THIS IS JUST THE TRAILER – THE FILM COMES LATER

As one might have expected, the showing on the Internet of the scandalous film "Innocence of Muslims" has caused acute displeasure in the Islamic world, leading to a serious outbreak of inter-state and inter-religious hatred. Since the film was made in the USA, the main thrust of the Muslims' anger has been directed at the Americans. A wave of demonstrations outside US diplomatic and consular missions soon whipped up the whole world and was accompanied by violence by both attackers and defenders. The world's media has reported many people being killed and injured during the dispersal of demonstrations.

The first victim of the "Innocence of Muslims" was the US' ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other members of the mission who, in circumstances that are not quite clear, were killed by members of radical groups who looted and then set fire to the embassy building.

Analysts are still discussing the timing and the origin of this clearly provocative and shabby film, which insults the Prophet Muhammad and the holy canons of Islam, those who made this "masterpiece" and the events that occurred after the film. According to unofficial information, those behind the film are Copts - Christians from Egypt who are currently resident in the USA, or Israelis. The producer of the film is a marginal - in the opinion of the Pope a "stupid priest", Terry Jones, who also became well known for such provocative anti-Islamic actions as the burning of the Koran.

If one is to believe the actors, the original idea was to make an adventure film with the emotional title of "Desert Warrior", and the Prophet Muhammad was not in the script. The film's budget was $5m, and amateur actors were brought in to play the various parts. According to the actors themselves, they had no idea about the film's anti-Islamic slant, and certain extracts were altered during the dubbing.

One of the factors backing up the hypothesis that the provocation was pre-planned is the trailer to the film "Innocence of Muslims" which appeared on the Net back in July and at first caused no public response. It is strange that it was translated into Arabic precisely on the eve of the day that is tragic for all Americans - 11 September. One does not have to be a great prophet to guess the possible reaction in the Muslim world.

Why was 11 September precisely the starting point for anti-American disturbances in the Islamic world, in which religious radicals played the most active and direct part? Why did the protests and attacks on the US' diplomatic missions begin precisely in those countries where, as a result of the "Arab Spring" previous regimes were overthrown and new forces came to power not without the aid of the US and other western states, and not in countries of, for example, the Gulf? Why did the YouTube service, which usually has no difficulty in rejecting clips for various reasons, and Google, which owns this service, refuse to withdraw the film from its servers despite widespread protests throughout the world? The principle of freedom of speech, to which the western media often alludes, is, to say the least, inappropriate here.

The story of the murder of the US ambassador in Libya in itself led to a whole raft of questions and suppositions. As the British media reports, the US State Department had confirmed information about the possibility of attacks two days before they took place, and ambassador Stevens had returned to Libya only recently. The details of his visit to Benghazi were theoretically secret information. What is also of interest is the fact that the secret address, which has become a hiding place for diplomats following an attack on an embassy, had been subjected to lengthy shelling and a professional attack. And the militants stole secret documents from the consulate. At the same time, the embassy was a certified target and was apparently prepared for any potential attack, possibly on 11 September. And so it emerged that the furious crowd broke into the consular compound 15 minutes after the attack started.

Could it not be that the "furious crowd" were well informed and had been  professionally trained to murder the ambassador who, for his part, was one of the inspirations behind the revolution against Qadhafi and the main coordinator of the NATO attacks and had spoken very warmly of the Libyan revolutionaries?

"The irreconcilables"

Another very interesting fact is that the provocation took place immediately after the widespread circulation in the media of information about a proposal for a truce to the USA and the western countries from the Islamic terrorists. And this initiative emanated from two of the US' deadly enemies - al-Qa'idah and the Taliban. Moreover, the conditions could quite easily be fulfilled. Al-Qa'idah demanded compliance with the policy of non-interference in the affairs of the Islamic countries and the release of Jihadist prisoners, agreeing not to arrange any more terrorist acts against the US. In proposing similar conditions, the Taliban also promised not to organize attacks against American bases in Afghanistan.

