War Over Silk Routes and Petro-Bourses: Would History Repeat Itself ?

                                        

War Over Silk Routes and Petro-Bourses: Would History Repeat Itself ? By K Gajendra Singh                                August 23 ,2005

http://www.saag.org/%5Cpapers16%5Cpaper1516.html http://www.mwcnews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1098&Itemid=26,Al-Jazeerah,

The Khwarezmian Empire, also spelt as Chorasmia , based on the Amu Darya (Oxus) delta, south of the Aral Sea coast, an entrepot for exchange of goods between Slavic lands in the West , Muslim states in South and China in the East , began as a part of the Ghaznavid empire .Its founder, Anushtegin , a slave , was appointed governor of Khwarezm around 1077 by Sultan Malik Shah of the Seljuqs , who had replaced the Ghaznavids as the new warlords in the region. Anushtegin's descendants governed Khwarezm on behalf of the Seljuqs but , the 1141 defeat of Seljuq Sultan Sanjar by Buddhist Karakitai (Qara Khitay) confederation of northern China, forced Anushtegin's grandson Atsiz to acknowledge the overall sovereignty of the Karakitai.

Following Sanjar's death in 1157, Khwarezm Shah Tekish emerged as one of the contenders for supremacy in Iran. By 1200 his son the Khwarezm Shah Allauddin Muhammad II emerged victorious ( reigned 1200 –20). He took over all of Persia from the Seljuk Turks by 1205 and in1212 defeated the Gur-Khan of the Karakitai. Now his empire stretched from the borders of India to those of Anatolia. But Muhammad II, a vain man unable to control his army leaders, thought himself to be Alexander the Great II.

Muhammad II won approval in the Islamic world by freeing himself from a humiliating tributary status to an infidel power, the Karakitai. But the coup de grace to the Karakitai Empire was delivered by Gurkhan's own vassal from the east, Küchlüg Khan, a renegade Mongol. Thus, from 1211 onward Muhammad II faced another hostile opponent in Central Asia, Küchlüg Khan. But the destruction of Karakitai only worsened the situation on the eastern border. The post-Karakitai wars between him and Küchlüg Khan damaged the safety of the Central Asian trade arteries from China to the West.

At the same time the new Mongol leader Genghis Khan had risen to power and took over Peking in 1215 as the lord of China. While agriculture revenues were important, customs duties from the caravan trade along the silk routes passing through their territories were very important .So Genghis Khan was much concerned with Chinese trade outlets to the West.

Unlike the fighting forces based on tribal levies and loyalties in trans-Oxania and in the Islamic world, Genghis Khan, himself an orphan with no clan loyalties, structured his forces mostly from detribalized warriors on the Chinese bureaucratic principle. He was free to augment his forces by reorganizing his defeated foes into tens and hundreds and put his own men in command over each of the units. ( A modern variation is Al Qaeda and its self perpetuating cells, without loyalties to states ie tribes but the Ummah)

Genghis Khan first sent a goodwill mission with gifts to Muhammad II expressing desire for trade relations. Two years alter he sent a trade caravan of 450 men , mostly Muslims with about 500 camels, laden with merchandise of gold, silver, Chinese silk, targhu stuffs, beaver-skins, sables, and other articles. The caravan was detained as spies by order of Muhamood II 's governor Inalchik in the frontier province of Utrar . There is some confusion among historians on the degree of responsibility borne by Muhammad II and his governor, but except one all the traders were killed. According to one historian, the governor acted solely out of cupidity to seize the merchants' wares after informing the Shah that the merchants were behaving like spies. While the Shah had sent an order to only detain them, the governor carried out the massacre at his own initiative. Later the Shah was obliged to condone his governor's action.

Ibn al-Athar's account blames the Sultan who ordered the merchants to be killed, their merchandise sold to the merchants of Bukhara and Samarqand .He divided the spoils from the sales with his governor. It is very likely that the sale of the merchandise to the merchants (with a profit for them) was partly to compensate them for the cessation of trade with the nomad Mongols.

