United States and Iran entered uncharted Territory

The latest round started with 

Trump's violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), 

otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal.

As revolutions go, two things the Iranian Revolution of 1979 has in common with its French counterpart two hundred years before, is its reign of terror.  The second is the attempt to spread their ideologies to neighbouring states. The years 1792 in response to revolutionary fervour, Paris experienced absolute mayhem, which saw thousands executed and imprisoned. Tehran fared no better executed Royalists and those suspected of collaborating with the old regime. The French declared war on almost all of Europe in an attempt to spread their ideas of Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite across its borders. Similarly, the Iranian Mullas are in proxy wars to impose Pan-Islamism and geopolitical instability in the region. 

The Revolution in Iran also sparked a religious Shia awakening that saw Ruhollah Khomeini come to power imposing on the nation Velayat-e faqih for a road map.  A deep-thinking philosopher and a cleric, who aspired to lay claim to Shiaism very soul.  In the process, he made Islamic fundamentalism a political force, which was to change Muslim Politics around the world. The Revolution also declared itself on the side of justice and equality harbouring some faint shades of Marxism.  Its message to reform the social structure, help the deprived and to reduce the widened economic divide under the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, that the Revolution toppled.  

The Iranian Ayatollahs rule did not correspond to Plato's idealist vision of Philosopher Kings: possessing a love of wisdom, to drive Republics towards utopia.  Instead, their teaching had religious fundamentalism in its veins. Without doubt, in the forty years since the Revolution Iran, had produced generations of scientists and technocrats capable of developing nuclear programs and sophisticated weapons systems and succeeded in a continuous increase in regional influence. This has come at a cost to its people and the region as a whole. Almost unlimited drive for internal suppression accompanying the support of aggressive fundamentalism, which embodied the regime's concept of Pan-Islamism. 

The regime inclination to use violence to spread their ideology hardly differentiates Iran from that of a rogue state.  From the Revolution early days, it encouraged students to storm the American Embassy in Tehran, held its US citizens hostage.  There was the London embassy siege, the Fatwa to murder Salman Rushdie.  Iran was also suspected in the bombing of French, and American Embassy compounds in Beirut in 1982 and 1983 respectively, which saw scores of American, French and Lebanese nationals killed.  So far, forty years on, the Revolution, Iranian people still struggle to find their identity, freedom and economic wellbeing.  A tortuous root in a jungle of violence, strict and monolithic emblems of a theocratic regime none more so contrived than the wearing of the Hijab.  The elaborate revolutionary visions not endorsed by intelligence and accountability but fuelled by continuous effort to destabilise the region.  

Then came a light of reason and hope.  One after effect the embassy sieges had, was the American administration had imposed economic sanctions against the Iranian administration.  For a time it crippled the economy.  Resilience to suffering learnt from the Iraq/Iran war had its limits, it eventually came to negotiate.  Nevertheless, during this lull, Iran had managed to embark on a nuclear programme that worked in its favour; a bargaining chip to ease the sanctions, the US Government's go-to foreign policy tool.  Eventually, in 2015 Iran and six world powers signed a nuclear deal named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).  A deal that placed strict limits on Iran's nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief and the release of $100 Billion of Iranian money held with American Banks.  The deal did not include any mention of Iran's subversive activities carried on regardless.  And the deal did not produce prosperity, as Mr Rouhani had promised Iranians, and Iran continued to test missiles and meddle abroad. 

The Trump administration, in its early days, cooked up a deal with Saudi Arabia, President Trump went on to describe the JCPOA "was the worst deal ever negotiated".  The US administration contempt for alliances, in true fashion, announced it was withdrawing from it.  New added sanctions were imposed only this time more stringent.  The sanctions, this time, were illegitimately imposed after breaking an international agreement when Iran was still complying with the deal.  The European signatories laboured with it trying to keep it on life support.  But, in keeping with Iran customary aggressive approach, President Ruhani issued an ultimatum to the European powers, almost chocked the agreement to death.  His country would no longer comply with parts of the deal and later threatened to walk away from it.  Well, so much for Hope, Light and Reason, since then US and Iran relations took a nosedive.

The United States is protecting American interest against Iran using Israel as a tool.  

Round table discussions were replaced by sabre-rattling, bluff and counter bluff, persistent threats met with counter threats.  All of this fell into the lap of Israel, already on the warpath, and had scorned at the Obama administration to go ahead with the JCPOA deal.  Israel and the US were now on the same platform hand in glove setting the agenda for the entire Middle East. Sunni, Saudi Arabia joined in this heated verbal fray in an outward show of solidarity against Shia Iran, but ominous signs were on the horizon building up for a confrontation.  On the one hand Saudi v Iran on matters of theological orthodoxies, America v Iran for greater influence on the region and Israel willing to attack Iran, drawing on their old and tired existential arguments.  Taken together, creates an epicentre for conflict, and an ideal scenario to fuel an arms race.  Iran now looks poised to resume its slow but steady march towards the bomb and relentless drive en route to empire building.  That is if the sanctions don't push it over the edge beforehand.

