From Suez (1956) to the Persian Gulf (2010-2012), a New Multi-polar World?………….
“The single-minded furor to impose these sanctions does however say something. It speaks to us about something other than Iran. In many ways, the rush to sanctions (hurried forward to torpedo the Turkish and Brazilian initiative) speaks to us about rising American fears, about the fraying "international order," about the evaporation of deference toward American leadership, and the concern about the rise of "the new powers."….. .The "winds of change" have returned. "New" powers are not now emerging to independence, but to a new confidence and self-esteem. They have their own opinions now. What the U.N. and congressional Iran sanctions votes tell us is just how difficult it is going to be for the United States to come to terms with this new multipolar world. The bringing forward of sanctions were intended to "stiff" two of these new powers -- Brazil and Turkey. As one Washington insider put it, they had gotten under the wheels of the great powers: They needed to be kept "in their lane." Former U.S. Ambassador Chas Freeman has noted that the rising influence and independence of the nondeferential powers has inserted dysfunctionality into U.S. policymaking…… We should recall that it was precisely because the then British cabinet similarly felt so keenly its economic weaknesses that it embarked on the military folly of the Suez campaign in 1956. Suez was intended above all to demonstrate that Britain was "far from weak" despite the signs of weakness all around. Suez achieved the opposite. It set the seal on that weakness. Having recently returned from Iran, I am acutely aware both of this sense of an international order that is dangerously dysfunctional and of the imminence of an irresistible change unfolding before us. Iran, Turkey, and Brazil are part of this change.…… Is the "Iran" of the Western fantasy destined to repeat the pattern that "Suez Crisis" played to British and French weakening psyches?.........”
He may have a point here, up to a point. What Crooke complains about is the usual quasi-liberal Friedmanesque (as in Thomas Friedman) one-sided feel-good outlook to world problems, especially in the Middle East. For example, we were told across screaming headlines that the Lebanese, all of them, yearned to join the “good” Saudi axis, and get rid of all other influences, especially Syrian and Iranian influences. The last election proved that that was not ‘exactly’ correct: the American-Saudi axis won a majority of parliamentary seats and there were celebrations in the West. Yet they overlooked, nay willfully ignored, the fact that the ‘bad’ axis, the Hezbollah-Amal-Syria-Iran axis won a majority of the votes (nearly 55%). It happens all the time.
Cheers
mhg
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