Global dimensions of the Islamic Revolution

The Iranian people are celebrating the 40th anniversary of their revolution while the message of their revolution keeps resonating throughout the world.

When Imam Khomeini spoke of exporting the Islamic Revolution in the first days of the uprising, some people couldn’t understand the depth and importance of his remarks. But, 40 years after the resounding triumph of the revolution, both the friends and enemies witness that without dispatching of forces, war and bloodshed, or what the US calls “nation-building” the principles and basics of the Islamic Revolution have gone beyond frontiers and conquered the hearts and minds of Muslims and free-spirited people in the world. Is it not due to the fact that the Islamic Revolution is in complete conformity with the human nature? Ayatollah Khamenei stated, “The concepts of the revolution and the concepts of Islam are like the scent of spring flowers. No one can prevent it. It will spread and go everywhere. It is a reviving and inspiring breeze which engulfs everywhere automatically.”

The victory of the Islamic Revolution took the Islamic communities out of inaction and released them infatuation against foreigners. Hence, they woke up and tried to return to their Islamic identity. Muslims tried to adopt the Islamic teachings which had been forgotten for centuries. The Islamic Ummah was revived and began recalling the lost realities.

The Iranian nation triumphed with bare hands against the regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi which was supported by the superpowers of those days. The message of this revolution was that the Islamic Ummah can be dignified, free, advanced and strong provided that it returns to the genuine Islamic teachings and the authentic religion preached by the Prophet.

The Islamic Revolution had an especial impact on the Shias of South Lebanon. The inexhaustible efforts of Imam Musa Sadr during the years of the revolution had created turned the situation in a way that Lebanon was more susceptible to accept the message of Iran’s revolution. The consecutive defeats of Arabs against the spurious Zionist regime, their humiliation before and fear of this illegitimate regime, and the failure of various Lebanese groups vis-à-vis aggression and invasion and the defeat of the national army had aggravated the feeling of hatred of the enemy and revive the hope of honorable days in the hearts of Muslims.

The successful experience of the Iranian nation in struggling against oppression and arrogance led to formation of Hezbollah in Lebanon shortly after the victory of the Islamic Revolution. In its famous letter known as the “Manifest of Hezbollah” which was officially released in 1985, Hezbollah stressed, “We declare our commitment to the unique, wise and just leadership that has been presently incarnated in the person of Imam Ayatollah-ul Uzma Ruhollah al-Musavi al-Khomeini. He is the stimulator of the Islamic Revolution and its grand movement.”

The anti-terrorist legendary Hezbollah attained great victories against the fabricated regime in Tel Aviv and smashed its myth of invincibility several times. As a result, Hezbollah liberated the occupied regions of southern Lebanon from the clutches of Israel. After Israel’s defeat, Hezbollah became active in social and political domain and affected parliamentary and council elections.

One of the clear manifestations of the spread and influence of the Islamic Revolution was the awakening of Nigerian Muslims despite being thousands of kilometers far from Iran. Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa and the third populated among Islamic countries. 50% of the 190 million people of the country are Muslims and mostly Sunnis of Maleki sect. 40% are Christians and the remaining 10% adhere to vernacular religions. Islam arrived in the region by preachers and merchants in early 2nd century AH but as colonialists infiltrated in the region, Christianity prevailed and the rule of Muslims began to decline.

The miraculous victory of the Islamic Revolution bestowed vividness and hope to the Nigerian Muslims. Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, as a fervent youth with religious tendencies, traveled to Iran in the beginning of the revolution and after visiting Imam Khomeini became a Revolutionary Muslim. After returning to Nigeria, he started an indefatigable activity to awaken Muslims and succeeded in founding the great Islamic movement there. His activities during the past three decades increased the population of Shias to 10 million.