Renewed sanctions on Iran and the threat to punish anyone who trades with it have wrecked what is left of the JCPOA agreement, has effectively cut off Iran from the global economy.  The idea was "to bring Iran to its knees" but unfortunately the American administration use of blunt tools such as sanctions to cripple the economy is hurting Iran's population.  The Mullas chauffeured in BMW's, making millions on contracts and creating monopolies on goods by withdrawing subsidies on others. The unabashed corruption of the elite continuous unabated. 

The young no longer have the revolutionary zeal, which welcomed Khomeini on arrival to Iran from exile in 1979.  Instead, after forty years, they are suppressed and coerced into complying to imposed arbitrary social laws. Old dogmatic clerics set antiquated ideas on diverse, well educated young people using the revolutionary guards as their main tool to keep order.  In true Khomeini fashion, the Shia Mullas preach martyrdom and sacrifice for the cause.  In keeping with an earlier time, when during the Iran/Iraq war Khomeini sent thousands of children to the front line as waves of human shields.  While the sanctions continue to miss their targets, inflation is on the rise underscored by a depreciating Iranian Rial, which guarantees a downhill slide in the standard of living. The effects were demonstrated in the economic crisis of November 2019; triggered the greatest existential crisis in the regime's 40-year history.  Protesters took to the streets in Tehran and other major cities calling for regime change.  The government resorted to brute force, killed at least 1500 protesters and arrested thousands of others.

Setting the Agenda for Iran as well as for the entire region.
A pretence of guaranteeing regional stability.

Turning to current issues of state, a cold war is heating up, it all depends on foresing what the end game is.  It is, however, doubtful whether both the US and Israel have an end game built in its strategic security architecture for the region.  The increased tension in the Gulf bound to escalate into a major conflict. Exemplified in part by the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and its maximum pressure policy. The arms build-up thus far, by politically impotent, Saudi Arabia, increased activities by US naval forces in the Gulf waters, the downing of US drones and blowing up tankers by the Iranians and the killing of Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,  have added to the likely hood of military confrontation.  A situation is not too dissimilar to the arms race pre-1914, which eventually unleashed a war with devastating consequences. None of the actors wanted war, but all stumbled into one.  The allied two countries; Germany and Austria misinterpreted words on a diplomatic document.  So could US and Israel.  Faced with conflicting messages emanating from Trump's administration that is not too difficult; for chauvinist, President Trump, war could be only a tweet away. To borrow from philosopher Georg Hegel, "We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

New ideas coming through from the Trump administration, setting up the Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA), along the lines of NATO wouldn't do it.  An alliance, that excludes Shia Iran, but made up of Sunni Muslim countries, to add Israel would antagonise Iran further, can only prolong the simmering regional conflict. Rather than serving as a bulwark against Iranian aggression, it can aggravate it further. 

Iran, the United States, including Israel, is faced with two options.  To avoid a showdown, let Iran simmer under the pressure of sanctions although that would leave its population to suffer continued deprivations. Weighing up the odds in favour for the population either to rise up en masse to demand regime change.  Or, faced with such possible implosion, and on the edge of losing control, the regime would go all out with their nuclear programme crossing the strategic red line.  In the process it threatens the simmering status quo, putting Israel existential reality on alert. A risky situation; to build reactors can be quicker than sanctions begins to bite.  With such an imminent threat, the US and Israel would then react, a possible overreaction,  throwing away any chance at diplomacy.  Even though both the US and Israel have developed precision weapons, the possible loss of life and carnage, in war is inevitable. 

The other option is an attempt at dialogue.  Tragically, this logic is no longer fashionable in this part of the world.  However, time to draw a new Middle Eastern security architecture to ameliorate the conflicting concerns.  To devise a system that can set the agenda and take into account the genuine interests of the countries of the entire region.  For the United States to drop its demand for regime change, ease the sanctions to formulate a peace accord matrix.   For Iran to relinquish its seemingly inexorable quest for nuclear armament join the world order of international relations and rejuvenate its moribund economy. An agreement for the cessation of terror activities, to terminate religious rivalries.  Adoption of an all-encompassing Arab peace initiative to include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A challenging and ambitious proposal indeed, but if the geopolitical countries genuinely want peace, it can work. 

The unparalleled power of American might 

President Trump made it 
subservient to the financial clout of its Middle Eastern allies.

T

Iran, The Power in The Making.

Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq Al-Kindi (ca. 800–870 CE) a well-known ancient Iraqi philosopher; a member of the Arab tribe of Kinda, in his address to members of the caliphate family, argued for the first cause of ‘oneness’.  He asserted that “bringing something to be” means imposing unity of a particular kind.  Here we are over 1200 years later the Arab world possibly still searching for this elusive “oneness”.  Cyrus the Great in 550 BC of old Persia, Islam and much-admired wisdom of the Ottomans failed to bring about such a union amongst the Arabs. Considering its economic seismic waves, the Iranian accord with the US could stretch as far as Turkey to include Iraq possibly and finally provide the elusive platform.  As well as of immense benefit to the smaller emerging states such as Dubai and Kuwait if wise enough to adopt a secularist approach, if abstaining from religious sectarianism, the presented opportunities would be no illusions.

So what gives now?  What holds for the future of the region?  This article attempts at an analysis of such crossroads and is embroidered with hope, to sustain reason over force and logic over irrationality.  Above all, hand over the privilege to tolerance to be the main agent.

  

While we wait for Iranian ‘democracy’ to determine whether to approve the historical accord reached while US Congress digests what is after all, to Iran, this deal would be a milestone achievement.  Although Iranian negotiators invested twelve years in this venture, as with all Arab and most Asiatic countries faced with potential rejection, ‘saving face’ is an essential provision to entail such a contingency.  The avoiding embarrassment of failure has obliged it to wait for US Congress to ratify the treaty and take the lead so to speak before the Iranian Parliament voices its endorsement.  Apparently, Congress has 60 days to review the nuclear agreement with Iran, struck in Vienna on July 14, and it will be at least 90 days before the United Nations resolution officially takes effect.  In the meantime, Iran will freeze all activities in the creation of nuclear fuels but acknowledges the continuation of research and development.  For now the agreement, that lifts the sanctions on Iran, is centring on the fundamental issue; Iran not to produce weapons-grade plutonium.  Although working within the confines of mistrust on both sides, all parties still found common ground to grant extensive concessions finally. To help it pass through severe congress restrictions on the amount of nuclear fuel production were placed on Iran for the next 15 years but left with enough capabilities to produce an Atom bomb within a year as “breakout time”, should it withdraw from the agreement.

Iran quest for superpower technology means the construction of nuclear energy with nuclear power capability, becoming only second to Pakistan in the Islamic world and first in the Islamic Middle East.  Ever since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the toppling of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with a radical theocratic regime under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran harboured an ambition to rekindle the once Great (Persian) Nation status.   The making of nuclear fuel, centrifuges, reactors, the Iraq war and its radical revolutionary council are all driven to achieve that aim.  Lifting of sanctions and the release of up to, (depending on which reports to believe), $100 billion will help in that endeavour. It will undoubtedly stand to favour the ironing out regional dislocating and polarising policies principally with Saudi Arabia, currently, while it also actively stretches its power of influence.

Iran has oil reserves of 150 billion barrels making it the fourth largest in the world, a spike in 1974 at 6 million barrels per day and gas reserves second in the world of about 1,046 trillion cubic feet (29.6 trillion cubic metres) or about 15.8% of world's total reserves.  As of 2011, some 66 Iranian industrial companies are carrying out projects in 27 countries. Iran has exported over $20 billion worth of technical and engineering services over 2001-2011. Its industrial portfolio extends from retail parks to air conditions, cement and construction, motor vehicles to electronics and computers.  While Saudi Arabia has oil based economy, on the primarily uses large foreign labour force.  With its anachronistic feudal fealty system, it is hard pressed to meet the challenge of modern technology and to lessen its dependence on oil.

Saudi Arabia’ collaboration with America in 2003 to destroy Sunni and authoritarian regime Saddam’s Iraq, had effectively, intentionally or otherwise, helped to eliminate, at the time, it's only political ally, together could have shared same identical sect religious bridges.  Backed with technological know-how and intellectual and relatively advanced economic presence Iraq, presupposing an ideal situation, would have presented a suitable partner coming packaged entirely in ingredients for regional hegemony.   Unfortunately, though, for now at least, Iraq's original position is decades into the future.

A substitute is a dictatorial regime Sisi’s Egypt: in my opinion a poor choice.  An economy highly dependent on foreign aid accompanied with monthly deficits amounts to US$4 billion a quarter; will be a hefty joining fee to be paid in more ways than one. The country’s dependence on aid from America in the shape of cash and military hardware, from Qatar in the form of fuel donations and Saudi government subsidies, and politically remains highly unstable. It also means a possible tacit responsibility of mostly undeveloped and underdeveloped country with a mass population of 90 million mouths to feed and a GDP per capita US$1576 contrasts boldly with Iraq’s US$2439 even in the aftermath of two decades of social turmoil, wars and sanctions. Coming a close second to Egypt is the current rapprochement with Muslim Brotherhood; not long ago the Saudis declared it a terrorist organisation and discussions with Hamas, a rudderless group without any clear vision.

