http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36967.htm
Robert Fisk: He may huff and puff but Benjamin Netanyahu is on his
own now as nuclear agreement isolates Israel
Sudden offer by Tehran to negotiate a high-speed end to this
cancerous threat of further war was thus greeted with almost manic
excitement
By Robert Fisk
November 25, 2013 "Information Clearing House - "The Independent" -
It marks a victory for the Shia in their growing conflict with the
Sunni Muslim Middle East. It gives substantial hope to Bashar
al-Assad that he will be left in power in Syria. It isolates Israel.
And it infuriates Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Kuwait and other Sunni
Gulf States which secretly hoped that a breakdown of the Geneva
nuclear talks would humiliate Shia Iran and support their efforts to
depose Assad, Iran's only ally in the Arab world.
In the cruel politics of the Middle East, the partial nuclear
agreement between Iran and the world's six most important powers
proves that the West will not go to war with Iran and has no
intention - far into the future - of undertaking military action in
the region. We already guessed that when - after branding Assad as
yet another Middle Eastern Hitler - the US, Britain and France
declined to assault Syria and bring down the regime. American and
British people - those who had to pay the price for these monumental
adventures, because political leaders no longer lead their men into
battle - had no stomach for another Iraq or another Afghanistan.
Iran's sudden offer to negotiate a high-speed end to this cancerous
threat of further war was thus greeted with almost manic excitement
by the US and the EU, along with theatrical enthusiasm by the man who
realises that his own country has been further empowered in the
Middle East: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Assad's
continued tenure in Damascus is assured. Peace in our time. Be sure
we'll be hearing that Chamberlonian boast uttered in irony by the
Israelis in the weeks to come.
But there's no doubt that Geneva has called Israeli Prime Minister
Netanyahu's bluff. He may huff and puff, but if he wants to bash Iran
now - on the basis that Israel must remain the only nuclear nation in
the Middle East - he's going to be on his own when his planes take
off to bomb Iran's nuclear plants. The Aipac attack dogs can be sent
up to Congress again by that most infamous of Israeli-American lobby
groups to harry Republicans in support of the Likudist cause, but to
what purpose? Did Mr Netanyahu really think the Iranians were going
to dismantle their whole nuclear boondoggle?
When he said yesterday that "the most dangerous regime in the world
took a significant step towards obtaining the world's most dangerous
weapon", many Arabs - and an awful lot of other people in the world,
including the West - will have wondered whether Israel, which long
ago obtained the world's most dangerous weapon, is now - in rejecting
the Geneva deal - the world's most dangerous government. If Mr
Netanyahu and his clique in the government decide to twit the world's
major powers amid their euphoria, he may bring about - as several
Israeli writers have warned - the most profound change in Israel's
relations with the US since the foundation of the Israeli state. It
would not be a change for Israel's benefit.
But six months - the time it takes to solidify this most tangential
of nuclear agreements - is a long time. In the coming days,
Republicans in Washington and the right-wing enemies of President
Rouhani will demand to know the real details of this febrile game at
Geneva. The Americans insist that Iran does not have the "right to
enrichment". Iran insists that it does. The percentages of enrichment
will have to be examined far more carefully than they were yesterday.
Mr Rouhani - or Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader whose dark
wings hover over every elected Iranian leader - says that the fear of
an Iranian nuclear weapon will be seen by future generations as a
"historical joke". Netanyahu says the whole shenanigans in Geneva
will prove to be a "historic mistake". The Sunni Saudis, always
waiting to spot the winner before opening their mouths, have already
sat down with their Sunni Qatari and Kuwaiti allies to commiserate
with each other over Shia Iran's new victory. In Damascus, I suspect,
Bashar, himself an Alawite-Shia, will tuck the kids into bed and
share a glass with wife Asma and sleep well in his bed tonight.
© independent.co.uk
_______________________________________________
Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list
Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org
http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel