Islamic Iran’s failure to rise above the constraints of “international legality”

Abu Dharr

Jumada' al-Akhirah 05, 1427 2006-07-01

Guest Editorial

by Abu Dharr (Guest Editorial, Crescent International Vol. 35, No. 5, Jumada' al-Akhirah, 1427)

Some clear truths are too serious for diplomatic dissemblers to acknowledge. One of these it the clear reality of the nature of theWashington regime's foreign policy. For at least half a century, American foreign policy has matched Israel's in its hostility to the self-determination of Muslims. The current regime of George W. Bush, centered on the Pentagon, is indulging in flights of fancy that are reminiscent of the Crusaders, expecting that they can attack Muslims in their own territories with impunity. The Crusades may now be history, but the lessons written in the blood of hundreds of thousands of people killed in about a dozen military campaigns lasting for over two centuries have not been forgotten.

The mistakes that have consumed the Bush regime will not be reversed or corrected by a Euro-American public opinion that is growing ever more wary of the increasing cost of this Anglo-American throwback to the Middle Ages in Iraq and Afghanistan. If the slayer-in-chief in the White House and his zionist advisers could have their way, American weapons of mass destruction proportions would by now be bombing Islamic Iran back to pre-Islamic Persian times, and teaching the ulama and founding fathers of the Islamic State not to enter into areas that are "Israeli security zones" in the Middle East. Bush and the pro-Israeli cabal around him are now suffering from a public relations catastrophe, with Bush's approval rating is hovering around 30 percent. His administration's domestic policies have also proven ineffective; fortunately for them, the Democrats are also emasculated by zionist influence and so unable to offer an alternative to the Republicans' warmongering. Official America now stands stripped of its liberal facades and cleansed of its cosmetic claims to represent freedom and democracy for all. The American establishment has been exposed as having no clothes; the final shreds of its dignity have been lost with the Bush regime's claims that the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is years away from becoming a nuclear power (even if it wanted to), somehow poses a security threat to the United States, with all its nuclear weapons and technology.

The official American bigotry against Islam and Muslim self-determination is now in step with the traditional enmity of zionists, who would sleep with Satan to attack Muslims. The Islamic Republic in Iran has tip-toed around the implications of its Islamic commitment, joining the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) crowd. The second-generation diplomats of the Islamic state, having less experience of the realities of international politics than the generation of the Islamic Revolution, have gone out of their way to satisfy "international legality." (This was a phrase often invoked by the late Yasser Arafat, whose example should be a warning to Muslims everywhere.) For those who are slow to learn, the Bush authority itself has shown its contempt for "international legality" in the nuclear context by signing a nuclear deal with India, which never signed up to the NPT. This should have been lesson enough for a Pakistan that was originally built on the Islamic aspirations of its people, prompting a return to its Islamic roots; but the powers-that-be in Pakistan appear satisfied to be a third-tier American colony that has to fall in line behind the US-India-Israel axis, while Kashmir is abandoned as a lost cause.

We can only imagine how the founding father of Islamic Iran would have felt, seeing that the Islamic State is no longer a voice that cuts through the artificial layers of "international legality" and speaks the truth regardless of how the Israelis in Tel Aviv and Washington might react. This is what should be said through all the channels available to Muslims everywhere: that Israel's nuclear arsenal is a threat to all the peoples who live within a radius of a thousand miles of the occupied Holy Lands. No Muslim can grow up normally knowing that crazed zionists are in possession of intercontinental nuclear missiles. If the US wants to speak with any credibility, as far as Muslims are concerned, its first words should be about a nuclear weapons free zone (NWFZ) in humanity's Holy Lands to begin with, and in all other lands and countries around the Holy Lands. The"international legality" generation in Iran should go on the moral offensive, standing firm on the position that the Islamic Republic will not accept an American double standard that holds the Islamic Republic to one measure and the zionist republic to another.

Meanwhile, back at the killing grounds, why shouldn't the defiant Muslims in occupied Palestine think of sending their home-made missiles into the storage houses where the war-criminals of Tel Aviv store their atomic weapons, hydrogen bombs, neutron bombs, tactical nukes, and other weapons of mass destruction? If the home-made missiles of the Palestinians can be extended to have a range of twenty to thirty miles and a reasonable accuracy rate, the zionist state is self-combustible. This is how almost two billion Muslims should be thinking when they hear and see that the Israelis and Americans have satellites, telescopes, binoculars and magnifying glasses poring over and into Iran, looking for what may be considered "nuclear targets." Perhaps Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hizbullah should consider stepping back for a moment from lobbing their missiles at tertiary targets such as thiszionist settlement or that; and find instead the Israeli military silos that contain the zionist state's weapons of mass destruction. We would then hear less about terrorism against civilian targets. Why is it that when the Americans talk about a nascent nuclear technology in the Islamic Republic of Iran, we hear them referring to Natanz, Arak, Isfahan, Bushehr, etc.; but when it comes to the Israeli arsenal of 200-400 nukes, we only hear the word Dimona?

The US has been dragged into the Israeli "logic" which says that there should be no negotiations with terrorists; that the only answer to terrorists is the use of overwhelming force. Well, American officials should step back for a moment and consider the consequences of this Israeli strategy of "overwhelming force", as used for the last half century, and ask themselves: has "terrorism" – or resistance -- gone up or come down? The answer is inescapable. The more the Israelis use terrorism, the greater the resistance is to them. The same will hold true for the US: the more the US resorts to force in pursuit of its interests, and to counter resistance to those interests, the greater will be the force used against it by those determined to resist being subordinated to the US dictat.

It appears that neither the Israelis nor the Americans are capable of learning that you cannot go into someone's country, occupy their land, expel thousands or millions of them, kill them at will, maintain a policy of colonization and imperialism, and then expect to be recognized as a force for good in the world, representing the spread of modern civilization for ordinary, benighted peoples everywhere. Or, if they are capable of seeing this fundamental truth, perhaps they simply cannot afford to acknowledge it.

And yet it appears, conversely, that many Muslims in the global Islamic movement are incapable of learning that you cannot negotiate a "fair deal" with plunderers, murderers, zionists and imperialists, because they have proved time and again that they cannot be trusted to keep their word, and regard any agreement only as a basis for the further pursuit of their own interests in one way or another; and so it is inevitable that negotiations and deals with them cannot do justice to the cause of Islam, and represent a fulfillment of our duty to Allah and His messenger (saw).

It is high time that committed Muslims in public office speak out about their rights and duties, and the facts that support their cause and their case, as publicly and confidently as their zionist and imperialist enemies make their false claims, lies and dissimulations about their selfish and malevolent interests, aims and strategies.