Ah, Friends and Neighbours!
Here is poor old Tony Blair hardly knowing where to turn in frustrated aggravation. The British, so adept at sophisticated diplomacy, with their ironic wit and sense of time and place are flummoxed by a face-off with a medievalist society mired in its passionately-godly relevance. A dispute over a contested waterway, an in-your-face offence of normally grave consequences, the taking of hostages representing the armed services of a country with whom one is not at war. Not yet. The purpose of the Iranian decision to make off with the 15 sailors and marines belonging to Britain's fleet likely still perplexes those who ordered the act.Iranians have an impassioned suspicion-and-hate relationship with much of the world. They lash out, complain and blame, and never seem to quite think out the consequences of their actions or their reactions. More fuel for their fiery rhetoric, their incendiary demands of exceptionality. Tens of thousands of soccer fans in Iran chant "Death to England", much as the university students of Grand Ayatollah Khomeini's time chanted "Death to the U.S." and "Death to the Great Satan" when they held the U.S. Embassy in Tehran hostage.
"Today, Britain is a failed, isolated power who acts as a middleman for America. If they continue their bullying they will pay a high price. This Iran is a great Islamic and powerful Iran who is standing against America, who is the master of Britain", boasted Ahmad Khatami of the Assembly of Experts during his sermon in Tehran. Iranians are so suffused with the sense of their omnipotence it is as though they have lost sight of the real world, replaced by their fantasy world of imminent Apocalypse. They are determined to inherit the lost world, to spread their dominion, to dominate, to Islamicize the world.
Well, surprisingly enough they have ample help from unlikely sources. But nothing, not regional or neighbourly or religious, or cultural, traditional underpinnings triumphs over economic advantage. And there are always those who grasp for economic advantage, leaving in the dust of history judgements of morality. European foreign ministers have failed to back Britain in a threat to freeze the $21-billion trade in exports to Tehran. The EU countries called for the abducted British sailors to be freed, but without penalty.
Iran's mostly state-owned industries rely on parts and equipment imported from Germany, two-thirds of which benefit from export credit guarantees from the German government. As of 2005, Germany extended $6.2-billion of credit to Iran. France has invested heavily in Iran, and does an impressive business with the country; its second-largest EU trading partner. European countries have invested $30-billion since 1996 in the country. Oh dear, just remembered: Britain is an important member of the European Union. France and Germany are Britain's staunch allies.
It's so good to have friends, to know who your friends are and to value them as they do you.
Labels: Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, April 01, 2007
<< Home