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ACT OF THE YEAR
SCAM OF THE YEAR
PERSON OF THE YEAR
CAD OF THE YEAR
"The 'Arab world' remains miserably
divided and confused,
its institutions backward and feeble.
Most Arab governments
and elites have been compromised
and co-opted, infiltrated
and rendered impotent, many times
over."
IRAN, ISLAM,
THE ARABS, AND THE WEST
MER - Washington - 25 December 1997:
The Israelis are terribly nervous about
Iran. They do everything they can -- which is quite considerable as they
quite literally have de facto agents working at the highest levels of the
entire Clinton Administration -- to foment anti-Iranian attitudes and prevent
any American-Iranian rapproachment. And it remains quite conceivable that
after further crippling Iraq the American Empire may still turn its covert
and military forces against Iran and try to substantially weaken Iran's
fast-growing regional military power or even bringabout a counter-revolution.
For a basic part of the very structure of the "new world order" in the
Middle East is that the U.S and Israel alone rule and alone possess weapons
of mass destruction. Indeed, Israel's military power alone is some seven
or eight times greater than the combined forces of all the Arab countries,
accordingto Jane's Military Review!
It is not the Arabs that really worry
the Israelis these days. So far Arab civilization has proven itself completely
unable to stand up to the Western encroachments of the post-Ottoman period.
Most Arab governments and elites have been compromised and co-opted, infiltrated
and rendered impotent, many times over. The so-called "Arab world" remains
miserably divided and confused, its institutions backward and feeble. Today's
"Peace Process" by which Israel's conquests are validated and Palestinians
are put on Reservations and Bantustans surrounded by military check-points
and roadblocks -- could not have proceeded as it has but for the active
support of the Arab "client-regimes" and their embrace by the corrupt businessmen
clique that is at the core of the Arafat regime.
The main Arab client-regimes in Cairo,
Riyadh, and Amman, along with the lesser client-regimes in the Gulf, Kuwait,
and Tunis, are indeed an integral part of this Pax Americana -- but only
so long as they acquiesce in it, only so long as they accept the dictates
that flow from it.
No one else according to this grand
imperial concept -- which is of course defined by the "dual containment"
policy first enunciated by Israel's senior voice in Washington, the new
Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East Martin Indyk -- is to
be allowed to amass the power to truly challenge this overall arrangement.
It is thus quite fitting that the EVENT
OF THE YEAR in the Middle East took place more in the Muslim world than
in the Arab world, and took place not in any of the Arab countries, but
rather in Tehran. It is also fitting that this amazingly successful conference
took place just a few weeks after the American-Israeli "economic summit"
conference -- an important structure of the "new world order" -- fizzled
in Doha.
The Turkish nationalist and Islamic
forces have so far been outmanuevered by Israel and the U.S. which have
struck up a very close relationship with the brutal Turkish military. But
in Iran independence and assertiveness continue to threaten this "new world
order", as well as the Arab client regimes that support it and parasitically
feed on it.
The Tehran Islamic summit earlier this
month was pregnant with precisely the kinds of changes, attitudes, and
potential challenges, that make both Israel and the U.S. very jumpy. Having
brought Iraq down through nearly genocidal policies -- first by dropping
some 100,000+ bombs on the country and second by using even food and medicine
warfare to cripple and render destitute the population -- the current lurking
obsession of those building the "new world order" is the Islamic Republic
of Iran.
"The OIC (Organization of the Islamic
Conference) summit turned out to be a historical event and a turning point
in the Islamic World," Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, noted on
11 December. "The unprecedented unity within the Islamic World which was
realized with the unanimous agreement on the final resolution gives hope
of settling the problems of the world Muslims," Khamenei continued.
Now of course there is much here that
is simply political hyperbole -- Iran's leaders taking advantage of the
substantial opportunities presented to them by the devastation of their
enemy, Iraq; the growing disenchantment with American power and Israeli
arrogance throughout the region; and the very exposed position taken by
the "client-regimes" in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey, in lining
up with the U.S. and Israel (no matter what their deceptive rhetoric).
But even discounting these words in
this way, and further realizing the serious possibility of Israeli-American
manipulation of public opinion to allow for a crippling blow against Iran
in the years ahead, the Tehran Islamic Summit is definitely the most significant
Middle Eastern EVENT OF THE YEAR 1997 now ending.
MER (c) Copyright 1997