That said, Saudi Arabia need not feel susceptible to Political, religious or economic pressure.  The Regional assumed hegemonic position it now perceives need not superseded by the likely rise in Iran’s status.  It is understandable the wealthy and powerful Saudi family find it difficult to accept their country is moving out of political sunshine into the shadows of a new power.   Conversely, a schismatic religious outlook of one religion should not be enough cause for a bifurcated ideological theology nor should it be enough reason for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to lead a regional isolationist political policy.  Instead, its modus operandi, bearing in mind its very high income (Aramco, estimated worth $5 trillion), relative to its small population, is disproportionate which by this measure still qualifies as a mini-state; a new attempt at reform is long overdue. Barely a century old with minimum creative or innovative wealth, it is still minuscule. Its cooperation with Iran, an investment in its future, could bring about substantial benefits. An example is Turkey in 1920’s, holders of the Caliphate at the time, under Kemalist directions, secularised its state policies and joined the ‘modern’ world.  From a historical perspective, both Iran and Saudi Arabia can cut through the current religious rivalries and take heart from an ideological intake of WWII when the dichotomy of Capitalism and Communism enjoined to defeat Fascism.  It is old hat to steadfastly hold and obstinately cling towards two types of worship of one faith.  For the time being, Saudi Arabia has more in common with Israel than with Iran, a Muslin State.

Israel’s Netanyahu is obviously not happy with the deal.   Iran’s new promotion most likely provides the much-needed balance of power for the region which for decades enjoyed particular prominence by the military might of Israel- an unwelcome hegemonic Jewish state in the area.  Now with most of Arab Middle East in disarray, Israel’s power has never been greater. The fear of undermining its security is one reason it is reluctant to give up this strategic paramountcy over the area but has, before the agreement and after, employed bluff and counter- bluff.  This containment policy is akin to Cold War belligerence that kept communist ideals and the western powers at bay; preoccupied in scepticism and doubt throughout the post-war period to finally ending in 1989 with the disintegration of USSR.  Anticipating an American approval to the nuclear treaty and barring any Saudi aggressive posturing to the deal, no better time for Israel’s to enjoy its political isolation.

All the more reason for small neighbouring countries such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi and even further afield Lebanon to seek closer economic integration with Iran.  A solidifying cohesion may yet replicate The 'Golden Age'.  Iran has a population of 80 million and the others a fraction of that; it is evident who will benefit the most. On the whole, this deal can, with some measure of political arguments, prove highly beneficial to the entire Middle East including Turkey. Besides population, Iran has the resources and credentials of culture, history and realistic technological ambition that can immeasurably be of benefit to the region.  Moreover, with reason instead of force, they can efficiently and politically encircle Israel to bring pressure to bear on the plight of the Palestinians and their question.

Above all Islamic culture rather than their religion should be the formative threads that go into texturizing the matrix of regional unity. Either grab the opportunity now or to let an available utopian revolutionary aspiration become a symbol of a sinking foundation that will once again, lie where others before it: buried in the local baron deserts, or ‘run into the sands’ of Arabia.

Zionism and the concept of Jewishness

This article is not so much an argument for or against but presents an insight to shed some light on the historical origin and consequent routes of Zionism and its effect on the Arabs; in particular of course on the Palestinian people.  This article tries to go somewhere to explain the current volatile and unfortunate situation; the plight of the Palestinians and reasons for both sides to hold to some impossibly entrenched and polarised positions.


The changing concepts and aims of Zionism, initially a nationalist movement, has markedly undermined Palestinian Rights, as the indigenous people; ignited an anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish antagonism; irritating possibilities towards bi-national integrative solutions for peaceful existence between Palestinians and Israelis.  The conditional intransigent position: Israeli government insistence for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a ‘Jewish state’ actually ensnares the presupposition of Palestinian political autonomy, as non-Jews, to surrender their rights to the State giving it the right to appropriate their land as public (Israel) property. That and policies denying the right of return discounts any possibility for national self-determination or genuine discussions for peaceful coexistence. 

Nationalism in the modern world was the brainchild of the French Revolution progressed from a general consciousness of people by conquering suppression to find glory, freedom and equality.  I should add the Diaspora did not prevent the Jewish people from being a nation; they believe, that was their God’s given rights as his chosen people.   The principle that created it never ceased enabling Zionism later to combine the identity of Nationality with the principle of Race.  That essential feature gave the Jews, as the Jewish nation, its rights and legitimacy to a right of a Nation that in the words of I.L. Peretz in 1908: “Its unique culture rather than its patrolled borders guarantees a nation its independent existence”.

