By: Elias Bejjani *
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/
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