Historians will mark the United Nations agreement to manage the disposal of chemical weapons in Syria as the end of the proxy wars the United States has waged since the 1979 take-over of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran to prevent the revival of a powerful Persian Empire. President Obama and Iranian President Rouhani have made their symbolic phone call, paving the way for the U.S., China, Russia, Britain and France and Germany to meet directly with Iran in Geneva on October 15th to begin a protracted process that will lead to the international normalization of economic relationships with Iran. With the blowback of chaos and terrorism from the Obama Administration sponsored Arab Spring dooming the continuing reliance on availability of oil from Arab states, doing business authoritarian Iran is increasingly attractive.
One of the first actions of Barack Obama when he moved into the White House in January of 2009, was to send back the bust of Winston Churchill that was loaned from the British government’s art collection to the United States as a sign of solidarity after the September 11th terrorist attacks. Obama, whose Muslim grandfather was tortured by the British while Churchill was Prime Minister, sought to visibly communicate his reorienting of American foreign policy away from supporting autocratic dictators and toward championing a Muslim liberation theology across the Africa and the Middle East.
The booting of Churchill was followed on June 4, 2009 with Obama’s first international speech at Cairo University, where he apologized for West’s “colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims.” The President stated that the Quran called the Arab world to revolt, “We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.”
The President was rewarded with the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for his “extraordinary efforts” to “strengthen cooperation between peoples” by “reaching out to the Muslim world.” The Nobel Committee’s Chairman, Thorbjorn Jagland, said he welcomed America’s new reliance on diplomacy and dialogue to enhance peace, “And who has done more than Barack Obama?” Obama in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech spoke of “just war” and use of force “justified on humanitarian grounds.”
Unbeknownst to most observers, the Obama Administration had already begun pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into non-governmental organizations (NGO) promoting the “just” overthrow of authoritarian Arab states. Michael Simon, who pioneered social network targeting for Obama’s insurgent 2008 Presidential campaign, was sent to train the Egyptian Democratic Academy and their leader Esraa Abdel Fattah on how to use social networking to compel individuals to action. The EDA was indirectly funded by Congress through the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy.
Top-secret American diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks have exposed the Obama Administration’s management of “democracy-building campaigns” through the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen. Money for these Arab Spring revolutionary movements was surreptitiously funneled by the CIA grants to the International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute, Freedom House and other Washington based NGOs.
Stable authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Egypt were overwhelmed by how fast rebellion could spread to the masses across social networks. EDA’s Facebook pages and YouTube videos proved instrumental in touching off the revolution that ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
But as tyrants were ousted, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Jihadists temporarily adopted democracy to fill the political void and gain power. With their prime focus as the forcing of strict Sharia Law on the public and no governing experience, the economies of new Islamic nations collapsed and sectarian violence became the norm in the Arab world. After the Egyptian counter-revolution against the Muslim Brotherhood and the Syrian government began winning their civil war against al Qaeda, the reputation of the U.S. imploded. The blowback against America from the epic foreign policy failure of the Arab Spring will spawn decades of violence and terrorism throughout Arab regions.
Similar blowback from President Jimmy Carter’s human rights campaign led to the 1979 overthrow of the autocratic Shah of Iran, created the foreign policy disaster that turned oil and natural gas rich Iran against the U.S. But with the risk of loss of access to 20 million barrels per day of Arab oil production, the Obama Administration is being forced from weakness to negotiate an end proxy wars and economic sanctions against Iran.
The Middle East oil boom began in Persia 1901. Due to the rapid growth in wealth from oil revenues, the country changed its name in 1935 to Iran, which means empire. The country has is second only to Saudi Arabia in Middle East oil reserves and is second only in the world to Russia in natural gas reserves. Until 34 years ago, Iran was a key military ally and business partner with American oil companies. But since 1979, the U.S. has attempted to suppress “Persian Empire” energy production and export.
Recent American led economic sanctions have reduced Iran’s oil-export-driven trade surplus from about $70 billion in 2011, to $44 billion in 2012 and $38 billion by the end of this year. Iran is also only allowed to spend half its export revenue on humanitarian imports and about $1.5 billion accumulates each month in restricted accounts.
Normalizing relationships with Iran has a huge economic upside for America. Iranian oil production could double from 3.5 to 7 million barrels a day to off-set much of the risk to supply of Arab oil. Access to U.S. fracking technology could rapidly develop Iran’s natural gas production and break Russia’s stranglehold on Europe energy supplies.
The America’s proxy wars with Iran were much more about preventing the revival of a powerful authoritarian Persian Empire, than preventing the nation from developing a nuclear weapon. Given the years of mutual animosity, it will take an extended period of time for the United States and Iran to negotiate the full reestablishment of economic and diplomatic relationships. But with the continuing chaos from the Arab Spring, the stability of doing enormous business with authoritarian Iran looks very attractive.
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