The genesis of Zionism originated by an increasing number of pogroms taking place in Russia and Poland where heavy concentrations of the Jewish population has existed for several centuries.  Towards the 1850’s and 1860’s following the Crimean War the Ottoman Empire was beginning to crumble giving rise to rebellions in the Balkans and a wave of insurgencies elsewhere in its Empire.  The fallout precipitated in an intolerant and corrupt Turkish rule coupled with extreme cruelty towards its colonised people.  It also meant Turkish absentee landlords were engaged in selling their locally farmed land in Palestine to the likes of Jewish financiers such as the wealthy Rothschild’s family and others.  It was also with Rothschild’s’  help that Benjamin Disraeli, Conservative British Prime Minister, bought for Britain interest in the Suez Canal, a favour, I argue, that would later have important implications towards the Balfour declaration of 1917 promising a Jewish homeland, which reads:

“His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, (my Italics) or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

It is arguably other than fulfilling a biblical prophecy the declaration coming during the war months of the 1914-1918 war, was a religious document albeit a cunning political move by imperialist Britain.  Such a secret resolution helped to encourage the Russian Jews that an “Allied victory as an essential element in Jewish national aspirations”.  Justifying such measures, in effect had future detrimental implications to the British, Russian, Ottoman, as well as the Austro-Hungarian Empires, committed suicide by fermenting nationalism as a form of political warfare against their opponent.  London and Paris encouraged Arab and Jewish separatists to rise against Ottoman rule.  The Zionist flow continued when Germany was also supporting German Zionists to form a League of Oppressed Nations to free Russian Jews and together started the influx of Jews from Europe into Palestine. 

The father of modern political Zionism as a national movement and in effect the founder of the State of Israel, Theodor Herzl, had ideas for a Jewish national homeland as part of European Jewish emancipatory process. As early as the 1920’s there was an idea of bi-nationalism into the discussion of Zionism and assimilation of Jews but many condemned such ideas as anti-Zionist, and others saw this threat to Jewish settlements.  It also transpired that Zionism can be contradictory in a sense that Jewishness is not an open identity but its values is tied up in its religion and is exclusive.  Being Jewish is not the same as being a European hence even in Europe Jews remained separate and ghettoised.  Although Zionism as a movement that mobilised the Jews as a people, that produced a distinctive Jewish politics, it failed to assimilate the indigenous Palestinian population. Due to increasing violence there was a general awareness that a genuine and just reconciliation was impossible but in fact, more and more oppression led many to rethink Zionism.  In the face of Palestinian nationalism, some sceptics went so far to see the advance of the bi-national agenda during the 1940’s as the Trojan horse for continued Jewish immigration. Instead, it adopted colonialism and embraced anti-Semitic values and whose very freedom meant the suppression of another race.  Evacuation of Palestinians from Haifa and Tiberias was carried out with careful preparation, and the programme of transfer was according to how Zionist leaders perceived it.  

In 1948 the state of Israel was created to house the Jewish Nation as a “Jewish State” and there   The stress on the ‘Jewish State’ meant denying the rights of the Palestinians their identity and their cultural heritage.  Although the Arabs were given full but conditional Israeli citizenship, with the lack of Jewish identity, they were denied full Israeli constitutional rights, so they automatically became second class citizens fearing the loss of their Arab entity.  At the same time, the definition of Israel as a ‘Jewish State’ by implication transformed the concepts of bi-nationalism to colonisation and occupation.  It was becoming clear that to recognise Palestinian nationalism was contradictory to Jewish collective identity.  In the event ‘peace’ did not mean the fulfilment of Palestinian rights or a vision of equal co-existence.  It is rather an expression of the will of separation.  In other words, ‘peace’ for the Israelis is articulated as the desire to get rid of the Palestinians in order.  The claim of a Jewish State is to maintain a homogeneous Jewish state and to restore Israel’s self-image as an innocent, peace-seeking Western community.  Such an image, incidentally, they believe came to be damaged by the resistance; the genesis to setting the deep root to the problems we see today.

One of the biggest problems is distinguishing whether being an Israeli identifies with Nationality or with Religion. 


This became blurred and for a time obliterated the Palestinian identity. Moreover, since Jewish identity originates in religion real emancipation of the Jews does not allow for integration.  Assimilation would mean abandoning their Jewish identity hence true freedom must only be political processed by exclusion. In essence, the only time a Jew can be universalist is when he ceases to be a Jew. As a result defending Zionism was imagined as being attacked for being a Jew so they defend from a Jewish standpoint mobilised as an occupying force that continues to be today in its defence of Jewish-Israeli entity

The Beginning of the End of Iraq?

