Newspapers in Sri Lanka and practically every other country in the world can now be expected to carry every day news items, articles etc stating that Iran had threatened to wipe out Israel from the map. It is intended to make people believe that Iran has a genocidal program against Israel. That’s a lie. What happened was that some years ago the Iranian President made a statement that Israel would be wiped off the map. There could have been a mistranslation leading to the impression that he was threatening mass genocide against the Israeli people. A clarification was therefore issued by the Iranian authorities, to the effect that all that was meant was that in the course of time Israel would cease to exist as the racist and expansionist state that it now is. In other words the Zionist state would cease to exist, not that the Israeli people will be wiped out.
The clarification, surely, was hardly necessary. Can anyone in his right mind really believe that the Iranian President seriously entertained the idea of committing genocide against the Israeli people? If nuclear weapons are used for that purpose, Iran itself will be quickly wiped out by the US. Alternatively, can anyone really believe that Iran, even if it is accompanied by all the other Islamic nations in the world, will be able to accomplish that purpose through conventional war? Anyway the clarification was made, and of course it has been steadfastly ignored by Israel, the West, and the world’s media.
Alternative explanations are available for what looks like Western gullibility over Israel’s lies. One is that power tends to idiotize, and absolute power idiotizes absolutely. Many Westerners have idiotized themselves through their Islamophobia. The other explanation is that the pretense about Iran’s genocidal intent can serve as a seemingly valid casus belli, even as justifying a nuclear bomb attack on Iran. It is a prospect that keeps Israel hopping about and yelping delightedly. We must bear in mind that Americans in powerful positions had seriously thought of bombing the native boys of Vietnam and Pakistan right back into the Stone Age.
It is known that distortions of the truth, half truths, downright lies, are now used far more extensively than ever before in campaigns of misinformation. It is a downright lie that Iran has a genocidal programme against Israel. Sri Lanka on the other hand has been subjected to a campaign of distortions and half truths which can be even more lethal than downright lies as they could be more difficult to expose. The Darusman Report and the Channel 4 video may merit serious consideration but only as material advancing the case for the prosecution, in which case we can be wary about distortions and half truths. But the Darusman Report has been given the imprimatur of the UN through diabolical maneuvering of which Sri Lanka is the victim.
Imagine this scenario: A developing nation decides to selectively share its precious natural resource, selling only to “friendly” countries and not “hostile” ones. Now imagine this is oil we’re talking about and the nation in question is the Islamic Republic of Iran…
Early news reports on Wednesday claimed that Iran pre-empted European Union sanctions by turning off the oil spigot to six member-states: the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Greece and Portugal. The reports were premature. According to a highly-placed source in the country, Iran will only stop its oil supply to these nations if they fail to adopt new trading conditions:
1) signing 3 to 5-year contracts to import Iranian oil, with all agreements concluded prior to March 21, and 2) payment for the oil will no longer be accepted within 60-day cycles, as in the past, and must instead be honored immediately.
Negotiations are currently underway with all six nations. Iran, says the source, expects to cut oil supplies to at least two nations based on their current positions. These are likely to be Holland and France.
Meanwhile, the other four EU member-states are in dire financial straits. They are knee-deep in the kind of fiscal crisis that has no hope of resolution unless they exit the union and go back to banana republic basics. Yet, they found the time to sanction Iran over some convoluted American-Israeli theory that the Islamic Republic may one day decide to build a nuclear weapon. I am sure arm-twisting was involved – the kind that involves dollars for votes.
But I digress. This blog is really about ideas. And not just ideas, but really ridiculous ideas.
New World Order Jump-Started by Iran?
Alternative sources of oil will be found in a jiffy for these beleaguered EU economies. But this isn’t so much about a few barrels of the stuff that fuels the world’s engines.
