Strategic Paradigms by Ehsan Ahrari

ON YOUR MARK, GET SET, RESTART THE BARMY ARMS RACE!

 

The Cold War in its old form disappeared when the Soviet Union imploded.  But the U.S.-Russian competition did not.  The United States continued a strange policy of expanding the NATO membership and bringing that Alliance all the way to the Russian borders, despite strong and continued protestations from Mosow.  It was highly irrational on the part of the United States to think that Russia should only listen to its rhetoric—which went along the lines that “we are no longer adversaries”—and totally ignore its near obsession with the NATO enlargement.

 

Russia responded in its own way, when that little megalomaniac president of Georgia, Mikheil Saaskashvili, sent troops into the Moscow-backed breakaway province of South Ossetia, hoping to teach them a lesson.  Russia let loose its fury.  That was, to be sure, a disproportionate response, but it underscored that Russia does not wish to be taken for granted.  Even to this day, there is no certainty that American military advisers were not involved in that Georgian action.

 

Moscow’s antagonism is continuing.  It appears that its current rulers have decided to challenge the incoming president, Barack Obama, by escalating ground-based intercontinental ballistic missile production.  The arsenal includes multiple-warhead ICBMs called the RS-24, which was first test-fired in 2007.  The then Deputy Prime Minister, Sergei Ivanov, made oblique references to the U.S. decision to deploy anti-ballistic missile systems in Poland and Hungary by stating that those new missiles are “capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defence systems.”

 

President Obama’s dilemma will be how to respond to Russia.  His best option is to postpone the NATO expansion, not as a symbol of giving in to any Russian blackmail, but as a symbol of empathizing with Russia’s security concerns related to the seemingly endless enlargement of that Alliance.  If its raison detere is no longer to contian Russia, then why is it that NATO appears poised to take the entire Europe under its security umbrella?  Who is NATO’s “enemy” toward the end of the first decade of the 21^st Century?  If the motivation of rubbing Russia’s face into the dirt is no longer driving U.S. foreign policy, then what other objectives are?  If those objectives are as benign as Washington has claimed under the presidency of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, then why is the lone superpower relying on expanding a predominantly military alliance?

 

These are only some of the questions the Russian leaders are raising.  They deserve serious answers and a series of follow-up actions.  Otherwise, the totally illogical arms race appears set to get into full swing.

 

YOU HATE YOUR WAY; WE WILL HAVE A SHOE THROWING CONTEST

 

The Clinton and Bush administrations will be known for either underscoring or creating new hateful sobriquet for Iran.  In the 1990s, it was described as one of the so-called “rogue states.”  Then, in the post-9/11 era, it was referred to as a part of an imaginary “axis of evil.” 

 

On its part, Iran used a doozy of a characterization for the United States: “the Great Satan.”  A more benign version of that depiction was “tyrannical power,” a phrase that Iranian president Ahmadinejad recently used in his “alternative” Christmas message to the West.

 

In the aftermath of the shoe throwing incident at President George W.Bush in Iraq, Iran has started a new ‘mini-sport.’  On Christmas eve, a university in Teheran started a shoe-throwing contest at an effigy of Bush.  The news dispatch also contained the following observation: “No details on the prize, nor how the intensity of the shoe throwing will be judged.”

 

A GLOBAL FATWA CLEARINGHOUSE?

 

One of the chief differences between the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam is that the Sunnis have no hierarchy of Ayatollahs who issue Fatwas (religious decrees) to which their followers adhere.  In Sunni Islam, a qualified religious person (a Mufti) or other equally learned scholar might issue a fatwa; however it is up to individual Muslims to follow or ignore it.  That is one reason why some scholars call a person who indulges in suicide attacks a shaheed (martyr), while others condemn those acts as inherently contradictory to the essence of Islam.

 

What about the concept of Jihad?  A number of foreign insurgents who were arrested in Iraq reported that they were following Fatwas that depicted their participation against the U.S. occupation as a conduct of Jihad.  There is a similar absence of any agreement among Muslim scholars on this matter.

 

As one dispatch entitled, “Fatwa Chaos in Sunni Islam,” in Open Source states:  “Fatwa chaos may lead to confusion among Sunni followers over which fatwa, or prescribed course of action, to follow.”

 

One suggestion that often pops up in Western circles is that some sort of central religious authority is required for interpretations that are followed by Sunni Muslims all over the world.   However, wishing for such a clearinghouse is akin to wishing for a Sunni version of a Pope.  You know that is not going to happen.