Rushdie sting unlikely to delay Iran nuclear deal – Middle East Monitor

Novelist Salman Rushdie Stabbed At a literary event in New York state last week.

The late leader of the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa (legal opinion) in 1988 calling for Rushdie’s death. devil poem, A novel that Iranian leaders believed to be a serious insult to Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, and indeed Khomeini himself.

US police have found Hadi Matar, who carried out the attack on the writer, was using a fake ID under the name of Hassan Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in Syria in 2015, according to Lebanese media. It was taken after Imad Mughniyeh, the former military commander of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement. posted a photo of the Republic of Iran.

It is a well-known fact that the fatwa has had profound effects around the world, from anti-Rushdie demonstrations and violence in the Islamic world to social unrest between Western authorities and Muslim citizens. It also led to attacks on publishers who printed or translated his books. For example, a Japanese book translator was assassinated.

Over time, Iranian officials seemed to have overlooked the fatwa, but in 2017, responding to a question on his official website about whether it was still in effect, Khamenei said, “The order is for Imam Khomeini to As issued,” he said.

read: Ambiguity in Iran nuclear deal could benefit both US and Iran

Rushdie may have believed he was no longer in danger. In his final interview, he said his life had become “very normal again” and that his assassination scare was “a thing of the past.”

The stabbing by a man who was 10 years old when the fatwa was issued, the admiration expressed in some newspapers and by people in Iran and other countries, and Khamenei’s allegations about the fatwa are all issues of the past.” The incident occurred a few days after Ashura, the anniversary of the murder of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). This shows that the past cannot be separated from current events, whether in Iran or elsewhere.

Rushdie’s stabbing comes at a crucial time between the West and Iran, with a new nuclear deal about to be announced and the parties expected to exchange “friendly gestures”. There are reports that the European final draft submitted included easing Western pressure on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Additionally, the assassination attempt against Rushdie was preceded by the announcement of similar attempts against John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, former Trump administration officials, and the launch of the Iran-Russia Khayyam satellite. It also coincides with the start of drone training in Iran by Russian experts.

These developments, with the exception of the personal assassination attempt on Rushdie, indicate that the West needs a nuclear deal as badly as Iran needs it, and that the most appropriate way to deal with the problem is to deal with it on all fronts. Trying to get the maximum benefit while negotiating an agreement while maintaining pressure on the Within this context, the nuclear deal is a strategic issue for the United States and the West, and other details, including the attempted assassination of Salman Rushdie, do not appear to have much impact on achieving this goal.

This article first appeared in Arabic Al Quds Al Arabi August 14, 2022

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.