The past few years have shown that there is no global financial leadership capable of pulling us back from the abyss. The US national debt hovers around the $15.3 Trillion mark. Its GDP in 2011 was just under $15 Trillion. You do the math – there is no fixing that one. The only next-big-thing coming out of that dead end will be the complete transformation of the current global economic order.
But how will that take place without leadership and clear direction? I’m betting hard that It will not come from the top, nor will it be directed. The new global economic order will be organic, regional and quite sudden.
What do I mean?
Imagine: Iran stops selling oil to the EU; China tells the US to take a hike on currency values; India starts trading in large quantities of rupees; Russia’s central bank becomes a depot for holding dollars that don’t need to pass through New York; the creation of a global payment messaging system competing with SWIFT. Now imagine that a combination of actions – triggered only by an attempt to circumvent some really very silly sanctions – can suddenly unleash some unexpected possibilities that were beyond the realm of imagination a mere few years ago.
Imagine the emergence, say, of regional economic hubs, powered by the currencies of the local hegemonic powers, where bartering natural resources, goods and services becomes as commonplace as transactions involving currency transfers. Because of the frailty inherent in dealing with these new local currencies and a bartering system, nations tend to trade most with those closest to them in geography and culture. Shocking? Maybe not. Sometimes it just takes a need for change…and a handy tipping point.
“This is not the time to fan the flames,” someone should have told the United States. “You and your pals are sitting in a jalopy tottering on the cliff’s edge – why risk making moves now?” they should have warned. “Be a little less arrogant,” would have been sage advice.
But Washington is absolutely, irrevocably, dangerously fixated on showing Iran who’s boss, and spends a good part of every day trying to tighten the screws around the Islamic Republic. For the most part, the US’s pursuit of this dubious objective has instead stripped it of the vital political tools it once wielded. No more UN Security Council resolutions, no more unscrutinized military adventures. The only thing left is the nefarious tentacles of the United States Department of Treasury and its financial weapons. “The new tools of imperialism,” as once US-friendly central banker in the Mideast bluntly put it to me.
I only hear shrill desperation when politicos now parrot the “sanctions are biting” line. Here’s a juicy tidbit for those rolling their eyes right now: Goldman Sachs – America’s premier investment bank and Wall-Street God – has identified the Islamic Republic as one of the “Next 11” growth drivers of the global economy after the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) nations. BRIC was a term coined by Goldman Sachs, if you recall, and boy, were they right about that one.
Thirty years of “biting” sanctions and sanctions “with teeth” have achieved the following: “Strong or improving growth conditions,” said Goldman Sachs just last year, “combined with favorable demographics, form the foundation of the N-11 growth story.” The investment bank, furthermore, estimates “a measurable increase in the N-11’s share of global GDP, from roughly 12% in the current decade to 17% in 2040-2049.”
It’s a bad global economy we are facing right now, but Goldman Sachs’ charts illustrate that Iran is still one of five nations in the N-11 pot whose “productivity and sustainability of growth” is above average.
Shrugging off Dollar Dominance
A British investment research firm wrote in January: “Sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran effectively restricts Iranian oil sales to barter contracts or to state-to-state agreements utilizing non-G8 currencies…It represents a major irritation to the Iranians, rather than a chokehold.”
The authors specify the Chinese Yuan as the non-G8 currency, but in the past few days that scenario has busted open with the addition of the Indian Rupee into the mix. The new trade deal inked between Iran and India ensures Rupee payment for 45% of Iranian oil imports, with the balance remaining in Indian banks to pay for exports to the Islamic Republic. This achieves two important things that are an unintended consequence of US sanctions: firstly, it eliminates the Dollar as the trading currency (note that oil prices have traditionally been priced in US Dollars); secondly, it significantly accelerates economic integration between Iran and one of the four largest emerging economies in the world.
D.S. Rawat, head of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India, says of the agreement: “The potential of trade and economic relations between the two countries can touch the level of $30 billion by 2015 from the current level of $13.7 billion dollars in 2010-11.”