At the same time Muhammad II had dispatched an embassy to Genghis Khan on a spying mission without any intention of entering into commercial relations .Therefore he suspected the caravan sent by the Mongols had the same purpose.

When Genghis Khan sent 3 diplomats to Muhammad II for reparations, one was killed and the beards of the two were burnt.

Genghis Khan retaliated with a force of around 200,000 men and soon stormed Bukhara and Samarkand , now the Khwarezmian capital. The Shah fled but was hounded out. He escaped to an island in the Caspian Sea and died a few weeks later. And many of the lustrous cities of Central Asia on the Silk routes , like Bukhara, Samarkand , Khiva ,Termez , Herat etc lay in smoking ruins

"Regard­less of how one resolves the question of who really provoked the Mongol-Khorezmian war, its outcome was as predictable as the war itself was inevitable."

Muhammad's son Jalaladdin Mingburnu became the new Shah but he had to flee towards India. He was caught up by Mongols and defeated at the Battle of Indus .He and his closest followers then fled to Armenia where they attacked the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum .He was defeated and assassinated in 1231. But his followers remained loyal to him even after his death and raided the Seljuk lands calling themselves the Khwarezmiyyas. Ayyubid Sultan Salahaddin later hired them as mercenaries and they helped him capture Jerusalem in 1244 , triggering the 7th Crusade .The Khwarezmiyyas served in Egypt as Mameluks before they were finally defeated by Mansur Ibrahim some years later.

It would appear that Jenghiz Khan had still not decided whether to establish trade relations with Khwarezm empire or conquer it. Unfortunately his hand was forced by the actions of Mahmood II and his Governor Inalchik in Otrar.

Taming of the Soviet Union;

Things have not changed that much even now. One of the determinants of modern day economic might is the availability and control over raw materials, now a days energy resources and control over sea and land routes. Military power is used to augment economic wealth by even plain plunder .Economic power is then used to further reinforce the military muscle.

The Cold War was a competition between the two blocks, with mutual assured destruction ie military capability of destroying each other but the Soviet Union lost out having been forced to divert unconscionable amount of its GDP to maintain military parity. US led West was fortunate in having two Russian leaders , a naïve Mikhail Gorbachev , who apparently knew little about communism or capitalism and was frightened by US threats of embarking on a Star Wars program , matching which would have proved ruinous to the Soviet economy.( There are simpler solutions as Russia now suggests ). He was dazzled by his popularity in the manipulated US media (which now brushes aside Gorbachev outbursts against the West) as a historic peace maker, which he found of little avail at home when he stood for Presidential elections .He was a total failure in leveraging Soviet military power (yes, some money in royalties for his books and lecture fees in the West) Look at the way the north Koreans are playing the game or even Iran, just with a threat to become a nuclear power. After all Israel holds the Middle East to ransom by its undeclared nuclear bombs and its patron USA defied UN opposition and invaded Iraq unilaterally for its oil wealth.

Then Russia had the second misfortune of having a mostly drunk or drugged Boris Yeltsin . Hundreds of billions worth of Russian peoples' wealth was privatized into personal fortunes and transferred to western banks and institutions, real estate and football clubs. Whenever Yeltsin or his Prime Minister Chernomyrdin gave signs of an independent line, Western media leaked news of their reportedly billions of dollars in western banks. Chernomyrdin, as a mediator sold out Serbia and its leader Milosevic to the West. Curiously he was Russia's ambassador in Kiev, Ukraine, when in a US financed and supported franchised street revolution, an openly pro US Victor Yushchenko was elected its President last year. Privatisation in Russia has manufactured scores of US dollar billionaires from unabashed loot of its peoples' wealth, who in turn have been burdened with hundreds billions dollars of debt. When Russia tries to regulate these robber barons, US corporate media howls in protests while not opposing trial and sentencing of criminals who ran Enron and Welcome.com into bankruptcy.

History did not end with the fall of the Berlin Wall, a proposition coined by economist Francis Fukuyama ,but he has now asked for return of state controls ( but US media makes little mention) . USA , now feeling supreme and arrogant stealthily encroached on the strategic Russian space in former communist nations which it had acquired by destroying and defeating the ruthless Nazi war machine and sacrificing 30 million lives ( for which the Anglo-Saxon media gave all credit to the West, with a fraction of human sacrifice). US led West is increasing its economic power by controlling the newly independent former Communist countries through the so-called globalization, which as implemented , is but a modern day version of Capitulations, which had given unfettered sovereign powers in the Ottoman empire to foreign traders in their commercial enterprises .These were later extended to non-Muslim subjects of a multi-religious societies and helped unravel the Ottoman empire. Similar concessions to foreigners extracted by gun boat diplomacy impoverished and ruined China.

US led Rape in Iraq;

It is now crystal clear that the unilateral invasion of Iraq, insultingly dubbed 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' , a doable regime change operation, as Vice President Cheney told Prince Hasan of Jordan, apart from gaining strategic control over Iraq's hydrocarbon reserves and to strengthen control over the region with its vast energy resources , was also to maintain the U.S. dollar as the monopoly currency for the critical international oil market.

US deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, in his arrogance openly declared in Singapore that the claims of WMD' s and other accusations for invading Iraq were only for bureaucratic justification. He also told the US Congress how the Iraq oil wealth would finance the invasion and Iraq's re-construction (for the greater economic gains of US multinationals like Vice-President's former company Halliburton ) and maintain new military bases in Iraq . How would Wolfowitz ,now President World Bank, finance poor countries development!

To achieve US objectives puppet governments have been installed in Iraq. What a galaxy of star turns . US Viceroy Paul Bremer , under whom over 8 billions of US dollars from Iraqi oil sales remain fully unaccounted for as pointed out by US government audit .This was rubbed in by British MP George Galloway in the US Senate Committee who had put to sword false accusations against him that he gained from UN's Food for Oil progamme .Every one has been accused in the programme including UN Secretary General Kofi Annan , he, for describing the invasion of Iraq illegal and trying to reform the UN , dominated by power balance after the 2^nd  world war, which has now also become unrepresentative. George Bush has shown his disregard for the UN by sending John Bolton as Ambassador , an outspoken opponent of UN , even against the wishes of the US Congress . UN's Oil for Food Programme was vitiated by USA and UK and many have accused them for the death of half a million Iraqi children in the implementation of the UN sanctions.

Those now ruling and robbing Iraq are convicted embezzlers like Ahmed Chalabi ,CIA and MI5 agents like former Prime Minster Iyad Allawi and other exiles ,some of whom the US is realizing are now promoting in Iraq, interests of Iran ,US's current bete noire .The rulers have little idea or concern or capability in reducing the sufferings of Iraqis and are busy lining their pockets .

It is now clear that Saddam Hussein sealed his fate when he announced on September 2000 that Iraq would no longer accept dollars for oil being sold under the UN's Oil-for-Food program, and decided to switch to the euros as Iraq's oil export currency.

During 2003 - 04, information provided by former insiders in the Administration revealed that the US wanted to establish multiple U.S military bases, now under construction in Iraq, before the onset of global Peak Oil, and to reconvert Iraq back to petrodollars hoping to stop further OPEC momentum towards the Euro as an alternative oil transaction currency ( i.e. "petro-euro").

After the occupation of Iraq its oil sales were switched back to US dollars -- the international currency of oil sales - despite the fall in US dollars value, thus the confirming this vital fact but not so well known as rationales for 2003 the Iraq war. Saddam Hussein's sale of Iraq's oil for euros, a political move had also improved Iraq's earnings because of the euro's appreciation against the dollar. The change back to US dollars has decreased the revenues for rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure.

