THE ROVING
EYE All
(war) roads lead to Mecca Pepe
Escobar
This was undoubtedly BIG. Everyone
and his neighbor were there. The Emir of Qatar,
President Morsi from Egypt, President Gul from
Turkey, Palestinian Authority's Mahmud Abbas,
Hamid Karzai The Afghan, Prime Minister Zardari
from Pakistan, Marzouki the new Tunisian leader,
King Abdullah from Jordan, Iranian President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad himself. All 57 member-states
of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) -
representing no fewer than 1.5 billion Muslims
worldwide.
"In Makkah, last night the Holy
Kaaba and the Grand Mosque was bathed in bright
lights. The giant Clock Tower glowed in green
lights on a clear, moonless night. As the
muezzin's heart-warming voice reverberated in
the mountainous city at Isha, the world's
leaders, sitting in the Al-Safa Palace next to
the Grand Mosque, repeated Allah-o-Akbar after
him."
Allah Akbar indeed - and then
straight to the business in which
these "leaders" excel;
squabbling among themselves - and suspending Syria
from the OIC. So much for the idea sponsored by
"the Islamic world's respected leader, Custodian
of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah" of how to
"unify and strengthen the crisis-riven Muslim
world".
The real nitty-gritty - off limits
to everyone - was what the Saudis, the Iranians
and the Turks actually discussed behind those
Mecca doors after the heart-warming-voiced muezzin
went to bed. For show, the Mecca notables
passed three resolutions. They suspended Syria;
recognized Palestine as a sovereign state (once
again, note that Palestine was treated as just a
side issue); and defended the cause of the
Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar (the military in
Naypyidaw are not exactly quaking in their boots).
The Custodian's show What the
"Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques" seems to have
perpetrated is a savvy, Washington-style PR coup.
He was evidently advised to seat Ahmadinejad to
his left and the Emir of Qatar to his right. The
graphic message; this triumvirate - two Sunni
Wahhabi powers, one Khomeinist Shi'ite - is
deciding the future of the Middle East. We -
Wahhabis - are not bent on destroying those
infidel Shi'ites.
Not so fast. My
colleague Kaveh Afrasiabi has argued Tehran may
have fallen into a trap; they were expecting a
real effort of mediation and political dialogue
instead of the meeting's priority - to suspend and
eventually expel their ally Syria (See Saudis
use summit to isolate Syria, Iran , Asia Times
Online, August 15, 2012).
Behind all the
syrupy shenanigans, the fact is the House of Saud
and Tehran didn't - and couldn't - possibly agree
on anything; this was more like a "let's keep
talking" - the Mecca version of the good ol'
US-USSR red telephone. The "Custodian" called for
"solidarity, tolerance and moderation"; hard to
see any of this as the House of Saud - and Qatar -
weaponize runaway gangs and an array of
beheading-happy Salafi-jihadis in Syria.
The OIC as a whole defended Syria's
"unity, sovereignty, independence and territorial
integrity", exactly as the House of Saud and Qatar
are doing all they can to undermine all of the
above. Here's the OIC as an extension of the
Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (other GCC
members being Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and
United Arab Emirates). Quite a few countries -
from Southeast Asia to Africa - are very
uncomfortable with the whole thing, but in the end
deferred to the "Custodian".
The
"Custodian" also wants to set up a "center for
dialogue" in Riyadh. The verdict is open whether
this center will examine who's really responsible
for what is now practically all-out war between
Sunnis and Shi'ites all across the Ummah. Imagine
a center like this coming to the conclusion that
the protests in Bahrain were legitimate; as
legitimate as the protests in the Eastern province
of Saudi Arabia. And as legitimate as what
happened last year in Cairo's Tahrir Square
(everyone remembers the House of Saud's sheer
horror at its ally Hosni Mubarak being defied by
scores of young urbanites).
The
"Custodian" also said, "The Islamic nation is
living in a state of sedition and disunity that
led to bloodshed of its people in this holy month
in many parts of our Islamic world."
On
sedition - fitna, in Arabic - it's
unthinkable the "Custodian" and his pampered House
of Saud princes are not familiar with the Yinon
plan [1] and countless others, whose
divide-and-rule basis is exactly to incite a
never-ending Sunni-Shi'ite war, with a cast of
subdivisions including Muslims against Christians,
Arabs against Persians, Turks against Persians,
Arabs against Turks and, why not, Kurds against
Turks.
That's exactly what is happening as
the major - intended or unintended - blowback of
Syria's proxy war.
Why not have it both
ways? So the "Custodian" seems to have sold
the notion that Iran and the GCC are talking -
even if practically at each other's throats. But
the House of Saud agenda remains extremely tricky;
it may not dream of a smashed Iran, but certainly
a very weakened Iran, either by years of Western
sanctions or by a potential Israeli attack. It's
no secret the GCC badly wants Israel to attack
Iran; it then could reap the benefits of inwardly
delighting over a weakened regional Shi'ite power
while publicly condemning Israel's unilateral
aggression.
This farce, anyway, is far
from over. Up next; Tehran has invited the
"Custodian" for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)
summit later this month. Let's see whether the
House of Saud, the GCC and Iran are really
interested in ending fitna way beyond a
photo-op. There's still no evidence the "leaders"
of 1.5 billion Muslims will EVER get their act
together. Not even Allah himself would make them
see the light.
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