Ayoon Wa Azan (Uneasy neighbours)

There is an abundance of concordant and cumulative information that the odds for an Israeli strike against the Iranian nuclear program or of a war have now receded. The two leaders of the war gang in Israel, the two known war criminals Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, have railed accusations of treason at the opponents of the war, beginning with the other war criminal Meir Dagan, the former chief of the Mossad who once beheaded Palestinians with a Japanese samurai sword, and then with former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Gen. Benny Gantz, the Chief of Staff, and not ending with the head of the Internal Security, the Shen Bet, Yuval Diskin. Against the backdrop above, official U.S. sources have leaked reports that the United States will accept for Iran to continue to enrich uranium up to the 50 percent mark, or the maximum allowable limit for peaceful nuclear energy, in return for guarantees and unimpeded access to Iranian nuclear facilities by UN inspectors. Furthermore, negotiations between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency are set to resume in Vienna on the 14th or 15th of this month. In light of the above and many other corroborative reports, I may be prompted to say that the risk of an Israel attack has declined; yet I will not: For one thing, my confidence in the statements of the Israeli officials is less than my confidence in say, a venomous snake or a hungry wolf. As I read these reports, I find myself unable to rule out that the Israelis may be preparing an ambush for Iran by pretending to be divided, so that Iran can drop its guard and be deceived, while believing that it has deceived them instead (Rest in Peace, Sheikh Zayed. I remember that when I asked you about dual containment, and the U.S. attempt to isolate both Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, you said about the three countries: They are allwicked and they deserve one another). The government of Israel is synonymous to wickedness or evil, and I have zero confidence in it. On the other hand, I am certain that the three islands of Abu Mussa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs belong to the UAE alone, specifically the emirate of Sharjah. I have known the islands since they belonged to Arab fishermen. Some of these indeed live there, and some stop frequently in the islands during fishing trips. I am also certain that the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is lying as it claims sovereignty over the islands, just like the Shah did before. As I compare between these two regimes, I find no difference. Both have brought up Persian glories that were destroyed more than 1400 years ago when the Gulf was called the Persian Gulf. But the Gulf today is no longer Persian. Indeed, Arabs populate both sides of the Gulf now, because Arabistan does not belong to Ahmadinejad and his government, and I call on the Sheikh Khazaal family to demand that it be restored to them. We could have called it simply the Gulf, and no one would have been antagonized, or we could have let the Iranians call it the Persian Gulf, and the Arabs call it the Arab Gulf. Indeed, conciliation is the best of all judgments, and some even proposed the name of the Islamic Gulf. But all this does not suit the Iranian government, which navigates from one error to an even worse error, and then projects its shortcomings unto others. Hence, an Iranian spokesperson criticized the deployment of American F-22 fighter jets (stealth) in the UAE. But here, I want to ask, what has brought these jets? My answer would be: The foolish policy of Tehran - not the Arab side. Another spokesperson said that the UAE’s claim of the islands was ‘shameless’, but I want to say to him that shamelessness is personified in him. This same spokesperson threatened that the Shura Council may reconsider relations with the UAE, but I say that these threats expose the colonial policies of his government, yet I thank him because threats as such will only hurry an agreement by the GCC countries to establish a union among them, where Shiites would represent ten percent of the population or less. Would the Gulf countries have rushed such measures for the establishment of a union were it not for the Iranian threats to the UAE, Bahrain and other neighboring countries? Yet I hope that it is clear, regarding my statements above, that I am speaking of the Iranian government only, and not the Iranian people whom I accuse of nothing and criticize not. To be sure, the Iranians are a neighborly Muslim people, even if their government has aggressed against both nearby and faraway countries.