Dr Khairi Janbek, Author at CrossFireArarbia

Testing Iran’s Foreign Moves

Dr Khairi Janbek
November 20, 2024

By Dr Khairi Janbek

Iranian foreign policy is a mixture of historical, ideological and geopolitical factors. As a major regional power in the Middle East, its foreign policy has often been seen as pragmatic; but practicality with an ideological component.

The country’s policy decisions are influenced by its revolutionary origins in competition with other regional powers. In reality, Iran cannot be understood outside the consideration of the legacy of the 1979 revolution, which highlighted the centrality of the concept of Velayet e Faqih; the Guardianship of the Jurist on Iran’s political and and ideological stance on global affairs.

Iran adopted a foreign policy that combined ideology with the desire for regional leadership often expressed as the defender of oppressed Muslims, the power behind the spread of Islamic values and opposition to western imperialism, especially that of the USA.

Iran will not leave any act of aggression unanswered, Foreign Minister Araghchi said Tuesday. "We have clearly stated that Israel's (Oct. 26) aggression is a new act of hostility, and Iran considers itself entitled to respond to this aggression as part of its defensive policy.… pic.twitter.com/LxCvLcDCTP
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) November 19, 2024

The objective has been ever since to focus on expanding and maintaining influence in the Middle East, not necessarily by creating a ‘Shiite Crescent’, but rather by creating a Persian-dominated crescent through fostering alliances with groups in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza.

This crescent has been aimed primarily as being an arch to exclude, in the first degree, Iran’s biggest Islamic rival Saudi Arabia with its close relations with the USA, from its sphere of influence.

At the same time, Iran’s nuclear ambition have put it in direct conflict with the USA and western powers. However this confrontation with the USA has habitually fluctuated between agreement, as during the Obama administration, and confrontation during the first Trump administration, then the ambiguity of the current Biden administration.

However, currently, the country faces the delicate balance of managing its relations with the western powers as well as regional actors, while seeking to maintain good relations with Russia and China.

Currently, with the ongoing tensions with Israel on one side, and melting of ice with Saudi Arabia, with the possibility of further serious confrontation with the Trump administration, Iranian foreign policy and its ability to continue to be able to navigate the preservation of its interests, will most certainly be put to the test.

Dr Khairi Janbek is a Jordanian historian based in Paris and the above opinion is written exclusively for crossfirearabia.com.

Opinion

Palestine and Imperial Chaos

Dr Khairi Janbek
November 14, 2024

By Dr Khairi Janbek

When the British conquered the territory, they did not exactly know where to draw the borders of Palestine. British prime minister Lloyd George conferred with his French counterpart Clemenceau and suggested that the borders of Palestine be defined on biblical basis; in accordance with its ancient boundaries from ‘Dan to Beersheba’.

But what about the sparsely-populated territory east of the River Jordan? Although in 1915 the British promised the territory to the Sharif of Mecca in the McMahon correspondence, in the early years of British control, it remained part of Palestine, and not until 1922 did the British separate it from the rest of Palestine and named Emir Abdullah of the Hashemite dynasty as the ruler of the new country Transjordan.

Even when the borders of Palestine became clear to the British, the borders of the future “Jewish National Home” remained open to dispute. Lord Balfour’s letter spoke vaguely of the establishments ‘in Palestine a National Home for the Jewish people’ he did not refer to the whole of Palestine or any specific part of it.

Among the Zionists, the borders of Palestine were just as blurred. The ideal borders, as mapped by the Zionist delegation at the Paris peace negotiations, included south Lebanon (Northern Galilee) and a stretch of land east of the River Jordan as far as the line of the Hijaz Railway.

Weizmann continued to believe that the land east of the River Jordan should be part of the “Jewish National Home.” This was reiterated in his Congress speech 1921 stating “the questions of borders will be answered when Cis-Jordan (West Bank of the River Jordan) will be so full of Jews that we will have to expand to Transjordan.”

The right wing Israeli revisionists continued to claim until the 1950s, the whole of Palestine on both sides of the Jordan River.

However, there was a brief glimmer of hope that an Arab-Jewish understanding might in fact be possible when Emir Faisal, later King of Iraq, and Chaim Weizemann signed an agreement in 1919, recognizing the right of the Jews to immigrate to Israel.

But reality on the ground created a different set factors, when Faisal’s condition of far reaching Arab independence in the region was not fulfilled, he declared the agreement no longer valid. In any case, the agreement did not include representatives of the Palestinian Arabs.

Also in the post-World War I era, another claim on Palestine was made in March 1920, when the General National Syrian Congress, declared that Palestine was nothing but the southern part of the Greater Syria State.

Dr Khairi Janbek is a Jordanian historian based in Paris and the above opinion is that of the author and doesn’t reflect crossfirearabia.com.

Analyses

Trump’s Paradigm Shifts

Dr Khairi Janbek
November 7, 2024

Dr Khairi Janbek

Islolationism in American terms meant historically, the interests of the USA are best served by not getting entangled in wars across the Atlantic, nor in the political affairs of Europe and possibly beyond, while keeping the economic expansion going.

Now to what extent will the incoming administration of Donald Trump proceed with isolationism and to what extent it believes will serve US interests?; in the mean time let us not forget that people electioneering or euphoric, are not the same people in the Oval Office.

But still the first signs of isolationism are emerging in the field of US trade policy, with intended high customs and duties on imported goods from abroad.

This goes as well for the foreign policy of Trump which signals his distaste to negotiating with blocks and preferring bilateral agreements. This puts him in good standing with likeminded world leaders but certainly at odds with the EU, which by extension at odds with NATO also.

Ukraine

As for the current hot spots, Trump is accustomed to paradigm shifts, for a start he thinks that supporting Ukraine is a money losing project, and good business requires an atmosphere for peace. Therefore, most likely Trump will adopt a position of neutrality in this war, neither doing anything to harm Ukraine effectively, nor help it financially or militarily, while at the same time, trying to open diplomatic and trade dialogue with Russia.

He may take the initiative to urge negotiations between the two parties on the basis of a business deal, in other words concessions. No Meg’s Russia and not totally sovereign Ukraine, in any case, in Trump’s eyes, it is a European war after all.

Mideast

Now when it comes to the Middle East, this can be more tricky. Trump has good relations with the Gulf Arab leaders, leaders of Egypt and Jordan, but also he is committed to the security of Israel and has good relations with Netanyahu.

In a sense he has to square the circle if he wants to keep his relationships unscathed to deal with two most sour issues: The two state solution to the Palestinian problem, and the future of Iran, while taking into consideration, that both his allies, Egypt and Jordan are jittery about the issue of population transfer.

Trump’s option would be offering Netanyahu a free hand in Iran with US support, in exchange for a semblance of Palestinian self-rule, thus paving the way for deligitimising Hamas while legitimizing and presenting the continuation of war as a war between Israel and Iran, with Iran’s proxies being a legitimate target.

Dr Khairi Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris and the above opinion is that of the author and doesn’t reflect crossfirearabia.com.

Opinion

Religion, Nationalism, Middle East Style!

Dr Khairi Janbek
November 5, 2024

Dr Khairi Janbek

When you consider yourself as a member of the greatest group in existence, irrespective of its characteristics, it is only natural to assume that the values of this group are the greatest, and consequently, the only valid values which are permissible to hold.

However, we must not delude ourselves, because religion cannot be neatly put in the pigeonhole as a moral, or personal spiritual force, for the very ancient nature of organised religion has given it a powerful role in defining peoples personal and group identities,

in other words, religion plays a national as well as personal, moral, and spiritual roles.

Nationalist and religious identities are both manifestations of the need for belonging, as people have the basic need to belong, a need which can be expressed in inclusive or an exclusive way leading to serious consequences.

Dualism

In the context of the Arab world, dualism has ruled supreme, the choice has always been, either religion or nationalism, but Iran, Israel and Turkey, have managed to fuse religion into nationalism. Each one of those countries, reflecting on themselves individually, thought of themselves as great nations, consequently, this meant that great nations require great religions, and not only that, but their own perspective of their own faiths can only be the true path.

The Arab world till now, shows that religion and nationalism remain irreconcilable, which makes it difficult for the Arab individual to understand Iranian, Israeli, and Turkish societies.

In fairness however, one must say that, the reluctance of any Arab state to claim representation of Islam is very likely to bring severe opposition from both Islamists and nationalists.