There’s more. During the course of the past two weeks, Iran has purchased around 1.1 million tons of cereals and wheat from international markets – including products originating in Germany, Canada, Brazil and Australia – which it has paid for entirely in currencies other than the Dollar.
The US Dollar, which has been the international reserve currency for close to a century, is on its way out anyway. America’s huge balance of payments deficit has weakened US fundamentals and made investors wary. The downside of the Dollar’s changing status is that the Federal Reserve loses a lot of flexibility in managing its currency and the US economy. That does not bode well for keeping the US competitive against the BRIC nations and other emerging economies.
Iran Sanctions Biting the US Right Back?
It takes one solid idea, in a world desperately seeking them, to start the creaky shift to a new global order. Emerging economies have been nipping at the heels of the world’s governing bodies for decades, demanding entry into the hallowed halls of the UN Security Council’s permanent members; insisting on a seat at the main table at the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization.
When European leaders went begging for scraps at the last G-20 meeting, the BRICs found their feet and yawned a collective “no.” It signaled a reversal of fortunes, that meeting, and the idea that they can forge their own path was born. The BRICs then announced their first joint foreign policy statement last November – on Syria, of all places. The idea matured.
But US/EU sanctions against Iran are giving the idea steam. One has to act when faced with a dilemma, after all – and that dilemma has been literally foisted in the faces of nonaligned countries the world around: “sanction Iran or else.”
Now they are just shrugging and finding ways around the maze of traps set up by the Department of Treasury. Why should they care much? What is the United States today but an unwieldy bully with few arrows left in its quiver?
This week the US is putting the screws on Belgian-based SWIFT. If you’ve ever wired money to another country, you have used SWIFT – it is essentially the messaging system between banks that alerts them to money transfers. The US wants to cut Iranian banks out of the SWIFT system, in effect making it practically impossible for anyone inside or outside Iran to send or receive funds.
Who knows what Iran will do if this comes to pass? It will probably just join non-aligned countries to create an alternative SWIFT, further undermining the western grip on global finance. Iran, after all, decided last year not to put up with the prospect of perpetual cyberwar with the west, and is forging ahead with plans to create a closed internet system for itself.
Each step the US and EU take to hinder Iran’s flexibility is countered with an innovative solution – one that includes more and more non-western players who are keen to craft a new global order. They used to worry about that kind of confrontation with the west, but the collapse of the current order has left few obstacles in their paths – and even offers incentives.
Like the proverbial finger in the dyke to block a leak…the water will always find another way out and possibly even bust open the dam. A warning to Washington: the burden of anxiety will always fall on the one who needs the dam most.
Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow her on twitter @snarwani.
Thirty-three years ago this month the world was witness to the fall of a Shah and the rise of an Imam. The Shah was Persian by culture, American by loyalty. The Imam was Persian by culture, Islamic by persuasion. The Muslims of the world along with the imperialist victims of the world rejoiced at this turn of events. Ever since that time Uncle Sam and his nephew Cohen have been playing their cards against the Imam and the Revolution. How valiant and patient the sons and daughters of that revolution have been throughout all these years! Had all the forms of warfare and conspiracies and out-and-out lies been leveled against another revolution, it would have been on its knees by now.
Today, the Islamic Revolution in Iran is standing tall. It has developed its skills, advanced its technology, and extended its infrastructure to a degree that has finally brought the imperialist-Zionist club of nations out into the open in their war preparations, which are being set in motion as this article goes to press. The spreadsheets in the US and Europe inform us that there are 15,000 US combat ready troops in a slaphappy Kuwait: at least two army infantry brigades and a helicopter unit. The Pentagon has two aircraft carriers prowling regional waters: the USS Carl Vinson and the USS John Stennis. There are reports of a third aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln steaming toward the Persian Gulf, as of this writing. These and their strike groups are sharking their routes between their home base and the Persian Gulf. The hot line between Washington and Tel Aviv is sizzling with blood-and-guts coordination plans. The word is out that the twin cities of Washington and Tel Aviv are gunning for Iran. Not to be left out of this imperialist-Islamic buildup of tension and threats the Qatari collaborator Sheikh Hamad Aal Thani (the Qatari Foreign Minister) and the Saudi sycophant Sa‘ud al-Faisal (the Saudi Foreign Minister) were in Washington last month listening to President Barack Obama and probably signing on to any future outbreak of hostilities. Their conversations remain a tightly guarded secret. Thanks to you, Islamic Iran, for showing the rest of the world who these toady officials in Arabia are and to whom they owe their allegiance.
