitted he had not had time to verify the numbers.
Shortly
afterwards, Schulz criticised settlements as an obstacle to peace and
warned that the Gaza blockade could "undermine, rather than strengthen,
Israel's security."
This prompted a barrage of heckling from Jewish Home MPs, who then walked out.
"Jewish
Home demands an apology from the president of the European Parliament,
who repeated two lies fed to him by the Palestinians," party chairman
Naftali Bennett said.
He denounced both assertions as "deceitful propaganda."
Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waded in, accusing Schulz of being quick to cast blame without checking his facts.
"What
was disturbing in Schulz's speech was the selective hearing that is
becoming prevalent in many circles in Europe," he said in remarks
published on parliament's website.
"These
are figures which are not true. (Schulz) said he didn't check the
figures but it didn't stop him from straight away casting blame."
The headline in the Israel HaYom freesheet, which is close to Netanyahu, read: "Shock in parliament over slander of Israel."
The
Palestine Liberation Organisation said average daily Palestinian
domestic consumption was 70 litres per person, while the World Health
Organisation recommends a minimum of 100 litres.
"In the southern West Bank, there are communities that use less than 15 to 20 litres per capita per day," it added.
- Schulz taken aback -
In an interview with German daily Die Welt published Thursday, Schulz said he was taken aback by the tirade.
"The
angry reaction from some parliamentarians in Jerusalem surprised me and
made me concerned," he said, adding that he considered his Jerusalem
address to be "pro-Israel".
"The
people who disturbed my speech belong to a party of hardliners who
answer each critical word that bothers them in this way."
Israel HaYom accused Schulz of choosing to use "false libel" provided by anti-Israeli groups.
Other papers published figures showing a completely different picture of Israeli-Palestinian water usage.
The
spat prompted several NGOs to publish their own figures on water usage,
with Friends of the Earth Middle East citing statistics from 2011
showing the ratio was close to four to one.
"The
municipal water consumption per capita per day in Israel in 2011 was
250 litres, while among Palestinians in the West Bank, after taking into
consideration an average loss of approximately 30 percent of the water
-- due to theft and lack of infrastructure -– it was 70 litres," the
group said.
Israeli rights
group B'Tselem also said there was "discrimination in water allocation",
with Israelis receiving "much more water than Palestinian residents of
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip".
According
to the Israeli national water company, Mekorot, the average household
water consumption in Israel is between 100 and 230 litres per person per
day.
For Palestinians in the West Bank connected to the water mains, the average daily consumption is about 73 litres.
Those
not connected to the network -- around 113,000 people -- rely on stored
rainwater and water sold from tanker trucks, which is very expensive.
Monday, February 10, 2014
California egg law, pro-chicken, is unfair to Missouri farmers, lawsuit alleges
February 5, 2014
By Patrik Jonsson
Christian Science Monitor
Source: Yahoo News
By Patrik Jonsson
Christian Science Monitor
Source: Yahoo News
Is California
forcing its concerns about animal welfare onto heartland states, via
its recent law mandating that eggs sold within its borders must be laid
by chickens who live somewhere other than in the small “factory” cages
from whence most Americans get their sunny-side-ups?
That’s one question at the heart of a state-versus-state lawsuit filed Monday by Missouri's attorney general, Chris Koster, whose state sells millions of eggs to California every year.
Missouri filed the lawsuit in federal court when it became clear that the new US
farm bill would not include an amendment to clip California’s
aspirations to force other states to adopt what it sees as more
animal-friendly farm practices. Congress finally approved the farm bill
on Tuesday, after months of tumultuous negotiations.
Mr. Koster argues that
California’s egg law, which the state legislature passed in 2010 to
boost a popular 2008 ballot initiative that required all California egg
producers to keep their chickens in larger cages, violates the US
Constitution’s interstate commerce clause, which is designed to
establish a level playing field for all states when it comes to selling
goods across state borders.
The
suit comes amid mounting complaints about California and what critics
say is its outsize effect on agriculture policy beyond its own borders.
The state has approved 358 new farm regulations in recent years, and
some food producers around the country argue that it is in effect
supplanting the federal role in setting farm policies.
Missouri
echoes that idea in its lawsuit. If California is allowed to mandate
that only certain eggs can be sold in the state, it “may just as easily
demand that Missouri soybeans be harvested by hand or that Missouri corn
be transported by solar-powered trucks,” Koster argues in the
complaint.
California gave
in-state producers several years to buy new, larger cages, an advantage
not extended to Missouri and other states that ship eggs to the Golden
State, Koster notes. The California egg law is set to take effect next
year.
Missouri officials say
the new coops will cost Missouri producers $120 million and will raise
their production costs by 20 percent. Missouri chicken farmers currently
sell one-third of their annual yield of 1.7 billion eggs to
destinations in California. The average American eats 247 eggs a year.
Rep.
Steve King (R) of Iowa, the state that produces more eggs than any
other, fought during farm bill negotiations to curb California’s clout.
Congress opted to kick the issue to the courts so that it could move the
huge farm bill across the finish line and onto President Obama's desk.
