PEACE SEEMS TO TRUMP WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST
EDITORIAL | DECEMBER 3, 2013 5:45 PM
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By Edmond Y. Azadian
The Middle East is a tinderbox ready for a conflagration when hit by
any spark. The Bush-Cheney administration not only failed to avoid
triggering that spark but it deliberately and recklessly began a war
against Iraq which continues to be a bloodbath to this day. We have
yet to see the day Mr. Cheney’s prediction comes true – that Iraqi
people would embrace the aggressors with flowers.
All in all, the war initiated on a lie by the above-named warmongers,
murdered more civilians than the dictator Saddam Hussein could have
ever slain.
Additionally, that war cost the lives of 4,500 young Americans, besides
the 50,000 injured and maimed veterans, suffering from physical and
mental ailments who have become dependent on US taxpayers for a living.
The war in Iraq cost $3 trillion, bringing the US economy to its knees.
The war hatched by Paul Wolfowitz and his neocon allies was waged
primarily to eliminate a threat to Israel. Saddam Hussein had not
threatened – nor was he in the position to threaten – the US.
It is believed that Mr. Cheney’s plan was to expand the war to Iran and
Syria had the Iraqi adventure proved to be a success, as he imagined.
While awaiting the flowers to shower his way, Mr. Cheney vacated his
bunker at the White House.
It was left to President Obama to clean up the mess. President Obama
has been trying to make good on his campaign pledge to create more
peaceful situations in the troubled regions of the world. Yet almost
halfway in his second term, he has yet to claim victories in his
domestic policies: Obamacare is in trouble, the immigration bill is
still fuzzy and the rest of the domestic agenda still in the works.
Reneging on his campaign promise to recognize the A Genocide will
not impact on his image of a peacemaker, though it will disillusion
the Armenian community.
Mark Laudler writes in the New York Times: “Deep war wariness of
the Americans has reinforced Mr. Obama’s instinct for negotiated
settlements over unilateral action. While the White House officials
suggest that the president always planned to arrive at this moment and
that everything that came before it – from troop surge in Afghanistan
to the commando raid that killed Osama Bin Laden was cleaning up
after his predecessors.”
Through intense shuttle diplomacy, Secretary of State John Kerry was
able to bring the Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiation table,
while West Bank settlements are continuing inexorably, contrary to
his admonition to Israelis to freeze the settlement expansion. No
one knows where these negotiations could lead, but at least parties
are talking to each other, after a long and fruitless hiatus.
Jodi Rudoren writes in his “Memo from Jerusalem” (New York Times,
November 25): “Benjamin Netanyahu’s self image first and foremost
is shaped by wanting to lead Israel out of the shadow of the Iranian
bomb. His image is not driven by being the peacemaker, creating two
states and dividing Jerusalem,” which means that negotiators can spin
their wheels endlessly to no avail.
But on the other hand the US administration has ceased two
opportunities to bring breakthroughs to two intractable problems,
which could cause region wide devastation, if left unchecked: one is
negotiations on Iran’s nuclear facilities and the other convening
a conference on the war in Syria. These two issues vitally impact
Armenians in the Middle East.
President Ruhani of Iran launched a charm offensive when he attended
the UN General Assembly last September, and after a series of dramatic
sorties, he finally talked to President Obama over the phone and
that conversation kept the diplomatic ball rolling until an interim
agreement was reached between Iran and five major countries of the UN
Security Council. After a six-month period, the parties will negotiate
a final deal, which, if successful, will give a clear foreign policy
victory to the Obama administration.
This agreement calls for Iran to keep its uranium enrichment to no more
than 5 percent and convert its stock of nearly 20-percent-enriched
uranium to 5 percent, halt construction at a planned heavy water
reactor and also allow intrusive international inspections, which
can detect any cheating or non-compliance of the agreement at an
early stage.
The international community, in return, will ease some sanctions on
Iran, allowing the use of $4 billion in frozen assets and $30 billion
from the sale of oil and petrochemical products, which will boost
Iran’s sagging economy.
