Headline News 23/09/2017

Headlines

• Trump Manifests US Irresponsibility over North Korea

• Trump Challenges Iran over Nuclear Deal

• Ghani Concedes Afghan Mineral Wealth to US Companies

Details

Trump Manifests US Irresponsibility over North Korea

The war of words between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to escalate after Trump used his UN address to talk of totally destroying North Korea. According to ABC news:

Trump took aim at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday evening as well, saying "Little Rocket Man" should have been handled a long time ago and vowing he would shield Americans from Kim.

"You are protected. Nobody is going to mess with our people. ... Nobody is going to put our people in that kind of danger. Nobody," Trump said.

In a statement Thursday, Kim said Trump will "pay dearly" for his address to the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week, in which Trump threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea.

"I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U. S. dotard with fire," Kim said.

Trump told the crowd in Huntsville that he will "handle" Kim unlike previous administrations before him.

"He may be smart, he may be strategic and he may be totally crazy. But no matter what he is ... believe me we’re going to handle it," Trump said Friday.

The comments followed an early morning tweet from Trump, in which he called the North Korean leader a "madman" and said he "would be tested like never before."

Trump’s rhetoric is outrageous, particularly as he is threatening nuclear war. But it is fully in accordance with American policy towards North Korea over the past two decades. America has continued to provoke North Korea, in order to use the dispute to create trouble for China and justify a steep military buildup directly on China’s border both from the US and also from its allies, South Korea and Japan.

During the many centuries of when the world was dominated by the Islamic superpower, the Khilafah State (Caliphate) succeeded in calming China with genuine world peace and security. During this period, China turned inwards and focused on welfare and economic prosperity, dismantling much of its military force. It is the West’s rapacious exploitation of China, since the nineteenth century CE that unleashed the Chinese dragon, provoking it into renewed military ascendancy.

Western secular liberal Capitalism is a threat to the peace and security of the entire world. The world will not return to peaceful stability again until the return of a superpower whose reason of existence is the worship of God and not man.

Trump Challenges Iran over Nuclear Deal

The rhetoric between the US and Iran is also escalating this week, as Trump chose to target the Iran nuclear deal also in his UN speech. According to the New York Times:

“Escalating a war of words with the United States, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran declared on Friday that his country would continue to develop new missiles and “would not seek anyone’s permission to defend our land.”...

At the annual United Nations gathering in New York this week, Mr. Trump called the nuclear deal “an embarrassment to the United States,” and Mr. Rouhani retorted, in his own address: “It will be a great pity if this agreement were to be destroyed by ‘rogue’ newcomers to the world of politics.””

There are actually two reasons for Trump’s outburst. Firstly, the Iran nuclear deal was delivered by the Obama administration, favouring a more multilateralist approach, opened the way for oil trade between Europe and Iran. Trump’s nationalism supported by the US Republican Party’s unilateralist tendencies is calling for a revision of this deal. But secondly, Iran has completed its service to the United States in Iraq and Syria. Iran has a long history of serving American interests in the region, including in Afghanistan. But America does not want to give Iran the fruits of this service by allowing Iran full authority right up to the Mediterranean Sea. For example, America is prohibiting the forces of Iran and of Assad from entering Deir al-Zor, in south-east Syria. Hence Trump's attack this week on the Iranian nuclear deal is also intended to threaten Iran into obeying American instructions.

Muslim countries can never succeed by obeying America. The US serves only its own interests, and uses and abuses its agents as it pleases.

Ghani Concedes Afghan Mineral Wealth to US Companies

According to the Reuters:

U.S. President Donald Trump and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday backed having companies from the United States develop Afghanistan’s reserves of rare earth minerals, despite formidable obstacles to industrial mining in the country.

The comments, at a meeting in New York, were the latest in a series in which both U.S. officials and the Afghan government have emphasized the potential strategic value of Afghanistan’s vast and largely untapped mineral reserves.

Afghanistan is extremely rich in mineral wealth, and rare earth elements are expected to become increasingly important as the world shifts to battery technology. It is typical of the Trump administration to make a grab for Afghan mineral wealth but there are other factors at play here also. Obama had used Afghanistan’s mineral wealth to draw China into the Afghan conflict. By talking up US designs on this wealth, Trump is actually creating pressure on China to work harder to secure the American military presence there.

It has become increasingly common for Muslim countries to turn to China to balance American hegemony; Pakistan has been particularly active in doing so. But these countries need to realize that China has its own national interests and concerns and is easily susceptible to American pressure. Muslims need to depend only on themselves and their Creator instead of searching for support from the disbelievers. By Allah’s permission the time is close when sincere, indigenous, ideological leadership will re-establish the righteous Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) on the method of the Prophet (saw) thereby restoring to Muslims their sovereignty over their lands, peoples and wealth.