Plans
to Attack Iran
Contributing
editor Air Marshal (Retd) AYAZ AHMED KHAN
warns of
the consequences of an attack on Iran’s
nuclear installations.
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America had plans to
punish Iran since the uprising led by
Shia clerics - Ayatollahs forced pro-US
emperor Mohammad Reza Shah Pehlvi to flee
Iran on January 16,1979. With Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini's arrival at Meherabad
airport on February 01, 1979 from Paris,
the Islamic revolution in Iran had triumphed
to utter consternation in Washington.
Tehran echoed with slogans of "Death
to America the Great Satan". This
uncalled for abuse and curse had taken
Washington by surprise. How to deal with
fanatic-revolutionary Iran was a puzzling
question. America was caught unprepared
by Imam Khomeini's tirades against Zionism
and Israel. Many Ayatollahs alleged that
Jewish influence over American politics
dictated US Middle east policies. US military
and financial aid to Israel had created
strategic imbalance in the Middle East,
and Tehran was highly critical of Washington's
pro-Israel policies. A change of regime
in Tehran was an option desired by both
US and Israel, but they did not know how
to go about it.
The euphoria in
Iran on the arrival of Imam Khomeini unnerved
the United States, because till then America
had a near monopoly on Iranian oil, which
was suddenly lost. Khomeini was heading
a people's revolution, and the born-again
Iranian nation was full of confidence
and pride. The Islamic revolutionary government
had come to stay, and this rankled Washington
and Tel-Aviv. Revolutionary Iran was undeterred
by American threats and was cognizant
of US conspiracies to reinstall the Shah.
The two countries have been on a collision
course since.........more
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 Bush’s
Zero-sum-game
against Muslim World
Columnist
Dr. S.M. RAHMAN contends that restructuring
of the ME
is being done to dilute the collective
power of the Muslim world.
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Nonzero – subtitled – the logic of Human
Destiny is a fascinating book by Robert
Wright, rightly evaluated as one of the
best twelve books of the year 2000. Mr.
Enamul Haq, a very incisive Foreign Affairs
analyst not only recommended this book
but also loaned it to me, for which I
am exceedingly grateful. Earlier, I had
read a book in which a distinction was
made between two categories of thinkers
– the Hedge-hog and the Fox. One
who sees reality in constant flux of events,
a mind-set, so to say, which sees forest
in the midst of woods and trees, is a
hedge hog. The fox on the other hand is
a typical empiricist, who narrows problems
to categorize them into specific aspects
of reality. Robert Wright is undoubtedly
a hedge-hog, who sees a pattern in the
global history, which to others may appear
to be a bewildering confusion. Like Bergson,
who propounded the concept of organic
evolution through a force – ‘élan
vital’- as he terms it, Wright also
sees history moving towards greater complexity,
integrated order or what one may call
holistic harmony. In his own words: “I’ll
argue, in light of the phase of human
history that seems to lie immediately
ahead – a social, political and
even moral culmination of sorts’.
This, in a sense implies that one can
explain “why we got where we are
today, and also where we’re heading
next”?........more
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Dr. A. Q. Khan-The Hero and the Enigma
Columnist FAZAL HABIB CURMALLY peels away
at the murky layers to ascertain the truth
about AQ Khan and his accomplishments.
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“Without
diminishing the difficulties of indigenous
nuclear programmes, all nuclear weapons
programmes after the Manhattan Project
have relied upon illegally acquired
knowledge, technology or material. On
the evening that Musharraf pardoned
Khan, the Pakistani president was blunt:
‘If all the nuclear powers of
the world are reviewed from the start,
all of them established themselves through
the underworld. We have also acquired
it [nuclear capability] through the
underworld. India has also acquired
it through the underworld”- News
paper report on President Pervez Musharraf’s
speech of February 4, 2004 pardoning
Dr. A.Q. Khan.
“To sit silent
And look wise
Is not to be compared with
Drinking sake
And making a riotous noise”- Otomo
No Tabito (665-731 AD) from“The
Manyo Shu” -Arthur Waley’s
translation.).........more
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