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George Bush’s jingoism knows no end. Though much wind has been taken out of his sails, the cynical US president has been going about beating war drums against Iran. Latest salvo from the White House war-monger came at the Abu Dhabi’s gold trimmed Emirates Palace Hotel on January 13 where in a no-holds-barred verbal diarrhoea, Bush’s Iranophobia scaled incredible heights. Despite Washington’s own NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) debunking all canards against Iran’s nuclear programme, he saw no qualms in repeating his old refrain against Iran ad nauseum before a select audience. It seems Bush is hell bent on going down into the annals of history as the most insensible occupant of the White House.
It is perhaps a salute to the peace-loving citizens of the United States, that Bush’s war rhetoric is rejected with the disdain it deserves, what with his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) charade having crumbled like a cookie in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. As few people in the Middle East are likely to fall prey to Bush’s war cries against Iran as the ones who believed that US is a serious mediator of peace between Israel and the Palestinians all these years. The phrases like ‘Iran being the chief sponsor of terrorism’, ‘arms supplier to Talibans’ and the ‘chief destabiliser in the region’ are less likely to carry credibility with a world increasingly aware of the designs of the triumvirate of Langley, the State Department and the Pentagon. The much level-headed King Abdullah has emerged far more chastened from the devious diplomacy of the Americans during the two past turbulent decades. Iran’s friendly gestures in the region are now trusted more than American moves at ensnaring the oil-rich Arabs into a new war. Similarly, the two sides are wary of the sinister American designs of sharpening of Sunni-Shia fault-lines which could ultimately engulf the entire region into a civil and sectarian fratricide.
Perhaps the US has never been struggling more than now to trigger a new war in the Middle East as well as retaining its politico-military influence. Both the Arabs and the Iranians have acted with extreme sagacity, although it could be said that Iran should have been much more restrained in its language. If indeed the tempo of the bilateral relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran could be maintained for a year or two, the people in the region could very well prepare themselves for a new era of peace by banishing the US influence. King Abdullah’s ‘Look East’ policy and his visits to India, China and Malaysia during the last one year have done enough to convince the newly emerging powers in Asia that Saudi Arabia is keenly aware of the decline of US influence in an emerging multi-polar world. It also refurbished its pining for a democratic set-up in Palestine by brokering a peace agreement between the Fatah and Hamas despite US-Israel effort to set up the two against each other and provoke street feuds and its role in the ouster of the Hamas led government in the autonomous regions. The GCC’s bold initiative of inviting Iranian President Ahmedinajad to its Doha summit in December too confirmed the desire of the regional nations to accord Iran a due place in the region, notwithstanding US blandishments. If the current initiative for repproachement could forge a collective security arrangement, more attention could be paid by the regional players in resolving the Israel-Palestine imbroglio that has suffered in the wake of American diplomacy’s diabolical game of provoking wars in the Gulf to reduce heat against its protégé, Israel. It is only now that the Arabs have begun to see the American fingerprints over three major conflicts i.e., Iraq-Iran War (1980-88), Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (1990) and American occupation of Iraq (2003) in the Middle East. Similarly, the Palestinians have gained nothing from the Oslo Accord. The Zionist state has refused to retreat from its expanded borders. Nor is it willing to allow refugees back into their homes, nor even budge on sharing Jerusalem. Instead a 375-km Apartheid wall winds across the occupied land robbing the Palestinians of their land, water bodies and farms.
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