Therefore by separating Islam from nationalism, the individual Arab state strengthens its own brand of legitimacy, and as we see, every Arab state is comfortable with the abstract notion of an Islamic Umma (greater nation) in as much as it is comfortable with the abstract notion of Arab Umma (greater nation).

Dr Khairi Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris and the above opinion is that of the author and doesn’t reflect crossfirearabia.com.

Opinion

Jordan: United Kingdom Plan and Dashing The Chance for Peace

Dr Khairi Janbek
October 29, 2024

By Khairi Janbek

In order to reinforce the concept of the unity of the two banks, which was reaffirmed at the Cairo Arab Summit in 1970, and in order to placate the rising Palestinian sentiments, King Hussein unveiled on 15 March, 1972, his United Arab Kingdom Plan (UAK).

In an address to the nation on that day, the late King elaborated on the proposed plan, as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan would, after the withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank, become the United Arab Kingdom comprising of two regions: First: Region of Palestine ie. West Bank and any future territories to be liberated and whose inhabitants opt to join in, with Jerusalem as its capital. Second: Region of Jordan, is East Bank and its capital Amman.

Furthermore, Amman would be the administrative capital of both regions. The King would be the head of state. There would be a local parliament and local government for each region, as well as a federal government and a parliament. There would be one federal supreme court and one army.

The late King added, this arrangement is his preference, though he intended to give the Palestinians, after liberation, the opportunity to determine their own future, and pledged to respect their choice.

Despite the fact that this plan was only a proposal, it drew violent reactions from the PLO as well as the Arab states who all in the 1970 Arab League Summit reaffirmed the unity of the two banks.

The late Mr. Yasser Arafat considered the plan a mere ressurection of Jordan’s long standing policy of insisting that the West Bank was an integral part of Jordan, and the Palestinians residents were Jordanian citizens. He considered that, a real threat to his own claim of representing the Palestinian people.

Ties between Jordan and Israel will remain government-to-government but “never people-to-people, and that's precisely because of Israeli politics,” Mustafa Hamarneh, a confidant to Jordan’s late King Hussein, tells The National https://t.co/UVOhx5YQbA
— The National (@TheNationalNews) October 27, 2024

The late president Sadat of Egypt wanted to identify his own regime with the Palestinan cause, and announced before a cheering crowd at the Palestine National Council (PNC) meeting in Cairo on 10 April 1972, the break of diplomatic relations with Jordan. Syria, in order not to be upstaged by Egypt, cut diplomatic relations with Jordan and closed its borders.

Significantly the Plan remained under consideration until the Rabat Arab Summit of 1974, when the Arab states decided the sole representative of the Palestinian people should by the PLO.

The Rabat Summit forced Jordan to withdraw from direct involvement in the peace process at the time when the eyes of the whole world and the attention of the USA, were focused on the settlement of the Arab-israeli conflict.

The Rabat decision confused the issue. Instead of concentrating on the basic problem of Israel’s occupation of Arab lands, the questions of Palestinian national rights and independent Palestinian state were introduced. The nature of the problem changed overnight.

Jordan tried to seperate the issue of withdrawal from the issue of national rights of the Palestinian people. Jordan stood for the ending of the Israeli occupation of all Arab lands; occupied after 1967 war, establish peace and then address the question of Palestinian national rights within the context of inter-Arab relations.

But the Arabs states supported the claims of the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, and the PLO leadership was not prepared to accept Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank in favor of Jordan, fearing that would prevent it from attaining its goal; Creation of an independent Palestinian state.

The various Arab states supported the PLO for their own reasons, and were totally content to dump the Palestinian problem on the shoulders of the PLO.

The Late President Sadat and ex-US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, exploited the PLO’s position and the Arab support to it, and manipulated events in order to enable Egypt to sign a separate peace with israel.

The Rabat decision which neutralized Jordan’s role, and paved the way for Egypt’s separate peace with Israel, enabled Tel Aviv to tighten its grip on the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

Developments since Rabat have shown that, Jordan’s position for a comprehensive peace settlement with Israel, would have been the best chance for a lasting peace. A chance dashed in Rabat.

Dr Khairi Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris and the above opinion is that of the author and doesn’t reflect crossfirearabia.com.