Mideast Maze
By Mowahid Hussain Shah
25 years ago, when asked to comment by the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs on the impending first Gulf War, I posited that "Desert Storm " (the American name for its military intervention there) would become a Desert Trap. Now, with America embroiled in Gulf War III, it is a Mideast maze with no exit.
Today, it is ISIS. In Western media, it is termed the Islamic State. The label Islamic State is no accident. It seems contrived to be contrasted with the Jewish State of Israel, which is dubbed as a liberal democracy. It is meant to show that this is actual face of an Islamic State and the actual fate that will befall its inhabitants. It is similar to the ploy used by the apartheid state of South Africa to depict the murderous regime of Idi Amin as an authentic face of a black-run republic.
For global schemers, ISIS serves a useful triple-cross agenda: (1) to empower Israel; (2) to counter Iran; and (3) to divert attention away from the core Palestinian issue, presenting it just as one of many issues. ISIS is one of the pernicious results of the US invasion of Iraq.
The Obama Administration, according to former US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, has "lost its way". Obama has been entrapped in the Middle East, despite fervent attempts to pivot to the Asia Pacific region, namely, to counter China.
The top military head of Japan has warned Japanese citizens not to go the Middle East to fight. Japan has only 180,000 Muslim people and has little proximity to the Muslim world. Yet, during the 1970s, the Japanese Red Army operated out of Beirut and launched attacks on Israeli targets. To paraphrase Soren Kierkegaard: history has to be lived forward but is understood backward. Premier Abe is moving closer to Modi at US behest to offset China.
It is the weakness within the mainstream Muslim world that has given ample space for obscurantism to flourish. Despite tremendous resources of oil and gas, the Muslim establishment remains bereft of purpose-driven leadership and could not grasp the big picture.
In contrast, it is worthwhile to recall the landmark speech on Palestine by Sir Zafrullah Khan, Pakistan’s Envoy to the UN, before the UN General Assembly on November 28, 1947, wherein he issued prescient and dire warnings on the perilous consequences of inflicting injustice on the Palestinian people.
The same troika that welcomed the Egyptian coup – Israel, the Arab establishment, and US neocons –in effect was also acquiescent on the rise of ISIS. Now the sponsors are upset when they themselves are in the firing line. Meanwhile, Turkey has its own Kurdish conundrum to worry about.
There are some silver linings. The British parliament voted in favor of Palestine, and Sweden has recognized the Palestinian state.
Even the meek Ban Moon of UN termed the destruction of Gaza “beyond description" after witnessing it first-hand. The Palestinian problem germinated in the corridors of the United Nations, but it may not end there. Such is the labyrinthine spread of the virus of violence.