Deep trust in the ability of religion to administer communities was one of the important legacies of the Islamic Revolution for Nigerian Muslims. While they used to be inactive and idle against anti-religious measures, they have tuned into active and demanding community which is ready to sacrifice its life for religious ideals and values. One of these values is hijab which the women and girls of Nigeria had been banned for decades to observe it at schools and universities. The Muslims of the northern Nigeria succeeded in convincing the authorities of Muslim-inhabited areas to lift this illegal ban. The demonstrations of Nigerian Muslims for establishment of Islamic Constitution are under the influence of the Islamic Revolution. Finally, the central government was forced to submit to the demand of Muslim population in their own areas for implementation of Islamic laws.

Nigerian Shias are among the most active Shias in the world. They have turned into trend-setters in Africa. The movement that has begun in Nigeria has enhanced the tendency of researchers to know more about Shia school of thought.

When the Islamic Revolution triumphed in 1979 in Iran, Imam Khomeini had spoken of the illegitimacy of the Zionist regime for 20 years. Now, it is being clarified day by day that this child-killer regime is a cancerous tumour in the heart of the Islamic lands and as Imam Khomeini stressed, “Israel is not just the enemy of Muslims but it is the enemy of mankind.”

In view of this, struggling against Israel has been one of the fundamental principles of the Islamic Revolution. Imam Khomeini named the last Friday of the month of fasting (Ramazan) as the World Quds Day to draw the attention of world Muslims to the importance of the issue of Palestine and the crimes of the occupying Zionist regime. This announcement proved that Palestine is not an issue of Arabs or Sunnis but the prime issue of the entire Islamic world. Thus, it revived the hope for salvation of Palestine. Then the Palestinian currents underwent basic changes with more Islamic motives rather than narrow national and racial ones. Indeed, as one of the Palestinian leaders stressed, “It was Iran’s revolution that opened a new era before the Palestinian movement and caused the issue of Palestine to be looked through the eyes of Islam.”

The Islamic Revolution revived values like hijab, fighting arrogance and oppression, the bond intertwined bond between religion and politics, and the demand for establishment of Islamic government. In the world that was dominated by communist and liberalist mottos, few (if any) would imagine that religion is able to stage a revolution and rule a society. With reliance on religion, the meaning of power altered basically and Muslims understood that the real power is the power of God and it is He that can help them restore their violated rights. When Muslims saw the obvious example of returning to dignity and victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Islamic Awakening took place faster than what was expected. Nations got the guts to withstand oppressive and puppet regimes with the hope of victory. The people in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt and elsewhere rose up against the ruling systems one after the other. Although they haven’t attained final victory, the awakening that has occurred is a precious asset which prophecies the establishment of monolithic Islamic Ummah, God willing.

Blinded by Anti-Trumpism

By Finian Cunningham

December 22, 2018 "Information Clearing House" -     As the old saying goes, even a broken clock gets the time right twice a day. It could apply to US President Donald Trump. For all his flaws - and they are abundant - the White House occupant can surely get at least one or two things correct.

But the way critics of The Donald tell it, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, redeemable about the 45th president. The Democrats and their supportive news media outlets never give him a break.

Watching the likes of CNN is insufferable. It is so predictable. Bash Trump, slam Trump, carp, carp, carp. There is relentless negativity, to the point where his critics lose any credibility because they are coming from a doctrinaire anti-Trumpism. There is no interaction with facts or objective conditions. It's relentless prejudice and limpet-like adherence to a preconceived agenda.

Take Trump's latest order to pull US troops out of Syria. The president's decision this week was lambasted by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Democrats and Republicans were in unison, decrying the withdrawal of US forces from the Arab country as a "strategic blunder". It was said to be a "gift" to adversaries, either the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad, or Russian President Vladimir Putin, or Iran, or to ISIS terrorists.

Admittedly, Trump's declaration of "victory" over ISIS [Daesh*] in Syria and his celebratory news via Twitter of "our boys coming home" was cheesy grandstanding for his electoral supporters. Only days before Christmas, Trump was posing as Santa Claus with a shiny big present for the nation.

