Dana Nawzar

Saudi-UAE have been the single biggest obstacle in front of the birth of any real representative Sunni axis. They killed that dream when they destroyed the Arab Spring dreams and spread chaos across the region They can’t protect their asses let alone being custodians of Sunnis.

In the past, the Saudi state did sponsor an extremist interpretation of Islam which basically excludes everyone from Islam except a small bunch. But today, they have changed their mind. They are busy implementing Mckinsy Islam. So at least spare us the sectarianism.

One can say whatever he likes about Soleimani and Iran without turning it into a sectarian issue. If Soleimani is hated for supporting Assad then why they are rushing to normalise ties with Assad himself?

The Saudi leadership is shitting themselves, trying to not look happy and sending delegations to DC & London asking for deescalation. But they have set their troll armies to spread filthy sectarian discourse in every space. Spare us your fake concerns for Sunnis. No one buys it

Trump may hit Iran not for strategic reasons but because he is gutted his funeral will never be this big. Tehran, today.https://twitter.com/FarsNews_Agency/status/1214080723537272833…

At the public level too, there is very little outrage against the attendance of the Kurdish parties at the Soleimani funeral. The irony is Iran/Soleimani has done more to harm Iraqi Kurdish dreams for independence than anyone else. But Iran does it quietly, calmly & with a smile.

Soleimani’s personal networks, friendships and history play a big role here. But it is more than that. Unlike other regional players like Turkey, Iran doesn’t leave things for fate. They achieve behind the scenes & through diplomacy and depend less on crude military power.

Certainly, there is lots of balancing going on as all the parties have excellent relationship with the US too. But Iran’s influence in Iraq is very complicated. You wouldn’t see something like this if, for example, a Turkish official, say Hakan Fidan, was killed in such manner.

Iranian influence in Iraq goes way beyond the sectarian divide. Iran is a liked, respect and feared power in Iraq all at the same time. Every Kurdish party & many senior & junior officials attended Soleimani’s funeral ceremonies at Iranian consulate, described him as martyr.

Even today, as many Iraqi politicians are worriedly watching what is coming next, they can’t make any clear moves to the US camp. They know Iran is there to stay while US is a mad donkey that can shoot and leave any moment. Soleimani’s death won’t be the end of Iran’s hegemony.

Iraqi politicians and others know the balance of power but a call from Pompeo doesn’t have the same weight as a face to face meeting with Soleimani. Now Soleimani is gone. Iranian diplomacy hasn’t. What is nowhere to be seen is a tangible US diplomacy. All twitter and calls.

Iran is deep down the throat of Iraqi politics. Iranian officials even call TV stations when they don’t like something aired. But Soleimani wanted beyond that. Imagine, he won Barzani over again even after what Soleimani did to him in Kirkuk.

Soleimani didn’t just call Iraqi politicians. He made sure he met them face to face. He once flew to Iraqi Kurdistan with a helicopter, boarded a a Kurdish party leader, gave him a tour of Kurdish/Iranian skies while negotiating. Even the most pro-US politicians had ties with him

Imagine, someone like Jalal Talabani and most senior members of his family who have nothing in common with ruling ideology of Iran & most hold UK citizenship saw Soleimani as a friend. That friendship paid off in 2017. They knew they could trust him.

You know what was Soleimani’s secret? He was an architect of relationships. He could form bonds with the most unlikely of people. He could make politicians feel they were his friends not mere political partners. He worked on trust first before giving orders or making threats.

US destroyed Saddam, Iran benefited. US armed Hashd, Iran benefited. US abandoned KRG, Iran benefited. US seems to have 3 modes only: Total war, total abandonment or causing chaos from afar. That is not politics but the lack of it.

Iran didn’t end Saddam’s regime but was the single biggest beneficiary. Iran didn’t fight in Iraq but won every battle in the country. Iran doesn’t see Iraq as a temporary battlefield or a lucrative oil business, Iraq is Iran’s strategic gate to the Arab world.

If US troops withdraw from Iraq, then Soleimani’s death has not been in vain. Soleimani spent his lifetime trying to achieve just that. Every single step US has taken in Iraq since 2003 has benefited Iran. Does US have another strategy except withdrawal & a total war?

Kurds are powerless in the regional and international game. Hence the attempt by political leadership today to satisfy all sides i.e attending Soleimani funeral but boycotting Iraqi Parliament session. Survival is the skill the weakest learn the best. Never cheer a war.

Kurds especially in Iran and Iraq will be the first victims of any possible confrontation. Even during Iraqi-Iran war when Saddam was bombarding Iraqi & Iranian Kurdish cities, Iran was also shelling Iraqi Kurdish cities indiscriminately. Many died due to Iranian artillery.

