"The Sheikh's Dog Thinks He is the Sheikh"

America has a difficult decision to make: If Iran is struck a blow by the United States and its allies, extremist Sunni Islamists will exploit the situation to accelerate a military build-up and continue to conspire to establish a global, militant Islamic Caliphate. On the other hand, if the threat for a nuclear Iran is not removed, the Persian Gulf interests of the United States and its oil-producing allies will be seriously endangered. The Western world did not internalize that the Muslim Brotherhood was closing ranks in the Middle East.

It is now clear that the West was overly hasty in unilaterally recognizing "Palestine" as a non-member observer state in the UN, against Israel's wishes and in legal contravention of the Oslo Accords. The decision was made without providing Israel with a minimum commitment for the end of the conflict, without recognizing Israel as a Jewish state and without sufficient, agreed-upon security arrangements.

The recognition of "Palestine" will lead, actually, to the establishment of the United Islamic Terrorist State of Hamastan in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

The Western world did not internalize that, within the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood was closing ranks in the Middle East. It did not understand the short role assigned to Mahmoud Abbas in gaining international recognition for the terrorist state of Hamastan in an Islamist process that now probably cannot be reversed. The Palestinians now wait, and pray for the safe arrival of the ships from Iran, bringing weapons to refill the Gaza Strip arsenals of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, while the masses fill the squares and roar for the destruction of Israel.

In the meantime, there are signs that more serious sanctions might be taken against Iran, and a Sunni coalition in the Middle East under American aegis might be crystallizing. The media report a rapprochement in the positions of Israel and Turkey. Such contacts, forced by the Iranian threat, may lead to a renewal of relations between the two through a plan that will include reparations, a kind of apology and the partial opening of the Gaza Strip crossings.

Turkey's completion of its early warning systems and the fortifying of its borders with anti-missile defenses, and the Iranian grumblings about provocative American naval deployments in the Persian Gulf, might be interpreted as Sunni Gulf states organizing with American help. Thus it is possible that the United States' involvement in the agreements between Israel and Egypt in the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip was also aimed at constructing a pan-Arab Sunni Islamic front as part of the general trend. Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which have just profited from the recognition of Hamastan and from the achievements of Egyptian brokering, are behaving themselves, despite the fact that the fragile, problematic ceasefire recently achieved with American-Egyptian supervision is as sturdy as a cobweb and as full of holes as a fishnet.

Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, both hungry for power, are busy instituting a theocratic Pharaonic dictatorship a thousand times worse than the Mubarak regime. The temporary readiness of the Islamic elements to accept the Gaza ceasefire is exclusively the result of their need for economic and military support from the "Crusaders" in America and Europe. It is Islamic policy to postpone gratification until its leaders have built up their might and are ready to betray their benefactors.

Israel took into consideration the possibility that the Egyptian authorities would not take serious steps to prevent weapons from being smuggled to their Muslim Brothers in the Gaza Strip, weapons whose only purpose is to kill Israelis. Nevertheless, Israel agreed to end Operation Pillar of Defense and not invade the Gaza Strip and stop rockets from being fired at its civilians. There are those who say that during the operation the Americans, planning to challenge Iran by targeting Assad's Syria first, asked Israel not to undertake a ground operation and to make do with air strikes in order to support the creation of a Sunni Islamic front. The assumption was that an Israeli ground invasion might rip apart the strategic Sunni constellation forming against Shi'ite Iran.

The situation recalled the American demand that Israel not attack Iraq during the First Gulf War in 1991, lest it endanger the Islamic Arab coalition. In such circumstances the Israelis, and especially the Americans, who are helping build up Egypt economically and politically while Morsi misleads them by the nose, would do well to remember the prophet Jesse, who likened the Pharaoh of Egypt to "a broken reed" and warned that "whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it."

America has a difficult decision to make: If nuclear Iran is struck a blow by the United States and its allies, extremist Sunni Islamists will exploit the situation for a military buildup and continue to conspire to establish a global, militant Islamic Caliphate. On the other hand, if the threat of a nuclear Iran is not removed, the Persian Gulf interests of the United States and its oil-producing allies will be seriously endangered, and Iran might conceivably bomb Israel to show the rest of the world what it is capable of.

When asked what his foreign policy was, Theodore Roosevelt famously said, "Speak softly but carry a big stick." A number of months ago President Obama was photographed talking to Turkey's Erdogan holding a baseball bat. Now Obama should remove the bat from behind his back and demand from Morsi, the broken reed, achievements on the ground – something no one seriously expects will happen.

Israel, however, has a "Magic Wand," which can intercept medium-range missiles. Since November 29, 2012, when the European Union and the UN created Hamastan, Israel has been gripping its Magic Wand more tightly and prepared additional cudgels should they prove necessary.

In the meantime, in view of the mass slaughter of Syrians, France and Britain threaten Israel, which is planning to build in Jerusalem, while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demands Israel show more sensitivity to the Palestinians, and Rahm Emanuel, listening to his master's voice, castigates the Israeli prime minister? As the Arab proverb says, "The sheik's dog thinks he is the sheikh."

Amin Farouk is a journalist based in the middle east.

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