Headlines

• US-Iran Nuclear Deal

• Premature Victory in Tikrit

• Islam in Demand in Europe

• Imran Khan Completes U-turn

Details

US-Iran Nuclear Deal

After more than a decade of negotiations Iran and the US appear to have finally come to a deal on Iran's nuclear programme. After long negotiations in Lausanne, Switzerland, Iran and the six world powers announced a framework deal that largely covered the key sticking points of the nuclear agreement, leaving the technical details to be worked out over the next three months. Whilst the US stood against Iran's nuclear programme for much of the past decade the political context is much different today and the nuclear negotiations is a minor aspect of US-Iran relations, although an important one.

The agreement will allow Iran to carry out enrichment of Uranium in limited amounts and the status of a number of sites was agreed. The agreement effectively permits Iran to conduct nuclear activity, but in a more transparent manner, in return for the removal of nuclear related sanctions. It is the political landscape this deal takes place in that is critical for the US. With the Iraqi government unable to secure the country and with the US looking to drawdown in Afghanistan, Iran has already been working with the US to maintain America's architecture in the region. Iran's role in the region has become all the more important as Israel has more or less swallowed up the West Bank and turned the Gaza strip into an open prison, thus impacting the two state solution. The US needs Iran in order to contain Israel and act as a counterweight to it in the region. Similarly in Yemen the US and Iran are on the same side when it comes to bringing the Houthis into power. This is why this deal does not end Iran's nuclear programme, but legitimises it.

Premature Victory in Tikrit

The Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arrived triumphant on Wednesday 1st April in the northern city of Tikrit, after its liberation from ISIS, who took control over the town nearly a year ago. The humiliating defeat of Iraq's forces in Mosul in July 2014 after a decade of military aid and investment from the US made the outcome of the Tikrit offensive essential for the Iraqi government. This operation would also show the capabilities for a major assault on Mosul at some point by Iraq's forces.

The Iraqi government offensive to take Tikrit was in reality an Iranian operation. Most of the troops involved were Shia militia organized, trained, armed and led by Iranian officers. A senior Iranian general, who heads the Quds Force, supervised the operation. The strategy was to launch an attack to take back Tikrit by viewing it as a Sunni-Shi'ah war and the use of artillery and mass bombardment to break ISIS, who remained holed up in the town centre. This caused countless deaths, especially when house-to-house clearing operations were conducted. But after three weeks of fighting it took US airstrikes to break though ISIS fortifications, confirming what was well known by all that the Iraqi army, let alone the Shi'ah militia are in no position to conduct larger such assaults on Mosul. Due to this operation being conducted as a Sunni-Shi'ah war the militia groups have engaged in looting, summary executions and ransacking of Sunni homes, businesses and government buildings. In a Reuters report an apparent ISIS fighter was surrounded by a mob and stabbed to death, as well as the corpse of another being dragged by a car. When Sunni and Shi'ah defended the country against the US invasion over a decade ago, they held the US forces to a stalemate, things got so bad for the US, it had no idea of how to get itself out of the insurgency that was bleeding it to death. Eventually using sectarianism the US was able to to turn Sunni upon Shi'ah and vice versa as we see this strategy remains at play today.

Islam in Demand in Europe

The sale of books on Islam has skyrocketed in France ever since the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Philosophie Magazine, recently published a special supplement focused on the Koran which has flown off the shelves. Fabrice Gerschel, director of the magazine explained that: "The French are asking more and more questions, and they feel less satisfied than ever by the answers they're getting from the media." Mathilde Mahieux of La Procure, a chain of bookshops that specialises in religion, said people want a better understanding of the religion that the brutal ISIS group claims to represent, so that they can make up their own minds. Sales of books on Islam were three times higher in the first quarter of 2015 than this time last year, according to the French National Union of Bookshops. Twice as many books published in France last year were dedicated to Islam than to Christianity, according to the publishing weekly, Hebdo Livres. And at France's largest book fair in March 2014, a big seller for Le Cerf imprint, which is run by the Catholic Dominican order, was "A Christian Reads The Koran", a reprint of a book first published with much less fanfare in 1984.

Despite the media onslaught in Europe against Islam and Muslims many continue to look into Islam and more and more people are being attracted to it. In France, an estimated 70,000 French citizens have converted to Islam in recent years, according to a report by France 3 public television. In Britain, the number of Muslim converts recently passed the 100,000 mark, according to a survey conducted by an inter-faith group called Faith Matters. The survey revealed that nearly two thirds of the converts were women, more than 70% were white and the average age at conversion was just 27. Conversions to Islam are also rife in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Holland, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Spain. In Italy, Ambassador Alfredo Maiolese, an Italian MP, recently became a Muslim and now dedicates his time trying to improving the image of Islam in the West. In Sweden, there are now at least 5,000 converts to Islam. In Germany, at least 20,000 people have converted to Islam in recent years, according to a report by RTL television. In Spain, at least 50,000 native Spaniards have converted to Islam in recent years, many of them women.

Imran Khan Completes U-turn

Pakistan Tahreek-e-insaf (PTI), Imran Khan's party joined the Pakistan parliament after a 7-month gap on Tuesday 7 April. This brought to an end the fanfare that came to be known as the Azadi march (independence) that's began last August in order to topple the Nawaz Sharif government due to irregularities in the general elections of May 2013. After 7 months of wall-to-wall coverage Nawaz Sharif remains in power and a commission that will investigate the seven districts that Imran Khan's accuses of vote rigging has been promised, but in all likelihood will never materialise. Despite great hope by the people of Pakistan for real change to come to the nation, Imran Khan ‘Dharna,' only led them down a black hole, where people vented their frustration, but in the end nothing really changed. The march was already losing attraction by November 2014, after 3 months when people could see they were going nowhere despite Imran Khan's rhetoric to the contrary. Imran Khan then ended the demonstration in December 2014, when the bombing of the Peshawar school took place, but the numbers by this point had dwindled considerably. Embarrassed by the fact that PTI did not even scratch Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan is not back in parliament, which is led by the man who apparently rigged an election. Imran Khan has proven now, if there was any doubt that he is just another part of Pakistan's corrupt architecture. The slogan ‘go Nawaz go', should have been ‘No Imran no.'