This article of the same title is in response to both the new situation we find in the aftermath of ISIS taking over large swathes of territories in Northern Iraq including Mosul and in response to the article here referenced by Michael J. Totten.

http://worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/beginning-end-iraq?utm_source=World+Affairs+Newsletter&utm_campaign=f0bd018217-June_13_2014_Blogs_Totten_Motyl_Chang&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f83b38c5c7-f0bd018217-294621961#comment-1435084405

The best article yet for assessing what is happening in Iraq and how it got into the mess it finds itself.  "Arab governments complain when we intervene, and they complain when we don't intervene. They complain no matter what".  How true! That is typical for blaming the other for the mess they create.  If it is not left to “inshallah” but for America to solve.  When America tries and fails, it is blamed for doing the wrong on purpose.  This negativity is what predominantly ails the backbone of Arabism today.  

Below is a bottom-up perspective of a failed country dating back from its inception.  A state that is inorganically drawn up by Sykes/Picot with mainly straight lines and some say shoving of elbows for the squiggly bits to give the drawing some authenticity.  As President Obama says “this is a wake-up call” so it may also be break-up call for “Inshallah” a better future may lie ahead.  As in the Balkans breakup is not so hard to do!

In my opinion, the title of Totten's article is spot on and quite frankly exactly what my family predicted following the July 1958 revolution which also marked out our final exit from the country we love.  This indictment on a country that never looked after its own so much so that an Iraqi citizenship was discredited by almost its entire population equally so by most of the world.  Iraqi Nationality became a heavy burden engrossed in oppression, coercion, and subversion.  Causes for the diaspora of the people of this once immensely wealthy country rarely attributed to economic hardship or religious dissension but its population left in droves to escape the cruel nature of its rulers.  No wonder the Iraqi population abandoned this once beautiful country where culture abounded but now finds itself intellectually bankrupted and ravished by all manner of atrocities.  Indeed, in tune with the colour of new flags, it is a Black period for all the freedom loving and peaceful people of Iraq of whatever religious persuasion.  It is a hefty price for a once proud nation to dishevel among its ruined societies and where the value of life is lost in political quagmire becoming the standard debris of religious sectarianism.

The position today is that ISIS proliferation in Iraq is the making of the Iraq regime by Maliki’s own religiously aggressive and increasingly divisive government.  Their insistence against inviting the Sunni representative into the government weighed heavily on Sunni Leadership.  Besides, Maliki also imprisoned a number of Sunni front liners and tried some in absentia on trumped up charges accusing them of subversive activities rather than inviting them to join his government as coalition partners.    Despite all the bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere for the last ten years or so he failed to get the message.  Winning a democracy fair and square, as he has done, is not enough when considering the deep religious fissures that exist among an already severely stratified society. Viewed from a historical point of view it is evidently right to bathe in euphoria and seize the Shia moment after centuries of Sunni domination. However, it is not the time to indulge in browbeating the opposition or abnegating rational judicial Prime Ministerial duties.  Instead, it is time for political compromises that will undoubtedly carry mileage towards the road of Nation building.  It is imperative to reconcile religious belief of all sections of Iraqi society with the secular government for effective parliamentary, sourced from bicameral balancing, for an active State to take hold.

Helped by the porous borders between Iraq and Syria it did not take much effort, together   To hold the advance of ISIS in Syria means America inevitable siding with the Shia and by implication with Assad’s regime and Iran.  We could yet see American airstrikes helped by Iranian and Iraqi forces sharing the same cause.  For now, there is no other option it seems.  Over to the other side, of course, with such infiltration into Iraq by possible Saudi-backed insurgencies is increasingly proving to be an effective force for hitting and hurting Iran’s military and economic underbelly.  At the same time if it finds success in detaching the infidel Farsi Nation it would succeed in actually reducing if not erasing any Iranian significance over the Arabs; virtually fraying its sphere of influence. With Iran’s current International political isolation over its highly covert Uranium enrichment programme, gaining support from the West will be in short supply for certain.  On the other hand, it becomes inconceivable for a religiously motivated Saudi Arabia to become the hegemonic power in the region.  Its impartiality and totalitarian regime, although for now blanketed, it nevertheless when news does come out, albeit in trinkets, speaks volumes.  Isolation at this point is not an option for Iran. Effectively it will need to sleep with the devil to reassert its authority and decouple the moderate Iraqi Sunni factions from their loose ties with Saudi Wahabism.  In the meantime whatever America decides will eventually be wrong so the devil if you do and the devil if you don’t. With arguably Wahhabi Saudi finance, for ISIS to spill over from the swathes of territories they hold in Syria. The International options that can stem this flow, however, are limited.

Arab Nationalism

“Don’t fear the tears from our maternal eyes.

Away from us grief-making cowards!

When you take up arms we must triumph;

It is for Kings to shed tears.

We gave you life;

Warriors, that life is no longer yours;

All your days belong to the Motherland,

She is your mother before us”

 This extract from Le Chant du depart (The Song of Departure) c. 1794 after the call of Levee en Mass in Revolutionary France.