"Any
state, including California, is free to regulate, even overregulate
their producers, but not to regulate the other 49 states,’’
Representative King said.
If
the ruling ultimately goes against California, its effect has the
potential to be widespread – perhaps limiting states' ability to require
things like certain labeling of farm-raised fish, to ban certain kinds
of pesticides, and even to establish rules managing the eradication of
invasive pests.
California,
however, has previously succeeded in defending similar animal-welfare
laws. Its ban on foie gras (the enlarged livers of tightly penned and
force-fed ducks), for instance, was found to be constitutional.
“Ideally,
laws that sensibly protect farm animals, consumers of agricultural
products and the people who work in these industries would all be
federal laws, uniformly governing all 50 states,” writes the Los Angeles Times editorial board.
“But it hasn't worked out that way. States have put in place health and
welfare laws that set reasonable, up-to-date standards when the federal
government has lagged behind.”
U.S. trade bank launches operations in Myanmar
February 6, 2014
By David Brunnstrom
Source: Yahoo News
By David Brunnstrom
Source: Yahoo News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
Export-Import Bank of the United States said it launched operations in
Myanmar on Thursday, a move to support U.S. exporters against
competitors and help reintegrate the country into the world economy.
Fred Hochberg, chairman of the U.S. government lending agency, said the
announcement would send "a strong signal that we are committed to
strengthening economic ties with Burma as the nation continues its
transition."
"This decision
... will improve trade flows between our two countries and help
reintegrate Burma into the global economy," he said in a statement,
adding that it would also open an important new market for U.S. exports
and support American jobs.
The U.S. move follows the launching of political and economic reforms in
Myanmar since 2011 when a military government stepped aside and the
country started to move away from nearly half a century of army rule and
international isolation.
A
senior bank official, briefing reporters in a conference call, said its
decision was made possible by a lifting of U.S. sanctions and the end of
a year-long moratorium on relending that followed a big debt write-off
by the Paris Club of creditor countries.
Another bank official said there were "exciting opportunities" in
Myanmar for U.S. exporters of agricultural commodities, in the
transportation sector, and in infrastructure, including power, mining
and agricultural equipment.
The bank said it would be able to provide export-credit insurance, loan guarantees and direct loans for export sales.
It would also be able to offer short-term insurance for sovereign
transactions with repayment terms of 180 days or less, and up to 360
days for capital goods.
Medium-term insurance, loan guarantees and loans were also available for
sovereign transactions with terms up to five years, along with capital
guarantees to help U.S. exporters or their suppliers obtain funds to
produce or buy goods or services for export.
The bank would be able to provide long-term support for trade, provided
there were financing arrangements to eliminate or externalize country
risks, it said.
The first
bank official said the aim was to create a level playing field for U.S.
exporters trying to compete with foreign firms that were backed by
export credit agencies.
"There has been a lot of interest expressed on the part of a lot of
different U.S. companies who would like to be able to compete in the
marketplace," he said.
Asked
about continuing concerns over human rights in Myanmar, the first bank
official said the bank had taken into account the political and social
environment, but "in the narrow context ... of repayment risk."
A senior U.S. official said the United States continued to engage the
Myanmar government on events in the western Rakhine state, where the
United Nations and rights groups have said that at least 40 minority
Muslims were killed by security forces and majority Buddhist civilians
in mid-January.
The United
States said last month it was deeply disturbed by the reports, and the
U.S. official said Washington had reiterated a call for a "credible and
independent investigation".
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Stephen Powell)
Syria rebels seize most of Aleppo jail, free hundreds
February 6, 2014
Source: Yahoo News
Source: Yahoo News
Beirut (AFP) - Syrian rebels on
Thursday seized control of most of Aleppo's central prison, freeing
hundreds of detainees, an NGO said, prompting a denial from state media.
The Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights said members of the Islamic Front
coalition, dominated by the Ahrar al-Sham brigade and Al-Qaeda affiliate
Al-Nusra Front, mounted the assault.
"Ahrar
al-Sham and Al-Nusra Front have taken control of 80 percent of Aleppo
central prison and freed hundreds of prisoners," Observatory director
Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
But
state television carried a breaking news alert, saying soldiers and
security forces had "thwarted an attack against the prison by terrorist
groups."
Abdel Rahman said the
rebel assault started with a suicide attack carried out by an Al-Nusra
fighter at the prison's main entrance.
"Large numbers of rebels then followed by attacking the prison," he added.
Ahrar
al-Sham said opposition fighters had taken full control of the prison,
as did the Aleppo Media Centre, a citizen-journalist outlet.
But
Abdel Rahman said fighting was still ongoing at the complex, which
reportedly holds some 3,000 detainees, including Islamists, activists
and minors.
Rebels have launched attacks on the prisons for months, trying without success on several occasions to seize full control.
Conditions inside are said to be dire, with the Observatory reporting outbreaks of tuberculosis and other diseases.
The conditions prompted the government to announce in December the release of 366 prisoners for "humanitarian reasons".
How Iran is helping America in the Middle East
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.
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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