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<big><big><font size="3"><big><big><strong>Morsi delivers his calling
card</strong></big></big></font></big></big><br>
By Pepe Escobar <br>
<br>
8/21/2012 <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NH31Ak03.html">http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NH31Ak03.html</a><br>
<br>
You'd better not mess with Muslim Brother Morsi. <br>
<br>
Straight out of "communist" China - where he secured a red carpet
welcome from President Hu Jintao and vice-president Xi Jinping - the
Egyptian president lands in "evil" Iran as a true Arab world leader.
[1] <br>
<br>
Imagine conducting a poll in Tampa, Florida, among delegates at the
Republican convention anointing the dodgy Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan duo as
their presidential ticket. Chances are Morsi would be ranked worse than
Hitler (oh no; that was Saddam. Or maybe Osama. Or maybe Ahmadinejad
... ) <br>
<br>
Tampa-Tehran. Talk about the ultimate snapshot of the current<br>
<div id="ox_5ba890606a31809d634399988658ce41" style="display: inline;">geopolitical
divide. On one side, the 1% crowd yelling for blood - be it from Barack
Obama or from assorted Muslims. On the other side, the bulk of the real
"international community", practically the whole global South
(including observers such as China, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico)
refusing to bend over to imperial military/financial diktats.
Reaffirming its impeccable journalistic credentials, US corporate media
dismisses it all as just "a Third World jamboree". <br>
</div>
<br>
Anyway, the big news is that Egypt is back. In other news, the
Washington-Tel Aviv axis is apoplectic. <br>
<br>
Morsi may be walking like the proverbial Egyptian in popular
imagination; sideways. In fact he's advancing all the time. By now it's
clear that Egypt's new foreign policy if focused on restoring Cairo,
historically the intellectual hub of the Arab world, to its leadership
position - usurped by the oil-rich barbarians from the House of Saud
during those decades when Egypt was a mere lowly servant of
Washington's geopolitical designs. <br>
<br>
Those were the (long gone) days - over three decades ago - when Tehran
broke relations with Cairo over Egypt's signing of the Camp David
accords. Morsi's attendance of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in
Tehran may not yet signal the return of full diplomatic relations, as
Morsi spokesman Yasser Ali has been spinning. But it's an
earth-shattering diplomatic coup. <br>
<br>
<b>Enter the new great game </b><br>
A quick recap is in order. Morsi's first crucial foreign trip was to
Saudi Arabia, for the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)
meeting in Mecca. The House of Saud regards the Muslim Brotherhood with
extreme suspicion, to say the least. Right after that Morsi got a
personal visit from the Emir of Qatar, and a US$2 billion check with no
strings attached; then he immediately sacked the old leadership of the
Orwellian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). <br>
<br>
Meanwhile, Morsi had already launched Egypt's plan to solve the
interminable Syrian tragedy; a contact group uniting Egypt, Iran,
Turkey and Saudi Arabia. No Syrian solution will be achieved without
these key foreign players - with Egypt being careful to position itself
as the mediator between Iran and Turkey/Saudi interests (which amount
to the same; in 2008 Turkey struck a strategic, political, economic and
security accord with the GCC). <br>
<br>
With just one stroke, Morsi cut off the head of a fake snake being sold
to Washington for years by the Jordanian King Playstation and the House
of Saud; that of an "evil" Shi'ite crescent from Iran to Lebanon via
Iraq and Syria undermining the "stability" of the Middle East. <br>
<br>
What Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Jordan's younger Abdullah II in
fact fear is the unrest and rage of their own populations, not to
mention the mere idea of democracy; it's easy to blame rampant Shi'ism
for everything because Washington is gullible - or expedient - enough
to buy it. <br>
<br>
The "Shi'ite crescent" myth can be debunked in a number of ways. Here's
just one - that I have witnessed in person, on the spot, for quite a
while during the mid-2000s. Tehran knows that the majority of Iraq's
powerful clergy are totally adverse to the Khomeinist concept of the
Islamic Republic. No wonder Tehran is very much worried about the
renaissance of Najaf in Iraq as the premier holy city in Shi'ite Islam,
to the detriment of Qom in Iran. <br>
<br>
Washington buys this propaganda because it's right at the heart of the
New Great Game. Whatever the administration in place, from Bush to
Obama and beyond, a key Washington obsession is to neutralize what is