Nevertheless, the pullout of US forces from Syria has to be seen as a good and proper thing. For a start, the 2,000 American troops and squadrons of warplanes have been illegally present in that country for the past four years. They are an occupying army in violation of Syria's sovereignty since the US neither has a UN Security Council mandate for its operations nor of course authorization from the Syrian government.

Moreover, tens of thousands of Syrian civilians have been killed by US forces. The destruction of the city of Raqqa last year with thousands of women and children obliterated by US air strikes stands out as a monumental war crime.

Washington's claims of "fighting terrorists" in Syria does not justify the de facto invasion of the country. Besides, anyone who has honestly researched the conflict, instead of relying on Western news media, knows that the "war on terror" claim is a cynical cover for US forces to destabilize Syria and foment regime change against the Assad government. Assad's alliance with Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, and his staunch anti-Israeli, anti-US imperialism is why Washington targeted his nation.

Tragically, before the war erupted in March 2011, Syrians had a proud and ancient history of peaceful coexistence between religious faiths.

Far from combating terrorism in Syria, the US has systematically weaponized and covertly directed the jihadists as proxies for its criminal regime-change objective. The supposed "popular uprising" in Syria against Assad was always a carefully contrived Western propaganda narrative to conceal the real agenda of regime change that Washington and its NATO allies and regional client regimes wanted.

In moments of clarity, Trump knows that. During his 2016 election campaign, he stated correctly that the Obama administration "created ISIS". And he said the war in Syria was pointless. That's not Trump being "conspiratorial" and "making stuff up". There is ample documented evidence that the American CIA and other NATO military intelligence orchestrated the jihadist proxies, along with billions of dollars from the Saudis and other Gulf Arab dictatorships.

Trump's self-congratulations this week for "winning the war against ISIS" are, to be sure, laughable. It was the Syrian army and its Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah allies that defeated ISIS and the US-sponsored covert war for regime change.

Nevertheless, Trump's decision to pull troops and warplanes out of Syria — regardless of his spurious claims — is the right decision. The anti-government militants have largely been defeated. Withdrawing US forces from Syria can only expedite the eradication by the Syrian army and its allies of remnant terrorist holdouts.

Critics of Trump say there are up to 30,000 terrorist fighters scattered over Syria. These domestic critics, as well as European allies, have castigated Trump for walking away from the mission to destroy terror groups in Syria, and therefore allegedly putting the security of Western states at risk from future attacks. That view is ignorant or deluded about the real heroes in Syria — the Syrian army and its Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah allies. Those forces are more than capable of continuing to finally eliminate the terrorists. The presence of the US and other NATO forces is only an impediment to that task.

The US-backed war for regime change in Syria has been defeated. It took eight years, but the Syrian people have won a historic war.

It is indeed time to get US military out of Syria as well as all NATO forces, which are illegally present in the country. American, British and French military and their political leaders should be indicted for war crimes due to their covert aggression and violation of Syria's sovereignty.

Strangely, politicians, pundits and Hollywood celebrities who claim to be "liberal" or "leftwing" — and who therefore might be expected to be anti-war — are queuing up to pillory Trump for his order to withdraw from Syria. Ironically, these critics are in effect endorsing war, illegal occupation and war crimes.

That curious contradiction tends to prove the superficiality and meaninglessness of Western "liberals". The seemingly only principle such people have is being "anti-Trump" no matter what the issue is.

Trump certainly deserves censure and opposition over his racist dog-whistling politics, his fascistic tendencies and his pro-rich oligarchic policies. But the mainstream US and European "liberals" never seem to oppose Trump on those issues. They are too concerned with irrelevant nonsense about "Russian collusion" and "Russian interference".

When the anti-Trump "liberals" can't see that ending American militarism overseas is the right thing to do, then you know their moral and political compass is defunct. Unlike Trump's broken clock which gets the time right twice a day, the anti-Trump brigade are too blind to see any viable direction at all.

*Daesh, also known as ISIS, ISIL, IS — a terrorist group banned in numerous countries, including Russia

Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent.

