It is becoming increasingly evident that US President Donald Trump’s present drive against Iran is not specifically related to the Iranian nuclear programme but actually concerns Iran’s regional activities. According to a Reuters report on 10 October 2017:
Iran told the United States on Tuesday that it will keep “all options on table” if President Donald Trump designates its elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.
It came hours after the government said Washington itself would be aiding terrorism if it took such an action.
U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to announce this week his final decision on how he wants to contain Iran’s regional influence.
Trump is also expected to “decertify” a landmark 2015 deal Iran struck with world powers to curb its nuclear program in return for the lifting of most international sanctions. Trump’s announcement would stop short of pulling out of the agreement, punting that decision to Congress which would have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions.
He is also expected to designate Iran’s most powerful security force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, as a terrorist organization.
U.S. sanctions on the IRGC could affect conflicts in Iraq and Syria, where Tehran and Washington both support warring parties that oppose the Islamic State militant group.
America’s anger towards Iran at this time is to discipline and restrict Iran to its designated assignment. The truth is that Iran has been collaborating fully in implementing the American agenda in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Syria. America’s purpose, in the Obama era, of concluding the Iranian nuclear deal was to begin public normalisation of relations with Iran, so that America could be even more open in using Iran’s services. America’s anger at this time is because Iran, together with Russia, is exceeding its assignment in Syria by attempting to return Assad’s forces to the Syrian south-east. America is opposed to this as it wants Syria to adopt a more decentralised system, similar to the plan America followed in Iraq.
America is losing control of the Muslim world. The US has been faced with jihad wherever it has entered Muslim land and US-backed regimes increasingly have to resort to oppression and dictatorship in order to continue to impose Western policies upon their people. America has fallen back on the old British tactic of playing Muslim regimes off against each other: Egypt is used in Libya, Pakistan is used in Afghanistan, Saudi is used in Yemen, Turkey is used in Syria, each of them being developed as regional powers in the process, and sadly Iran is just one more country that fits this pattern.
America could not have entered Afghanistan without its neighbour Iran’s tacit support. It was Iran that rescued America from the fierce jihad against its occupation in Iraq, threatening to expel not only America but also the American-installed puppet Iraqi regime. And it was Iran that worked to save American interests when her agent in Syria, Bashar al-Assad, faced widespread revolution triggered by the Arab Spring. In return, Iran was able to obtain the cheap loyalty of the regimes of Baghdad and Damascus, and allowed to return to very limited trade and diplomatic relations with Western countries.
It is particularly disappointing to see Iran playing this game. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was declared to be an ‘Islamic’ revolution that was supposed to overthrow not only the Persian monarchy but also Iran’s subservience to foreign powers, in particular America. Iran then suffered the brutal Gulf war of the 1980s in which Saddam Hussain was supplied with Western weaponry to wage war against an entire generation of Iran’s youth, with widespread reports of his use of chemical weapons. What value do all these sacrifices have if the Iranian leadership is bent on continued subservience to the foreign disbeliever, allying itself also now with Russia to support the brutal regime of the Alawite ruler Bashar al-Assad, whom neither Sunni nor Shia consider to be Muslim.
Fundamentally, the revolution in Iran failed to implement the Islamic Sharia, choosing instead a Western democratic republican system in the Westphalian nation-state model. The so-called ‘modernist’ Muslim thinkers have created multiple versions of such states throughout Muslim countries. The basic idea is to adopt Western secular liberal thinking, simply substituting the West’s weakening Christian cultural heritage with Islam. Instead of implementing the detailed Islamic sharia, such states claim to embody general ‘Islamic values’, thereby viewing Islam not as providing a legal system but as a source of spiritual and moral guidance only.
If the Iranian leadership had committed to implementing the detailed Shar’ii rulings, then they would have been prevented from cooperating with the disbelieving imperialist through legal injunction. Allah (swt) says in the Qur’an:
وَلَن يَجْعَلَ اللّهُ لِلْكَافِرِينَ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ سَبِيلاً
“Allah will never allow the disbelievers to have a way over the believers”
(an-Nisa: 141)
This ayah provides a good example of how legal rulings are taken from the divine texts, not just generalised spiritual or moral guidance, including in the area of foreign policy. In accordance with the Islamic principles of jurisprudence, this ayah cannot be treated as information about Allah’s intent and action, even though it appears linguistically in this form because as information it would stand contradicted by events in reality, even at the time of the Prophet ﷺ. Therefore, it can only be interpreted as a legal instruction to prohibit giving disbelievers authority over Muslims. This is similar to if a man were to say to his son, ‘the guest is honoured’; this is actually an instruction to the son to honour the guest even though linguistically it appears in the form of information. Consequently, it is impermissible for Muslims to serve the political agenda of the foreign disbeliever, particularly if that agenda entails collaborating to establish his control and dominance over Muslims lands. On the other hand, the ‘modernist’ Muslim would simply take from Islam generalised ‘values’ such as the ‘welfare of Islam’, which leave it very much up to each individual to interpret in almost any way he likes.
But still, given the anti-American ethos of the revolution, and the apparently deep sincerity of some elements of it, it is still a shock to see the extent to which Iran follows the American agenda. The only way to reconcile this is to recognise that Iran’s leadership has fallen into the trap of placing the interests of nation and sect ahead of the interests of the Ummah and the Deen, despite the fact that Islam can tolerate neither national nor sectarian divisions. Islam is open to diversity of opinion and vibrant intellectual debate but Muslims are ultimately one nation worshipping one God.
Iran’s rulers thought that tacitly allying with America would enable them to extend the power and influence of their state, viewing their nationalist sectarian agenda as more important than the interests of ordinary Muslims in Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria. Furthermore, the Iranian leadership, as with the leaderships of other Muslim countries, have yet to understand that the foreign disbeliever has no loyalty except to his own interests. America uses Muslim rulers as it pleases and then discards them as it pleases. Some of our rulers have experienced this personally, yet they have neither dignity nor sense, and continue to welcome America even after having previously been rejected by her.
It is time for the sincere Muslims of Iran to realise that nationalism and sectarianism must be rejected completely and that Muslims must stand together, loyal to Islam, and against the foreign disbeliever. And that Muslims will only gain complete control of their affairs when they establish the righteous Islamic State on the method of the Prophethood under the leadership of a single Imam for all Muslims who implements the Islamic Sharia derived from the detailed evidences and carries the message of Islam to the entire world.
Faiq Najah