If Obama and the others who signed the catastrophic nuclear agreement with Iran on the eve of Laylat al-Qadr, the Eve of Destiny, a few days before the end of the Ramadan fast, had studied a little history, they would know that the Battle of Qadisiyyah in 636, in which the Persians suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of the Arabs, has not yet ended. They would know that Islam had, in fact, been imposed on the Sassanid Empire by force, and that, in protest, the Persians adopted Shi'a Islam, a form of the religion that deviated from and changed the Islam of the Arabs, as a way of rebelling and continuing the fight.
If the West had studied that important event in Islamic history, they would understand they were enabling Iran to achieve a nuclear bomb and accelerate the national religious war between us, the Arabs, and the Shi'ite Iranians. For Iran's mullahs, the showdown is meant to be apocalyptic.
In that respect, the agreement signed by the American-led powers with Iran's rulers is a milestone along the path they have been praying for. The Ayatollahs' wish has long been finally to defeat the divided Arabs, currently at their weakest point since the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring, and then to move on to defeat Israel, and then grandest prize of all: the "Great Satan," the United States.
The Shi'ite regime of the Ayatollahs in Iran and their proxies are united. And, since the fall of the Shah, they are, sadly, also radical. Between their terrorist wings and influence in the Middle East and abroad, the Ayatollahs are refreshingly open about their determination to defeat the Arabs and achieve religious and national hegemony. Iran's forcing itself on the rest of the world is a central part of Khomeini's Islamic Revolution.
U.S. President Barack Obama has harmed us Arabs by abandoning his own red lines -- against the emphatic advice of his own military advisors -- to accept an agreement that in reality gives the Shi'ites open permission to build nuclear weapons at our expense and, more insanely, to allow Iran intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could reach America.
Worse, apparently a "side deal" -- classified for Americans but not for Iran -- allows Iran to provide its own soil samples to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to which it has been lying for decades. In other words, having the cat guard the milk.
Still worse, the parties to the agreement are required to help Iran protect its nuclear facilities should anyone try to attack them or sabotage them -- including, presumably, any disenchanted signatories. No wonder Iran's Supreme Leader sent a tweet of Obama pointing a pistol at his own head.
If we try to look at the positive side of the agreement, it is just possible that Obama looked at the Sunni Islamic states, fractured and at each other's throats, and at the ruthless terrorist groups and all the other battle zones gaining ground, and decided that we were too fractious for the U.S. to protect.
Now, one minute before the Iranians would have collapsed under the weight of the economic sanctions, the U.S. has given them a new lease on life, and, supported by the arrival of billions of dollars, is enabling them to return to their broad international terrorist activities and continue developing their nuclear weapons and the ICBMs on which to mount them.
Not only Iran will profit, but also the Turks, the Chinese and the Russians, who have already jumped at the chance to shore up Iran and themselves, both economically and militarily.
America will be now marginalized, as will its allies. What is in store for America is obvious to anyone listening to the hate speech of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He keeps promising that he will continue fighting against America and Israel, and that Iran will neither stop its nuclear development nor surrender.
Instead of lifting the sanctions, the United States should be increasing them.
When Iran joins the global energy market and strengthens its control of the Gulf maritime route, we, the Arabs, will quickly collapse. The recent visits of the Saudi Arabia foreign minister to American and the American Secretary of Defense to Israel did not help. As the arms embargo and sanctions are lifted, money will begin pouring into Iran. Missiles will be developed that will be capable of reaching first Israel and the Sunni Arab states, then Europe and then the United States. Global terrorism will mushroom. Iran will secretly complete its nuclear project ahead of schedule.
Since the agreement forbids agencies affiliated with America, and now apparently "foreigners," from visiting Iran's nuclear installations, the arms industry of Islamic Republic will flourish, and Iran will have been rewarded for having violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and will be given a red carpeted fast track to build a nuclear bomb.
Bassam Tawil is based in the Middle East.
David M