From Bahrain to Ukraine: Hail the Western Salesmen of Subversion and Deception

FINIAN CUNNINGHAM

The Manama Dialogue held in Bahrain at the weekend – attended by US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague, among other senior Western officials – is presented with gravitas and self-importance as a forum to «earnestly» discuss «security issues» in the Middle East and beyond.

In reality, the event – held in the Bahraini capital, Manama – is nothing but a talking shop of fake concepts, hollow posturing and boilerplate verbosity. A talking shop, complete with garish window dressing and manikins, to hide the gruesome nature of the real Western political business that goes on in the basement of the oil-rich region.

Like the general position of Washington and London towards the Persian Gulf Arab regimes, the Manama Dialogue is all about selling propaganda and deception to cover the most brutal facts of life, sold with the guise of genial, virtuous vendors.

One of these brutal facts is that the Western governments are fully complicit in the repression of their Persian Arab clients against their own people. Another brutal fact is that it is Western governments and their Persian Arab clients who are fuelling insecurity and violence across the Middle East, as in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, by covertly supporting extremist regime-change mercenaries, such as Al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, both of which are linked to Al Qaeda.

Yet another brutal fact is that the Persian Gulf is one of the most militarized and insecure locations in the world, partly because of Western support for illicitly nuclear-armed Israel, and partly because of reckless weapons sales by America and Britain to the tinderbox region. 

Nevertheless, senior representatives of the war-dealing Western states have the audacity to address a conference in the region on «peace and security».

Like a parallel universe, speakers and delegates were ensconced in a plush hotel by their Bahraini hosts to hold forth on democracy, rule of law and terrorism. Meanwhile, a few kilometres away from the venue, the Western-backed Bahraini regime was deploying its riot police to club and gas peaceful pro-democracy supporters. The protesters were trying to exercise their universal right to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression – the same human rights that Washington and London repeatedly declare they are champion retailers of.

These rights have been systematically denied to Bahraini civilians for the past three years (and before) by the US and British-backed absolute monarchy in Bahrain.  Since February 2011, when the pro-democracy movement rekindled in the Persian Gulf kingdom, regime forces have killed nearly 100 civilians, some of whom died under torture during detention; hundreds have been maimed with grotesque injuries, such as the loss of eyes and limbs from shot gun pellets; infants and elderly have been poisoned in their homes from the deliberate, excessive use of tear gas; and thousands of families have been plunged into misery because fathers and sons have been locked up in jails without a semblance of due legal process.  All this barbarity is done with the tacit support of Washington and London, and with the shameful indifference of the Western news media.

For a tiny population of only 600,000 native Bahrainis (an expatriate foreign worker population is of the same size) the toll of brutality and suffering inflicted by the Khalifa regime has been immense. And in this fierce assault on the mainly Shia population, the Bahraini rulers have been fully assisted by Saudi Arabia, which sent troops into the neighbouring island back in March 2011 to crush the pro-democracy demonstrations. Saudi troops have remained in Bahrain ever since – albeit covertly, by donning Bahraini uniforms. Washington and London are fully apprised of the situation. In fact, it was the US and Britain that gave the green light to the House of Saud to embark on the crushing of protests in Bahrain, just as the Saudi rulers have been doing in their own Eastern Province and other parts of that oil-rich kingdom.

It is instructive to compare and contrast what is happening in the Ukraine and the official Western response. The protests in Kiev have evidently been driven by a determined minority, using violent and organized subversion, and calling for the overthrow of the elected authorities.  This is not the exercise of international human rights, as in Bahrain; in the case of the Ukraine, it is a call to sedition.

Furthermore, the agitating groups in the Ukraine, such as the Fatherland Party and the neo-fascist Freedom Party, are known to have well-established logistical links to foreign agencies that are committed to fomenting regime change in targeted nations. These agencies include the American CIA and the benign-sounding National Endowment for Democracy. Certainly, the methodical tactics of disruption deployed recently against government buildings in Kiev strongly imply a covert military input…

To upbraid the Ukrainian state for responding with a heavy-hand in the face of this wanton subversion against its sovereign authority, as Western governments have charged, is at best naive and at worst blatant propaganda to distort the real situation.