The US objective was confirmed by a Financial Times article as early as June 5 ,2003 , that Iraqi oil sales would be once again denominated in U.S. dollars – not euros.

In fact on 20 August CNN , with its jingle " Be the first to know " telecast a documentary with the motive of blaming the director of US intelligence for not providing good intelligence for the decision to attack. The whole world by now knows that the decision to invade Iraq was planned by the so called Vulcan group set up by the incoming Administration, even before George W. Bush was installed in the White House after the flawed 2000 elections. CNN could have done such a film earlier. Why does it not do a film on Iraqi resistance and US responsibility in creating a climate for a civil war in Iraq.

There is so little of such news in US corporate controlled media , where 5 conglomerates control 90%  of media outlets , thus undermining a pillar of democracy in USA.

Will it be now Iran's turn !

Iran has gone even ahead of Iraq and would start operating an oil bourse for trading in oil from next year. No wonder since more than a year, there have been threats of US attack on Iran under the pretext of its nuclear bombs programme. Scott Ritter , former UN's weapons inspector in Iraq has been saying since more than a year that it could have happened this June , but perhaps the Iraqi quagmire has at least delayed it . No wonder Iran would like the quagmire to worsen, while it strengthens its own position in Iraq.

William Clarke wrote in Global research website on 27 October, 2004 that the Tehran government's plan for 2006 to begin competing with New York's NYMEX and London's IPE with respect to international oil trades - using a euro-denominated international oil-trading mechanism , would amount to an "offense" far greater than Saddam Hussein's conversion to the euro of Iraq's oil exports in the fall of2000 . Numerous articles have revealed Pentagon planning for operations against Iran as early as 2005 under the public pretext of Iran's nuclear ambitions, but the real reasons are the 2^nd  stage of petrodollar warfare – Iran's upcoming euro-based oil Bourse.

Clark noted that an advisor to Iran's oil ministry, Mohammad Javed Asemipour, responsible for establishing the petro-bourse , had first said that the platform for trading crude, natural gas and petrochemicals would start functioning in Mach, 2005 , but the decision was postponed to early 2006 . Asemipour had indicated that other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries – Iran is OPEC's no2 producer after Saudi Arabia - as well as oil producers from the Caspian region would eventually participate in the exchange." This will make petrodollar hegemony unsustainable.

Clark added that "Chris Cook, who previously worked for the IPE and now offers consultancy services to markets through Partnerships Consulting LLP in London, commented: "Post-9/11, there has also been an interest in the project from the Saudis, who weren't interested in participating before."

"Others familiar with Iran's economy said since 9 /11, Saudi Arabian investors are opting to invest in Iran rather than traditional western markets as the kingdom's relations with the U.S. have weakened. Iran's oil ministry has made no secret of its eagerness to attract much needed foreign investment in its energy sector and broaden its choice of oil buyers."

"…Along with several other members of OPEC, Iranian oil officials believe crude trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and the IPE is controlled by the oil majors and big financial companies, who benefit from market volatility." This should be clear to even laymen as high prices only fatten profits of US energy multinationals and speculators, insiders into the workings of Washington.

In April 2002 , Mr. Javad Yarjani, an OPEC executive, described three pivotal events that would facilitate an OPEC transition to Euros ; (1) if and when Norway's Brent crude is re-dominated in euros , (2) if and when the U.K. adopts the euro, and (3) whether or not the euro gains parity valuation relative to the dollar, and the EU's proposed expansion plans were successful. The last two criteria have been fulfilled, with euro trading higher than dollar and the euro-based E.U. expanded from 12 to 22 countries in May 2004 . UK remains uncomfortably juxtaposed between the financial interests of the U.S. banking nexus (New York/Washington) and the E.U. financial centers (Paris/Frankfurt).

