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Iran, the new target
[DAWN] INTO the cauldron of Middle East and Gulf politics, the krazed killer Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group has once again inserted itself with potentially terrifying consequences for a region already mired in tension, conflict and war. The twin terrorist strikes in Tehran yesterday were designed not just to inflict casualties on the Iranian people, but also to send a signal that the state of Iran itself is under attack. The choice of targets -- the Iranian parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini, who founded the present-day Iranian state -- could not be more potent. The IS, with its explicitly sectarian agenda, appears to have demonstrated that it has the resources to strike in the heart of the most important Shia-majority country in the Moslem world. And it has managed to do so at a time when, instead of uniting against the threat the group poses to all nations, the Moslem world is riven by some of the most bitter politics and disputes in years. Much will depend on how the Iranian state reacts and the position that the Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... -led cluster of Moslem countries takes on the attack. The sensible approach is clear: Saudi Arabia should recognise the peril that the IS poses to all states and immediately adjust its increasingly hawkish approach to Iran and countries allied with it; Iran should reconsider its provocative search for more influence in the Middle East and the Gulf and, instead, focus on the necessary fight against the IS. But the sensible approach is likely to have few takers and already hawkish elements in Iran have suggested that Saudi Arabia may have had a role in the Tehran attacks. With Tehran in recent years accused of cultivating sectarian proxies and non-state krazed killer groups across swaths of the Middle East, the possibility of a fresh wave of violence across the region cannot be ruled out. Yet, more conflict cannot be regarded as a foregone conclusion in a region where historical rivalries and even enmities have been managed for long stretches. While the Middle Eastern and Gulf countries will have to take responsibility for maintaining the peace between themselves, two factors appear to have contributed to the new imbalances in the region. A metastasising IS is clearly a threat to everyone -- a terrorist super-group that threatens all countries but that few states appear to truly understand. It is impossible for states to manage relations among themselves while the IS remains active on the scale it is today. Posted by: Fred 2017-06-09 |
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