Arab Nationalism is dichotomies of religious, ideological and geopolitical forces that could have come together towards the end of the First World War but instead it imploded by its internal struggle.  Such considerations added to selfish interests and totally bounded by lack of coherence and near total absence of common national interest that today still cries out for an Arab motherland.  Far from a heartfelt call to French solidarity at nation building, the result of The Arab Revolt of 1917 saw a furthering degeneration of the Arab cause towards an intended pan-Arabian nationalistic unity.   By contrast, the effect fastened itself to one of greater dominance; British and French colonialists’ forces in the shape of a Mandatory power (held in trust with curtailed sovereignty),  granted to them at The Treaty of Versailles in 1919.  It was to be the new chapter of the Middle East subaltern state but subsequently caused one of the severest damage to territorial and human loss the region would experience for many years and does so to this day.  The damage further increased after WWII by planting Israel, a Zionist State, marginalising the Palestinians to build homes for the displaced European Jews.  The revolt, in the meantime, proved a watershed in Arabian political thinking that went to disengage the Arabs from Ottoman hegemony that had until then chained them for almost 500 years in exchange to one sourced from Imperialist forces – Imperial Britain and France.

Having encouraged the formation of the Arab League in 1944-45 the hope was this would serve in keeping the Arab states together and also to act as a vehicle for Arab cooperation to contain the influence of outside powers such as American and Russian forces as much as from potentially predatory neighbours.  

 For many young Arabs, this post-war age promised to be a new ‘national age’.  “The false dawn of freedom from Ottoman power after 1918 – which had led instead to Britain’s regional overrule – might, at last, give way to the glorious morning of full Arab nationhood.”   Having secured a political friendship with the Hashimite kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan and securing the rights to the oil that came with Iraq and Persia, the British were able to lever their way over the Egyptian people. At the time comprising more than a third of Middle East population,  further validating, in their view, their hold on the Middle East. 

The Arab revolt in 1917 was not only to remove the Ottoman yoke of domination over the Arabs but also to help the British forces in their continued break-up of the remaining remnants of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire. At the time, the Ottoman Empire allied itself with Germany as part of the Central Powers declaring a ‘Jihad’ (Holy War) against Britain, France and Russia.   Despite the victory, Britain reneged on its promise for Nationalist and Independent Arabia.  The colonialist insisted that Arabia was not only unfit for self-government but went on a carving spree like the Sykes-Picot agreement, dividing Arabia at will but with an additional conciliatory promise of British assistance against internal revolt and external attack.  In the event, it bestowed kingdoms to those most cooperative and least inflexible.  Those kingdoms were to no other than satisfying the narcissist greed of the Hashimite tribe.  In the process, it was the Saudi Monarch who seized the holy places of Mecca and Medina from their Hashemite guardians and turned Hashemite Hejaz into a province of what became Saudi Arabia.  As a consequence there developed a rivalry between Egypt, the Hashemites and the Saudis which focused on Syria; a fertile ground even then for religious and regional conflict and prone to outside influences.  Since then there has been a separation of powers void of a centralised or dominating structure resulted in an ever-widening schism among the Arab nation; increasingly individualistic and egotistical in ideology.   

Soon after Egypt asserted its position as first place among the Arab states it suffered a shock defeat in 1948 Arab – Israeli conflict consequently led to the overthrow of its King Farouk in 1952.  The revolution that ensued brought with it the Republic of Egypt with young nationalistic officer Gamal Abdel Nasser shortly after that succeeding as its President.   The defeat was also a crushing humiliation but had an added effect to galvanise Pan-Arab sentiments provoking a nationalistic cause in the leading Arab states.  The struggle with the British was becoming increasingly violent none more so than the nationalising of the Suez Canal by Nasser in 1956.  The canal was constructed in 1859 and was jointly owned by the French and British. The British had purchased its share from Muhammad Sa'id Pasha, son of Mohamed Ali Pasha, ruler of Egypt under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire.  The purchase had an added value of saving Egypt’s economy from going bankrupt.  With the help of the Americans, by exerting pressure on the British pound sterling, the British ended its short but at the time destructive foray into Egypt.  To exert Egypt influence on the Arab world, Nasser mobilised his nationalistic ideas for Pan-Arabism succeeding in Uniting Egypt and Syria under the banner of United Arab Republic but unfortunately that was short lived.  That, in fact, was the nearest any Arab nation came to unite with another.