The upcoming bourse will introduce petrodollar versus petro-euro currency hedging, and fundamentally new dynamics to the biggest market in the world - global oil and gas trades

How will the US Federal Reserve react? "Will the neoconservatives (in Bush Administration) attempt to intervene covertly and/or overtly in Iran during 2005 in an effort to prevent the formation of a euro-denominated crude oil pricing mechanism?"

There have been frequent reports that egged on by neo-cons, US is planning military options for an attack on Iran's nuclear installations. Other reports concern likely attacks by the regional outlaw , Israel , which had also destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in early 1980s .Israel reportedly possesses a horde of 100 nuclear bombs and follows policies disapproved almost by all . The Israelis and Zionists have exploited Europeans guilt over the Holocaust and its money bags can defeat any US lawmaker who even utters a word against its illegal actions .None of the two US Presidential candidates spoke a word against Israel's policies in the middle east , which even Israel's friend and almost an ally in the region Turkey described as 'state terrorism' .

Consequences of another irrational operation, now against Iran;

Clark concluded that "a successful Iranian bourse would solidify the petro-euro as an alternative oil transaction currency, and thereby end the petrodollar's hegemonic status as the monopoly oil currency. Therefore, a graduated approach is needed to avoid precipitous U.S. economic dislocations. Multilateral compromise with the EU and OPEC regarding oil currency is certainly preferable to an 'Operation Iranian Freedom,'

In case of such an irrational undertaking, the Monterey Institute of International Studies in an extensive analysis of the possible consequences of a preemptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, warned:

"Considering the extensive financial and national policy investment Iran has committed to its nuclear projects, it is almost certain that an attack by Israel or the United States would result in immediate retaliation. A likely scenario includes an immediate Iranian missile counterattack on Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf, followed by a very serious effort to destabilize Iraq and foment all-out confrontation between the United States and Iraq's Shi'i majority. Iran could also opt to destabilize Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states with a significant Shi'i population, and induce Lebanese Hizbullah to launch a series of rocket attacks on Northern Israel."

"…An attack on Iranian nuclear facilities…could have various adverse effects on U.S. interests in the Middle East and the world. Most important, in the absence of evidence of an Iranian illegal nuclear program, an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities by the U.S. or Israel would be likely to strengthen Iran's international stature and reduce the threat of international sanctions against Iran. Such an event is more likely to embolden and expand Iran's nuclear aspirations and capabilities in the long term"…" one thing is for certain, it would not be just another Osirak . "

Iran's Nuclear programme;

Is Iran close to making a nuclear bomb and has it violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by restarting its conversion of yellow cake into uranium hexaflouride? No, in both the cases . Iran's actions have only exposed the inequities of NPT, which favour only the have-nots.

Patrick J. Buchanan wrote on Aug 12 , 2005 that according to "a recent U.S. intelligence review, Iran may be 10 years away from a bomb. And under the NPT, Iran is allowed to enrich uranium for use in her own nuclear power plants." Iran has shown no wish to fight with USA and " if Iran had a weapon, to give it to a terrorist or to use it on a U.S. target would be an act of suicidal insanity" Yes , " if or when Iran goes nuclear,(and ) she has a deterrent to intimidation, U.S. freedom of action in the Persian Gulf comes to an end."

"For the Israelis, an Iranian bomb would have the same impact as Stalin's explosion of a bomb had on us in 1949 . Israel's invulnerability would come to an end. She would enter the world of Mutual Assured Destruction, like the one we had to live in during the Cold War. Thus, for Israel, the sooner the Americans pulverize Iran's infant nuclear facilities, the better."

Britain, France and Germany, negotiating with Iran to find a solution to the West created problem are not keen to go to the U.N. Security Council for a vote on sanctions against Iran, as such a resolution would face vetoes by Russia and China, thus dividing the UN between Russia-China-Iran on one side and the United States and its backers on the other. How many, even U.S. allies would be willing to support sanctions on the third largest oil producer on earth when oil is running at $65 a barrel.

