See the latest opinion pieces on our page
True, he repeated the presumptuous mantra that Islamism was “not true Islam.” It would surely be more appropriate to say that Islamism is a fanatical interpretation of Islam rooted in the religion.And as Cameron went on to make clear, he understands that this indeed is the problem because he boldly placed himself squarely behind those Muslims seeking to bring about an Islamic reformation. To deny that Islamist violence had anything to do with Islam, he said, meant “you disempower the critical reforming voices; the voices that are challenging the fusing of religion and politics; the voices that want to challenge the scriptural basis which extremists claim to be acting on.”Absolutely.He also understood that within Islam there was a “spectrum of extremism.” As he said, it was not enough for Muslims to say they abhorred ISIS (Islamic State).“We’ve got to show that if you say, ‘Yes I condemn terror – but the kuffar are inferior,’ or, ‘Violence in London isn’t justified, but suicide bombs in Israel are a different matter’ – then you too are part of the problem.”Wow. This was the second time recently that Cameron identified Britain with Israeli victims of terrorism – a bold move in a country where any expression of public support for Israel elicits from the political and cultural elite a sharp intake of breath.And he went even further by stressing that a key factor behind Islamic extremism was the Muslim world’s paranoia “that Jews exercise malevolent power; or that Western powers, in concert with Israel, are deliberately humiliating Muslims, because they aim to destroy Islam.”This identification of Muslim anti-Jewish hatred with anti-Western jihadi violence is a crucial understanding. And nowhere is this deranged connection more evident than in the genocidal ravings by the Islamic Republic of Iran.Yet this same David Cameron is supporting a so-called deal which commits Britain, the US and others to help put nuclear weapons into the hands of those same genocidal Islamists.If the P5+1 negotiators had deliberately set out to produce an Orwellian negation of every single thing they purported to be doing, making themselves appear guilty of criminal cynicism, treachery or utter imbecility, they could not have exceeded the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action finalized in Vienna.This plan has endorsed Iran, the West’s sworn enemy and the world’s principal sponsor of terrorism, as a nuclear threshold state.The plan allows Iran to keep its nuclear program intact. At best it will delay its nuclear weapons breakout capacity by 10 years.Crucially, it enables Iran to avoid inspection of all its nuclear sites – probably allowing it to hold the inspectors at bay for months.Furthermore, the plan is drafted with no acknowledgment of Iran’s murderous behavior.So with sanctions set to be relaxed, some $150 billion will be released for the regime to boost armaments to Hamas, Hezbollah and anti-West forces in Yemen and Iraq.Incomprehensibly, the US-led negotiators have also agreed to lift the UN arms embargo – on Iranian ballistic missiles whose only purpose is to hit America and Europe.Even more surreally still, the US, Britain and the rest have actually pledged to help Iran thwart any attempts to undermine its nuclear program, including sabotage.Since precisely such clandestine activities have been carried out for years by either Israel, the US or British special forces or a combination of all three in a desperate attempt to slow down the Iranian nuclear program, this commitment is simply beyond belief.It turns the US, Britain and the rest from being ineffectually committed to thwarting Iran’s nuclear weapons program into actively conniving at the production of the genocide bomb and the ramping up of Iranian terrorism around the world.The US revealed its true intentions when it declared that it would now supply both Israel and Saudi Arabia with extra weapons to protect themselves against the Iranian threat.But since the Obama administration never stops claiming that its plan will neutralize the Iranian threat, why give Saudi and Israel this extra protection? The brutal and terrible answer is that what America, Britain and the rest are in reality now doing is helping arm all sides in the region for nuclear war.Oh – and Iran hasn’t even signed this nondeal.So it is a nonexistent non-deal, aka total capitulation by America to an enemy of humanity.We know why President Obama has done this. As a left-wing ideologue with a pathologically racist chip on his shoulder against white society, he believes that peace and justice will be advanced by empowering the presumed historic victims of America.Thus embraced by the family of nations, Iran will supposedly turn into a model global citizen. The fatuity of this delusion is being underlined by even more bellicose rhetoric issuing from the apocalypse-now fanatics of the Iranian regime.But that hardly explains why David Cameron is going along with this suicidal farce. One might speculate that he doesn’t want to split with Britain’s special ally, the US. But I believe there’s a yet deeper obstacle to realism.The prime minister is a particular and distinctive type of Englishman: decent, humane, rational – but insular. When he came into office he knew nothing and seemed to care less about foreign matters. So he went along with the foreign policy establishment’s instinctive dislike of Israel and appeasement of the Islamic world.He has been shocked into changing his attitude by recent events – the rise of ISIS and its attraction for so many young British Muslims; the atrocities just across the English Channel at Charlie Hebdo and the kosher grocery store; the slaughter of British tourists in Tunisia.But he still doesn’t see the bigger geopolitical picture. He doesn’t see that, far from helping the West against ISIS, Iran is merely another front in exactly the same war against civilization.He doesn’t see that the need to destroy the Iranian regime is part of the same “struggle of our generation.”He doesn’t see it because, unlike ISIS, the Iranian leaders are the most manipulative and sophisticated dissemblers and long-game players in the world. Presented with naive, decent Englishmen and delusional American ideologues, the Iranians play them for the suckers they are.Someone should help David Cameron join up the dots, and fast.Melanie Phillips is a columnist for The Times (UK).
“Simply denying any connection between the religion of Islam and the extremists doesn’t work, because these extremists are self-identifying as Muslims,” he said.