Mahboob A. Khawaja

“….a transition from "the war on terrorism" to the outright demonization of Muslims. While underscoring the freedom of religion, the Obama administration is "beating the drums" of a broader war against Islam….. the objective is to instill fear, rouse and harness citizens' unbending support for the next stage of America's "long war….. A "war of religion" is unfolding, with a view to justifying a global military crusade.” (Professor Michel Chossudovsky, “America's Holy Crusade against the Muslim World”, Global Research, 8/30/2010).

American duplicity and political intransigence have lost the strategic direction and rational sense of glory and triumph in honoring its peacemaking commitments to the Arab Middle East. The new emerging Arab world and its politics is changing fast as the new generation informed people are taking over the responsibilities and slowly organize themselves to demonstrate courage, wisdom and new political imagination for a new value-based and free of foreign influence Arab world. Strangely, in this progressive struggle for change, freedom and co-existence, America and Israeli both have lost the opportunities to be partner in the peacemaking process and in the establishment of an independent State of Palestine to balance the disequilibrium in which Israel presently exists. It is becoming more obvious that by challenging the voices of REASON and implying denial of the rights of the Palestinian people, the embittered America and aggressive Israel could enjoin a terrible sense of helplessness and isolation and nothing could save them from the consequences of their own triviality, ignorance and wickedness.

The collective courage and coherent political imagination of the new educated Arab generations have effectively challenged the traditional Arab authoritarianism supported by the US and West Europeans making them to THINK of the Unthinkable future. The Western strategic planners kept the fattish and mindless Arab rulers ignorant of the prevalent facts of modern life. Intellectually fractured and physically broken solid walls of secretive police “FEAR” built and maintained by the Imperial Masters expose the truth of Arab - Western world relations. Nothing other than hypocrisy and deceit were the corner stone of these bilateral relations over half of a century. The informed Arab masses articulating UNITY of purpose onward to NEW THINKING and ACTIONS - ANEW FUTURE visible on the horizon. Discarding the virtual reality, it is happening and well in progress across the authoritarian Arabian Peninsula. Quite intuitively and instinctively, people’s inspired revolutions have surpassed the human imagination to facilitate a different and more promising landscape across the Arab Middle East.

If democracy is the norm, then facts speak clearly that the 99% of the US masses differ and reject the policies of the minority 1 % exploitative elite and its political agendas and practices. American duplicity and Israeli self-absolutism is inherently flawed and its consequences have cornered them in dead-ended isolation irrespective of the global changing landscape. America and Israel have flawed perceptions of the Iranian nuclear advancement to indoctrinate the mankind with false information and notion of warmongering. Both have failed to redirect the move for the establishment of an independent State of Palestine. The global community does not view the US-Israel stance as balanced and rational. There are increasing number of Jewish scholars, intellectuals and political activists in North America and Western Europe calling for the rights of the Palestinian people, formation of an independent State of Palestine and normalization of relations with the Arab world. But Israel and the US policies do not appear to be standing for peacemaking and reconciliation through peaceful means expect intransigence and belligerency and rejection of the voices of public reasoning. The current circumstances trigger dark clout over their intents and policy behaviors to resolve the Palestine problem and the establishment of an independent State of Palestine.

When we compare facts of human affairs, we tend to learn more about the prevalent realities. Today, North Korea successfully launched a space missile which to American and its coerced allies is highly suspected of having nuclear arsenal capacity and objectionable. But none have issued war threats to North Korea. Suppose in the world of Virtual Reality, if we were to replace Iran with North Korea - place of location, would America and Israel have reacted in the same manner as they did against Iran? Iran is not a nuclear power and according to all scientific data, it does not have the capacity to produce nuclear weapons but America, Israel and so many other bribed nations continue to issue violent threats of reprisal against Iran. Why? Simply, because Iran is a Muslim nation whereas, North Korea is not. Perhaps, non-religious if communism is assumed just as an ideology, not a religion. In this self-defeating exercise, no Western news media even mentions that Israel is nuclear power nation and has close to 200 nuclear arsenals in the warehouse. Is it a more of a religious warmongering against Iran? Do sadistic leaders operate the political systems of the globe?

World is changing as it should be but not the policy impulse of the US and Israel. Effective leaders and stable nations opt for change when faced with facts not fictions of life and gear toward rational changes as the principle of adaptability to be successful in carving a sustainable future. Change and adaptability to the future-making are rational factors and choices to envisage human rights, dignity and peaceful co-existence. The tribal cult-based Arab sheikdoms and the rulers are living in the modern age of ignorance (“Jahlliyia”). They lack rational understanding of time and history. The oil discovery was a scheme of enslavement and moral and intellectual deprivation for the traditional Arab societies most often termed as “fitna” - a wicked proposition. The imported scheme of “modernity” and oil-pumped prosperity have not changed the Arab time capsule - being irrelevant, incompetent and floating on its won completely out of touch with the challenging needs of the 21st century and legitimate aspirations of the Arab masses for freedom and people’s based system of governance.

Politics is self-centered obsession to have power and to influence others for personal aggrandizement and exploitation. Politicians produce nothing except talking and listening and shouting matches in the corridors of parliaments and assemblies. For over centuries, the traditions go on as none seem to have the courage and commitment to change the theater of absurdity run on taxpayer’s pains and payments. Discard cynicism and wickedness but be conscious that some contemporary politicians or monsters of history are often the two sides of the same picture enriched with perversion and treacherous escape from the facts of real life. They exhibit individualistic absolutism and despotic intents to gain irrational favors. Who can argue with REASON against the pro-Israeli American political institutions - lobbyists, people and leaders - they are well paid to say things that Israel wanted to hear and to guarantee the strategic superiority of Israel, no matter what the world thinks about all of them. Their duplicity in thoughts and actions is not just plain falsehood and cruelty to the prevalent facts of human life but challenges to the US official stance in a global theatre. America and Israel both need a strong moral, intellectual and political challenge to come to terms with the Arab Middle East. Do the tribal cult based Arab rulers possess the moral, intellectual and political capacity, vision and courage to challenge the US and Israel for an equal treatment in global affairs? Could the dummy and ignorant Arab authoritarian rulers stand up to encounter the Israelis in face to face dialogue and make logical discourse that the international community could grasp some hard facts of the Middle Eastern tragedies? Imagine, in September 2010, President Obama made an international declaration at the UN General Assembly that he hoped to see a new member State of Palestine sitting in at the UN body by next year. But in 2011 close to the re-election campaign, he started talking in-between, playing with broken promises and words on Palestine. The same Obama administration opposed the Palestinian bid to seeks UN membership as a State in November 2012. There are no solid moral and political principles on which the nations and leaders take a stand. What is missing in this ball game and political drama across the global media screens? One fact outweighs all other factors of expediency that the Arab nations do not have any educated and intellectually competent and politically credible leaders to come out in front at a global stage and REASON the UNREASON. The world pays attention to those who know how to communicate the ideas and issues logically and effectively. Arab rulers have wasted time and energies on futile projects negating the Islamic values and spirit of leadership. What if there were people-run and open-ended system of political governance and 21st century educated and proactive and intelligent people of the new generation making the policies and representing the Arab political governance at a global theatre? Would Obama and Netanyahu dare not to listen to those powerful voices of REASON?

Arabs people are ancient, tolerant and enjoy credible history; Americans are new in civilization and rush to hasty conclusions, only to THINK after the facts. Arabs have a history of eight hundred years (longest period in any civilization) of glorious culture and civilization in Al-Andalusia (Spain), not terrorism. European persecuted the Jews for ages, not the Arabs, and American never cared about it, well after the 2nd World War until the Jews established their institutionalized influence and power in politics, mass media and financial domains. People and nation of the world must listen, learn and understand these facts of history. Now, it is the time for the Muslim thinkers, strategic planners and other professional experts to take the initiatives and respond to the call of time and human conscience and lead the change process and make positive things happen out of planned ideas and ideals. It is time in history-making to THINK right and act; otherwise, there are more wars and destruction on the horizon for the Arab-Muslim world to come. The US needs more hoax of wars to revamp failing of its financial collapse, defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan, unpayable $14 trillion borrowed from the future and failed political agenda of wars against the living humanity.

Imagine, if the Arab world had public institutions and Islamic system of people-based governance, there was no scope for the Western oil importing nations and their military forces to intervene, bomb, destroy and subjugate those already living under half of a century of authoritarian oppressions. It is the same story in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen and in other parts of the princely sheikhdoms of Arab societies - common people are gunned down, their rights and human dignity is purged, the only voices of reason are coming out of the Western thinking people and human organizations, not of the Arab ruling elite. All of the Arab individualistic absolute rulers have institutionalized secretive police apparatus and Rapid Deployment military units to maintain “fear game” and to keep the herd under control by force and torture. This was business as usual for almost sixty years but no Western politicians or institutions spoke against it, not even the Western pro-democracy proponents claiming to be optimists and peacemakers. None of the despotic rulers had any imagination or vision to build the human strength based valued societies and to see Islam as a changing force of time and progress.

Imagine, what would the history say about the Arab rulers complacent in America’s led bogus War on Terrorism - a crusade against Islam and about their leadership role model for the future generations to come? Take a moment and have a cool breathe and THINK if you can, of the on-going planned massacres and killings of the innocent people in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, political horrors and physical injuries, intellectual and moral insult to Muslim conscience, and deaths and devastations that these monsters have caused to the traditional and valued culture of the Arab people. How should the world view the Arab people, societies, Islam and their sense of moral values? Does oil-pumping assumes more value than Islam and its values? Have the traditional Arabian hub of moral, spiritual and intellectual cultural values been drained out and replaced by hurriedly affixed fake imagery of the oil prosperity? What would history speak about the Arabian moral and intellectual losses and decadent culture? Were there no conscientious and intelligent folks, scholars and thinkers to THINK of the navigational change and challenge the absurdity of anti-Islamic authoritarianism? Was there nothing else other than handful of sadistic rulers, oil pumping and militarization as the culture and economy of the Arab people? What kind of moral, intellectual and cultural images are beaming out of the traditionally cultured and civilized Arab societies to which the global community should take notice to understand its impulse and values?

There are more daunting challenges and opportunities ahead for concerned Arab-Muslim scholars and thinkers to grasp the momentum and try to determine and plan feasible alternatives and remedies and workable solutions. The role and tasks of the societal planners and managers - people dealing with change and management of development is painfully formidable and progressive over certain period of time. The societal problems are complex and there is no single pill to diagnose the cancerous sickness and disorder institutionalized by the Arab authoritarianism. Professor Fouad Ajami (Arab Predicament) said it right: “the problems of the Arab world are the result of self-inflicted wounds.” If the one track rulers were open to listening and learning (vital traits of effective modern leadership), the current catastrophic wars against the Arab people - firing on demonstrators in streets, funeral processions and worshippers in Masjids, killings of innocent citizens and destruction of the social environment and emerging political horrors could have been avoided.

“Change” is the most important phenomena embracing the political imagination, street talks and evolving people-oriented culture of THINKING and moving into the future-making of a new age of governance, discarding power politics of the few foreign hired agents of influence, often supported by foreign aid, institutionalized corruption and dictated interests of the Imperial Masters and obsolete Empires. The crises in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq and continued killings of the civilian populace clearly demonstrate how the Arab leaders have failed to deal with conflict situations. They appear to be living in a fools paradise soon to be replaced by their enemies. They cannot demonstrate any moral or intellectual leadership capacity to extend any sense of strategic security to their people. Do the oil enriched Arab rulers have any rational capacity and imagination to tackle any problems of the people’s concern and priorities?

It is the future, how to be rebuilt across the oil producing Arab nations. There must a rational concern and immediate thinking on the part of able and competent Muslim thinkers to plan for change and future-building - out of deliberate deaths and destructions in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Tunis, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The losses are too great in human, social, economic and political terms and consequential impacts will go on for ages to come as what was destroyed instantly by the blood thirsty draculian forces, cannot be rebuild overnight. These were the results of decade old indifferences, incompetent and corrupt system of governance - the net outgrowth of the Arab authoritarianism and ruthless dictators. The educated and informed generations of the Arab societies must THINK collectively and rationally and devise plans in concert with professionals and experts whether from the US – the Arab world or other societies to a framework of Change, reformation of the obsolete system of political governance, encourage people of new ideas to share their viewpoints and seek collaboration from all corners to rebuild the new institutions, social-economic infrastructures, and a sustainable promising future of peace and co-existence with all the neighbors.

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(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Lambert Publishing Germany, May 2012)