By Shireen M Mazari
| Starts from shaky premise, soon changes subject, then loons out. Islamic thought at its finest. |
 It is a sad time for Muslims. Europeans have declared open season on Islam with blasphemy and abuse deliberately going unpunished by states.
| What a pity they don't have blaspehmy laws in Europe like they do in Pakland... |
The unprecedented scale of protest from Muslim civil societies is also being misread as something happening at the behest of extremists and/or Syria and Iran.
| It's just coincidence that in places where the Islamists aren't strong enough to throw their weight around nobody gives a rat's patou... |
Some recognised European experts on Islam, like Olivier Roy, have declared that the protests go beyond the issue of the cartoons. Some have even tried to link the protest to the lack of freedoms in some Muslim polities! Well all this may comfort those who refuse to accept the extent of hurt and anger caused to all Muslims by the unpunished acts of blasphemy against Islam and its Prophet (PTUI peace be upon him), but it is absolutely incorrect.
| "Yup. Wrong as wrain. Couldn't be wronger. Here's why..." |
The fact of the matter is that all shades of Muslims are angry and want to see the guilty brought to book and the issue is very much of the cartoons themselves. No one has to push the protest forward. We are all protesting because we are angry and hurt by the injustice of the countries allowing their own laws to be broken because the targets are Islam and Muslims.
| Denmark as a free press and it doesn't have blasphemy laws. So piss off. |
Contrast this with the action taken against historian David Irving who denied the Holocaust and has been in prison in Austria, since 2005, under a warrant issued in 1989, for this denial.
| Austria's part of the scene of the crime. Their peculiar laws have a similarly peculiar genesis. |
Denmark, too, has seen the same Jyllands-Posten editor, who was supposedly taking a stand for "freedom of expression" when he commissioned and printed the blasphemous cartoons suddenly being sent on holiday when he felt he must also print anti-holocaust cartoons!
| When the Jews were being carted away for slaughter the Danes stuck up for them. The king of Denmark was the first to sew the yellow star on his coat.No Muslims have been carted away in Denmark, and if someone were to suggest it the royals would probably take the Muslim side. But since such suggestions are actually originating with Muslims, I guess that won't happen. |
So, it becomes increasingly clear that Islam and Muslims are now acceptable targets for abuse in Europe and other parts of the Christian world.
| Muslims fare pretty well in Europe, especially compared to the condition of Christians and — even worse — Jews in Muslim countries. Blasphemy laws are only one of the mechanisms of oppression... |
So much so that we are now seeing revelations of yet more physical and mental abuse being heaped on Muslims in Iraq by the occupying forces -- this time the victims being mere teenagers.
| He's probably referring to the video of the Brit troops beating the crap out of the rock-throwing kiddies... |
As if Guantanamo Bay and Abu Gharaib were not enough of abuse against Muslim prisoners, British forces seem to have developed a perverse joy in the physical abuse of Iraqi teenagers.
| No one's had his head chopped off at Guantanamo. Can you say the same for Lahore? Abu Ghraib was a stench and a pestilence long before we got there, and it's not a patch on the way things were under Sammy. We don't flog people, we don't toss them off buildings, we don't cut their tongues out — but we did keep the videos of Sammy's people doing the same things. You should watch them sometime. |
A few sentiments of regret by Blair and a news item stating that one of the guilty soldiers has been arrested is all that one has gotten in response from the British Government.
| Sentiments of regret and the arrest of the perps is appropriate. Groveling isn't. |
Even here, the name of the offending soldier has been kept out. Why? After all, the teenagers were abused in public with one clearly deranged soldier giving vent to his thrill in witnessing this abuse. Once again, even guilty Europeans must be protected while Muslims remain fair game.
| Two words, bub: Nick Berg. I agree that Euros and Americans are expected to adhere to higher standards, but it'd be nice to see Muslims do the same. But their savagery is always excused by one thing or another, even if it's the loss of Andalusia... |
And now we are hearing of yet another invasion of a Muslim state in the offing -- this time Iran.
And the pretext? Its nuclear programme. Consider the following: North Korea opts out of the NPT, declares it has nuclear weapons and intends to continue down this path. So what does the US do? Get involved in the Six Party talks while keeping the North Korean issue at the UNSC on ice. Then we have Iran, reiterating its intent of staying in the NPT, stating it simply wants to pursue its right to enrich uranium as allowed for under the NPT, makes a clean confession of its past omissions, allows inspections, disavows any intent to produce nuclear weapons, so what do we get? The US threatening the possibility of military action against Iran.
| At the same time we've had the president of Iran demonstating that he's a psychoceramic, calls for the destruction of Israel, threats against Europe and the usual scimitar-rattling. Wehn we do finally take out North Korea, you'll bitch about that, too. |
Ironically, no one is allowed to cast any aspersions at all or seek any limits on Israel's nuclear programme and weapons' stockpiles.