This is not the first time such proposals for a truce have come from Islamic radicals. Such an attempt was made by Bin Laden himself back in 2005, but immediately after this terrorist acts occurred in London, the culprits of which have still not been reliably identified. The second time there was talk about a truce between the US and the Jihadists was at the beginning of this year. The US State Department also confirmed that talks had been held with representatives of the Taliban in Qatar. But on this occasion the talks collapsed before they had seriously begun: reports became widespread in the media about the burning of pages of the Koran at an American military base in Afghanistan. Immediately after this anti-western demonstrations started in the country, leading to the deaths of dozens of people.

As far as the latest proposal for a truce is concerned, experts believed this was a good opportunity for the Obama administration to put an end in one stroke to the problem of terrorism and wars which have gone on for over ten years and to acquire allies in the Islamic world. In the run-up to the presidential elections this would be particularly important for the incumbent US administration. However, after the showing of the provocative film there can be no question of any talks, never mind a truce in the foreseeable future.

A secret war is underway

Since the assassination of an ambassador has always been seen as a declaration of war against the state which he (the ambassador) represents, it may be said that war has been declared against the US. All we need to ascertain is who declared it? Who is interested most of all in weakening the US' positions in the Islamic world? It must be those forces who were involved in showing the film "Innocence of the Muslims", for it was not difficult to foretell the reaction of devout Muslims, especially their more radical element. That means some people had to be shown that the new authorities in the states who had survived the "Arab Spring" are incapable of controlling the situation in their countries.

In the history of the US there have already been cases very similar to the current ones, both in subject and in outcome. For example, in 1979, at the height of the latest economic crisis in the US, the Shah of Iran tried to conduct an autonomous policy, less dependent on western interests. The US could not let slip from its orbit a country with such immense energy supplies. It was assumed that Khomeini, whom the western special services indirectly helped to come to power, would be the one to implement the west's plans and would do so more precisely than his predecessor. But as soon as Khomeini had consolidated his positions the US described him as enemy number one and the west's plans suffered a fiasco. Here it is timely to recall that it was in 1979 that the US ambassador was assassinated in neighbouring Afghanistan and this post was left vacant right up to 2002.

Many analysts are asking the question: was enough done to establish a democratic society in these countries and were all the questions of security in the region well considered?

In the opinion of experts, one of the reasons for the "Arab Spring" was the difficulty in the upkeep of troops and waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq, from which the US was forced to withdraw. This is also confirmed by the new White House doctrine whereby the US' main forces are being gradually transferred to the Asia-Pacific Region (APR). At the same time, in withdrawing from a vitally important region, the Americans could not have left it outside their control, because the vacuum that was created, accelerated by the overthrow of the dictatorial regimes of Mubarak and Qadhafi, could have been filled by other world forces. It was to counter such forces in the region that the "doctrine of manageable chaos", conducted by such American thinkers as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Gene Sharp and Steven Mann, was developed. It was precisely manageable chaos which could have become the lever that would allow the Americans, withdrawing from their newly-fledged eastern domains, to keep them under their control with the help of "soft power".

The confrontation between moderate Islam and radical Islam - i.e. setting off fundamentalists and secular autocrats like Qadhafi and Asad against each other - could be described as one of the methods of creating manageable chaos. The term "management" here should be seen as attempts to manipulate the regional processes or to control the process of chaos, rather than in its established traditional sense. The bloody events of recent months, which began in 2011 first in the countries of North Africa, and then in the Near East, entail the creation of the same state of chaos, when what happened in Somali, Iraq and Afghanistan spreads to those countries where quite recently there was relative order. At the same time, no matter how paradoxical it may sound, the interests of the Islamic radicals and the US coincide in that they both have one adversary - the powerful ethnic states in the region. It stands to reason that by manipulating these processes, at the same time making only minimal efforts to implement them, one can confidently solve one's own geo-strategic tasks.

It is precisely in this context that the latest provocation over the showing of the "Innocence of Muslims", along with the anti-American demonstrations, shows that the US' regional rivals have adopted the method of creating manageable chaos against the Americans themselves.

A delicate and complex game

One also needs to take into consideration the fact that the film was first shown in Arabic on Egyptian TV, which confirms the involvement of the Egyptian Coptic-Christians in the making of the film. And it was in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia where the first large-scale protests occurred - i.e. in those countries affected by the "Arab Spring".

