10:56 PM
Saturday, February 9, 2019
Books – Hisham Abdel Khalek:
After the victory of the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini said: "I hope that Iran will become an example for all Muslim countries in the world." But his wish was not realized No other state approved the rule of the Faqih or the Shia clerics Ali al-Sistani – The Shiite religious reference in Iraq – the clergy were removed from politics and when the Shiite majority in Bahrain in 2011 pleaded for the existence of a democratic parliament, not a religious government.
In a report on Iran on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Islamic revolution, the magazine The Economist said that Iran was not very popular in the Arab world. A recent poll showed that 66 percent of the Arabs saw it as a threat. .
Despite the failure of Iran to become a role model in the region, its impact is great. It has frightened many countries in the region, such as Israel, whose biggest threat is no longer around the Arab army, but Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran. Iran, however, has not been influenced by its ideas, but thanks to its success in wars, terrorism and the failure of regional regimes, the British magazine said.
According to the British magazine, Saudi rulers describe the Islamic revolution of Iran as a "point of change." Saudi Arabia's King Salman said in 2017: "We saw no terrorism or extremism in Saudi Arabia until the Khomeini revolution of 1979."
When Saudi Arabia tried to export its view of Islam, Saudi clergy tried to do the same thing from a Sunni point of view: the kingdom began to spend tens of billions of dollars to finance mosques, train imams and distribute texts. Religious communities in the Middle East, Asia and Europe. It is estimated that nearly $ 100 billion has been spent over four decades.
According to the British magazine, what she called "the Iranian propaganda of Shia Islam" mentioned the sectarian spirit of the Middle East, as well as the war between Iran and Iraq, in which both parties claimed that God stood side by side. Iran has urged the Shiites in Iraq to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime, and Iran has contributed to the formation of Hezbollah, the organization that was born at the time – the nineties – financial and military support.
The Iranian alliance with the Syrian regime led by Bashar al-Assad is focused on strategic advantage, but competitors see Syria as an extra piece added to what King Abdullah II of Jordan the Shiite crescent & # 39; a sectarian alliance that flooded the Levant.
The magazine pointed out that some Sunni Muslims adopted the Iranian ideology after Khomeini's revolution and saw it as an inspiration, especially the Muslim Brotherhood in its early days, which was composed of a developed middle class and used the same language that Khomeini promised to his allies. of bliss on earth and in heaven had focused, This did not last long, because of sectarianism and growing dominance.
The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 left a vacuum in which governments sympathized with the Shiites. After the Syrian war, Iran sent troops to Bashar al-Assad. Critics and supporters of the Iranian regime now say Tehran controls four Arab capitals: Baghdad (Iraq), Beirut (Lebanon), Damascus (Syria) and Sana'a (Yemen), which the magazine sees as too much.
But she says that Iran is adept at filling the void in Arab countries, if its competitors want to limit it, they have to do something better.
Source link