Darker Clouds over the Middle East

A few days back, I thought Iran blinked. In the wake of US warnings on its nuclear development program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to George W. Bush allegedly proposing a way out of the crisis. But instead of a way out, the letter appears to be a re-statement of the history of 20th Century according to the victims of Zionism, and some loaded questions: “Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East regions is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime? Is not any scientific R&D one of the basic rights of nations?

Of course, we don’t expect George W. Bush to respond to the letter, and engage the Iranian President on a debate. Right now, we know the US is preparing for the worse. In a short time, we might be looking at a US-led multi-country invasion of Iran under the pre-text of the war against weapons of mass destruction, the same blueprint for the Iraqi “shock and awe” show. The question is, how would Iran’s allies respond? Inevitably, the hawks among Iran’ s sympathizers would prevail, and soon we might be looking at World War III. The doves among us should now jump into this controversy even before the military thinkers could plot. For otherwise, we might be looking at the end of the modern world.