Then we had, during this past month, the British Prime Minister David Cameron flying into Arabia to sell handsome amounts of weapons to the scared-to-death Saudi rulers. He held talks with King ‘Abdullah and his Crown Prince Nayef. This war scenario which comes to us from Washington and Tel Aviv is exactly what the military-industrial-banking complex needs. Thank you, Islamic Iran, for blowing the Islamic camouflage off the Anglo-American sheikhs in Arabia — and beyond.
You, the sons and daughters of the Revolution, with your dedication and tireless efforts have built your own state. You are showing the rest of us the way. It is your devotion to Islam as it was meant to be that is causing cracks in the Yahudi-Yankee edifice. Not all is rosy and peachy between the Israeli Knesset and the US Congress. The US budget has been bleeding for the better part of the past 33 years of the Islamic Revolution. The US Congress realizes that the America now owes more than it makes in a given year. And the hatchet men are out to chop off financial appropriations that are non-essential: there are plans for sequestration. This means that dollar-addicted Israel will have to be put on notice that it cannot expect to receive the generous amounts of cash infusions that it is addicted to. And this is resulting in a flare-up of behind-the-scenes tension between an America that no longer can supply and an Israel that needs more and more.
Little does the public eye notice that Israel is leading the charge, and the US is being pricked into combat position, a situation it is not ready for after its battles in Afghanistan and Iraq. The relationship between Yahudi-firsters in Washington and the Bible supremacists in Tel Aviv must be on thin ice when we hear that both sides called off “Austere Challenge 12” which was supposed to have been the largest war exercise ever between the US and Israel. Thank you, the persevering sons and daughters of the Islamic Revolution, for having shown us (those of us whose eyes are open) how flimsy and vulnerable the relationship is between the chicken hawks in Washington and their roosters in Tel Aviv. People without prejudice — Muslims and non-Muslims — have watched your revolution grow from infancy into manhood. These people saw how the imperialists and Zionists targeted, via their agents, the scholars of Islam Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari, Ayatullah Seyyed Muhammad Hussein Beheshti, Ayatullah Ashraf Isfahani, Ayatullah Dastagheib, and many other great scholars of Islam were assassinated by “Persian” fifth-columnists. Yet the Revolution survived. Next, Iran’s soldiers became the target of the same enemies. And after eight long and bloody years and after hundreds of thousands of martyrs the Islamic Revolution survived. Now, the same enemies are targeting the scientists. You, the sons and daughters in your principled defense of the Islamic Revolution, exposed the cowards and showed us how they fight. When they lose at the battlefield they turn to assassinations and random killings.
The historical Islamic Revolution demonstrated to us the lengths to which the Zionists and imperialists will go to “frame” and “entrap” Muslims to justify a worldwide war that they say may continue for over a hundred years (a Freudian slip of the tongue that the Islamic Revolution may be around for a hundred years or more). You, the class of shuhada’, enlightened us as to the depth of hate and the visceral hatred that lurks in the bosoms of Euro-American-Israeli officials who cannot tolerate an independent Islamic state acquiring peaceful nuclear technology, when they themselves say that it is the right of all states. You, the leaders of the Islamic State under the guidance of Imams Khomeini and Khamane’i, have stimulated our thoughts as to the real nature of our enemies and the enemies of oppressed people in the world. You educated us in these 33 years about enemies who hide behind a gloss of civilization but in their hearts they are anything but civilized. These enemies, as we all celebrate these bittersweet 33 years of revolution, may very well be planning a mass casualty attack of some sort against innocent people that will be blamed on Muslims.
