ANGER AND PRIDE, AND THE NEW IRANIAN APPROACH.

thirdroughdraft

Note: In this draft I add an Iranian reaction which possibly is the version the Iranians will stress about Saddam Hussein, to keep the bridge open with the Iraqi Arab Sunni nationalists

ANGER AND PRIDE

Below is my translation from Arabic of a paragraph in an editorial about the verdict against the former President of Iraq. The author is Abdel Bari Atwan of al-Quds al-Arabi online , a popular Palestinian all-Arab daily from London.

Anger at the verdict, mixed with pride at the effectiveness of the Iraqi resistance, are obvious in the editorial. I'm confident that the greatest majority of people in the Arab World share in Mr. Atwan's indignation and pride.

IRAN'S PROBLEM

This should pose a problem for Iran and Syria. These two countries have been trying to hammer together a united Sunni-Shiite front in Iraq. Both will have to factor into their calculation this overwhelming Arab sympathy towards the former President of Iraq, the pride all Arabs feel about the Iraqi resistance, and the humiliation they feel at the treatment of one of them, even if critical of the Iraqi President in the past. Currently this Arab majority has a love affair with Iran, its President in particular. But will it have the same should Iran express glee? Or should Iran fail to devise a way to accommodate this intense Arab nationalist feeling? The harmful idiots are trying. But hey...

The Iraqi Street is ripe for the picking. But no country has the wherewithal. The U.S. is Israel's sponsor; (Mr. Atwan's paper has a story today alleging that U.S. army officers are supervising the Israeli assault on Gaza'S Beit Hanoun;) Saudi Arabia, through a shadow and secret government, is Israel's ally; Qatar colluded against Iraq (the U.S. use of al-Adeed in the invasion) and is, too, Israel's not-so-secret ally (no need for a shadow government here); Islamic Iran detests Saddam Hussein and the Baath and doesn't seem to be able to get over it; and Syria's hands are tied by its alliance to Islamic Iran.

The Iraqi Street will have to find its own way and evolve a new brand of Arab/Islamic Iraqi nationalism. It'll do it sooner or later.

ABDEL BARI ATWAN

Here's the translated paragraph:

"They [officials of the Iraqi puppet government] have the support of Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United States, Britain, and all the countries of the Gulf--one hundred and fifty thousand American troops, seven thousand British troops, twenty-five thousand multi-national troops, two hundred thousand National Guard and Iraqi security guards, two hundred and fifty thousand sectarian and ethnic/racial militias (peshmergas). All of these and they could not [effectively] defend the Green Zone. So convenient it is for them to explain their [abject] failure in governance by blaming [it] on Saddam Hussein."


IRAN LOOKS FOR A WAY TO ACCOMMODATE IRAQI SUNNI NATIONALISM

How a country reacts to the verdict against the former President of Iraq is cue to whether this country accepts the reality that Arab nationalism, Iraqi or other, is here to stay. It could be Islamic; but still it would be Arab. It could be allied to Iran; but still it would be Arab. Iran faces this dilemma, and its glee at the verdict would diminish it immensely before the very people it perceives as its first line of defense against the harmful idiots.

An editorial by Hamid Rida Asifi, Deputy Foreign Minister for Parliamentary and Consular Affairs, shows us possibly how Iran will accommodate the Sunni Iraqis:

"The offensive and humiliating treatment by the occupation forces [of Saddam Hussein] after they had arrested the General of the Valley of the Two Rivers, has proven that dictators cannot rely on their lying protectors [the U.S.] who had made of them a myth, albeit a paper tiger one, to achieve their particular goals."

(My translation from Arabic.)

In the same editorial in the daily Hamshahri on or about November 7, Mr. Asifi added that Saddam had created rifts among Islamic countries (possibly true) and sectarian divisions among his people (not true.) Here, Mr. Asifi referred to the harm these rifts had caused to the Islamic countries, in particular the Palestinian people.

In essence, therefore, Iran should be stressing that no one can trust the harmful idiots, including all Arab and Islamic countries. That the Iraqi President/dictator had trusted these idiots.

Surprise.