Many Kurds have already started preparing for a possible war. Some are saving up fuel & food. You won’t see it as alarmism and exaggeration if you know that an average 50 year old Kurd in Iraq has been displaced at least 5 times in his lifetime. War is ugly, don’t ever cheer it.

Anytime a conflict happens in Middle East, people love the day to day superficial analysis. But the problem is in the roots. As long as new structures aren’t produced that can ensure unity & diversity, conflicts will continue. Muhammeds, Alis & Omers will continue to die in vain

After a century of genocide, civil war, military coups, chaos and conflict, the DC experts told us a ‘new Iraqi nationalism’ is the messiah. It turned out they were armchair hallucinations. Artificial nationalism & imposed unities don’t work. New paradigms are needed.

Iraq as a state is a huge failure. All modern post Sykes-Picot states with artificial borders are failure. It was a failure before the US-Iran conflict on its soil. It is a failure now. It will be a failure tomorrow. New paradigms and structures are needed .

These events come and go but the narratives matter more. I am proud of a civilisation that gave birth to Salahaddin whose war ethics inspired chivalry in the West. That civilisation and its ethos is needed today more than ever.

1400 years ago Prophet Muhammed became first ever political/military leader to include protection of women, children, elderly and nature in the codes of war but in the age of Geneva convention, threat of total annihilation is cheered as ‘deterrance’!

The folk of halfwits whose credentials on Islam is having had falafel for lunch have a made a career abusing Islam and Muslims calling them ‘violent’ but gleefully cheer their leaders when they threaten to wipe out entire countries and populations.

Iranian culture and civilisation is not owned by the Iranian regime. It is all of humanity’s. It is a product of several thousand years of collective human endeavour. But all that doesn’t matter in a world where the most powerful man is the least sophisticated.

As modern humans of 21st century, we pride ourselves as being most advanced. We arrogantly look down our past and see previous generations as somehow less sophisticated. Yet it is someone of Trump’s calibre that is now humanity’s most powerful man.

A man whose culture is TV shows, beauty queens, big buildings and Epstein parties wouldn’t understand culture. History should write that the most powerful person in 2020 was a man of no values, no charisma, no taste, no talent and no culture #IranianCulturalSites

Trump is the ultimate manifestation of indecency and lack of ethics. And he is now in charge of a superpower. Everything others say about US now is true. But the children of Efrin, Idlib, Mosul, San'a have lots to say as well. Everyone is on the wrong side of history.

Turkey, Iran and Saudi; three major Muslim regional powers, could have unified Middle East under a new regime which works for all. They chose instead to use the little power they have against the weaker. Anytime they cry foul, very few people listen. They cry and laugh alone.

No one has moral superiority in the mess of Middle East. We all witness the utter insanity of threatening to wipe out a several thousands years old civilisation but we also see what the smaller powers did when they were left alone. It's a nasty game. Only kids are innocent.

6. We Muslims, Christians and other peoples of faith have a duty to push for the integrations of religion which are tolerant, peaceful, accepting and help people come to power who uphold such principles. When we leave politics, religion doesn’t. A nasty version gets empowered.

5. Secularism is inherently a failure. The fight isn’t between religion or no religion. It is between what interpretation of religion? The sooner we embrace the progressive tolerant & monotheistic Muhammadean version of Islam as the footprint for reform the better.

4. The religious/secular dichotomy was alien to Islam in the first place. It is a good occasion to rethink wishful reformist projects which aim at taking Islam out of the public space. It will be a failure. The solution to the false ways of using Islam is more Islam and not less.

This clip is meaningful: 1. Secularism defined as separation of church and state exists on paper only. 2. Secularism defined as separation of religion and politics exists in dreams only. 3. Western labellings of Islam’s role in politics e.g Islamism need to be scrapped.https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1213217312574185479…

We are divided into a thousand and one groups. We have created a million reasons to hate each other. We have created borders from nothing. Our lives aren’t ethical. Our deaths are in vain. Are we going to be the people to stop this or just another generation of expendables.

Our countries are destroyed in front of our eyes. Our peoples are killed. Misery seems to be our fate for another century. We feel powerless and useless. The best we can do is ‘analyse’. This is a ‘mata nasrullah’ moment for many of us. But I believe it is not too far.

When I was a kid, I used to ask my father why he didn’t do anything to stop Saddam. A part of me still holds that childish innocence and thinks we can stop powerful people from doing evil. In an age of war & corruption, this hope is the most precious thing I have got.