They may even be thinking about some type of cyber-attack that may paralyze some society’s infrastructure in a way that is equivalent to a natural catastrophe or national emergency. They may be planning some type of disruption in the energy sector of the producers and consumers of petroleum. Their own man-made economies are teetering on the brink in Europe and in America. They are very adept at triggering a trans-Atlantic crisis that the world itself will suffer from.
You the leaders, the martyrs, the scholars, the soldiers, the scientists, and the devotees of Islam, have changed the geopolitical landscape of the world; whether you know it or not. You snatched the masks off the faces of political hypocrites and removed the gloves off the hands of financial thieves exposing their finger prints on crimes. And at the end of this line we and all the world can see how civilized these shayateen are: they urinate on dead Muslim bodies, they desecrate the Qur’an, they ridicule the Prophet (pbuh), they sexually assault the innocent, they commit every crime in the Book and none of our rulers from the filthy rich of Arabia to the dirt poor of Africa are able to speak truth to power the way you have done in Islamic Iran.
In all these years, an unspoken question lies deep down inside every astute Muslim, and that question is: will the imperialist US or Zionist Israel attack Islamic Iran? You have been answering that question for 33 years. And your answer in Allah’s (swt) words is:
They [the committed Muslims] were told: ‘But everyone is against you, be heedful of the danger’. And this [scenario] boosted their faith and commitment; and they [the committed Muslims] answered back: Suffice it that Allah is on our side, and He is the best confidant (3:173).
Pull quotes: Today, the Islamic Revolution in Iran is standing tall… You, the sons and daughters of the Revolution, with your dedication and tireless efforts have built your own state. You are showing the rest of us the way. It is your devotion to Islam as it was meant to be that is causing cracks in the Yahudi-Yankee edifice… Not all is rosy and peachy between the Israeli Knesset and the US Congress.
Iranian Muslim sisters demonstrate support for their country’s Islamic leadership as well as for oppressed people, by wearing the Palestinian head garb, now a universal symbol of liberation (one of the healthy impacts of the Islamic Revolution).
Editorials, Zafar Bangash
This month marks the 33rd anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. The US- and Zionist-backed puppet Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Shah of Iran) was driven from power by a tidal wave of mass uprising led by the charismatic and muttaqi leader, Imam Khomeini (may Allah (swt) comfort him) in February 1979. While suffering massive casualties — 80,000 dead according to some estimates — the Islamic Revolution was completely non-violent. The leadership of the Islamic movement refused to respond in kind to the regime’s extreme brutality, which was fully supported by the US. Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter has admitted in his book, Power and Principle (1983), that despite US urging, the Shah did not show enough resolve in “dealing firmly” with the protesters. Perhaps Brzezinski thought a million civilians killed would have crushed the uprising. So much for Carter’s much-touted human rights campaign!
One cannot help but compare the non-violent nature of the Islamic Revolution in Iran 33 years ago with the violent uprisings in Libya that brought down the regime of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi and the one currently underway in Syria against the regime of Bashar al-Asad. In both places, significant foreign intervention is pushing the situation toward civil war. Despite the overthrow and murder of Qaddafi, the situation in Libya is far from settled; tribal warfare continues and has the potential to escalate. In Syria, the turmoil is likely to drag on for months with neither side overwhelming the other, ultimately descending into a chaotic stalemate. In Egypt and Tunisia, where two long serving dictators were driven from power, the old system remains entrenched.
