Is the Muslim World Rising?
Paul Craig Roberts
Recently there have been striking new developments that imply major changes in the correlation of forces. These developments have largely gone unacknowledged and their implications unexamined. I made the effort in online interviews on Dialogue Works and On Target. I will now attempt to do so in writing.
One of the developments is Iran’s defeat of US President Trump’s attack on Iran. Trump has been desperate to find a way out of the conflict without admitting defeat. His exit strategy is to redefine the conflict from a military one to an economic one and impose new economic sanctions on Iran and those who trade with Iran, while claiming that the Strait of Hormuz is an American territory through which is moving massive amounts of oil shipments. The combination of a redefined conflict with propaganda comprises Trump’s exit strategy.
Another development is the announcement of a mutual security agreement between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. This development combines conventional military force with oil reserves and nuclear weapons and unifies three separate Muslim ethnicities in a strategic location with a population of 355,390,000 people. These are largely Sunni Muslims.
Another development is the announcement on Iranian news media that Iran, predominantly Shia, has been invited to join the alliance. It true, this would indicate that the schism between Sunni and Shia is breaking down. It would also mean a pact of four countries with 448,700,000 people, larger than the United States, with conventional and nuclear power, a large chunk of the world’s oil reserves, and control over the strategic oil waterways. It would be a bloc of strategic importance to Russia and China as the Muslim four country pact is located such that it protects Russian and Chinese interests. Such a pact could become a de facto alliance of 6 countries.
These developments, if real and not just words, signal the end of any pretense of American hegemony and Israel’s agenda of Greater Israel. Israel’s population of 10 million of which only 7.8 million are Jews is dwarfed by 448,700,000 Muslims. Moreover, the protection offered by the alliance would likely result in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen joining and the end of warfare stirred up by Washington among Muslims. Syria itself could be reconstituted, and Israel could be forced to give back enough of Palestine for a two-state solution to be possible.
Such an opportunity for Muslims has not existed for centuries and the possibility is so extraordinary that it seems likely to pass by due to stupidity, incompetence, and petty bickering.
But if the opportunity is seized, the world has changed.
The only news I have of the Iranian response to the invitation is that Iran asked to see the details of the security agreement. Certainly Iran would want to know if the pact had any teeth or was just words, a bluff or an attempt to get attention. I know little of the content of the agreement, and I wonder at the absence of an explanation of its consequences. As it is announced, it is not secret, and you would think it would be of great interests to the world’s foreign policy analysts.
The report that Iran was invited to join came from Mehdi Rahimi, who heads Iran’s parliamentary news agency. https://www.instagram.com/p/DcYr7uZDf2F/ However, I have not seen confirmations from the members of the pact or the Iranian executive branch that such an invitation has been issued. If no invitation has been issued, it raises the question whether the pact is an Israeli-American operation directed at Iran. If so, it seems that Trump would be more comfortable with the Iranian situation than he shows himself to be.
We have seen centuries of Muslim impotence due to their inability to unite. In the 21st century we have witnessed Washington destroy three Muslim countries for Israel–Iraq, Libya, and Syria–and attempt to destroy Iran, while Israel has completed its absorption of Palestine into Israel. Just the other day Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich announced that with the “Judaizing” of the remnants of the West Bank, there would now be new Jewish settlements in the Negev and in Galilee. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israeli-finance-minister-unveils-plan-to-judaize-negev-galilee-ahead-of-elections/4040225
Possibly the Netanyahu coalition will be turned out in the upcoming election. Such a possibility could be heightened considerably should Iran receive and accept an invitation to join the Mecca pact, as it would show Israelis that the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel had no further prospect and that an accommodation must be arranged with the Muslim Middle East. If peace were to arrive in the Middle East, it could possibly arrive elsewhere.