| As far as I know, they haven't even admitted they have nuclear weapons. Maybe they don't. But nobody's called their bluff, have they? |
This threat of military action comes alongside the British Foreign Secretary's statement to a parliamentary committee, on 8 February, that there was no proof that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. But then the US has never waited for proof when it seeks military action against a Muslim state.
| There's no proof they aren't, either. It'd be fairly easy to demonstrate that they aren't, but they refuse to do that. |
This is not to say that Iran has not been guilty of violations of the NPT, but if it really wanted to go the nuclear weapon route it would have left the NPT and not held its nuclear programme up for inspections and negotiations. As for producing fissile material, no non-nuclear party to the NPT has a larger and more threatening programme than Japan. Japan has a massive fast breeder programme and is in the process of building the Rokkasho-mura reprocessing plant. Already, in Japan's pilot Tokai reprocessing plant, 206 kg of plutonium have gone unaccounted for. But we have not heard anyone refer to this, even at the IAEA.
| Japan's been inoculated against a desire for nuclear weapons. |
Of course, sending the Iran issue to the UNSC will only up the ante and politicise the issue even further, leaving little flexibility for negotiations -– that is, if the US is prepared to have negotiations.
| Iran's been "negotiating" for three years, with no results. One would almost suspect they don't intend for the negotiations to go anywhere. One would almost suspect that they're playing for time. |
After all, the US still suffers from an Iran trauma since the Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis that followed.
| There is that, isn't there? We do owe them. And we haven't forgotten. I hope we never do. |
But for other members of the UN, some pertinent questions need to be answered if one is to assess the value of moving the issue out of the IAEA, which has a technical rather than a political focus, to the UNSC.* First, what will be the next step, once Iran has been reported to the UNSC? Is there a cohesive strategy that exists on this?
| I think the strategy to date has been for Iran to line up support from the Russers and the Chinee, in hope of forestalling any action. Apparently they're also lined up support in some quarters of Pakland, too... |
* Second, now that Iran has decided to voluntarily implement the Additional Protocol and has also taken some transparency measures, that go beyond the IAEA safeguards and Additional Protocol, is the international community better off? The suspension on the enrichment was voluntary and non-legally binding so how can this be made legally-binding now just to try and find some rationalisation for taking Iran to the UNSC. After all, Iran continues to observe the regular NPT safeguards.
| ... since they're playing for time. If they cease at this point, that shortens the timetable for tromping them, without shortening their timetable for achieving nuclear weapons. |
* If Iran refuses to cooperate with an UNSC resolution, what will be the response of the international community?
| My guess is dithering, until the U.S. takes the lead in one direction or the other... |
In the case of Iraq, non-cooperation impeded verification. As for sanctions -– will they be enforceable effectively?
| Iraq's were, though only somewhat. We'll have to listen to Medea Benjamin bitching and moaning about the starving Iranian children, but we've put up with that before. This time maybe we'll keep an eye on Kofi and his family and friends and prevent that little bit of rakeoff. |
Will there be military action a la Iraq-invasion style by the US and a coalition of the willing with a post-event UNSC resolution to give it legal cover?
| I'd guess an air war like nothing you've ever seen. |
Will that help stabilise the region or enable an effective response to the situation in terms of non-proliferation, which the US itself seems to have reneged upon in the wake of its nuclear deal with India?| "Stabilizing the region" at this point involves another hack at the Gordian knot. Ridding Iran of its mad mullahs will go far to introducing actual stability, rather than stagnation. That will leave only Soddy Arabia and Pakland with significant pockets of Islamist nutbaggery. That's why both parties will be against the idea of Iran going down. |
Clearly, the US approach has only put the international community, including Iran, on a lose-lose path and any military action against Iran will end what is left of stability in this region.
| Exporting Islamic revolution doesn't make for stability. |
It seems the US will target the oil installations of Iran, which are clustered together, with cruise missiles and then try to take physical control of them. The oil resource factor in play again!
| No blood for oil, baby! But why would we target the oil installations, when we could target the nuclear installations? Maybe that should be "no blood for neutrons"? |
For Pakistan, the danger lies not simply in the fallout
on the domestic polity of any military action against Iran. With the US delinking India's nuclear status from that of Pakistan, a far greater danger lies in the possibility of a similar threat being given to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan's nuclear programme -- which still sits uncomfortably with the US. Otherwise why should the US deny Pakistan the same nuclear recognition it is offering to India?
| Because India's a somewhat freer country than Pakland? Because the lunatics are several steps removed from leadership positions in India, while in Pakland they sit in the senate and scheme for the big turban? |
The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad.
| In that case, I don't think we have much to fear from Islamabad's attempts at strategizing. |
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