generalspeaking

Middle East Realities

Several years ago France's Foreign Minister spoke obliquely of the possibility of military intervention in Iran, should the ongoing trajectory of nuclear availment continue unabated. Bernard Kouchner is not a typical warmonger, as one of the co-founders of Medecins sans Frontieres he is a humanitarian by inclination, but he, like his boss, President Nicolas Sarkozy is also hard-headed enough to know clear and present danger when it presents itself.

At that time it was thought that the United States, under George W. Bush, might seek to use military means to attempt to destroy Iran's nuclear installations. Iran presents as the single most dangerous state in the world at the present time, next to North Korea and Pakistan for its dedication to nuclear arms presenting as a country whose administration is clearly unstable and whose threat to its neighbours is beyond alarming.

President Barack Obama has been intent on steering the United States on a different, less unilateral approach to world danger spots, and, stoicly reasonable person that he is, feels others might be reasonable too, if an exploratory hand of friendship is extended. Which is why Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad along with Iran's Supreme Leader, have been offered the opportunity to palaver.

Mr. Obama believes he is operating from a position of strength, a kind of noblesse oblige. Whereas his target audience, inclusive of the Arab states view his proffered largess as a palpable sign of of weakness, confusion, and impotence. Not quite the message he sought to convey, but one that has been interpreted in a predictable manner, common to bullies and tyrants the world over.

Now, along comes France, expressing its impatience with America's lack of urgency in attempting to come to grips with the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran. Pledging to forcefully plunge forward in insisting on more effective United Nations sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran. (The most useful sanctions, in fact, would be if all countries engaged with their business interests and their banks to withdraw from doing business in and with Iran.)

"We will make a last call to the Islamic Republic of Iran to respond to our offer of negotiation", announced the French Ambassador to the United Nations following the most recent UN Security Council meeting focusing on the intransigence of Tehran in refusing to meet the demands of the international community. Ambassador Gerard Araud is following the direction of his president who corrected President Obama who spoke of the need to establish a nuclear-free world.

"We live in the real world, not in a world of postures and communiques. And the real world expects us to take decisions", chided French President Sarkozy, echoed at the time by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, both insisting on the adoption of tougher sanctions against Iran. Since then, Iran has flicked its middle finger in dismissal at each and every ultimatum and offer emanating from the Security Council.

The country has belatedly and of necessity (through detection) declared the presence of yet another nuclear enrichment plant. And in defiance of the latest condemnation of its insistence on enriching uranium to dangerous weapons-grade levels without the oversight of the IAEA, has trilled shrilly its intent to construct yet an additional ten nuclear enrichment plants. Where the funding would be found for such an ambition is beside the point.

And while it has been busy on the home front, cackling with glee at the impotence of the Security Council, supported the while by China and Russia, it continues to train and to arm the two most outstanding fundamentalist Islamist militias in the Middle East against their common enmity, Israel. And the world remains complacent, not quite comprehending that the potential destruction of Israel is a mere first step.

Mired in the belief that all the incendiary rhetoric, the terrorist bombings and the anger and hatred emanating from Islamist groups has its genesis in the establishment of the State of Israel on 'Islamic soil'; blame by default rests heavily on the Jewish State. When the reality is that the Arab states, tyrannical, theistic, oil-driven, oppressive - and their Iranian counterpart need no outsider presence to explain their historical divisions and tribal hatreds.

Ferocious levels of suspicion and intransigent divisions between clans and tribes and artificial boundaries and historical and fanatical religious divides have simply been diverted by the presence of a collective antipathy toward the Jewish presence. Absent Israel, the return to slaughter between Sunni and Shia, the imperatives of the strong leaching on the weak will simply intensify.

This is the misfortune of the great religious divide within Islam, and the tribal legacy of a war-inspired Bedouin society.

Labels: Middle East, Technology, Terrorism, Traditions

posted by Pieface @ Friday, December 11, 2009