When Obama is scared of Iran - The U.S. is now afraid of war against Iran.(
AA).By Abdulrahman al-Rashed.
We thought it was Iran who is afraid of a war launched by the U.S. to make it
halt its military nuclear program. The surprise is that we’ve now found out it’s
the U.S. who’s afraid of a war with the Iranian regime.
It was strange when the
American president told Congress that tightening economic sanctions against Iran
during the negotiations may drag into a war.
Then why all this display of heroism for so many years? Hadn’t it been easier
for American president Barack Obama to let Iran enrich uranium and produce
nuclear weapons instead of making empty threats and imposing political and
economic sanctions?
Okay. If the Obama strategy stipulates not starting a
war, then why doesn’t he stop his security apparatuses from pursuing al-Qaeda
and let it be? Isn’t this easier than fighting it in Yemen, Somalia and
Pakistan?
It’s nice of the American president to think, like the late
Mother Theresa, of turning the other cheek to his rivals and reconciling with
hostile forces and transferring his troops from Bagram and other bases to
domestic military bases at Cherry Point, San Diego and Hawaii.
But will the Ayatollah in Iran, Sheikh Zawahiri and Taliban’s mullah in
Afghanistan and Pakistan really leave him alone because he withdrew the marine
forces or shut down his bases in Qatar and Germany?
If the world had enjoyed
such a lovely way of thinking, we would have been among the first of those
applauding President Obama because we would be the first of those to benefit
from peace. But this is not a video game, it’s the real world.
Those who die in Syria everyday are real humans and not cartoon characters.
When al-Qaeda attacked New York and Washington, President George W. Bush did not
initially have a program to confront the terrorist organization or to send
troops to the Gulf. On the contrary, Bush had voiced his desire to sponsor peace
in the Middle East. He, for the first time, announced his intention to support
the establishment of a Palestinian and an Israeli state, and visited the Islamic
Center of Washington. He thought al-Qaeda was the problem of the region’s
countries.
Obama will find out what Wilson and Roosevelt found out before him:
superpowers, who have interests across the world, must perform a global role.
President Roosevelt insisted for a whole year to remain neutral during World War
II, and rejected to confront Nazi Germany until he realized that Hitler the
extent of Hitler’s ambitions and intervened.
What prevents many regimes
and terrorist organizations from engaging in adventures is their fear that the
price may be high. The idea of deterrence based on the option of using power
has, for around seven decades, succeeded at decreasing the number of wars and
maintaining stability in most of the world. The opposite is also true - making
threats without implementing them deepens wars and encourages crimes to be
committed.
The Syrian regime is criminal in its nature, but it was afraid of an
international confrontation at the beginning of events. This is why its troops
didn’t dare kill more than 13 people a day. After the regime found out that the
possibility of international intervention against it is weak, it increased the
number of killings to 100 a day.
When the regime realized that no one will deter it, it used the excuse of the
presence of armed gangs to shell cities and towns with tanks, jets and cannons.
Since no one acted against it after it used heavy weapons, it then intentionally
used chemical weapons several times to suffocate its people. The regime’s crimes
went punished and no military action was taken against it, so it dared use
chemical weapons again to annihilate hundreds. And thus came the photos of the
accumulated dead children that terrified the world.
Sadly, history will
record that the American president who spread optimism five years ago calling
for reconciliation and abstention from resorting to force is in fact the only
one who concluded a truce with the Syrian regime - which used heavy weapons and
prohibited chemical weapons - and that he did nothing but grant it more time.
And now, at this decisive moment, he’s letting the Iranians get away with their
plans.
Abdulrahman al-Rashed is the General Manager of Al Arabiya News Channel. A
veteran and internationally acclaimed journalist, he is a former editor-in-chief
of the London-based leading Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, where he still regularly
writes a political column. He has also served as the editor of Asharq al-Awsat’s
sister publication, al-Majalla. Throughout his career, Rashed has interviewed
several world leaders, with his articles garnering worldwide recognition, and he
has successfully led Al Arabiya to the highly regarded, thriving and influential
position it is in today.
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