And if USA attacks Iran's nuclear sites , then Michael Mazeer of the U.S. National War College explained in 'The New Republic ', Iran would lash out in retaliation. It would send "Revolutionary Guards into Iraq to make that country a worse hell for the 135, 000 U.S. troops. Incite Hezbollah to launch rockets on Israel to widen the war. Attack U.S. allies in the Gulf. Encourage the Shias in Iraq and Saudi Arabia to attack Americans. Mine the Strait of Hormuz. Activate Islamic loyalists to bring terror home to the United States.

"In short, a U.S. attack on Iran could lead to war across the region and interruption of the 15 million barrels of oil a day that come from the Gulf, which would drive the world economy into instant cardiac arrest. --Iran is a nation three times the size of Iraq and with three times the population. This would be no cakewalk."

Following failed US policies in the region , Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Syria , Sunni states are watching in dismay Iran emerging as a major player and bulwark against USA and the leader of the Muslims and applauded even in Asia and Africa. Iran has survived Arabs, Turks and Mongols .It has a negotiating manner anchored in ancient statecraft leavened with recent centuries of unsatisfactory relations with American, European and Russian powers.

Iran, Syria and Hizbullah have emerged in the past few years as the principal parties defying American power in this region, following Washington's accusations against them in the fields of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, nuclear proliferation, and their policies in Lebanon and Palestine-Israel. "Their anti-American defiance tends to be primarily rhetorical and political, because none of them is stupid enough to challenge the U.S. militarily, except possibly indirectly in Iraq."

As Rami Khouri concluded recently in Beirut's Daily Star , "Washington has used both the Iraq and Lebanon situations as instruments to pressure and mildly threaten Syria, with some success. Because Iraq is an evolving situation, local powers like Syria and Iran - with memories of how to engage foreign armies going back several millennia - are carefully calibrating their policies in view of America's combined vulnerabilities, determination, power and perplexity in Iraq. Both leaderships have a track record of engaging, delaying, challenging, waiting and finally consummating deals with external powers that threaten them, as they do today with the U.S. and the European Union." Khouri might prove to be too optimistic, in view of the bulldozing policies of Neo-Cons driven Washington.

The world has seen hubris driven American policies, arrogance, accusations and double standards against Arab and Islamic states which Iran now challenges head-on. Now that USA is caught in the Iraqi quagmire where most US enemies , it has such a talent for creating them , want it to remain stuck .And George W. Bush has yet not given any indication to disappoint them.

Third World War;

Paul Craig Roberts, a Fellow at the Independent Institute and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury warned recently to 'Get Ready for World War III ' and wrote that with polls showing majorities of Americans both fed up with Bush's war against Iraq and convinced that Bush's invasion of Iraq has made Americans less safe, "the White House moron proposes to start another war by attacking Iran. VP Cheney has already ordered the US Strategic Command to come up with plans to strike Iran with tactical nuclear weapons." In a recent interview with Israeli TV, Bush said: "All options are on the table" with regard to Iran.

"Israel's Likud government is Bush's last remaining ally in his war against "Islamic terrorism." Israel, which is loaded with nuclear weapons and is not a signatory to the nuclear pacts, is the accuser against Iran, asserting that Iran's nuclear energy program is just a veil behind which to produce weapons. Iran, however, has signed the nonproliferation pact and is willing for the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor the nuclear energy program.

"Bush, however, dismisses all facts and assurances and is willing to attack Iran based on nothing but paranoia."

Iran's role in history;

Situated at the crossroads and itself a cradle of many great civilizations, Iran has exercised great civilizing influence since ancient times. Whosoever (King of Kings, Sahanshah in Darius's words), ruled what now constitutes Iran, exercised great political and cultural influence not only in the neighborhood but also in far-off places.

