THERE are times I wonder how I ever got along before the Worldwide Web came along. For hacks, it’s such an indispensable research tool that it’s hard to imagine life before the Internet. For example, of late I have been inundated with links and attachments containing the latest American statements and moves directed at Iran and its fiery young president.
Long, speculative articles about military plans fill my laptop’s screen. Anonymous Pentagon and CIA sources are cited to give credibility to alleged steps designed to neutralise the perceived nuclear threat from Iran.
In this plethora of information and speculation, it’s hard to tell where the truth lies. But one thing is clear: Washington and Tel Aviv are not going to wait for Iran to become a full-fledged nuclear power. Military action to abort the country’s nuclear programme may be the last resort, but it might be exercised sooner rather than later. And while we can all see the disaster looming ahead, Iran’s intransigence and its president’s provocative words are only helping to precipitate the crisis.
But I do not intend to reiterate what other commentators have said. In the West, people talk about the Iranian threat. In much of the Muslim world, we see western double standards and bullying. Where does the truth lie? As always, in the mind of the beholder. But while there is no such thing as objective truth in politics, there are certain realities we ignore at our peril.
Firstly, despite Iran’s repeated assertions, few people really doubt that its nuclear programme is weapons-oriented. As the country is sitting on an ocean of oil and gas, it stretches our credulity to be asked to believe that it needs its provocative uranium enrichment facilities to meet its energy requirements. This is the lie Pakistan repeated ad nauseum on its way to making the bomb, but at least as an oil-importer, we had a little more credibility than our oil-exporting neighbour.
Secondly, by making threatening and very anti-Semitic speeches, President Ahmadinejad has given both the US and Israel a stick to beat Iran with. Being democracies, both need popular support to take their people to war. By seeming to threaten Israel with extinction, and challenging American interests in the Persian Gulf, Iran has presented hawks in Washington and Tel Aviv good reason to seriously contemplate military action.
Whether Iran has the right to acquire nuclear weapons is a whole different debate. The fact is that by embarking on this route while simultaneously threatening America and its favourite client state, Tehran has opened itself up to military action from two of the most powerful states in the world.
Common sense would seem to dictate that if you must initiate a clandestine weapons programme, the least you can do is to avoid provoking your opponents on other fronts. But clearly, common sense is a commodity in short supply in much of the Muslim world. Instead of counselling caution, most Muslims are cheering Ahmadinejad on. Indeed, he has become a hero to many in the Islamic world, acquiring the iconic status of Osama bin Laden, Colonel Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein.
The fact that the last-named suffered an ignominious fate, Gaddafi had to eat humble pie and give up his nuclear ambitions under western pressure, and Bin Laden is hiding in a cave cuts no ice with their millions of fans. The perception that “they stood up to America” is enough for Muslims around the world to idolise them.
And yet, if we examine the state of their followers, we discover misery and suffering. Bin Laden, of course, does not rule a country, but he does command a large following. The others in our pantheon have ruined their nations with their reckless policies. Surely the first task of a national leader is to ensure the security and prosperity of his people. Instead, our heroes tilt at windmills across the world while impoverishing their own citizens, and provoking others to take military action against them.
By any sane calculus, Iraq, Libya and Iran should all be prosperous states. Instead, we see widespread poverty and unemployment. The reason is clear: by taking their countries into pointless adventures beyond their borders, they became pariah states, subject to sanctions for their aggressive policies. Saddam Hussein brought ruin upon the Iraqi people by invading first Iran, and then Kuwait. It is absurd to claim — as many of his many supporters do — that he was somehow “tricked by the Americans” to do so. He was the unquestioned leader of a sovereign nation, and his unnecessary aggression against his neighbours has brought his nation to its present sorry mess.
Colonel Qhadafi supported an unpleasant band of terrorists across the world at vast expense to the Libyan exchequer. As a result, his country was bombed by the Americans and subjected to crippling sanctions by the United Nations. And he was finally forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the relatives of those killed in an airline bombing that his intelligence agency was blamed for. A couple of years ago, he admitted he was buying nuclear technology from Pakistan’s Dr A.Q. Khan, thereby surrendering this option on which Libya had squandered hundreds of millions of dollars.
Iran, too, has paupered itself over the years, largely due to the irrational policies followed by its clerics. Soon after the Islamic revolution, it held the staff of the American embassy hostage, thereby triggering a range of sanctions and fiscal reprisals. Today, its unemployment rate is soaring, while inflation has shot up. All this economic pain at a time when Iran’s oil export earnings are at an all-time high is an indication of the incompetence and corruption that have taken root.
So why can’t our leaders learn to first take care of our own problems before taking on the world? Why cannot they learn from the Chinese leadership which has put ideology on the back-burner while it builds up the economy?
When (mercifully retired) General Aslam Beg trumpeted his nonsensical slogan of “strategic defiance” during the first Gulf War in 1990, he was describing the thought process of Muslim leaders. The unpleasant truth is that the problems at home are often too complex to tackle. In order to divert the attention of their own people, these immature leaders indulge in endless rhetoric and dangerous foreign adventures.
It is true that there are many injustices in the world, and it is our duty as moral beings to raise our voices against them. But we can be much more effective in addressing them as strong and respected nations. Currently, nobody takes us seriously precisely because our leaders often make such clowns of themselves.