Islamic Radical Regimes and
Western Ignorance
By: Elias Bejjani*
February 02/2011
On January 31/2011, Iran's supreme
leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei posted this statement on his website: "there is no
doubt that based on realities envisioned by God, a new Middle East will be
formed and this Middle East will be an Islamic Middle East."
Apparently, the western world and its US leadership are walking blindly through
a field of explosive mines in the entire Middle East. This questionable and
confusing path is seen by many Arab, Israeli and Lebanese analysts and
politicians as a self destructive act due to the fact that all the pro-western
regimes are falling one after the other, while the west it self is paving the
way and preparing the milieus for Islamic fundamentalist groups to take over.
Sadly, it makes no difference if western policies are executed intentionally or
unintentionally because they are advocating for the model of the two axis of
evil regimes, Syria and Iran, which operate using Hezbollah and Hamas as their
terrorist militias. The perplexing western acts of hostility toward their own
allies by characterizing them as oppressive and not respecting the will of their
own people, are portraying these two evil regimes as substitutes for all the
pro-western ones.
It is strongly believed that the western cowboy-like policies are completely
detached from the Middle East realities and alienated from all its social and
religious norms. The policies of the west if not reassessed will definitely lead
to more chaos, anarchy, disasters and loses in the whole Middle East.
The west, for reasons that are not understood yet, is abandoning all its Middle
East allies under the pretext of the two false slogans of democracy and freedom.
Western leaders ignore the deeply rooted fact that the majority of the Middle
Eastern people comprehend these slogans in a very different way than to western
societies. The criteria for norms in the Middle East and the western world are
not only different, but at times completely contradict each other.
One wonders why suddenly the west has decided to get rid of its number one ally
in the Middle East, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak after toppling their other
loyal ally, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia. There is no doubt
Mubarak is a very bad ruler. But if he is compared to the Muslim Brotherhood
organization's leadership, who might now get their hands on Egypt and turn it
into another Iran, Mubarak looks like a guardian angel. It is worth mentioning
that Ayman Muhammad Rabaie al-Zawahiri, the number two man in Al Qaeda's
hierarchy, is an Egyptian and not much different from his Muslim Brotherhood
organization counterparts.
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood organization is the oldest and largest radical
Islamic group, the grandfather of Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda. Its main
objective is to erect a Muslim regime in Egypt and all other Muslim countries
and impose Islamic Sharia law. Dr. Walid Phares, a well known terrorism analyst
and writer, has studied the Muslim Brotherhood. Phares says its history shows
that the group is not secular and not moderate. “The Muslim Brotherhood is the
mothership for the jihadi ideologies and thinking. And therefore one can say
today's Al Qaeda, and today many other jihadists, are off shoots of the Muslim
Brotherhood.”
One also questions the western wisdom in keeping a blind eye on what is
happening in Turkey whose current Islamic leadership is gradually changing their
secular country into another fundamentalist Iran, while still receiving western
aid worth billions of dollars. The same Turkish scenario is gradually unfolding
in Yemen, Tunisia, Algeria, and Sudan.
The same question applies to the Baathist Syrian regime, the most notorious
dictatorship in the world. The USA, and all the European countries are appeasing
and cajoling this murderous regime and allowing its merciless leadership to
sabotage its neighboring countries Iraq and Lebanon. Syria is given free reign
to interfere in their internal affairs through terrorism and murder. Syria's
President Bachar Assad was again last month given the West's blessings to abort
Lebanon's Cedar Revolution, topple its unity government, and appoint a pro
Syria-Iranian PM to form a new anti-Western government. It seems also that the
pro-western Jordanian monarchy is on its way to face the same Mubarak fate.
Since the early seventies and up until today the bizarre and questionable
policies of the USA and the majority of the European countries have been
offering wrong predictions and calculations in regards to all the radical
Islamic regimes in the Middle East. Looking thoroughly and objectively in some
of the dramatic unfolding events since 1970 we learn with great disappointment
that all the Islamic radical regimes were brought in power by the USA and Europe
on the account of their pro western allies. The sequence of the following events
show plainly this problematic trend:
In year 1975: Arab countries, Europe, and USA gave Syria's notorious butcher and
dictator Late Hafez Al Assad the green light and full support to invade and
occupy Lebanon, the only multi-cultural, democratic country in the Arab world.
In 2005 the Lebanese Cedars Revolution forces Syrian troops to leave Lebanon.
Last month Lebanon fell again a prey to Syria and Iran and again the with the
blessing of western countries.
In 1979, the USA brought to Iran Ayatollah Khomeini and his Islamic revolution
on the account of its strong and powerful ally Shah Reza Shah Pahlevi. The
Iranian Islamic Revolution under the late Khomeini and his current his
successor, Supreme Leader, Sayyid Ali Khamenei oppressed its people, murdered or
muffled all opposition groups' and individuals. Iran is now working hard on
owning an atomic bomb, destabilizing Arabian Gulf Emirates and kingdoms through
terrorism, demonizing the USA as a satanic regime, and is terrorizing the Middle
East through its armed militias Hezbollah and Hamas. Meanwhile, the west has
turned a blind eye to Iran establishing a mini-state in Lebanon through its
armed militia, the terrorist Hezbollah..
In 2003, the USA invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussien's regime and replaced
it by a pro Iran-Syrian one that have massacred the Christians and forced most
of them to leave Iraq in fear for their lives.
In Afghanistan the USA nurtured and created the monster Al-Qaida and its devil
Ben Laden, who orchestrated and executed the 911 terrorist attacks that
instigated the western invasion of Afghanistan. Meanwhile the USA and Europe
support and finance the most notorious fanatic and oppressive regimes in the
world including Pakistan, Syria and others.
Elections and democracy are not always the road for freedom and liberation. No
one should forget that in 1932 Adolf Hitler through structural elections took
over Germany and created the worst dictatorship in history.
In this same western kind of mentality and wrong calculations, Ehud Barak's
Israeli government abandoned its Lebanese loyal allies in south Lebanon in the
year 2000 and handed south Lebanon without any fight to Hezbollah. While in June
2007, Ehud Olmert's government watched silently as Hamas took over the Gaza
strip without giving its Palestinian allies any help.
Iran's President Ahmadinejad, Syria's dictator Bashar Al Assad, Hezbollah's
leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas' leadership, and Venezuela's President
Hugo Chavez among many leaders supporting terrorism allege that the West is a
coward when it comes to confrontation, does not have the guts to fight, and
always abandons its allies after using them. Well, the recent events unfolding
in the Middle East make these allegations credible.
In conclusion, we believe that the western world has an obligation to help its
Middle Eastern allies to gradually adopt a kind of democracy that is tailored to
the culture, beliefs, traditions and history of their societies. They should not
take any role in toppling them and help the Islamic fanatics to take over.
Hopefully, the Western policy makers will wake up soon to the reality that they
are playing with fire in the Middle East, because as we say back home in
Lebanon, " He who plays with fire ultimately burns his fingers".
*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/.