To anyone who does not know Mohammad Javad Zarif, he is Iran’s Foreign Minister, who has a “nice face” according to a published report of Radio “Monte Carlo” International, which justified this description by the fact that “he keeps a smile on his face, whatever the circumstances.”
For my part, I add to this description, “except for cases of presence with regional representatives from neighboring countries.” The man keeps smiling indeed, but in the presence of his counterparts from specific countries and geographical areas only, but looks completely different at meetings involving the joint Islamic work institutions.
I cannot question the expertise of Mr. Zarif or his diplomatic abilities. He spent more than two decades within the corridors of the United Nations, and put all his experience in his autobiography entitled “Mr. Ambassador.” He is a manipulator that possesses several faces. Suffice it that hardliner conservative Iranians consider him “an American agent” in what they know in the media literature of Iran as the “New York gang”, and some accuse him of being the man of the United States in Iran, which resulted in, in a certain period, the former Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s seeking his dismissal from his post as his country’s ambassador to the United Nations, but the Supreme Leader refused, yet Zarif was quick at presenting his resignation in 2007.
What I’m interested in in this area is that Zarif is a politically deceptive figure, and this is quite a rational description of him, not involving any degree of prejudice. He is the one that scripted with his pen last August his famous article in the Lebanese newspaper السفير (The Ambassador) in which he said “in our long established traditions, and in our Islamic religion (which brings us together), there is a wise recommendation that says: choose the neighbor then the house, which is a moral recommendation with a profound vision we received over the centuries, and has become a necessity that cannot be denied in the contemporary world; well-being and security are achieved only in an environment that enjoys these great blessings.” But he published an article in the American newspaper New York Times in January, in contrast to this entirely fake conviction, carrying a huge amount of hatred and direct incitement against Saudi Arabia, which reveals how much rancor Mr. Zarif holds towards our brothers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and then he returned strangely to speak in other statements about the existence of common denominators between Iran and Saudi Arabia, he even said verbatim in the Munich conference on security in mid-February, “we believe that there is nothing in our region that may prevent Iran and Saudi Arabia to work together to achieve a better future for all of us.” He added that “extremists are a threat to our brothers in Saudi Arabia as a threat to the rest of the region. We are linked by a common destiny.”
Zarif, then returned again in the Istanbul summit, which was held recently, to the language of hostility and to the hateful cynicism tone, when he reminded the Saudis of the fate of the former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. Zarif pointed to the exploitation of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation by Saddam Hussein during the imposed war on Iran. He said, “In that period, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz took the initiative to adopt hostile terms to Iran with the support of some countries in the region, but we did not give any attention to such hostile attitudes … We must draw lessons from the past; look where Tariq Aziz is today? “.
The president of the Iranian diplomatic corps wondered about the feasibility of repeating the experience of some Member States in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation with allegedly “failed policies”. Personally, I do not know how Zarif shifts between positions of hostility and the claim of “brotherhood” with the Saudi side, this shift does not happen in years, but in a matter of weeks and possibly a few days, and the reason is not because Saudi Arabia acts against his country, but rather seeks to achieve security and stability in the Arab and Islamic world through the confirmation of the sovereignty of States that have been eroded by agents, on whom Iran spends generously. Zarif became agitated, fearing for Hezbollah, which is, by the way, of Lebanese nationality and domicile, not Iranian, and I do not know how he can describe this strange situation diplomatically and politically?
Zarif calls for the strengthening of Islamic unity! Well… Where were these noble values when you were supporting the Houthi group in Yemen, which wreak havoc in this brother country? Where were these noble values when you launched the popular mobilization militias against Sunni Muslims in brotherly Iraq for allegedly fighting Daash? Then where was this false attitude as to the security and political bullying practices exercised by Hezbollah in Lebanon?
Zarif warns Saudi brothers of the fate of Tariq Aziz, forgetting that the fate of Aziz is the fate of all human beings, we are all mortal, only the face of God Almighty will remain. And if his intention is sincere in reminding others of the memento mori, he would better remind his Supreme Leader Khamenei, perhaps he would wake up from his error, and stop tampering with the fate of the region and its peoples.
