As chair of the 15th summit of the Organization of Islamic Corporation (OIC), everyone had expected President Adama Barrow to much sooner rather than later weigh into the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Therefore, his recent statement on the issue did not come as a surprise to anyone, but it was seen by many people as one-sided.
Instead of call it what it is; a naked aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran, a founding member of the OIC, he instead seems to depict Iran as the aggressor against the Gulf States.
While the Gulf states deserve some sympathy for what they are going through, but if they were not only seen to be cozy to the aggressors; the United states as the main protagonist and its client state of Israel by hosting US military bases which help to facilitate the aggression against Iran, there would have never been the cause to involve them in the conflict. Therefore, as the saying goes; “If you lie down with dogs, you are likely to wake up with fleas”. If the Gulf states had made it categorically clear to US and Israel from the very beginning that they would not entertain any semblance of collusion with them over the naked and unprovoked aggression against Iran, there would not have been any justifications for any form of retaliations against them.
Therefore, if President Barrow saw it necessary to talk to the leaders of the Gulf states, it would have made more sense if he had also at least commiserated with the Iranian people for being victims of aggression.
If firing missiles at the Gulf states constitutes a violation of their sovereignty, one would wonder what the unprovoked Israeli/US aggression against Iran, decimating their leadership and indiscriminately destroying their infrastructure, would constitute.
Therefore, as chair of the OIC, we expected President Barrow to be more even-handed in his approach to the issue.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Monitor’s editorial stance.