seen as a Shi'ite axis from Lebanon, via Syria and Iraq, across Iran
and all the way to Afghanistan. <br>
<br>
A mere look at the map tells us this axis is at center of the humongous
US military deployment in Asia - facing China and Russia. Obviously the
best intel in Beijing and Moscow has identified it for years. <br>
<br>
The Russians and the Chinese see how the Pentagon "manages" -
indirectly - a great deal of the region's oil reserves, including the
Shi'ite northeast of Saudi Arabia. And they see how Iran - as the
gravity center of the whole region - cannot but be Washington's
ultimate obsession. The nuclear row is just a pretext - the only one in
the market, actually. Ultimately, it's not a matter of destroying Iran,
but of subjugating it to the condition of a docile ally. <br>
<br>
Into this hardcore power play steps in Brother Morsi, reshuffling a
deck of cards as lightning quick as a Sheldon Adelson-employed Macau
croupier. What might have taken months and perhaps years - the
sidelining of the old SCAF leadership, Qatar being privileged to the
detriment of Saudi Arabia, a presidential visit to Tehran, Egypt
stepping up as a leader of the Arab world - was accomplished in barely
two months. <br>
<br>
Of course it will all depend on how the Egypt-Iran relationship
develops, and whether Qatar - and even Iran - are able to help the
Muslim Brotherhood to keep Egypt from not collapsing (there's no money
for anything; a $36 billion annual deficit; nearly half the population
is illiterate; and the country imports half of its food). <br>
<br>
<b>Take me back to Camp David</b><br>
The immediate problem with Egypt's contact group for Syria is that
Turkey - in yet another stance of its spectacularly counter-productive
foreign policy - decided to boycott NAM. Yet Egypt is undeterred,
proposing to add Iraq and Algeria to the contact group. [2] <br>
<br>
And in steps Tehran with yet another diplomatic "sweeping" proposal,
according to the Foreign Ministry; a NAM troika of Egypt, Iran and
Venezuela, plus Syria's neighbors Iraq and Lebanon. So everybody wants
to talk - apart, given the evidence, from Turkey. Tehran's proposal is
fully supported by Russia. <br>
<br>
And just as US corporate media coverage was reveling in the hate
speeches at the millionaires' convention in Tampa, "isolated" Iran's
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei meets with UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon in Tehran and calls for a nuclear-free Middle East. [3] <br>
<br>
Not exactly the stance of a "new Hitler" who wants a nuclear bomb ...
yesterday, as the warmongering Bibi-Barak duo in Israel ceaselessly
spin. And certainly a very popular global South denunciation of
Washington's cosmic hypocrisy of willfully ignoring Israel's nuclear
arsenal while squeezing Iran for its nuclear program. <br>
<br>
Needless to say, none of this has been reported by US corporate media. <br>
<br>
Meanwhile, all global South eyes are on Morsi. They way things are
moving, it's not far-fetched to imagine the Muslim Brotherhood playing
the Camp David card sooner or later. In that case, expect Washington to
go ballistic - and even time travel to 1970s Latin America, as in
promoting (yet another) military coup. <br>
<br>
The bottom line is, if the Muslim Brotherhood really articulates an
independent foreign policy over the next few months, with even a hint
that Camp David should be renegotiated (over 90% of Egyptians would
support it), the warmongering Bibi-Barak duo had better get real. <br>
<br>
<i><b>Notes:</b></i><br>
1. See <a
href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-08/29/content_15716846.htm">here</a>
for China Daily report. <br>
2. See <a
href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/egyptian-initiative-banking-syrian-fatigue">here</a><br>
3. See <a
href="http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/08/29/258897/leader-calls-for-nuclearfree-mideast/">here</a>
<br>
<br>
<i><b>Pepe Escobar</b> is the author of</i> <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0978813820/simpleproduction/ref=nosim">Globalistan:
How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War</a> (Nimble
Books, 2007) and <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/Red-Zone-Blues-snapshot-Baghdad/dp/0978813898">Red
Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge</a>. His new book,
just out, is <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/Obama-Does-Globalistan-Pepe-Escobar/dp/1934840831/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233698286&sr=8-1">Obama
does Globalistan</a> (Nimble Books, 2009). <br>
<br>
<i>He may be reached at</i> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pepeasia@yahoo.com">pepeasia@yahoo.com</a>
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