During the classical Greek political and social evolution in western Asia Minor which Turkey was then called, the Persian Achaemenid dynasty had its satrapies and outposts on the Aegean coast, known as Ionia, from which the word Yunan for Greece entered the eastern lexicon. In 517 BC it was Persian Emperor Darius who ordered Scylax, his Greek subject from Caria (western Turkey) to survey the river Indus from Peshawar to its exit into the sea, part of his empire. And for the first time, the West became acquainted with India. Herodotus's chapters on Indian history were based on records of that exploration.

The Persians routinely crossed over to European Thrace and a Greek victory over the Persians in 490 BC at Marathon, perhaps the first of the West over the East, is still commemorated as an athletic event in the Olympics (showing Western bias in sports). Later, even in defeat, the Persians civilized Alexander the Great and his Macedonian and Greek hordes, introduced the small town boys to the protocol, trappings and grandeur of an imperial power and implanted the strongly held belief in the divine right of the kings, later adopted by Alexander's military commanders and successors.

On these beliefs were laid the foundations of the structure for the Roman and Byzantine empires. The Islamic Omayyed Caliphate in Damascus and later the Abbassid Caliphate in Baghdad also borrowed from the same state structures and ceremonies. Up to the 7^th  century, the Persians disputed with the Romans control of Asia Minor and Syria, which exhausted them both, making them easy prey for the Muslim Arabs. Persians then acted as a civilizing sieve to nomad Turks, Mongols and others from the horse-riding nurseries of the Eurasian steppes who played such havoc for centuries in Asia and Europe alike.

Iran's reach to influence regional and world events remains as durable as ever. The Iranian hostage taking of US diplomats certainly tilted in 1980 elections against US President Carter made to look impotent ,leaving a visceral desire in US for revenge. In 1996 BB Netanyahu's Likud won only because Israeli Arabs denied its traditional support to Labour party following firing of Katusha rockets by its Hizbolla partisans in South Lebanon and the expected Israeli retaliation against Lebanese civilians. It was the Lebanese Hizbullah which killed 259 US marines in Beirut in 1983 making US go home. It has even attacked Israeli missions and assets in Latin America.

Conclusion ;

The collapse of the Karakitai in Transoxiana, engineered by Muhammad II, was fraught with dangers of which the latter was probably ignorant. The Persian historian of the Mongols, Juvaini, aided by the perspec­tive of years, put into the mouth of the dying Atsiz the injunction to his sons not to fight the Gur Khan because "he was a great wall behind which were terrible foes." The pre-vision of Atsiz may be doubted, but the prophecy, even if invented post facto, was true enough.

The collapse of secular Saddam regime like the Buddhist Karakitai has been engineered by George W. Bush . His father , President George H.W. Bush whose military chief during the 1990 war on Iraq , Gen Colin Powell demanded that clear objectives be defined ( and left having been lied to by the CIA Chief and made irrelevant by the current US Administration ), was wise enough not to demolish the Saddam Hussein's secular regime and open a Pandora's box . But he was responsible for thoughtlessly encouraging the Shias and Kurds to revolt against Saddam Hussein, who killed thousands of Iraqi army, police and bureaucrats ,Baathists and their supporters .US leaders blame Saddam Hussein for the ruthless suppression of the rebellion for which really the former are responsible. Bush Senior and the Americans then just watched the gory events.

Let not Ariel Sharon of Israel and George W. Bush behave like Otrar's Governor Inalchik and Mahmood II .

Suicide bombing is an acquired tool in Sunni's repertoire of struggle against uneven odds, but since the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, martyrdom has become a part of Shia Psyche . The Assassins originated from Iran. A secular Iraq was fooled into taking on the fury of the Khomeini revolution in early 1980s. A direct attack against Iran now will change the entire situation and even bring all Muslims together, with the Chinese, Russians and others letting Anglo-Saxons having an interesting time .

(K Gajendra Singh, served as Indian Ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan in1992 -96. Prior to that, he served as ambassador to Jordan (during the1990 - 91Gulf war), Romania and Senegal . He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies, in Bucharest . The views expressed here are his own.- Email-Gajendrak@hotmail.com)