Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Unmitigated MidEast Joy for Iran

A handout picture released by the Iranian presidency shows the Islamic Republic's President Hassan Rouhani speaking during a press conference on November 24, 2013 in Tehran a day after a deal was reached on the country's nuclear programme. AFP PHOTO / HO / IRANIAN PRESIDENCY

"I am afraid Iran will give up something on [its nuclear program] to get something else from the big powers in terms of regional politics. And I'm worrying about giving Iran more space or a freer hand in the region. The government of Iran, month after month, has proven that it has an ugly agenda in the region, and in this regard no one in the region will sleep and assume things are going smoothly."
"The people of the region know Iranian policies and Iranian ambitions. And they know that Iran will interfere in the politics of many countries in the region."
Abdullah al-Askar, chairman, Shoura Council, Saudi Arabia

"The reaching of a deal between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the six international powers is seen as a major step for the region's security and stability levels. Iraq ... expresses its full support for this step and its readiness to back it, so as to ensure the completion of the remaining phases and to promote a climate of dialogue and peaceful solutions."
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Miliki

"Syria feels that reaching such an agreement is a sign that political solutions to crisis in the region are the best path for securing peace and stability, far from any threats of foreign intervention or use of force."
Syrian official: SANA

Russian President Vladimir Putin may have realized his diplomatic strength and triumph over a hesitant and stumbling U.S. President Barack Obama over forgiving Bashar al-Assad a chemical weapons assault conducted against his Sunni Syrian subjects in favour of kissing and making up rather than bombing and additional chaos, but having lulled Syria into the complacency of achieving some measure of respectability permitting entry to chemical weapons inspectors and surrendering the caches, Iran too has achieved its goal of defiance meriting trust.

That's one for the Kremlin and an even bigger one for Washington. Perhaps President Obama was just too distracted, sending his emissaries to Oman and whispering entreaties into Iranian diplomatic ears to give his full attention to his pledge that there are certain red lines that may not be ignored. Obviously, Iran's determined search for a nuclear solution to the annoyance of neighbours the theocracy has deadly contempt for did not signal a red line in the ever-shifting desert sand. And now the deed is done.

Sunni Arab leaders are decidedly put out, astounded, dismayed, disbelieving, reeling with shock from the betrayal of a powerful ally that has performed a sudden pivot away from their majoritarian camp to that of the terrorist-supporting enemy. Not that the Sunni countries don't, particularly Saudi Arabia, support and encourage their own terrorist jihadis to thrive and conduct mayhem wherever they may. It's a wicked brew that the devil enjoins his witches to stir up in the Middle East.

Iran has suddenly transitioned from global threat to respectable nuclear-restraints-abiding member of the world community, eager to please and smilingly biddable to American entreaties to kindly behave and all will be resolved to their credit. Simply incredible what a smile can accomplish that a scowl will not. Facial contortions can convey so much and a wily mind is capable of shielding even more from scrutiny. It's really not needed, though. Shielding from public scrutiny, that is.

For no sooner did the Iranian delegation achieve what they set out to gain, than they returned home to declare and re-declare that their intransigence remains undisturbed Their nuclear program and the intentions that accompany it will not be disturbed one iota. Where there is a will to prevail, anything is possible, probable and achievable. Nothing in actual fact was achieved. Parchin remains intact and unavailable to prying eyes.

The very site where the IAEA inspectors expressed doubt and alarm over its use on the restricted military site where satellite surveillance evidence exists that a wholesale, careful clean-up occurred, with the removal of a suspect chamber meant for detonation tests, and where traces of nuclear fuel were detected, is off limits and will remain off limits to inspection. All the trust placed by the Western negotiators in the goodwill and trustworthiness of the Iranian authorities can be summed up in the reflection that past performance is inclusive of subterranean, secret nuclear installations.

In this general atmosphere of lost trust in the relationship between the United States and its former allies in the Middle East, nuclear proliferation -- the halting of which President Obama clearly declared was the issue top of mind -- is set to proceed apace. With nuclear warheads already in the hands of a Sunni Muslim country, Pakistan is only too obligingly agreeable to share with those who can pay the freight -- and the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia most certainly can -- as many warheads as they wish to order.

And the Middle East Sunni world has turned on its own axis away from America and toward another light source, a more promising source of loyal friendship. Russia has been waiting on the sidelines for quite awhile; about three decades or more. And it isn't averse to championing both the Shia Alawite Syrian government and any other Arab governments, Sunni or Shia, that suddenly recognize in their old patron one that is more reliable and loyal than the U.S. has turned out to be.

Russia won't even mind winding long, affectionate arms of concern around the sole non-Muslim, non-Arab state in the region, for it has had a long relationship with Jews and with Israel, as well. Now that's a bit of a stretch, of course, considering that it has been Russian engineering that aided Iran in its nuclear construction to begin with. But the Middle East is one crazy, muddled place where the expected never happens and the unexpected always does.

Even if wary onlookers are now expecting it to implode into itself in a fury of disintegrating stability. The powder-keg has been armed and is preparing to light up the world with the glory of oncoming Armageddon. Brought to the theatre far from you by the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's Hidden Imam, finally revealing himself to ascend with his faithful to Paradise and leave all others to burn to the ashes of a world destroyed.

Interstellar space travel of a different dimension, to be sure.