The agreement has worried Israel, which wants to settle for nothing
less than bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Prime Minister Netanyahu himself has been leading a campaign against
the agreement, calling President Obama naïve and weak against a wily
Iran. Of course, the Israeli lobby is in action to derail the deal.
The Wall Street Journal even had published a picture of Neville
Chamberlain signing his agreement with Hitler in 1938, an appeasement
policy that led nowhere at that time and allowed Hitler precious time
to prepare his strategic plans.
Anyone questioning Mr. Obama’s resolve should bear in mind that he just
ordered B-52 bombers to the area disputed between Japan and China –
and China is a world power, not a regional one.
It is ironic that while the Obama administration was negotiating
the deal, the US congress was drafting a bill for stricter sanctions
against Iran. And there was a bipartisan coalition supporting the bill,
with Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer spearheading the movement with
the cooperation of Harry Reid, Senate majority leader, also a Democrat.
While the debate is raging about the merits or the dangers of the
deal, the Economist states: “Bombing would probably set Iran back by
only a few years but it would certainly remake the Middle East in a
very different way. Nobody knows whether the gamble with Iran will
pay off. But it is already clear that the risks are low, the prize
is potentially vast and the alternative is dire.”
The other breakthrough came about the war in Syria.
After the debacles of Iraq and Libya – under the nose of Russia and
China – Syria proved to be a tough nut to crack. President Obama
was pushed into a corner to bomb Syria, accusing the Assad regime of
using chemical weapons against its population.
As a reluctant warrior, he referred the issue to the US Congress,
while losing the support of a close ally, Britain, which had been
badly burnt previously in Iraq, falling prey to former Prime Minister
Tony Blair’s lies and verbal gymnastics in support of the Bush-Cheney
line. Russia provided the fig leaf the Obama administration needed,
by proposing to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, which
has since been carried out successfully.
While international negotiations were moving forward, Assad’s forces
gained ground in the battlefield with outright support from Russia and
Iran. The factions fighting Assad’s government sometimes neutralized
each other but they mostly raised the specter of another extremist
Islamist regime in the region, alarming the West.
The opposition was mostly composed of mercenaries, hired by Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan, the same concoction which had been
sent to Libya to overthrow Col. Muammar Qaddafi.
Now a meeting is scheduled for January 22 in Geneva. The New York
Times says, “Regime change in Iran and even in Syria is out; cutting
deals with former adversaries is in.”
Under Hafez al-Assad and his son, Bashar al-Assad, Syria has been one
of the countries in the Middle East – along with Iraq – where politics
and religion have been separate. Besides, Assad has been extremely
benevolent toward Christian minorities, including Armenians. Aleppo
has been the last bastion of Armenian culture and literature,
even in recent years. Besieged Armenians in Aleppo today enjoy the
government’s protection and receive food supplies. His opponents have
already destroyed Armenian churches, or have replaced the crosses
with their black flags.
In peacetime, Syria has been a friendly nation to Armenia.
In Iran, the stakes were even higher for the Armenians. Had Iran
been bombed, Armenia would have lost one of its reliable lifelines
to the outside world. Besides, the West always harbors plans to use
any occasion to compromise Iran’s territorial integrity, by gifting
northern Iran to Azerbaijan, which would increase the population of
the Aliyev dynasty-led Azerbaijan by 20 million, spewing words of hate,
on Armenia’s border.
The peace prospect is beneficial for the region and in particular,
for Armenia. On the other hand, US businesses are gearing up for
hefty deals with Iran.
After suffering so much from wars, extremism, terrorism and
colonialism, the nations in the region deserve peaceful and safe times,
which after all, will deliver a well-deserved diplomatic and economic
victory to the US.
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From: Baghdasarian
http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2013/12/03/peace-seems-to-trump-war-in-the-middle-east/#sthash.R57aCgaY.dpuf