120 Countries

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was born in communist Yugoslavia in 1961 – good to know for all you Marshall Josip Tito fans out there (he was flexing his “independence” from the Soviet Union) – and the early-stage bigwigs included Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno; Egypt’s second president, Gamal Abdel Nasser; Ghana's first president Kwame Nkrumah; and India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. The words themselves were born in a UN speech by Indian statesman, V.K. Krishna Menon back in 1953. The assemblage of nations was dedicated to walking an independent course between the feuding Soviets and its Western counterparts that was known as the Cold War. Not that these nations were above “aligning” their pockets with “aid” from one Cold War faction or another, but they at least gave lip service to the notion of not being in either camp.

Sometimes the factions seemed a tad more “aligned” than even an outstretched definition of that term, but the group trundled along, picking up and dropping member nations along the way. And lots of seemingly “aligned” nations had their say. “In a speech given during the Havana Declaration of 1979, Fidel Castro said the purpose of the organization is to ensure ‘the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries’ in their ‘struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics.’” Wikipedia.

When the Soviet Union unraveled and the Cold War purportedly ended,  the notion of a large block of nations grappling in a world of mega-if-not-super powers still seemed appealing enough to continue the concept, and today that organization comprises 120 non-aligned nations. The leaders from these states met at the end of August at a convocation hosted by the warm and fuzzy Iranians in Tehran. Since a number of the non-aligned states are predominantly Sunni Muslims, the choice of Shiite-dominated Iran, a staunch ally of the cruel Assad regime in Syria, created some awkward moments.

Alignment within the non-aligned seemed heightened as newly-elected Egyptian President Mohamad Morsi (tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, Pictured above with the Iranian President… before the former’s speech) became the first Egyptian leader to visit Tehran since the latter nation became a fundamentalist Islamic republic in 1979. Good news for Iran… not exactly. “‘We should all express our full support to the struggle of those who are demanding freedom and justice in Syria and translate our sympathies into a clear political vision that supports peaceful transfer (of power) to a democratic system,’ Morsi told the 120-country summit.

“Morsi said the world had a ‘moral duty’ to back the Syrian opposition, whom he provocatively likened to the Palestinians, in their struggle ‘against an oppressive regime that has lost its legitimacy.’ Forceful intervention (he did not propose military action) was essential to prevent a further descent into civil war and sectarianism, he said. The fractured Syrian opposition must unite under one banner… Morsi’s fierce condemnation of the Syrian regime, Iran's close ally, was as eloquent as it was piercing, and it came like a bolt from the blue. He didn't just rain on the Iranians’ parade. It was as if Hurricane Isaac had taken a sharp turn north across the Caspian and unleashed its wrathful furies on an unsuspecting Tehran.

“The Syrian delegation walked out. The Iranians did not have that option – they could hardly boycott their own meeting. Instead they were forced to listen as Morsi, a Muslim Brother, an Arab, and lifelong critic of western policy in the Middle East, thumped out an uncompromising speech that could have come straight from Hillary Clinton's playbook.” Guardian UK, August 30^th 

The Iranian leadership was stunned. Farsi translations of the speech provided to the Iranian public were apparently severely and purposefully inaccurate. The final communiqué (“The Tehran Declaration”) didn’t address the Syrian debacle, but it wasn’t signed by the Syrians either. Despite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s subsequent attempt to muster some support for the Assad regime, seeking only that the NAM use its efforts to bring a peaceful solution to the Syrian conflict, the plea fell on deaf ears.

But lest we in the West gloat over Iran’s obvious awkward and isolated position among its peers, the powers in Tehran did have one huge reason to gloat back. “[T]he final result of the Nonaligned Movement’s meeting, the biggest international gathering in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, amounted to the strongest expression of support for Iran’s nuclear energy rights in its showdown with the West. The unanimous backing of the final document undercut the American argument that Iran was an isolated outlier nation… The Tehran Declaration document not only emphasizes Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy but acknowledges the right to ownership of a full nuclear fuel cycle, which means uranium enrichment — a matter of deep dispute…

“Iran, which has repeatedly asserted that its nuclear program is peaceful, contends it is already in compliance with its obligations as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and has countered that Israel, which is not a signatory, has an unacknowledged nuclear weapons arsenal. Israel, which regards Iran as its major enemy, has threatened to attack Iranian enrichment sites.” New York Times, August 31^st.  In some of the statements quietly uttered among some of the leaders, the subtext was even less comforting for American policy-makers. Why, went the train of thought, do those huge superpowers think that it is acceptable for them to have nuclear weapons… and but not for the smaller nations, often held hostage to interests of these military behemoths?

I’m Peter Dekom, and while the world is hardly rewarding Iran’s regional goals, neither is their the slightest sign that the United States will remotely be able to force its directives on the rest of the world.