Europe, Middle East, News Watch, Side Feature

International News Review 12/02/2022

Details:
America Continues to Escalate Tensions over Ukraine
Negotiations over Renewed Iranian Nuclear Deal Near Completion

America Continues to Escalate Tensions over Ukraine

Ignoring recent calls for calm from the Ukrainian President, America continues to raise alarm over the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. US President Joe Biden said on Thursday, while calling for American citizens to leave Ukraine, “We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. It’s a very different situation, and things could go crazy quickly.”

According to the Washington Post, ‘There is a “very distinct possibility” that Russia will invade Ukraine in a “reasonably swift time frame,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned Friday, urging all Americans in Ukraine to “leave as soon as possible, and in any event within the next 24 to 48 hours.”’

Meanwhile, indicating that America does not really believe its own narrative about an impending war, America’s top foreign affairs official is focused at this time on dealing with China not Russia. The New York Times chose to report this as follows:

With Europe bracing for the possibility of its biggest ground war in decades, the American secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, took a 27-hour flight this week in the opposite direction.

On Friday, Mr. Blinken met with the foreign ministers of Australia, Japan and India at a summit in Melbourne of the four-nation coalition called the Quad. His message was clear: Despite crises in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world, the United States is committed to bolstering its presence across Asia and presenting a different vision of the future than the one offered by China.

“Countries deserve to have the freedom to work together and associate with whom they choose,” Mr. Blinken said as he stood alongside the other foreign ministers before their meeting on Friday afternoon.

Australia is only the first of three stops for Mr. Blinken, who is also scheduled to meet with foreign officials in Fiji and Hawaii. The weeklong trip to the farthest reaches of Asia and the Pacific shows the intensity with which the Biden administration wants to signal that the vast region is the most important focus of its foreign policy.

In fact, America uses increasing tensions to advance its foreign policy objectives. America is pursuing a number of goals in the Ukrainian conflict. America wishes to use the threat of Russia to continue to impose its leadership on Europe and prevent European countries from trying to develop closer relations with Russia. This week, under intense American and British media pressure to take a stronger position over Russia’s involvement in Ukraine, German President Olaf Scholz flew to America to meet with Biden. Sitting with Scholz in the Oval Office of the White House, Biden said that America and Germany are ‘working in lockstep to further deter Russian aggression in Europe and address the challenges opposed by China and promote stability in the Western Balkans.’ And Scholz said at a joint press conference with Biden, “We are absolutely united and we will not take different steps. We will do the same steps and they will be very, very hard to Russia, and they should understand.”

America is also using the conflict for high-level summitry with Russian President Vladimir Putin, summitry that America is forcing through on its own terms. According to the Washington Post, ‘As U.S. warnings sharply escalated, the White House said President Biden would speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin late Saturday morning, Washington time. The Kremlin said Biden had requested the call. U.S. officials said the Russians proposed it take place Monday but accepted Biden’s Saturday counterproposal.’ America has multiple goals for Russia, which include isolating it not only from Europe but also from China, and forcing Russia to comply with American foreign policy goals in Africa and the Middle East, such as in Syria.

The Western powers only know how to create conflict and disorder in the world, in the name of achieving a balance of power, which equates in their minds to a balance of tensions. This is in contrast to the thousand years that Islam was dominant, in which the conflicts in the world were cooled and calmed, enabling peace and prosperity for all of humanity. Military action was restrained within tight legal limits that permitted only engagement between armies, and only with previously declared enemies. Such was the impact of the Islamic manner of conducting war that even the armies of Europe, when fighting each other, would adhere to ethical codes of ‘chivalry’ that they had developed in imitation of Muslims. However, once Islam was no longer dominant, the West deviated from such principles and adopted instead the code of Capitalist imperialism that puts wealth and power ahead of all else.

However, we are now witnessing a widespread revival in the Muslim Ummah and, with Allah’s permission, they will soon arise and overthrow the agent ruling class and foreign systems imposed upon them by the disbelieving imperialists and re-establish in their place the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) State on the method of the Prophet (saw) that will reunify all Muslim lands, liberate occupied territories, implement the Islamic Shariah, restore the Islamic way of life and carry the call for Islam to the entire world.

Negotiations over Renewed Iranian Nuclear Deal Near Completion

This week, Iran and the United States returned for yet another round of talks at Vienna over the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA, that was then abandoned by the US under the Trump administration. According to CNN, ‘There have been enough indications of progress from both sides to suggest that negotiations have entered a critical phase, but a number of issues remain unresolved.’ White House spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday that a deal “is in sight”. Russia’s representative tweeted on Friday that the talks were “definitely moving ahead”. On Friday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi tried to play down the talks, saying, “We put our hopes in the east, west, north, south of our country and never have hope in Vienna and New York.” In actual fact, Iran is working hard to make the talks successful. An article by the Atlantic Council this week headlined, ‘Iran is preparing public opinion for a revival of the JCPOA’ notes the comment of the Iranian foreign minister last month saying that Iran, “will not ignore the idea of direct talks with the US if this facilitates a suitable and guaranteed agreement.”

The obstacle in the nuclear deal is not Iran but the US, which wants to limit European access to Iranian oil. In 2015, Obama used the bribe of Iranian oil to obtain European silence over the use of Iranian ground forces in Syria to support American military objectives there, since the US had decided after the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan that it was too risky to ever again send the American military in large numbers into the Muslim world. But after the Syrian revolution was crushed, America no longer needed Iranian support, and so Trump abandoned the nuclear deal blocking further European access to Iranian oil. Biden committed to reviving the agreement in the name of multilateralism with Europe, even though obtaining an agreement now is more complicated because the Iranian nuclear programme is now much more advanced than it was in 2015. But, more importantly, America wishes to arrive at a deal that does not permit the generous terms for Europe that Obama had had to allow in 2015. By pushing Iran towards China, America has sought to ensure that it will remain disconnected from Europe, while at the same time engaging China in the Middle East to help draw it away from further expansion into the Pacific Ocean. According to reporting by Reuters on Thursday, ‘Iranian oil exports have risen to more than 1 million barrels per day for the first time in almost three years, based on estimates from companies that track the flows, reflecting increased shipments to China.’

The Iranian leadership is the same as present-day rulers in the rest of the Muslim world, who are ready to do anything to sustain their own regimes and betray the cause of Islam and the Muslim Ummah. But with Allah’s permission, we shall soon see the re-establishment of the general leadership of the Muslim Ummah at the head of the Khilafah State that shall act with complete confidence in international affairs, fully aware of the machinations of the world powers, and reversing their stratagems against them. The Khilafah State shall, almost from its inception, join the ranks of the world powers on account of its immense size, vast population, extensive resources, superior geography and unique Islamic ideology. Rather than allowing itself to be manipulated by the disbelieving foreigners, the Khilafah State shall itself take the initiative in international affairs, imposing its own thinking and planning on the world stage. The Khilafah State shall not only secure the interests of Muslims but work to safeguard the interests of all of humanity. Allah (swt) says in the Noble Qur’an:

(كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللّهِ)

“You are the best nation produced for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah.” [Aal-i Imran:110].