Iran's threats & Arab states' al-taqiyya stances
By: Elias Bejjani *
June14/10
In spite of the actual odious Iranian military, religious, economic,
territorial, cultural and existential threats, and the ongoing abhorrent
internal interferences in their domestic affairs on all levels and domains, the
rulers and officials of the majority of the Arab states that Iran is
aggressively and openly targeting in its evil contrivance of expansionism,
denominational and hegemony schemes, are in general not yet publicly and
officially addressing these serious, fatal Iranian problems or dealing with them
appropriately.
Sadly, like the ostrich, these rulers and officials have been hiding their heads
in the sand, consciously denying the seriousness of the imminent Iranian danger,
and scared to unveil courageously the vicious Iranian plot that aims to
destabilize, disintegrate and topple their regimes in a bid to erect on its
ruins the Persian Empire.
Because of fear of confrontation they have been handling the problem in a double
standard and taqiyya* (dissimulation) mentality. Their overt stances are exactly
the opposite of the covert ones. Overtly they cajole and appease the Iranian
mullahs and officials while covertly they appeal to the Western countries and
beg them to protect their regimes and to attack Iran militarily and topple its
mullahs' regime as was the situation with Iraq's Saddam regime.
Meanwhile, Iran's intelligence and its notorious Revolutionary Guards have
successfully infiltrated many fragile and poor communities in numerous Arab
states, recruited from them sleeping terrorist cells, and armed militias. They
bought through bribery and fanaticism high standing Arab officials, politicians,
political parties, clergy, and fully controlled tens of educational, health, and
social services.
Iran annually spends billions of dollars on its both armed proxies, Hezbollah in
Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza, and on many other terrorist and fundamental armed
organizations in Yemen, Iraq and other Arab states. Iran and Syria openly
encourage, instigate, fund, guide, train, and organize and use all the terrorist
groups in the Middle East that advocate for havoc, jihad, intolerance,
sectarianism and hatred.
Iran alleges that all the Arabian Gulf countries are Persian and not Arabic, and
occupies since 1971 three Islands in the Arabian Gulf that belong to the Arab
Emirates (Abu Musa, Tunb, and Lesser Tunb). Recently, sleeping
Iranian intelligence and terrorist cells were uncovered and arrested in Kuwait,
as well as in Bahrain, Iraq, Egypt, and Yemen.
Iran through its two armed proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, controls both Lebanon
and Gaza Strip. Hezbollah, the Iranian army in Lebanon, has grown to become not
only a threat to Lebanon, but also to the peace, stability and order in the
whole Middle East. Meanwhile, Iran is blatantly interfering in Iraqi internal
affairs and badly destabilizing its peace and democracy.
Despite all these obvious Iranian threats, plots, and dangers, the majority of
Arab rulers and officials are still keeping a blind eye on the whole fiasco and
hold on to al-taqiyya attitudes and stances.
In this context of the Arabic dissimulation not even one Arab country openly and
officially supported UN Resolution 1929 that was issued on June 09/10 by the UN
Security Council against Iran over its nuclear program. On the country, some of
them either attacked the resolution or claimed that such an approach was not
appropriate.
Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Ahmed Aboul Gheit instead of hailing UN
Resolution 1929 and extending Egypt's utmost gratitude to the countries that
voted to pass it, rhetorically claimed that sanctions should not be the only
option to deal with the Iranian nuclear case and that sanctions did not serve
the peaceful means for solving the crisis with Iran. According to him, previous
sanctions against Iran have always led to more tensions and more confrontations.
Aboul Gheit stressed the importance of continuing diplomatic efforts to find a
peaceful solution for Iran's nuclear crisis.
This blurred and lukewarm Egyptian stance is harmful for both Egypt and the
Middle East countries who look on Egypt, the biggest Arab country, as a leading
power that is expected to face bravely Iran's schemes, take clear stances
against its nuclear ambitions and help deter its interferences and violence that
lately targeted and hit Egypt itself through a Hezbollah terrorist cell. What is
ironic here is that most observers are under the impression that covertly Egypt
supports the sanctions and encourages the Western countries to attack Iran
militarily, while overtly do and say the opposite.
Saudi Arabia, the richest and most influential Arab country, is also resorting
to dissimulation in regard to Iran. According to a report The Times newspaper
published on June 12/10, Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air
defenses to allow Israeli jets to use its airspace in a bombing raid on Iran's
nuclear facilities. "The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to
pass over and they will look the other way," a U.S. defense source in the area
told the paper. "They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren't
scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement
of the (U.S.) State Department." Israel, which regards Iran as its principal
threat, has refused to rule out using military action to prevent Tehran
developing nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is aimed solely at
power generation.
The Times said Riyadh, which views Iran as a regional threat, had agreed to
allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the
country to shorten the distance in the event of any bombing raid on Iran. A
source in Saudi Arabia said the arrangement was common knowledge within defense
circles in the kingdom. "We all know this. “We will let them (the Israelis)
through and see nothing," the source told The Times. (AFP). Sadly, the Saudis
immediately stated that the report is fake and fabricated instead of saying
loudly, yes we will help in deterring Iran and in curbing its worldwide threats.
Again this dissimulated lukewarm Saudi stance is harmful for the Saudis
themselves and for all the Arab countries.
There are no justifications whatsoever for the two biggest, most powerful and
influential Arab countries, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, not taking loud, courageous
and clear cut stances against Iran's expansionism, hegemony, sickening plots and
ambitions. The painful reality that these leaders should not ignore under any
given circumstances lies in the solid fact that all the Arab countries and not
only Israel will be Iran's main targets.
The more the Arab leaders procrastinate, hesitate, depend on other powers to
protect them, turn their heads to the other side or put them in the sand and
keep on handling the actual Iranian threats with double standard, fear and
taqiyya stances, the more Iran is going to become blatant, violent and
aggressive.
If the Arab states really want to safeguard their people, sovereignty, riches,
stability, peace, independence and prosperity they ought to take definite
stances against Iran and join all the other regional and world powers who are
adamant to contain Iran's recklessness, pull out its teeth of harm and to curb
all its unjustified military ambitions.
Arab countries need to wake up, stop resorting to taqiyya stances, and smarten
up so that they could differentiate their real friends from their enemies. Iran
definitely is not among their friends.
NB: *"Taqiyya" literally means: "Concealing or disguising one's beliefs,
convictions, ideas, feelings, opinions, and/or strategies at a time of eminent
danger, whether now or later in time, to save oneself from physical and/or
mental injury." A one-word translation would be "Dissimulation."
*Elias Bejjani
Canadian-Lebanese Human Rights activist, journalist and political commentator
Email phoenicia@hotmail.com
Web sites http://www.10452lccc.com
& http://www.clhrf.com
Mailing phoenicia group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Phoenicia/