Will The United States Prevent Iran's Train Project?

Omar Sindi | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Iran’s Mullah’s long ambitious train link project from the estuary of Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea is a long goal of regional hegemony through the Shia crescent. The theocratic regime in Tehran has invested a lot of money and manpower, both in Lebanon and in Syria… While at the same time, the average Iranian family is struggling to make ends meet, or in other words, to survive economically. In recent years, Iranian Mullahs have taken advantage of turmoil in the Middle East to expand their sphere of influence in this region under cover of religion.

Since 2003, the demise of Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical regime in Iraq, the so called Arab Spring, and the rise of the nihilistic ISIS (Arabic name Daesh) terrorist movement in the Middle East have all enabled Iran and have encouraged its military goals by Quds’ Force and political goals; Tehran has significantly expanded its footprint from Syria to Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon… Iran has supported the Hafez Assad family regime in Syria since the early 1980’s, and at the same time, Syria sided and supported Iran against the Arab state Iraq during the eight years of war between Iraq and Iran. Since the beginning of the civil war in 2011 in Syria, Iran has relentlessly supported Bashar Assad’s (son of Hafez) regime militarily and economically, and have dispatched their proxies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and others to fight for Bashar Assad’s regime.

On October 2017, during the Kurdish referendum for independence from Iraq; Iran put in rigorous pressure, militarily and economically, on the Kurdish regional government to cease this process, and assisted Baghdad in militarily invading the Kurdish city of Kirkuk. At the same time, both Iran and Turkey are vying for regional dominations through their proxies: Turkey through supporting Sunni Islamic faith of the various jihadi groups for influence and Iran through the Shia sect of Islam, such as Lebanon’s Hizbollah; Iraqi so called “Hashed-Al Shabi” militia groups; in other words, they have ambitions of reviving the rules of both the Ottoman Turkish Empire and the Safavid Persian Empire. Regional Arab regimes are politically weak, for example, an old way of saying Arab States cannot go war without Egypt, now Egypt has its own political turmoil; The Egyptian Army is unable to defeat a bunch of ISIS terrorists at the Sinai Desert, and also Syria’s civil war crisis both Turkey and Iran are acting on the behalf of the Arab states, for their their own realpolitiks…

It appears that the US President Donald Trump wants to pursue an isolationist policy. In my view, an isolationist policy will not serve the long term US economic interest well in region; it will curtail the US sphere of influence in the greater Middle East area. President Trump said “King we’re protecting you” in which he meant Saudi Arabia. If the US doesn’t want to provide the Saudi Kingdom with protection, the Chinese will be more than happy to step in, in the same way that President Vladimir Putin of Russia is protecting the Bashar Assad Regime in Syria. Despite the wide range criticism of US foreign policy around the globe; the United States defeated two world wars, saved the world from communist domination; last but not least, during the rise of the nihilistic ISIS (Daesh), without the major US contributions to the war effort, even though the Kurds were and still are foot soldiers against Daesh, a lot more costlier, and it would been a lot more difficult if not impossible; therefore if an isolationist policy is implemented, the world will become more unstable!

What’s in it for the Kurds if the war broke out? Kurdish people have great unsolved issues with their neighbors who are occupying Kurdistan.

Kurdistan’s perimeter is very close to this scenario if war broke out, especially Eastern Kurdistan, perhaps nobody is foreseeing what will happen in the future? But in 1979 when the Shah’s regime was overthrown in Iran, the so called Iranian revolution, the Kurdish people failed to achieve any significant rights, the international support was not there also for their cause. But many experts indicated because of the disunity among Iranian Kurdish political parties, along with the atavistic form of struggle played a bigger role, the Kurds in Iran didn’t achieve any of their aspirations or acknowledgement. And at that time, the Turkish government lobbied very hard among NATO countries not to render any support to the Iranian Kurds;( just like what the Turkish state is doing now in acting against Rojava Kurdistan- Syria Kurdistan, under the cover of fighting PKK terrorism…)

About 35 years earlier, during the Kurdish Mahabad Republic, American and British troops who were stationed in Saqqez area blocked the Kurdish force from liberating Saqqez, Sanandaj and Kermanshah areas in Iran. It’s a perplexing issue, the lack of international support for the Kurdish people cause. the quietude of the world community while they bear witness to the empirical evidence of gross human rights violations against the innocent Kurdish people at the hand of the governments of these neighboring countries. But, when it comes to the Kurdish issue, the United Nations (UN) is at its infancy stage and acts like a toolless body.

