Record
For US President: Tears Multilateral Deal Then Publicly Endorses Torture
Saeed Naqvi
In the Trump multiplex, three shows are
on simultaneously. First, the stages between the announcement of withdrawal
from the deal and real withdrawal – how signatories respond at each step. That is
one play. Without the US to lean on, will Britain ever countenance a grouping
of which Germany is the most muscular member? Riveting stuff.
Second, consequences on West Asia. And
finally, sauce for Iranian goose is not sauce for the North Korean gander. Nail
biting suspense for the audience because no one will know what turn the three
narratives will take.
Those smacking their lips at the
prospect of Europe drifting away from the US, into another lap, would do well
to delay celebrations. True, Donald Trump has just handed them money for jam by
withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal, but as I have said above, between
announcement and actual withdrawal there is time for a slip.
Almost on cue, Israel has provocatively
sought to escalate the Syrian conflict by attacking what it says are Iranian
assets. Israel must have been very peeved at Iran protégé Hezbullah’s Hasan
Nasrallah administer an electoral one-two on the chins of Tel Aviv and Riyadh.
After this week’s elections in Lebanon, he is indomitable in the country’s
politics. He fulfills one of the laws of nature: he whom Washington opposes
must win.
The other big reversal for the US led
alliance is Syria itself. Iran was beginning to loom menacingly over Riyadh and
Tel Aviv. Does Washington’s withdrawal from the deal bring Iran down a few notches?
Or quite the opposite happens? Iran looks dignified. Trump it is who has
bartered away American trust. He is replacing measured policy with caprice and impulse.
President Barack Obama and Secretary of
State John Kerry sought to address the West Asian scene differently. Their
world view was at a variance from Trump’s “non world view”.
The Obama-Kerry approach to the Iran
deal was conditioned by serious nuclear concerns, ofcourse. But it was also a
function of re prioritizing US role in world affairs in the context of China’s
rise. The “pivot to Asia”, in their conception, required a more “hands on”,
focused attention to the Asia-Pacific region. They placed the Korean Peninsula in
that framework. Diplomacy would advance US interests but without risking
strategic alliances.
Having inadvertently enhanced Iranian stature
by dismantling Taliban in Afghanistan (with Iranian help, let’s remember) and
Saddam Hussain in Iraq, the nuclear deal was one of the ways to manage Iranian
power.
The deal had conferred legitimacy on the
power structure in Tehran. A new balance of power in West Asia had become
feasible. Tehran, Tel Aviv, Ankara, Riyadh, Cairo, would be part of this pentagonal
balance of power.
The Palestinian Peace process, Syria’s
civil war, Yemen, money spinner for arms merchants but a diplomatic disaster – all demanded
American attention on a daily basis. This stalled the crucial “pivot”.
Obama and Kerry sought to place Tel
Aviv, Riyadh and others in the same tent as Iran. This was anathema to Benjamin
Netanyahu and Mohammad bin Salman. There was a frenetic stamping of feet at this
prospect.
They were encouraged from the “New Cons”
lobby parked in Washington think tanks, campuses, media and sundry Zionist
groups, that Israeli-Palestinian was no longer the West Asia’s core conflict. It
had been superseded by the Shia Sunni schism. This was now the basic faultline conditioning
West Asian affairs. “No one talks of the Palestinian issue these days” remarked
a very old but alert Henry Kissinger during a talk at the Nobel Academy in Oslo
two years ago.
The issue which underpinned Arab unity
until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990-91 was Palestine. Thereafter, Iran
remained a thorn in the sides of regimes where the street was sensitive to the
Palestinian tragedy – Egypt, Jordan, for instance. How did
Iran aggravate the situation? Sustained focus on the Palestinian issue during
Friday prayer sermons by the supreme leader in Tehran were routine. The
agitation in the Arab street, and the basement, in response to these sermons
gathered further strength in direct proportion to disturbing news from Gaza or
the West Bank. It was continuous crisis management.
Swollen ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood
would cause Hosni Mubarak to go running to the Saudi King who opened his
coffers for mosques and radio stations in Egypt which propagated exactly the
political Islam which Saudi investments were supposed to quell.
Cairo’s discomfiture was a source of
anxiety to Tel Aviv too: the Egyptian regime, under the American yoke, was well
disposed towards Israel. But the Muslim Brotherhood’s growing links with Gaza
were disturbing.
For the international community to remain
consistently focused on the Shia-Sunni divide, the Palestinian issue must be
placed under a haze. With their combined clout, Tel Aviv and Riyadh succeeded in
shifting focus to Shia perfidy against Israel and Saudi Arabia. Remember, how livid
Netanyahu was with Obama? Totally ignoring the US President, he sailed above
his head to address the US Congress.
There was an ironical twist to the tale.
Excessive focus on the Shia Sunni divide, quite unintentionally brought
anachronistic Wahabism under global searchlights. This is one of the reasons
for the Saudi Crown Prince’s impatient and risky gallop towards modernization.
If the Israeli-Saudi duet considers
Trump a Godsend, the partners better investigate such qualities as Trump’s
attention span, his intellectual stamina. Can he stand by impulsive decisions
until they acquire the outlines of policy? He announced he was leaving
Afghanistan, then ordered a military surge in that country. High appointees have
been in and out of Trump’s rotating door with such rapidity that it is
something of a world record. What becomes of the CIA Director-to-be Gina
Haspal, celebrated torture expert, will be watched with interest. His chilling
endorsement of Haspel is in words that no American President, no “leader of the
free world” would have uttered in his wildest nightmare. He made one’s hair
stand: “Torture works” he repeated with cold deliberation “Torture does work”.
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Happy that I stumbled upon such an informative blog from an illustrious son of India.
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