Move aside, Hamlet, and give way to the decisive deal-maker. The recolonistaion of West Asia is now in full swing, with Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites on the night of 22nd June. It took him some time to decide whether or not to send in the B2 bombers with their payloads of the 15 tonne bunker busters or MOABs (Mother Of All Bombs). And he did it, as usual, with the MOAL (Mother OF All Lies), having announced just the day before that he would wait two weeks for diplomacy to play out. As with Israel’s surprise attack on the 13th, diplomacy was once again knifed in the back.
Trump and Netanyahu are the Genghis Khans of our benighted times, and will probably never be made to pay for their serial war crimes and genocidal actions, but that is just a sign of the times we live in. Their game plan is now clear- regime change in Iran and joint hegemony over West Asia and its oil- though Ms Modi, Jaishankar and Doval cannot see it through their transactional, Islamophobic hoods. The story was never about Iran’s nuclear weapons programme; it doesn’t have one (as numerous testimonies have made clear). But then Saddam Hussain didn’t have any weapon of mass destruction, either- that myth was created by the other two B2s (Blair and Bush) to serve their purpose. A similar myth has now been created by the two leading thugs of our times about Iran’s nuclear programme, to green light another invasion and another war.
Which begs some obvious questions which very few in power in other countries, or even the media, are asking. Why should Iran not have a nuclear programme, even a nuclear weapons programme? Why is it asked to submit to IAEA inspections when other nuclear countries are not? Why does it not have the right to go nuclear when it is surrounded by none-too-pacific nuclear countries- Russia, Pakistan, India, and, of course, the biggest terrorist threat in the world, Israel? Israel does not even officially acknowledge that it has nuclear weapons capability, has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, does not subject itself to IAEA inspections or protocols. And yet, the sanctions are against Iran, not Israel.
The West has created another myth- that Iran cannot be trusted to have a nuclear weapons programme because it’s a rogue regime and exporter of terrorism. This about a civilisation which dates back to a time when the ancestors of today’s Americans were still living in caves in a miserable island in the North Sea. From two countries least qualified to make these charges- the USA is the only country in history to have actually used a nuclear munition against another country; it has started (and lost) more wars and bombed and destabilised more countries (30 at last count) by military force than any other power since the end of WW2. And Israel, with its voracious appetite for land, is the biggest terrorist power in the Middle-east, the quintessential rogue nation which has, in Gaza, killed hundreds of UN workers, medical personnel, journalists, aid workers, more than 100,000 Palestinians, and is currently engaged in starving the remaining ones to death. Both have repeatedly cocked a snook at institutions established to promote the international rules based order- the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court- and have even banned, threatened and sanctioned its functionaries and assassinated political leaders and scientists they take a dislike to. In all likelihood Trump may bomb the Nobel Prize headquarters if he is not given the Nobel Peace Prize and sanction the Israel Supreme Court if Netanyahu is not discharged from the criminal cases against him! And we are led to believe that Iran is a threat to global peace?
The ironies keep mounting, and would be farcical if they were not so sinister and dangerous in their implications. Pakistan nominates Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize the day after he drops the largest bombs ever made, without any provocation and in the face of all international laws! Trump himself, after practically triggering World War 3, tweets: It’s now time for peace! Our own Prime Minister rings up the Iranian President after the bombing of the latter’s main nuclear facilities by the USA, and advises de-escalation! Pardon me if I’m exceptionally stupid, sir, but shouldn’t the party doing the escalation be the one asked to do the de-escalation? And, in the grandest gesture of hypocrisy and two-facedness, the EU fixes a meeting in the middle of July to “consider” sanctions against Israel- note, dear reader, the word “consider” and not “impose.” By then, of course, another 1500 Palestinians would have been murdered in Gaza and the West Bank by a country they are all supporting, financing and arming. But Hey! what’s the hurry, in the long run we’re all dead anyway, aren’t we?
I am sick to my stomach with the stench of all this posturing, deceit, barbarism, lack of any compassion or feeling of humanity, and evil power plays. Maybe I’m being too naive or am a bit of a simple Simon. But as I get along in years I find, in the words of Meryl Streep, that the funny thing about getting older is that while your eyesight starts getting weaker your ability to see through people’s bullshit gets much better. Now, is that a blessing or a curse? Over to the Prince of Denmark to figure that one out.
| The author retired from the IAS in December 2010. A keen environmentalist and trekker he has published a book on high altitude trekking in the Himachal Himalayas: THE TRAILS LESS TRAVELLED.
His second book- SPECTRE OF CHOOR DHAR is a collection of short stories based in Himachal that was published in July 2019. His third book was released in August 2020: POLYTICKS, DEMOCKRAZY AND MUMBO JUMBO is a compilation of satirical and humorous articles on the state of our nation. His fourth book was published in July 2021. INDIA: THE WASTED YEARS – chronicles all the missed opportunities in the last nine years. His fifth book – THE DEPUTY COMMISSIONER’S DOG AND OTHER COLLEAGUES – released in September 2023, portrays the lighter side of life in the IAS and in Himachal. He published his sixth book, DISAPPEARING DEMOCRACY-DISMANTLING OF A NATION in March 2024; it is a commentary on events from 2021 to the present, a sequel to THE WASTED YEARS. Shukla writes for various publications and websites on the environment, governance and social issues. He divides his time between Delhi and his cottage in a small village above Shimla. He blogs at avayshukla.blogspot.com |
Would regime change in Iran be so sad a thing to wish for?
Surveys have found that more than 80% of Iranians reject the Islamic Republic and prefer a secular government.
We claim the right to attack PK for proxy support given to forces active against us. Iran has provided arms, training, funding, and strategic support to proxy groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, various Shiite militias in Iraq, the Assad regime and allied militias in Syria, the Houthi movement in Yemen, and Palestinian groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. In addition to these wars, Iran has engaged in subversive activities or maintained proxy influence in Bahrain, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia (notably through support for groups in eastern Saudi Arabia and involvement in Yemen).
The similarities go further, for we decry China’s support for PK against India. Yet China has reportedly contributed to Iran’s missile program and supplied weapons to Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen.
Lastly, many nations have an interest to stop such a regime enhancing U-235 beyond 5%. Commercial nuclear power reactors use uranium enriched to about 3–5% U-235; further enrichment has only one purpose. That only one country had the means to stop the enrichment does not mean it had the sole interest in doing so.
Pres. Ahmadinejad said in 2005, “Our dear Imam [Khomeini] ordered that this Jerusalem-occupying regime [Israel] must be erased from the page of time.” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has stated, “Iran’s position… is that the cancerous tumor called Israel must be uprooted from the region.” He has also said, “It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region”. Such sentiments are likely to have consequences, especially when they are turned from rhetoric to action.
I hope the current IFS & Ministry of External Affairs remembers that “Foreign policy is not built on abstractions, or on moral or legal platitudes. It is based on the interests of nations, and these interests are variable.”
— Jawaharlal Nehru, Speech in Parliament, 1950