The invasion and occupation of the Afrin region of Rojava Kurdistan by the Turkish state and their various Jihadist Islamic terrorist groups is resulting in them committing heinous crime against Kurds of Afrin, killings, rapings, kidnappings, jailing innocent people, and the deforestation of the Afrin region ( cutting olive trees). And in Kirkuk (Iraq), the Arab chauvinists are pursuing demographic change in Kirkuk again, they are harvesting their crop grain plants, they are burning their crop farmlands and confiscating their houses; the UN has not condemned/protested or even said anything about these gross injustice against the Kurds…

Over 50 million Kurds should not be overlooked, but the important thing is that the Kurdish political party(s) must have political discourse and must place national interest above their political party’s ideology, in other words, there must be unity among Kurdish political parties!

Is The United States willing with its mighty power to derail this bridge connection from Iran through Iraq, across Syria, and to Lebanon? In order to curtail Iran’s sphere of influence, or to bring Iran to the negotiating table? What we gather from the rhetoric between Washington DC and Tehran, is that these are not friendly gestures coming out, other than diplomatic language terms, on these contentious issues! We cannot predict what the future will hold; but past experiences indicate that the dictators or authoritarian regimes, when they feel that their regimes survival is in perilous status, they bow down or will give in a lot of concessions, for example, the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962, in which The Soviet Union had installed ballistic missiles in the Western-hemisphere, Cuba, with close range of the United States, and were capable of carrying nuclear warheads to strike The United States. Nikita Khrushchev, the head of The Soviet Union then was pressured by President John Kennedy that the US will go to war if these missiles were not withdrawn from Cuba, finally Mr. Khrushchev did give in, and missiles were withdrawn from Cuba…

Dictators and authoritarian regimes are strong and intolerant of dissenting views, but when they unravel, they go fast, and they create chaos afterward. Iran’s theocratic regime has created many internal enemies and unsatisfied people in Iran, economically and politically; Iran is a politically polarized nation and Mullahs act preemptively, they have no tolerance any political opposition; it’s highly questionable that if war broke out, would these people give their support to the Mullah’s regime? Attempting occupation of a huge country like Iran is not an easy task!

Iran’s main engine economy is hydrocarbon; if President Trump administration is able to halt Iran’s oil & gas to the world market, most likely the Iranian economy will be rendered unsustainable; then what will Iran’s reaction will be? that is the debatable question.

US President Trump is sending conflicting messages, on one hand is saying Iran cannot have nuclear weapons, and the other hand, President Trump is saying we don’t want war with Iran; but he is sending more soldiers, armaments and advanced military equipment into the Persian Gulf area. And on the other hand, the high ranking members of President Trump’s administration like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security adviser John Bolton and others are indicating that the US will defend its interests and allies in the Middle East.

It appears that it’s the same heraldic device although a slightly a different scenario than in the 1990’s, when Saddam Hussein had an issue with Kuwait; Saddam approached April Glaspie, then the US ambassador in Iraq. Glaspie told Saddam that is an Arab issue or problem, but the US will defend its interests in this region, and it was widely reported that Saddam perhaps didn’t completely comprehend or understand what Ms. Glaspie meant?

US President Trump withdraws from the nuclear agreement with Iran, that agreement was struck during President Barack Obama’s Administration, the “Iran Nuclear Deal“. President Trump’s administration is saying Iran cannot have nuclear weapons, Iran needs to stop interfering with regional Arab States, and Iran needs to understand its limits. For decades, Iran has been defying and challenging US policy in the Middle East; therefore is the United States sincerely on the status of preventing Iran’s expansionist policy this time around in the greater Middle East?

Omar Sindi, a senior writer, analyst and columnist for iKurd.net, Washington, United States.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.