(Newswire.net — November 28, 2013) — Houston, TX
It is less than 7 weeks since I wrote the article titled “Peace In Middle East Now In Clear Sight”. I got some derogatory smiles, smirks and laughter over it, but in less than two months the balances of politics, diplomacy and vested interests of different countries have played out in such a way that THE PEACE that I mentioned in my article only 7 weeks ago is almost within our reach.
My above article was sub-titled, “US – Iran High Level Talks; A Huge Big Deal. September 2013 will be written in history as most peace advocacy month in current history of the world”. A number of people told me that I am a bit too optimistic and that historically such things move very slowly. Well, I agree that it is true but I am born optimist and at times I tend to see whole sun from only one f its ray. However, in this case it has moved unpredictably faster than what I thought also. And there are reasons for that, which we will discuss here.
HOW CAN WE HAVE FORESIGHT 20/20 LIKE HINDSIGHT? However, with History as my postgraduate subject, I have learnt to extrapolate many futuristic foresighted possibilities into possible incidences and happenings, particularly if they are of important significance to history that will have bearing on future. Surely hindsight is always 20/20. However, if you practice on many hindsight results, extrapolate them backwards and evaluate their positioning theoretically on their beginning day’s situation we can train ourselves to look at today’s situation and look at the developing story and see it as if you are looking into crystal glass.
The hindsight that we talk about today is yesterday’s or tester year’s futuristic evaluation. I do not profess that I have got a crystal glass but with the experience of such guess work for future, I can certainly say that I can predict the future more accurately and nearer to the would be possibilities than what I used to or many do in such business of theirs, like politics.
Anyway, coming back to the subject of Middle East and its complexities, here is what has happened in the past few weeks.
EVERYONE IS WAR-WEARY: One most important factor to consider in all this is the fact that most of the countries of the world and average people trying to raise families and fulfill their responsibilities are war-weary. And the reason is that since the WWII for more than 60 years, there has been a continuous “war-like” ongoing quarrels going on almost everywhere in the world. No one wants to go through another war, particularly the modern one, in which people sitting thousand mile away are calling shots and a completely innocent civilian men, women and children may be killed in it as collateral damage. It has devastating and unimaginable consequences on the psyche of people, be they on winning side or losing side. I will site here some unfortunate statistics; the US veterans are committing suicides regularly at a rate of almost 20 EVERY DAY. Many of which must be related to the war memories of collateral damages.
Hence the mood of the politicians and the people are now on the page and that is to AVOID WARS at all cost. A number of changes in leadership in those countries that matter are also indicative of the same feeling by all concerned. I have no fear of predicting that the leaders of those countries who are in favor of war will also soon be deposed or defeated.
OBAMA WAS ALWAYS PEACE MINDED: Even before he got elected in 2008, Obama was clearly oiling himself as a peace loving and that he would have conciliatory policies with the world. While canvassing in 2007 Obama pledged in a debate that he would even sit down with Iranian leaders without preconditions. His speeches in Berlin, and then in Cairo are obviously showing this attitude. Then he was given Noble prize for peace also.
NO DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN THE US AND IRAN SINCE 1979: Since the time of Iranian Revolution when Shah of Iran was exiled on arrival of Imam Khomeini and many US citizens were kept in captivity by Iranian students for 444 days in 1979, all diplomatic ties were severed. Iran maintained a cell in Pakistan embassy in DC and the US had similar arrangement in Swiss embassy in Tehran since then but no formal relationship.
President Ahmedinijad had held his term second time despite his anti Israeli, anti US rhetoric. In the forthcoming elections in Iran in August 2013, there were expectation of someone more tolerable replacing president Ahmedinijad on both sides, i.e. Iranian s and West. Iranians were badly hurting because of US lead Western sanctions and NATO and West as a whole had no appetite for any more war despite strong talks of leaving all options including war on the table, if Iran does not desist from her Nuclear development path. With such expectations and perhaps positive intelligence, the US started creating overtures with Iran by secretly meeting Iranians in Muscat, Oman since the March 2013. These negotiations were made possible by the support of Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said. In August the elections brought Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran who had also worked as Iran’s nuclear negotiator of a long time. He got elected with a centric, reformist and peace policies. During canvassing for election he had promised to change Iran’s relationship with the whole world.
In September Rouhani and Obama both attended UNO General assembly meeting, when despite the background talks were apparently going on with good expectations to repair the long standing bad relations, Obama and Rouhani did not meet each other in person. However, Obama phoned Rouhani before he left back for Iran showing that the cold was thawing after 34 yearlong animosities. Obviously the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blessed Rouhani’s visit to New York.
SETTLEMENT WITH IRAN BRINGS IN NEW ERA OF PEACE: First official round of negotiations in Geneva of Iran with all permanent members of security council i.e. U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany (also called P5+1) ended without any positive outcome early in November. But the hopes were held very high. Israeli PM Netanyahu continuously denounced any settlement with Iran as mistake. Iranian foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, a US educated Iranian seem to have been a good catalyst in reaching this accord.
However, early morning of Nov 24th brought the final use that all parties have entered into a deal that will be watched for six months and then if all is well, the deal will be made permanent.
World will LIKELY be more peaceful and prosperous: This new deal with Iran is only the start. As optimist as I am, now I can see many new similar treaties and deals happening in the interest of peace, love, harmony and prosperity in the world. I can list them here:
- There will be a pressure on Israel and Palestine to come to a settlement
- Egyptian president General Abdel Fatah el-Sisi will be accepted as legitimate by the world powers in the interest of peace, despite the fact he displaced an elected president
- There is likely changes in the ruling style of remaining monarchs of the middle east allowing elections, democracy and allowing practicing many human rights being practiced all over the world
- Softening of the attitude of China over Taiwan and Japan
- Reduction of border tensions between Pakistan and India and resolution of Kashmir
- Better relationship of the US with many Latin American countries
- African countries will be more amenable to have a better relations with their neighbors and within the countries
- Even the new flare ups like China claiming an expansion in East China sea may also be all be dealt with an air of the need of peace by all concerned parties