It Was All about Iran
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada
The pomp and regal trappings of the august conclave in Riyadh, on May 21, was reminiscent of a Roman emperor holding court with his tributaries, except for some glaring and noticeable anomalies.
The ‘emperor’ holding his Arab and Muslim vassals in thrall of his choreographed and ersatz elocution was none other than the current occupant of the White House, who’d successfully endeared himself with his red-neck supporters because of his ringing and rambunctious rhetoric of hate against a faith and its followers all through his campaign to capture the prize of America’s highest elected office.
The irony of the show couldn’t be lost on even the most-uninitiated in international affairs. There he was the sickly Saudi monarch, King Salman, and his ruling brothers-in-faith from around the region, including, of course, Pakistan’s supine PM Nawaz Sharif paying their obeisance to Trump without blinking an eye-lid.
What a spectacle it was, with none of the regally-attired Muslim head of state or government betraying any unease on being lectured—or rather hectored—by Trump on what was required of them in America’s global fight, ostensibly, against the menace of terrorism. None seemed to remember that the apple of their eyes, that afternoon, was the same man whose first act upon entering the office was to ban the entry of nationals from seven Muslim states into US.It’s a different matter that, to their abiding credit, the courts dismantled Trump’s spear of hate and Muslim-phobia before it could do any damage.
As for Trump, of course, the assemblage of America-loyalist Muslim potentates—most of whom have never put themselves to the trouble of being elected—wasn’t only something to whet his apparently insatiable appetite for grandeur. It was, much more than that, for him a most welcome escape from the rough-and-tumble of Washington where the battle-lines against him, over his unorthodox and free-wheeling style of governance, are becoming ever so pronounced and sharpened.
His troubles over the firing of the FBI Director, James Comey, have only just begun but are likely to snowball into something matching Nixon’s historic ordeal under Watergate.
Trump, no doubt, relished every moment of that red-carpet welcome rolled out for him by his host, the so-called Custodian of the Two Holiest Places of Islam located under his jurisdiction. The Saudis could be expected to do any honour to their mentor from US, and King Salman did precisely that by conferring his country’s highest honour, The King Abdel Aziz Medal, on Trump.
An unapologetic Trump didn’t feel the need, at all, to offer any contrition for his verbose rhetoric against Muslim. Why should he, with Muslim ‘leaders’ from 39 so-called sovereign states were there to hang on to his every word and applauded his vacuous call on them to follow US lead in the fight against Islamic radicalism.
But the foil of ‘fight against Islamic terrorism’ was only just that: a fig-leaf to sugar-coat the main thrust of his rhetoric against the ‘threat’ that Iran posed, according to him, to the region’s peace and stability.
That Trump railed against Iran was, indeed, to the delight of his Saudi hosts, who had organised the grand spectacle in their ornate style to buttress their own crusade aimed at isolating Iran and promoting their credentials for leadership of the Muslim Ummah.
The Saudis have anchored their campaign against Iran on sectarian moorings. Theirs is nothing but a Wahabi-mooted sectarian war against the ShiiteIran. It harks back to the Middle Ages in Europe when the Catholics were pitted against then nascent Protestants. To them it’s a measure of success of their myopic, debilitating (for the Muslim world) strategy against Iran that they have the world’s lone super-power in their corner. What better yardstick for the ‘success’ of their sectarian war than the fact that the Western world, led by Washington, hasn’t even so much as squeaked on the wanton butchery of the Yemenis under the Saudi aggression against their land and people.
The bonus from Trump’s Saudi hosts came in the form of 110 billion dollars in military equipment—arms, ammunition,et al. —from US for the Saudi defence services. American sources gloated in saying this is the largest single order for weapons from a country in the entire history of America’s weapons bazar. It isn’t a brain-teaser for anyone to guess where these arms will be used.
Trump, no doubt, was delighted with the Saudi icing on his cake. He hectored that the Saudi order would keep thousands of jobs in US military-industrial complex.
But the Saudi largesse just didn’t stop at their mind-boggling weapons purchase. They also delighted Trump with several investment deals, worth more than 250 billion dollars, to bolster and update US infrastructure projects. Trump tweeted with delight that the Saudi investments will create tens of thousands of new jobs in the US.
Apparently, sky is the limit for the Saudis in pleasing their American allies. Of course it goes back 70 years to the date when a dying FDR, in the twilight of WWII had traveled, on board an American naval ship to the Red Sea to confab with the then monarch, King Abdel Aziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia—the only country in the world named after a clan. It was that historic meeting that decided the fundamentals of Saudi-US relations: unlimited and unstinted Saudi oil for US in return for American umbrella over the Al-Saud clan’s ‘right’ to rule over the Arabian Peninsula.
Why was Nawaz Sharif at the Riyadh conclave is a legitimate question for any Pakistani.
But this simple question has an as simple answer. He was there because of his abysmal servility to his Saudi mentors. The feckless Nawaz would do anything to please his Saudi masters who, in their turn, would do anything to please their American mentors. It’s as simple as that. Did anyone mention the rights of their peoples? Forget about it: Washington’s loyal servants don’t bother about trivia. (The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)
K_K_ghori@hotmail.com
Back to Pakistanlink Homepage
