Abdulateef Al-Mulhim

By : Abdulateef Al-Mulhim

Last week, I enjoyed reading an article written by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif published in the New York Times. The title of the article was “Saudi Arabia’s Reckless Extremism.”

The reason for enjoying the article is that time and again it is proved that who’s who in Iran or who is the real authority in Iran?

The Iranian foreign minister referred to President Hassan Rouhani’s repeated declaration that Iran’s top foreign policy priority was friendship with its neighbors, peace and stability in the region and global cooperation, especially in the fight against extremism.

We all know that the Iranian foreign minister became well-known to people in the region and to decision-makers in the United States after his involvement in negotiations to win the release of American hostages held by pro-Iranian gunmen in Lebanon.

Now, please look at the last sentence again. “Americans held by pro-Iranian gunmen in Lebanon.”

Has anybody heard about this kind of incident wherein any Saudi was found involved in taking hostages? So, who is a reckless extremist, is it Iran or Saudi Arabia?

I would like to ask the Iranian foreign minister one question: Which country is known for taking diplomats hostage and for failing to protect diplomatic missions?

We all remember the hostage crisis of the late 1970s that lasted for 444 days, which had resulted in an international crisis. It could have escalated into a full-blown confrontation. In other words, it was Iran that held American diplomats as hostages in an operation that was given the green light from the government.

May be Zarif didn’t know about the incident because as far as we know he was born in 1960 and his parents did not allow him to watch TV, listen to the radio and he was not even allowed to read newspapers. But during the revolution he became exposed to revolutionary ideas and at that time the Iranians used to call the United States, the Great Satan. So, guess where did Zarif at the peak of the Iranian revolution and the age of 17 go? Well, you guessed it correctly! He ended up in the United States. And he ended up staying there for a long time and was one of those politicians who served Iran in the United Nations. In other words, the Iranian foreign minister reminds me of the Soviet era foreign ministers who knew more about the West than their own country.

Zarif apparently doesn’t know or he doesn’t want to know that Iran tops the chart when it comes to extremism. It is a country known for its disrespect to foreign missions. And I will not talk about the construction cranes used for executing Iranian men and women or their numbers. Iran and its rulers are known for their desperate need for an outside enemy to survive. As a matter of fact, the first officially announced plans for the Iranian revolution was to export extremism and overthrow the governments in Iran’s neighborhoods. Shouldn’t their plans be to build Iran or to take care of the Iranians? The world saw Iran spreading its extremist ideology decades ago in Lebanon and other countries and had established many centers to recruit many of the Arab youth to be used in terrorist attacks in various Arab countries.

During the Haj season in the late 1980s some Iranian pilgrims were caught with C4 explosives.

Abdulateed Al-Mulhim

During the Haj season in the late 1980s some Iranian pilgrims were caught with C4 explosives. And let us not forget the Iranian Revolutionary Guard operatives who followed Iranian dissidents and former politicians all over the world to execute them. We do remember the gruesome execution of Iran’s former Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar in Paris. And let us not forget the thousands of Iranian politicians, scientists, writers, doctors and merchants who were put on summary trials in 1979 and were executed in cold blood. Nowadays you can see more Iranian doctors, scientists and professionals in Los Angeles than you would see in Tehran. They left because life in Iran was unbearable.

I think it would be more beneficial for the Iranians to see Zarif walk around the streets of Tehran or go out and see the small villages to learn more about the realities of life in Iran. Calling America the “Great Satan” didn’t put bread on an Iranian’s table and calling Saudi Arabia reckless will not hide the realities of the Iranian people sufferings under your reckless Mullahs. And finally, Zarif, could you please return the telephone that your thugs stole from our embassy in Tehran when they attacked it. By the way, is attacking foreign diplomatic missions Iran’s way of promoting stability and combating extremism?

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in the Column section are their own and do not reflect RiyadhVision’s point-of-view.

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