Americans Betrayed You and Sold You at the Lowest Price

This is the first time, and maybe the last, in which America’s Arab allies and their Israeli counterparts meet on one ground. Its name is panic and terror of the future and of nuclear Iran, the particular emerging power, in a way that pushes American officials to flock to the region, alone and in droves, in order to reassure them and alleviate their fears.

So, during the time in which John Kerry, the American secretary of state, chose to stop in Tel Aviv, he met with Benyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, three times in less than two days and he confirmed for him that “Israel’s security is like reinforced concrete.”* Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel flew to Manama under the pretext of participating in the “Manama Dialogue,” and he issued similarly reassuring statements, but for the Arabs. In them, he said that the region is combustible and that America is firmly committed to helping its allies and that he hoped that the Gulf states were not offended; they are America’s strategic countries in the region, for the military maneuvers are unchanged. However, he did not say if the policy is also continuing!

The American officials were not content with visits and tours of the region. Rather, they resorted to hot red phones and to communicating with Gulf leaders nonstop, until they tired their arms with carrying headsets. President Barack Obama contacted the Saudi monarch King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and his Defense Secretary Hagel contacted Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, crown prince of the Emirate Abu Dhabi, which was just the tip of the iceberg.

The race to reassure the panicked in the Gulf did not stop with the Americans. William Hague, the British foreign minister, stopped in Kuwait. He chose to discuss the subject of Syria, to which his American counterpart did not give adequate space on the agenda. He issued “hawkish” statements in which he affirmed that the stepping down of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was inevitable in any coming political solution. He was the one who discussed, in a meeting in London two months ago, the necessity of flexibility in aiding the Syrian opposition.

The Iranians, who caused this race by signing the agreement with the six great states that gave them the right to enrich uranium to low levels in exchange for loosening the sanctions, sent, in turn, their foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the architect of the nuclear agreement, diplomatic veteran and veteran negotiator, to their neighbors in the west coast of the Gulf for the same purpose, which is to say “cooling” the hearts of the anxious and demonstrating good intentions. Kuwait was the first stop in his tour, followed by the Emirates. It was the response to the surprise visit undertaken by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed to Tehran immediately after the signing of the aforementioned agreement, to congratulate, show good intentions and examine the Iranian position directly. It is a diplomatic move.

It is America’s right to reassure its allies. However, it is our right as observers to say that its efforts do not conceal a stark reality, which is that America deceived, marginalized, treated them with contempt and abandoned them in difficult moments, just as it has done with all its previous allies, such as Iran, the leaders in Saigon and a long list of generals and banana republics in Latin America.

America changed its strategic priorities. The Arabs come down from a high degree to a lower one. After it milked them and took their money and nearly drained them entirely of their oil, it preferred to deal with the powerful Iranians and to seek out its interests in the other regions of the world whose governments are not involved in bloody wars claiming the souls of its citizens and for which it is not accumulating debts.

The terrified Arabs must recognize this reality, unless they are fooled by the sweet American talk on the tongue of this or that official, and act, at the same time, with wisdom. They must search for the strategic alternatives that restore to them their strengths — or most of them — in the framework of a comprehensive review of the years of wandering and dependence on others to protect them, of devoting themselves to fun and a life of opulence and luxury as they have done for the last 50 years.

And as they still are.

We have become “laughingstocks” that the regional and world powers manipulate and against whom they conspire. They share influence over our wealth and our accounts. All of our concern has become fighting each other with mentalities of revenge, the employment of our capabilities, our money and our information in the destruction of our nations and their capabilities and dividing them on an odious sectarian basis.

This wretched Arab reality requires change; it must not be permitted to continue. The first step in this direction is to put the young to the side and to leave the Arab shores to those who promote the interests of the nation and its future over other peoples’ considerations, apart from the style of bickering and from spiteful conflict.

We do not want Kerry, or Hagel, or Hague to rush to reassure us or to dispel our fears. That is a repugnant bit of theatrics fed to us by them. What they reassure is only our reliance on ourselves. What we have in terms of men, fortunes, minds, history and doctrines of surety allows us build our subjective powers. However, that is for those who read your Psalms, David.

*Editor’s note: This quote, accurately translated, could not be verified.