While reflecting on the Islamic Revolution it is fair to ask what it has achieved in 33 years. The former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once remarked: “a week is a long time in politics.” To survive for 33 years in a hostile environment in which from the first day, its enemies have been trying to undermine Iran internally as well as externally, is a remarkable achievement. But Islamic Iran has done more: it has made great strides in scientific and technological fields despite facing stringent sanctions and the freezing of its assets by countries like the US and Britain. Since tens of billions of dollars of its assets have been frozen, this is tantamount to a declaration of war aimed at crippling the country’s economy. If freezing its assets were the only hostile act, this in and of itself would have constituted enough pressure on the fledgling Islamic State. After all, it had just undergone a revolutionary upheaval that disrupted normal life. Almost immediately after the success of the revolution, leading figures were assassinated by US-Zionist agents. These included many leading ‘ulama’, a president, a prime minister, the chief justice, and many members of parliament. Altogether, some 1,200 leading figures were martyred. The elimination of leading figures on such a scale would have brought any other country to its knees; not the Islamic State of Iran. What this reflects is the depth of support the Islamic Revolution has among the masses and the courage and determination of its leaders. Even while this campaign of sabotage and assassinations was underway internally, Islamic Iran was subjected to a full scale military invasion on September 22, 1980 by the Ba‘thist regime of Saddam Husain in Iraq. While Saddam’s regime had the backing of almost all the Western powers, which supplied him lethal weapons including chemical and biological poisons, and generous funding from his fellow Arabian rulers, the Islamic Republic singlehandedly withstood this onslaught for eight years. It is important to note that despite using chemical and biological weapons against Iran, not once did the UN Security Council muster the courage to name Saddam as the guilty party, or to label him a war criminal. This would have implicated the same Western powers that dominate the Security Council, in war crimes. Also interesting to note is the fact that Iran neither suspended its constitution nor postponed elections for the president or parliament. While defending itself all alone, Islamic Iran also did not incur any debt. Compare this to Britain during World War II or the more recent US experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the end of WWII, Britain had incurred a debt of $55 billion (perhaps several trillion in today’s terms). The US’ plight is even worse: it has an external debt of $14.5 trillion and rising. The US economy has nosedived and continues to suffer serious blows. Statistics aside, what we must ask is: how has the Islamic State of Iran withstood all these pressures singlehandedly and survived? The principal reason is that an Islamic revolution changes the very nature of society and makes it impervious to economic or other kinds of pressures. Similarly, its leadership is sincere and does not work for a particular class of people. In a truly Islamic society, taqwa becomes the norm and spreads to all segments of the population. For the masses, it is not their personal interest but rather the interest and survival of the revolution that is paramount. This, however, is only possible if the leadership is muttaqi and willing to make sacrifices. This is what has happened in Iran. Imam Khomeini’s simple lifestyle, emulated by the Rahbar, Imam Sayyid Ali Khamenei is what keeps them close to the hearts of the people.
Islamic Iran is subjected to an intensified regime of sanctions and its nuclear scientists are being assassinated by US-Zionist agents to undermine its peaceful nuclear program, yet it has stood its ground. The question that must be asked is: why is Iran being attacked so viciously? The main reason is that it has dared to break out of the system crafted by the victors of WWII. This is seen as a threat to the vested interests of the predatory powers that thrive on sucking the blood of other people. Islamic Iran refuses to allow them to do so, hence the campaigns of sabotage, sanctions and killing of its civilians, soldiers, technocrats, and public representatives.
Far from having its will broken, the steely determination of the people and leaderhsip of Iran has inspired people elsewhere — in the Muslim East and beyond — to rise up for their rights. What is underway in the Muslim East, although not on the same scale, is the direct result of Iran’s great example set 33 years ago. The US and its Western allies are in retreat even while clutching to straws to save their tattered image. Their Arabian client regimes are similarly destined to oblivion, sooner rather than later.
