We live in a crazy world; war-mongering nations lecturing about peace, nations that have trampled on UN Charter by invading Iraq using fabricated evidences are swearing allegiance to the UN Charter, and the massacre of civilians in Gaza is now certified by the UN as a war crime, but it does not make a blip in the UN Security Council radar. Then we witness nations armed with nuclear weapons making noise about nuclear proliferation, scorning Iran for seeking the same nuclear deterrence, concurrently ignoring the nuclear arsenal of Israel. This sort of blatant hypocrisy pithily describes the history of Middle East, from the betrayal of Sykes-Picot to the recent events, and this is the real source of anger in the streets.
Just compare the response from the western leaders to the publication of the recent UN report produced by Richard Goldstone on the Gaza Conflict, and revelations made by Iran of its nuclear site near the holy city of Qom. The former is a definite murder case testified by the countless victims lying in their pool of blood, whereas the latter is an administrative dispute between nations.
The UN report gives ‘pseudo legitimacy’ to the view that Israel had committed war crimes at the very least in its offensive against the civilians in Gaza. It was largely civilians, as no sane person will equate the lightly armed Hamas with their home made ‘rockets’ (which does not explode) to a conventional armed force. The report merely confirmed the obvious, the world witnessed the carnage and suffering inflicted on the trapped civilians in Gaza by the ‘brave’ Israeli soldiers. Israel has violated international law, and therefore, some kind of action is warranted but nobody dares to raise a finger against the sacred Zionist-Jews.
However, earlier I stated the report gives ‘pseudo legitimacy’, because legitimacy through the UN is dependent on the will of the leading western powers. In short, the UN is only effective when they want it to be. The west barely raised an eyebrow to the UN report, no calls for sanctions, or any form of action. Without any kind of enforcement, the UN report is a thesis of an academic student and it will remain academic, like the numerous UN resolutions issued against Israel.
In contrast, there was an instant, and a coordinated response by the western leaders to Iran announcing of a nuclear facility near the city of Qom, as if only now nuclear proliferation has become a serious problem. The sheer hypocrisy makes you seethe with anger, as one by one, the western leaders followed Obama, and issued warnings to Iran for developing nuclear energy, forgetting the nuclear arsenal in their backyard. It reminded me of a pack of dogs, when one starts to bark the others follow.
Iran is still some distance from acquiring nuclear weapons, and the US already knew about the facility, no surprises there because it can be easily detected by advanced satellite technology. In that case, why did the US and its allies react sharply to Iran’s declaration? The coordinated response makes sense as it is part of a broader US policy to make Iran to conform to its desires, in particular the aspirations of the Zionist state. This partially explains the recent decision to abandon the missile defence plan that had infuriated Russia, clearing the way for closer cooperation on placing sanction on Iran. This was followed by the speech at the United Nations by Obama, appealing to strengthen the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Then Obama met Dimtry Medvedev, and Russia subsequently announced for the first time that it would consider applying sanctions on Iran, obviously reciprocating to the US move to abandon the missile defence plan. That leaves the only other nuclear member of the Security Council, China. Obama no doubt also discussed this issue in the recent meetings with the Chinese President Hu Jintao. Historically, China has always been the last passenger to board the US ship. It seems, Obama has been active in preparing to confront Iran, and the influence of the Israeli lobby embedded inside Obama’s administration is very clear.
Here is the commonsense view of a layperson. Israel is a certified war criminal, a serial killer that is pointing its nukes at its neighbours, in particular Iran; it is constantly ignoring and violating UN resolutions, and casually invades and bombs its neighbours when it wants to ‘feel’ secure. Despite all this, Iran is accused of being the guilty party here, just for acquiring nuclear energy. How can an administrative dispute take precedence over a murder case? From the Iranian perspective, the country is surrounded by US-led military bases, and constant Israeli threat of launching bombing raids; thus, Iran has ample justification to develop nuclear weapons to protect its borders from the unruly Spartans.
Yamin Zakaria (yamin@radicalviews.org)
London, UK
www.radicalviews.org
http://yaminzakaria.blogspot.com
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