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March 5, 2007 - In the energy-rich Middle East, only two countries have failed to
subordinate themselves to Washington's basic demands: Iran and Syria.
Accordingly both are enemies, Iran by far the more important.
As was the norm during the Cold War, resort to
violence is regularly justified as a reaction to the malign influence of the
main enemy, often on the flimsiest of pretexts. Unsurprisingly, as Bush sends
more troops to Iraq, tales surface of Iranian interference in the internal
affairs of Iraq-a country otherwise free from any foreign interference, on the
tacit assumption that Washington rules the world.
In the Cold War-like mentality that prevails in
Washington, Tehran is portrayed as the pinnacle in the so-called Shiite Crescent
that stretches from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, through Shiite southern Iraq
and Syria. And again unsurprisingly, the "surge" in Iraq and escalation of
threats and accusations against Iran is accompanied by grudging willingness to
attend a conference of regional powers, with the agenda limited to Iraq-more
narrowly, to attaining U.S. goals in Iraq.
Presumably this minimal gesture toward diplomacy is
intended to allay the growing fears and anger elicited by Washington's
heightened aggressiveness, with forces deployed in position to attack Iran and
regular provocations and threats.
For the United States, the primary issue in the
Middle East has been and remains effective control of its unparalleled energy
resources. Access is a secondary matter. Once the oil is on the seas it goes
anywhere. Control is understood to be an instrument of global
dominance.
Iranian influence in the "crescent" challenges U.S.
control. By an accident of geography, the world's major oil resources are in
largely Shiite areas of the Middle East: southern Iraq, adjacent regions of
Saudi Arabia and Iran, with some of the major reserves of natural gas as well.
Washington's worst nightmare would be a loose Shiite alliance controlling most
of the world's oil and independent of the United States.
Such a bloc, if it emerges, might even join the Asian
Energy Security Grid and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), based in
China. Iran, which already had observer status, is to be admitted as a member of
the SCO. The Hong Kong South China Morning Post reported in June 2006
that "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the limelight at the annual
meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) by calling on the group
to unite against other countries as his nation faces criticism over its nuclear
programme." The non-aligned movement meanwhile affirmed Iran's "inalienable
right" to pursue these programs, and the SCO (which includes the states of
Central Asia) "called on the United States to set a deadline for the withdrawal
of military installations from all member states.1
If the Bush planners bring that about, they will have
seriously undermined the U.S. position of power in the world.
To Washington, Tehran's principal offense has been
its defiance, going back to the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and the hostage
crisis at the U.S. embassy. The grim U.S. role in Iran in earlier years is
excised from history. In retribution for Iranian defiance, Washington quickly
turned to support for Saddam Hussein's aggression against Iran, which left
hundreds of thousands dead and the country in ruins. Then came murderous
sanctions, and under Bush, rejection of Iranian diplomatic efforts in favor of
increasing threats of direct attack.
Last July (2006), Israel invaded Lebanon, the fifth
invasion since 1978. As before, U.S. support for the aggression was a critical
factor, the pretexts quickly collapse on inspection, and the consequences for
the people of Lebanon are severe. Among the reasons for the U.S.-Israel invasion
is that Hezbollah's rockets could be a deterrent to a potential U.S.-Israeli
attack on Iran.
Despite the saber-rattling, it is, I suspect,
unlikely that the Bush administration will attack Iran. The world is strongly
opposed. Seventy-five percent of Americans favor diplomacy over military threats
against Iran, and as noted earlier, Americans and Iranians largely agree on
nuclear issues. Polls by Terror Free Tomorrow reveal that "Despite a deep
historical enmity between Iran's Persian Shiite population and the predominantly
Sunni population of its ethnically diverse Arab, Turkish and Pakistani
neighbors, the largest percentage of people in these countries favor accepting a
nuclear-armed Iran over any American military action." It appears that the U.S.
military and intelligence community is also opposed to an attack.
Iran cannot defend itself against U.S. attack, but it
can respond in other ways, among them by inciting even more havoc in Iraq. Some
issue warnings that are far more grave, among them by the respected British
military historian Corelli Barnett, who writes that "an attack on Iran would
effectively launch World War III."
The Bush administration has left disasters almost
everywhere it has turned, from post-Katrina New Orleans to Iraq. In desperation
to salvage something, the administration might undertake the risk of even
greater disasters.
Meanwhile Washington may be seeking to destabilize
Iran from within.2 The ethnic mix in Iran is complex; much of the population
isn't Persian. There are secessionist tendencies and it is likely that
Washington is trying to stir them up-in Khuzestan on the Gulf, for example,
where Iran's oil is concentrated, a region that is largely Arab, not
Persian.
Threat escalation also serves to pressure others to
join U.S. efforts to strangle Iran economically, with predictable success in
Europe. Another predictable consequence, presumably intended, is to induce the
Iranian leadership to be as harsh and repressive as possible, fomenting disorder
and perhaps resistance while undermining efforts of courageous Iranian
reformers, who are bitterly protesting Washington's tactics. It is also
necessary to demonize the leadership. In the West, any wild statement of Iran's
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, immediately gets circulated in headlines,
dubiously translated. But as is well known, Ahmadinejad has no control over
foreign policy, which is in the hands of his superior, the Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The U.S. media tend to ignore Khamenei's statements,
especially if they are conciliatory. For example, it's widely reported when
Ahmadinejad says that Israel shouldn't exist-but there is silence when Khamenei
says that Iran "shares a common view with Arab countries on the most important
Islamic-Arabic issue, namely the issue of Palestine," which would appear to mean
that Iran accepts the Arab League position: full normalization of relations with
Israel in terms of the international consensus on a two-state settlement that
the U.S. and Israel continue to resist, almost alone.3
The U.S. invasion of Iraq virtually instructed Iran
to develop a nuclear deterrent. Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld
writes that after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, "had the Iranians not tried to
build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy." The message of the invasion, loud
and clear, was that the U.S. will attack at will, as long as the target is
defenseless. Now Iran is ringed by U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Turkey and the Persian Gulf and close by are nuclear-armed Pakistan and
particularly Israel, the regional superpower, thanks to U.S. support.
As already discussed, Iranian efforts to negotiate
outstanding issues were rebuffed by Washington, and an EU-Iranian agreement was
apparently undermined by Washington's refusal to withdraw threats of attack. A
genuine interest in preventing the development of nuclear weapons in Iran-and
the escalating warlike tension in the region-would lead Washington to implement
the EU bargain, agree to meaningful negotiations and join with others to move
toward integrating Iran into the international economic system, in accord with
public opinion in the United States, Iran, neighboring states, and virtually the
entire rest of the world.
notes
1. See M. K. Bhadrakumar, "China,
Russia welcome Iran into the fold," Asia Times, April 18, 2006. Bill
Savadove, "President of Iran calls for unity against west," South China
Morning Post, June 16, 2006; "Non-aligned nations back Iran's nuclear
program," Japan Economic Newswire, May 30, 2006; Edward Cody, "Iran
Seeks Aid in Asia In Resisting the West," Washington Post, June 15,
2006.
2. See, among others, William
Lowther and Colin Freeman, "US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran,"
Sunday Telegraph, February 25, 2007.
3. For Khamenei's statement, see
"Leader Attends Memorial Ceremony Marking the
17th Departure Anniversary of Imam Khomeini,"
June 4, 2006.