In this Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012 photo, Iranians walk at Tehran’s old main bazaar, Iran. A simple trip the store these days offers a crash course in life under sanctions. The price tags on many imported goods from South Korean refrigerators to Turkish crackers are sometimes double from last year. The money to buy them, meanwhile, has plunged in value against the U.S. dollar and other foreign currencies. (AP)
In my article In Support of Iran in the Island of February 1, I cited material from an article by Peter Jenkins, who is from right within the British Establishment, to sustain the argument that sanctions and the threat of war are clearly disproportionate responses to the Iran nuclear imbroglio, and that all that is required – in Jenkins’ words – is that "Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium – but with the toughest safeguards". In this article I want to contextualize the Iran nuclear imbroglio in relation to what in earlier articles I have called the New Imperialism.
A distinction has to be drawn between the New and the Old Imperialism, a distinction that cannot be an absolute one because the Old continues to persist with the New as can be demonstrated by noting the reactions to the Iran imbroglio. What I have in mind is that there has come about a note of moderation in the West, a retreat from the "aggressive lunacy" that I noted in my earlier article, but Israel seems determined to give Iran a nuclear bomb whacking. The explanation is that Israel is stuck with the Old Imperialism, while the US and the West as a whole have been shifting – in the case of the Iran imbroglio – from the Old to the New Imperialism.
The US and the EU now want more time to be given for sanctions to work, envisaging even tougher sanctions than have been applied up to now. There is a note of moderation about this position that is in striking contrast to the bellicosity that prevailed earlier, symbolized by the sending of US warships into the Straits of Hormuz. The probable reason for this shift is that the world has come to know that Iran is still years away from the capability to make nuclear weapons that can be effectively deployed. The supposition that it wants to proceed to that stage is furthermore no more than a supposition. Also, there is now some degree of alarm that continuing sanctions, with the prospect of even more serious sanctions to follow, will cause serious damage to the world economy. Clearly, sanctions and the threat of war have been disproportionate responses, as pointed out by Jenkins. What is the reason for the aggressive lunacy shown by the West? I believe that it regressed – temporarily we must hope – into attitudes typical of the Old Imperialism: racist arrogance and murderous bellicosity towards natives who dare to defy the West. But Israel, as I have noted, is stuck in the Old Imperialism. US Defense Secretary Panetta is reported as believing that there is a "strong likelihood" that Israel will attack in April, May, or June. At present the world is witnessing the ludicrous spectacle of the US, Britain, France, the UN Secretary General etc pleading with Israel to desist. But Israel is hopping about and yelping delightedly at the prospect of bomb-whacking Iran.
I will now draw the distinction between the two kinds of imperialism. It will help if we approach this distinction by noting what is meant by "modernity". Usually this term is meant to denote a configuration brought about by certain Western historical processes: the Renaissance, the discovery of the individual, the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, the Enlightenment of the eighteenth, and the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century. In politics it has led to the liberal democratic order being widely regarded as the ideal one. But there is an obverse side to this notion of modernity. An alternative notion gained wide diffusion after 1992 which saw the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. In 1492 Christian Spain conquered Granada, ending Muslim rule in Western Christendom. That led to two major consequences: the unification of a nation, Spain, and the Western drive towards the conquest of the world.
Both consequences, the nation-state and imperialism, led to dominant groups treating others as inferior. In 1492 Christian Spain ordered the Jews to convert or leave, treatment that was extended to the Muslims as well in 1499. Outside Spain the Conquistadors ravaged Latin America, robbing silver and gold and natural resources after subjugating or committing genocide against the indigenous peoples. That inaugurated the several centuries of imperialist domination by the nation-states of the West, and that was "modernity" as experienced and understood by the peoples of Afro-Asia and Latin America. It was an imperialism that was racist to the bone. Of course the Enlightenment ideology was also there, but what clearly predominated was the Columbus ideology. A major change took place after 1945, when the Enlightenment ideology became much more assertive.