In the opinion of experts, the former Egyptian President Hosni Mobarak was mainly supported by the neo-Conservative Republicans from the US, the Jewish diaspora and Israel. Israel already has some problems with the new Egyptian authorities. An example of this could be the recent terrorist attacks on the Sinai Peninsula, and also the Egyptian government's attempts to unilaterally annul the Camp David peace agreements, which were signed with Israel in 1978. And now diplomatic relations between Egypt and Iran have been re-established following the coming to power of Mohamed Mursi which, in turn, cannot fail to annoy Israel. For the first time since 1978 an Egyptian president has visited Iran where he called for an expansion of economic cooperation between the two countries. Official Cairo has spoken of its intentions to acquire Iranian oil in spite of the existing economic sanctions against Iran.

The subject of Iran is also a bone of contention between the present governments of Israel and the US. The "hawks" in the Israeli leadership, headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Barak, are quite unable to obtain guarantees from the US on the question of joint strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. Relations between the once very close allies have recently deteriorated to such an extent that, according to the media, US President Barack Obama refused Netanyahu an audience because of a "lack of time". There have been a lot of articles in the Israeli media criticising the policies of Obama and the democrats who at a recent party congress declined to acknowledge Israel as the capital of the state of Israel.

Unlike its predecessors the Obama administration does not see Israel as its main partner in the region and until recent events regarding the provocative film has placed its stakes on the new pro-Islamic forces. And, in all probability, after the attacks on the US embassy and the anti-American demonstrations, there will be grounds for criticism of Obama's strategy both from the neo-Conservatives and the Jewish diaspora in the US and Israel.

It should be noted that apart from Israel recent events are also playing into Iran's hands, because a weakening of the US' positions in the region is, of course, to Iran's advantage. Henceforth any attacks by the US may be considered tantamount to a continuation of the war between the Christian world and Islam.

The attack by the Islamists on the embassies of the USA and other western countries will force the "Friends of Syria" also to think twice before arming the Syrian pro-Islamic opposition against Asad, which is supported both by Shiite Iran and Russia. Russia, in unison with China, was also not enthusiastic about the "Arab Spring". Following the overthrow of the Qadhafi regime, a blow was struck against the economic and energy interests of Russia and China in Libya. In this context of great significance is the fact that after the seizure of the American embassy in Libya secret documents were taken away about a redistribution of the country's oil fields between the western companies.

Analysts are of the opinion that the incumbent American authorities may also obtain benefit from this situation. In hyping up the anti-western disturbances in the Islamic world and the protests and clashes in Europe, the US may declare itself the only defender of "democratic and liberal values", and thereby gather around it the recalcitrant western countries, warning them of the "dangers of a Jihad". It was not by accident that in one of the quietest corners of the world, Australia, there were recently protests by radical Muslims shouting slogans "Obama, Obama, we are all Osama." One cannot help but be reminded here of the growing geopolitical importance of Australia because of its proximity to China.

It seems that in this game there are many victors, but the only losers are the Muslims, the Muslims who throughout human history have given the world so many scientists, great thinkers and masterpieces of art, and have also been standard bearers from classical culture to the dark West of the Middle Ages. Besides that, the bearers of Islamic faith have been abused and humiliated, and because of the brutalities of radical groups under the control of the western special services throughout the world they (the Muslims) are perceived as cruel barbarians and murderers of ambassadors.

QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION

Why precisely was 11 September the starting-off date for the "Innocence of Muslims" and the anti-American demonstrations in the Islamic world, in which religious radicals play the most active and immediate part?

Why did the protests and attacks on the US' diplomatic missions begin precisely in those countries where, as a result of the "Arab spring" previous regimes were overthrown and new forces came to power not without the aid of the US and other western states, and not in countries of, for example, the Gulf? 

Why did the YouTube service, which usually has no difficulty in rejectings clips for various reasons, and Google, which owns this service, despite the widespread protests throughout the world, refuse to withdraw the film from its servers?