WWII Deja Vu: Pro-British Arabs vs. Pro-Nazi Muslims

Mark Langfan, the writer, often writes on security issues .

 Arutz Sheva

As Yogi Berra used to say: Its deja vu all over again. Incredibly, virtually the same Arab countries which were, in 1941, on the British side ranged against the Muslim countries on the Nazi side are today, in August 2013, fighting again for what is nothing less than the survival of the free world. And what is even more astonishing is the free world is actively rooting for the Islamo-Nazi forces to win.

There is a reason why Ehud Barak, although his views are non-official today, rightly thinks the world must support the Egyptian generals. No General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, no moderate Arabs, no Israel, no free world. It’s that simple.

But first, a little background: In World War II, May 1941, before Hitler invaded Russia (June 1941) and Japan attacked Pearl Harbor (Dec. 1941), the Eastern Mediterranean/Middle East/East-African Theater war was fought by the Nazi Italians and Germans against the British. The virtually unknown May 1941 battles were to be the heart of the entire World War, and determined the ultimate winner.

To the winner of the May 1941 Middle East battles would go the oil fields of Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Without the oil fields of Iran, Great Britain would not have a single ounce of gasoline with which to fight Rommel’s panzers ranging eastward from Libya.

All of Britain’s gasoline and warship fuel came westward through the Trans-Iraq pipeline to Haifa ( with close to 500,000 Jews then living in pre-Israel, Israel).

At Haifa, the Iraqi crude oil was refined by Jewish Palestinians of the Mandate, and then shipped to the North African front or into British warships. 

Because Iran was tilting to the Nazis, it became absolutely essential for the Soviet, British and other Commonwealth armed forces to invade to the Imperial State of Iran. The purpose was to secure Iranian oil fields and ensure Allied supply lines.

Without taking Iran, the allies’ oil would have been lost to the Germans, and America wouldn’t have had its only land-based, all-year weapons supply pipeline to the Soviet Union. The American weapons shipped through the Iranian supply line enabled Stalin

to hold off, and then to defeat Hitler.

At this particular moment in May 1941, the order of battle against British forces was daunting. Britain faced fascist Libya, fascist Vichy-controlled Syria, fascist Nazi-allied Iraq, and fascist Nazi-allied Iran. Remembering its loss in World War I, Turkey was drifting in the wind, and remained neutral. In the British camp were Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestine Mandate. While the exact May 1941 history is momentous, we return to the present day.

Today, those same countries are lined up against each other in what will be a fight for the Free World. Even worse, the Islamo-fascist Erdogan Turkey is now fully on the Islamo-fascist side.

And if al-Sisi now loses Egypt to the Islamo-Fascist Muslim Brotherhood, the entire Middle East will metastasize into a hideous amalgam of the very worst that Islam and Nazism have to offer. If Egypt’s generals lose, Israel will be in immediate danger of destruction, and the entire free world will be lost.

Why is that?

Saudi Arabia will have lost her only real, meaningful ally against Iran. Egypt has 80 million people, the strongest Arab army, and in Mubarak, had a leader who saw the Iranian threat as starkly as the Saudis. Also, if there ever was a threat from Iran to Saudi Arabia, a Mubarak-led Egypt would have opened its skies and the Suez Canal to an unlimited American weapons supply air-bridge. With the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in power, Saudi Arabia can't tell who the greater immediate existential threat is, the Brothers or the Iranians.

But, most darkly, Saudi Arabia accurately saw, and sees, the Obama-led America as an enemy of Saudi Arabia, and thereby a crypto-ally of Iran. And as such, Saudi Arabia has lost all hope that America will do anything to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

The Shiite-majority eastern Persian Gulf provinces of Saudi Arabia hold all of Saudi Arabia’s oil. These provinces are low-hanging fruit to an Iran that has, de facto, taken over Iraq.

The Saudis rightly see Obama as the anti-Bush.

Not only would Obama likely not defend Sunni-led Saudi Arabia as Bush-the-father defended Kuwait, but Obama would even likely applaud Iran’s liberation of the Shiite-majority Saudi areas as democracy in action.

Are the Egyptian generals, or the Saudi princes, our cup of tea No, far from it. But a world in which Iran runs roughshod over Saudi Arabia, and then controls all the Persian Gulfs oil - a full 65% of the world’s oil supply - and protects it with an infinite nuclear arsenal, is exponentially worse.

Had Hitler won the Middle East Theater in 1941, there would be no free world today. If the Islamo-fascists win the Middle East Theater in 2013, there will be no free world tomorrow. Let’s hope the Western powers wake up, and understand the threat, and the stakes, before it’s too late.