Apparently, innocent civilian bystanders were caught up in the melee and incurred injuries. There were, however, no deaths, and Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov later issued a public apology for police conduct. Since the height of the commotion a week ago, the demonstrations in the Ukrainian capital have subsided. This pattern again implies that the protests and public were manipulated for an ulterior agenda – an agenda that was not merely about expressing dissent against the government’s EU rejection, but rather was more sinister in scope, namely to destabilize the state.

The contrast with Bahrain could hardly be more lucid. Here the «authorities» are an unelected regime comprised largely of one family – the al Khalifas, headed by a self-appointed king, Hamad bin Issa al Khalifa. His hereditary successor will be his eldest son, Crown Prince Salman. The Bahraini regime rules by absolute decree with the guise of a consultative «parliament» that is «elected» through a heavily gerrymandered process.

The Bahraini regime and its foreign supporters – Washington, London and Saudi Arabia – have claimed that the largely peaceful pro-democracy protests are manipulated by foreign agents. It is claimed that these agents include Shia Iran and the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah. The US and British governments do not reiterate this too often or loudly because they know full well that the accusation is an utter figment of imagination. There is not an iota of evidence for the involvement of Iran, Hezbollah or any other foreign agency in the Bahraini demonstrations. These protests have been sustained for nearly three years simply by the civilian population’s own desire to have the right to democratically elect a government, rather than being lorded over by a corrupt and venal crony family racket. 

Unlike the Ukraine, Bahrain is a simple and straightforward case of democracy being brutally denied to a civilian population that has remained peaceful despite relentless provocation from an unelected regime.

The double standards and hypocrisy of the Western governments and the mainstream news media as shown by the differing response to events in the Ukraine and Bahrain is glaring. A short-lived bid to sow chaos in the Ukraine by a provable foreign-backed subversion against an elected government is given the highest profile by Western governments and media as «a noble bid for democracy against an autocratic regime». Whereas in Bahrain, a sustained pro-democracy movement by unarmed, peaceful civilians against a brutal, unelected autocrat is, well, simply ignored by the West.

Indeed, Bahrain is not merely ignored by the West. It is indulged and tacitly backed to the hilt by Washington and London.  The attendance of such prominent figures as Chuck Hagel and William Hague at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain at the weekend – during which they spouted platitudes about security, democracy and rule of law – is the US and British government’s way of reassuring the Bahraini and Saudi regimes of their ongoing support to crush democracy. 

Meanwhile, Chuck Hagel announced during the weekend forum that the US has no intention of scaling back its military presence (read: arms sales) in the Persian Gulf despite the recent diplomatic detente with Iran. «Diplomacy, must be backed up with military power,» Hagel told delegates. The Pentagon chief also disclosed that the US was going ahead with the sale of 15,000 anti-tank missiles to Saudi Arabia worth $1 billion. These missiles will probably end up in the hands of Al Qaeda militants waging a war of terror against Syria for the Western-backed objective of regime change in that country.  Ironically, and ludicrously, the British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned delegates that «extremists» operating in Syria (with the covert support of the US, Britain and Saudi Arabia among others) present a grave security threat to the Middle East region and Europe.

Outside the Manama conference, where peaceful protesters were having their heads cracked open by Bahraini riot police, one banner held up by the crowd read: «Why do Western governments not support calls for democracy in Bahrain?»

What a cruel joke. Western governments do not support democracy in Bahrain – or anywhere else for that matter – because they make money from oil and arms sales by supporting dictatorships, and from crushing and subverting democracy. Bahrain and the Ukraine are just two examples of the general concept. Despite their polished and preening rhetoric, Washington and London are nothing but the salesmen for subversion and deception.