Arab countries gained independence separately, with varying anachronistic timing.  Such was the 

Disjointed social and geopolitical nature of the Middle East.  Reflecting on the whole region including Egypt and the Arabic-speaking North African countries one wonders whether there could ever be a social cohesion to an Arabised nation. To put it more simply at times it seems there is so much divergence in Arab culture and ideology that even Islam seems unable to bridge those differences. Although this, however, may be hemmed in the difficulty of defining an ‘Arab’, regional majority religions, nevertheless, fails to prove a unifying force but ultimately aimless and helpless in cohering what an otherwise a typical Semitic race is.  One sometimes wonders whether heritage, history or language can ever be the wellspring of weighted ideas to influence Arab ideological unity.  It points to the contrary, however, that divisional religious ideology with Tribal ethno-heritage background is instead igniting the catalyst; fuelling the diversity and sectarian violence we see today in the Middle East. Moreover, what is happening in Syria and elsewhere is evidence that Arab national identity is hollow; a clear evidence, therefore, that Arab Nationalism and civilisation has finally been exhausted.  Generally speaking Arab society, chiefly its leadership is proving effortless and incapable to exercise its rational stance to override Religion. We are, however, left with a conundrum to draw a typology of what is an Arab because many severely entrenched in the confusion of Islamic and Tribal nationalism for Arabism and holistic approach to nationalism remains totally defunct of a mother country.

What is next for Egypt?

An edited version of this article was first published by me on my Facebook page on the 15^th of August, 2013 it has now been updated.  As with all items dealing with current affairs, with a rapid turn of events, they become outdated very quickly.  Anyway, here it is for the record.  It is in response to an article “Is Obama An Enabler of Tyranny in Egypt?” by Jacob Heilbrunn

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacob-heilbrunn/obamas-coldblooded-egypt-policy-8889

So far Jacob Heilbrunn, in my view, as this article shows, comes closest to understanding the situation in the Middle East. American foreign policy fronted by President Obama promised to be the arbiter between rival interests to ensure that Democratic policies take hold in that part of the world. This idea looks more in the distant now than it has ever been; a fictional notion and at best rhetorical one.  In Egypt as in Iraq America encouraged the institution of democracy and as in Iraq relinquished it the moment they came against difficulties.  We find instead only violence and sectarianism taking hold with increasing speed inflicted throughout the region with, very probably, more to come.  In the meantime America on the sidelines murmuring a return to the conference table rather than its standard carrot and stick foreign policy which is in desperate need now more than ever.  President Obama's strongest condemnation today “force was not the way to resolve political differences”.  Wow, you don’t say! This day was after 14^th of August 2013, a day of violence when some claim about 2000 people killed.

We see evidence of the old shell of the Egyptian state which has, for many years, provided a framework for working political despotism.  A working framework that continued but changed its colours into a democratically elected government that was to be an example of policy reforms for much of the Middle East but has since become abused. Egypt, the sick man of the Near East, is witnessing its power as well as its culture assaulted by religious zealots its voting public denied their democratic rights.  The country is disintegrating into anarchy while the landmark squares of Cairo are burning; lighting up the differences and intolerances that seem so irredeemable for so many.  In the face of, and in common with, an endemic lack of compromise in the Middle East particularly when religion has much to influence; we see in Egypt exposing, without mercy, visible religious vindictiveness on all those who do not wish to share in all of its doctrines.  For now Islam's consideration of tolerance and obedience within its ideology must be the traction that can or should bring compromises from all sides to consider the duality of peace and reason.

America and the west and their allies need to refrain from the Machiavellian game that is inherent in occidental diplomacy.  They must not abandon Egypt at this hour of need but try to break this lock jam by inviting both Saudi Arabia and Iran to a conference table.  As leaders of the Sunni and Shia sects respectively, in a tripartite discussion encouraging both to engage in compromising dialogue to show the human side of the Islamic religion to bring peace to the region.  By spearheading an Arab conference and taking a grip on the situation, America has a chance to show its leadership qualities.  America must be the nexus between the two sides, if on nothing else but, on humanitarian grounds to end this bloodshed and political turmoil.  By using its irreligious impartial statehood, it must bring together the protagonists or their Arch-rival superiors to the negotiating table, to quell this spiral of escalating violence.  With a status of a superpower, with its eye on the local ideological rivalry, it is incumbent upon America as well as to its interest to try its utmost to bring peace to the region and its suffering people. 

The present tragedy in Egypt will not last as it is but indeed, it will get worse.  With such weaknesses exposed by the State, it has become fertile ground for the Al-Qaeda to infiltrate with all its fire power.  Al –Qaeda will undermine any effort for democracy or reconciliation and indeed the Muslim Brotherhood provides soft ground for their cause.  Egypt will be of strategic importance for Al-Qaida's  geopolitical interest.  If it cannot claim it by democratic means through a proxy party, it is quite likely to claim it through subversion and violence.  The ease of which it has proved it can penetrate a confused or a politically disorientated Arab country thus far, Egypt does not hold for it any impossible barriers.  America you must act now before it is too late.