It is truly amazing how joyous the Axis of Defiance has been with the ‘breakthrough' achieved in U.S.-Iranian relations, or in a more explicit and more candid description, the so-called American-Iranian rapprochement. This is like a bald man boasting of his neighbor's hair, but above all, it involves forgetting that America is... an ‘enemy.' What matters then is for this America to move to Iran's side, and the rest is details. And who knows, we might see tomorrow, or after tomorrow, an Israeli hint or two suggesting to the Axis of Defiance that the Jewish state, no less, is engaged in ‘rapprochement' with Iran. This, in case it happens, can take the erstwhile joy to the level of pleasure. This confirms the kind of tribal mentality and partisanship that places victory against the opposing tribes and partisanships ahead of every other principle, forgetting about ideology and anti- imperialism and Zionism! Yet all this is nothing more than the equivalent of celebrating the marriage between an elephant and an ant. For the two comparisons that spread after the phone call between Barack Obama and Hassan Rohani, are but proof of the ignorance, not only of the United States and Iran, but also of China and Russia. That phone call was likened to Richard Nixon's visit to communist China, and his subsequent engagement of the latter, and also to the positive turn by Ronald Reagan on Soviet Russia under Mikhail Gorbachev. But the proponents of this comparison forget that China back then, in 1972, had emerged from a border war with the Soviet Union in 1969, and had since then been following an extremely anti-Moscow policy, closer to Washington in many parts of the globe. As for Gorbachev, only months after assuming his post as Secretary General of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, he began to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, after he proposed the elimination of medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe. In other words, the U.S. rapprochement with China in the early 1970s, and with Russia in the late 1980s was the culmination of major transformations with global impact, undertaken by the Chinese and Soviet leaderships, and from which the United States has benefited immensely. True, an agreement over managing the dispute with Iran could be an American request, and might tempt Washington to obtain a narrow margin for convergence over facing ‘Sunni extremism,' in a manner reminiscent of the partial convergence that took place before over Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, there is no doubt that the Obama doctrine, with its strong inclination to avoiding military confrontations, is fond of exploring all opportunities to resolve conflicts peacefully, or to circumvent them and round their corners, even if with a bit of self-delusion and wishful thinking. But this is one thing, and breakthroughs and rapprochements are another, let alone the U.S. caving in to Iran. Indeed, in addition to continuing to be embroiled in tensions, starting with Israel, which continues to nervously put pressure for more stringency with Tehran, to Syria, and the Gulf, Iran has offered nothing to suggest that it is reconsidering its attitudes. It is not certain to this day that President Rohani has a serious mandate from the actual ruler Khamenei. To be sure, Rohani was criticized by the Revolutionary Guard, while the Iranian president, upon his return from New York, was received with a shoe that cannot be without significance in a country like Iran. But to say after all this, that the United States caved in return for nothing from Iran, while Iran is under sanctions and is starving, then this is a combination of two mentalities that have often mixed among us: The mentality that elevated the 2006 July War to the rank of ‘divine victory,' and the mentality that sees the world as a field of ‘deals,' and sees politics as nothing more than a way to manage them.
