The Middle East melange
One of the things President Obama inherited from his predecessor was the sordid melange existing in the Middle East.
anwer.mooraj@tribune.com.pk
Herta Däubler-Gmelin, a former German federal minister in an earlier coalition government, was forced to resign from office because she publicly compared former president George Bush to Adolf Hitler. The incident brought forth a rather testy retort from Morton A Klein, the national president of the Zionist Organisation of America. Mr Klein, while he endorsed the move, nevertheless deplored what he referred to as the racist double standards by which non-Arab leaders are condemned and penalised for using inappropriate Hitler analogies; yet, when Arab leaders in Egypt and the Palestinian Authority do the same sort of thing, the international community remains silent. The Palestine Authority immediately hit back on their official website on April 17, 2002: “The USA fully supports the Israeli action … but the new holocaust against the Palestinians exceeds the one that took place during the Nazi era.”
One of the many things that President Obama inherited from his predecessor was the sordid melange that exists in the Middle East. At the start of his first term there were distinct signs that Obama would be firm with the Israelis and force them to come to some sort of proper settlement with the Palestinians. But in the fullness of time, like others before him, he championed the Israeli cause and broke many of the promises that he had made before the election. While leading the world’s censure of Iran’s attempts to acquire nuclear power he, as other US presidents before him, pretended he knew nothing about Israel’s nuclear stockpile. As a result, analysts in Pakistan do not see any perceptible change in America’s foreign policy or attitude towards this country. In fact, as a local newspaper wag recently pointed out, ever since Obama took over, the drone attacks have increased threefold.
A local critic has begun to wonder if there is some sort of collective proclivity in the US, towards mass violence. He probably had in mind Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the sheet bombing of Hanoi. In fact, a cynic pointed out to me that there appears to be every indication that Obama might be wanting to emulate the example of his predecessor. And just as George W Bush needed an excuse to snuff out the temporal existence of Saddam Hussein, Obama is looking for some excuse to give the same sort of treatment to Bashar al-Assad. The gap between hope and expectation, however, appears to be widening. The difference, of course, is that Saddam Hussein, a former US ally, was universally despised. Obama, on the other hand, is up against an intransigent Vladimir Putin who has, so far, been outplaying him on the international chess board and is totally opposed to a military strike against Syria.
An issue which has considerably irked critics in our part of the world is that while there is universal condemnation of the use of nerve gas, none of the world leaders appear to be disturbed about the other weapon of mass destruction, the nuclear bomb — now in the possession of nine countries, including Israel — or the fact that both Israel and Egypt also have chemical weapons, an issue on which the US is blissfully silent. The Israeli daily, Haaretz, recently pointed out that Israel is adamant it won’t ratify the Chemical Arms Treaty in the face of hostile neighbours. And so, we are back to square one. We have the zugzwang of the great 20th century Russian chess player, Aaron Nimzowitch. Whoever makes the first move will lose a vital peace.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 22nd, 2013.
One of the many things that President Obama inherited from his predecessor was the sordid melange that exists in the Middle East. At the start of his first term there were distinct signs that Obama would be firm with the Israelis and force them to come to some sort of proper settlement with the Palestinians. But in the fullness of time, like others before him, he championed the Israeli cause and broke many of the promises that he had made before the election. While leading the world’s censure of Iran’s attempts to acquire nuclear power he, as other US presidents before him, pretended he knew nothing about Israel’s nuclear stockpile. As a result, analysts in Pakistan do not see any perceptible change in America’s foreign policy or attitude towards this country. In fact, as a local newspaper wag recently pointed out, ever since Obama took over, the drone attacks have increased threefold.
A local critic has begun to wonder if there is some sort of collective proclivity in the US, towards mass violence. He probably had in mind Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the sheet bombing of Hanoi. In fact, a cynic pointed out to me that there appears to be every indication that Obama might be wanting to emulate the example of his predecessor. And just as George W Bush needed an excuse to snuff out the temporal existence of Saddam Hussein, Obama is looking for some excuse to give the same sort of treatment to Bashar al-Assad. The gap between hope and expectation, however, appears to be widening. The difference, of course, is that Saddam Hussein, a former US ally, was universally despised. Obama, on the other hand, is up against an intransigent Vladimir Putin who has, so far, been outplaying him on the international chess board and is totally opposed to a military strike against Syria.
An issue which has considerably irked critics in our part of the world is that while there is universal condemnation of the use of nerve gas, none of the world leaders appear to be disturbed about the other weapon of mass destruction, the nuclear bomb — now in the possession of nine countries, including Israel — or the fact that both Israel and Egypt also have chemical weapons, an issue on which the US is blissfully silent. The Israeli daily, Haaretz, recently pointed out that Israel is adamant it won’t ratify the Chemical Arms Treaty in the face of hostile neighbours. And so, we are back to square one. We have the zugzwang of the great 20th century Russian chess player, Aaron Nimzowitch. Whoever makes the first move will lose a vital peace.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 22nd, 2013.