I have argued in an earlier article that it is wrong to think of the New World Order and the New Imperialism in terms of a dichotomy in which one is good and the other evil. We should rather think of them as positions in a spectrum in which the one can slide into the other, and back again. The changing Western attitudes to the Iran imbroglio that I have noted above illustrate my point. Another convincing illustration is provided by the case of Syria. Practically everyone agrees that the Assads pere et fils have been grisly horrors, that Bashir should go and a democracy be installed, and that that would help towards a New World Order. The difference is that China, Russia and others want an orderly transition to democracy, whereas the West’s focus is on regime change behind which could lurk the drive towards a New Imperialism.
As I have noted above Israel is stuck in attitudes appropriate to the Old Imperialism, and recently Obama has declared that in the event of an Iran-Israel conflict the US will side with Israel. Nothing surprising in that of course, but what is the explanation for what looks like US idiocy. Would it be far-fetched to suggest that they are in unholy bedlock because both nations have their origin in the expropriation of lands belonging to natives and bouts of genocide against them? Was that also the reason for the unholy bedlock between Zionist Israel and apartheid South Africa? Anyway, some kind of explanation has to be found to dissuade the West from sliding into the aggressive lunacy appropriate to Colombusian modernity.
I will next make some very brief observations on why the West’s aggressive lunacy over Iran has been allowed to go this far. Iran is years away from the capability to equip itself with even a rudimentary nuclear arsenal, and even if it goes further it is difficult to see how that arsenal can be deployed. If it is used aggressively, Iran‘s own extinction will quickly follow. Only Islamophobic idiocy can lead to the supposition that Iran will use the nuclear bomb for aggression. It can of course serve as a deterrent to make Israel and the West think twice before committing aggression against Iran – about which I will be making some further observations. I believe that the reason why the West’s aggressive lunacy has been allowed to go this far is that powers, such as Russia, China, and India, which earlier curbed the West are now showing a readiness to compromise with it. The underlying reason for that is that they are pleased by the prospect of the West co-opting them as the world’s bosses to run the New World Order.
The most important question underlying the Iran imbroglio is this: Are Iran and other small states entitled to defend themselves? The answer of the international community will of course be resoundingly in the positive. But that is in theory. In practice of course the answer is in the negative, because the small states are not allowed to acquire nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction which are reserved for the powerful nations, the happy few. By way of illustration of what I have in mind I will cite the case of Iraq. In 2002 there was no UN authorization for military action against Iraq. At that time Iraq had been mercilessly beaten down through the Gulf War and posed no threat whatever to any country. And yet, the Bush-Blair gang pretended that Iraq had WMDs, deliberately ignoring the contrary evidence provided by Al Baraedi of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and unleashed aggression resulting in the deaths of 600,000 guiltless Iraqis and other horrific consequences. Would all that have happened if Iraq had a dinky little nuke that could be dropped on Golden Californy, or on the M-East buddy boys of the US, or – perish the thought – on Israel? A very plausible case can be argued that only a nuclear bomb could have served as a deterrent against that aggression, one of the greatest crimes against humanity ever committed.
The case then is for all states to be equipped with nuclear weapons. But that prospect is terrifying because the small states, not just the powerful ones, can also be subject to fits of aggressive lunacy. The valid case therefore is for total nuclear disarmament, but we all know that the present nuclear weapons powers will agree to that only theoretically, not in practice. There seems to be only one possible deterrent for the small states in the present situation: the power of international public opinion. This may sound rather fanciful, but not if we consider the case of Vietnam. The US did not withdraw from there because it was defeated militarily, retaining as it did the power to bomb Vietnam back into the Stone Age if it so desired. It withdrew because international public opinion turned against the US aggression, most powerfully in the US and other Western countries as manifested by the huge mass demonstrations that took place there. Interestingly, no such demonstrations took place in the Third World countries. Why not? The probable reason is that very few of them had fully functioning democracies, and the masses were not accustomed to the idea of asserting their will through demonstrations. It would appear therefore that the only deterrent against aggression for small states requires fully functioning democracies as a pre-condition. Otherwise they could be at the mercy of the New Imperialism.
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