Next Stop Tehran?

marco murphy

Imagine for a moment that you are a senior official in Iran's foreign ministry. It's hot outside on the dusty, congested streets of Tehran. But inside the ministry, despite the air-conditioning, it's getting stickier all the time. You have a big problem, a problem that Iran's president, Mohammad Khatami, admits is "huge and serious". The problem is the Bush administration and, specifically, its insistence that Iran is running "an alarming clandestine nuclear weapons programme". You fear that this, coupled with daily US claims that Iran is aiding al-Qaida, is leading in only one direction. US news reports reaching your desk indicate that the Pentagon is now advocating "regime change" in Iran.
Reading dispatches from Geneva, you note that the US abruptly walked out of low-level talks there last week, the only bilateral forum for two countries lacking formal diplomatic relations. You worry that bridge-building by Iran's UN ambassador is getting nowhere. You understand that while Britain and the EU are telling Washington that engagement, not confrontation, is the way forward, the reality, as Iraq showed, is that if George Bush decides to do it his way, there is little the Europeans or indeed Russia can ultimately do to stop him.

What is certain is that at almost all points of the compass, the unmatchable US military machine besieges Iran's borders. The Pentagon is sponsoring the Iraq-based Mojahedin e-Khalq, a group long dedicated to insurrection in the Islamic republic that the state department describes as terrorists. And you are fully aware that Israel is warning Washington that unless something changes soon, Iran may acquire the bomb within two years. As the temperature in the office rises, as flies buzz around the desk like F-16s in a dogfight and as beads of sweat form on furrowed brow, it seems only one conclusion is possible. The question with which you endlessly pestered your foreign missions before and during the invasion of Iraq - "who's next?" - appears now to have but one answer. It's us.

So what would you do?

This imaginary official may be wrong, of course. Without some new terrorist enormity in the US "homeland", surely Bush is not so reckless as to start another all-out war as America's election year approaches? Washington's war of words could amount to nothing more than that. Maybe the US foolishly believes it is somehow helping reformist factions in the Majlis (parliament), the media and student bodies. Maybe destabilisation and intimidation is the name of the game and the al-Qaida claims are a pretext, as in Iraq. Perhaps the US does not itself know what it wants to do; a White House strategy meeting is due today. But who knows? Tehran's dilemma is real: Washington's intentions are dangerously uncertain.

Should Iran continue to deny any present bomb-making intent and facilitate additional, short-notice inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to prove it? Should it expand its EU dialogue and strengthen protective ties with countries such as Syria and Lebanon, India, Russia and China, which is its present policy? The answer is "yes". The difficulty is that this may not be enough. Should it then go further and cancel its nuclear power contracts with Moscow? Should it abandon Hizbullah and Palestinian rejectionist groups, as America demands? This doubtless sounds like a good idea to neo-con thinktankers. But surely even they can grasp that such humiliation, under duress from the Great Satan, is politically unacceptable. Grovelling is not Persian policy.

Even the relatively moderate Khatami made it clear in Beirut recently that there would be no backtracking in the absence of a just, wider Middle East settlement. And anyway, Khatami does not control Iran's foreign and defence policy. Indeed, it is unclear who does. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ex-president Hashemi Rafsanjani, security chief Hassan Rohani, and the military and intelligence agencies all doubtless have a say, which may be why Iran's policies often appear contradictory. Tension between civil society reformers and the mullahs is endemic and combustible. But as US pressure has increased, so too has the sway of Islamic hardliners.

Iran's alternative course is the worst of all, but one which Bush's threats make an ever more likely choice. It is to build and deploy nuclear weapons and missiles in order to pre-empt America's regime-toppling designs. The US should hardly be surprised if it comes to this. After all, it is what Washington used to call deterrence before it abandoned that concept in favour of "anticipatory defence" or, more candidly, unilateral offensive warfare. To Iran, the US now looks very much like the Soviet Union looked to western Europe at the height of the cold war. Britain and West Germany did not waive their right to deploy US cruise and Pershing nuclear missiles to deter the combined menace of overwhelming conventional forces and an opposing, hostile ideology. Why, in all logic, should Iran, or for that matter North Korea and other so-called "rogue states" accused of developing weapons of mass destruction, act any differently?

If this is Iran's choice, the US will be much to blame. While identifying WMD proliferation as the main global threat, its bellicose post-9/11 policies have served to increase rather than reduce it. Washington ignores, as ever, its exemplary obligation to disarm under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). Despite strategic reductions negotiated with Russia, the US retains enormous firepower in every nuclear weapons category. Worse still, the White House is set on developing, not just researching, a new generation of battlefield "mini-nukes" whose only application is offensive use, not deterrence. Its new $400bn defence budget allocates funding to this work; linked to this is an expected US move to end its nuclear test moratorium in defiance of the comprehensive test ban treaty.

Bush has repeatedly warned, not least in his national security strategy, that the US is prepared to use "overwhelming force", including first use of nuclear weapons, to crush perceived or emerging threats. It might well have done so in Iraq had the war gone badly. Bush has thereby torn up the key stabilising concept of "negative security assurance" by which nuclear powers including previous US administrations pledged, through the NPT and the UN, not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. Meanwhile the US encourages egregious double standards. What it says, in effect, is that Iran (and most other states) must not be allowed a nuclear capability but, for example, Israel's undeclared and internationally uninspected arsenal is permissible. India's and Pakistan's bombs, although recently and covertly acquired, are tolerated too, since they are deemed US allies. Bush's greatest single disservice to non-proliferation came in Iraq. The US cried wolf in exaggerating Saddam's capability. Now it is actively undermining the vital principle of independent, international inspection and verification by limiting UN access to the country. Yet would Iraq have been attacked if it really had possessed nuclear weapons? Possibly not. Thus the self-defeating, mangled message to Iran and others is: arm yourselves to the teeth, before it it too late, or you too could face the chop.

Small wonder if things grow sticky inside Tehran's dark-windowed ministries right now. If Iran ultimately does the responsible thing and forswears the bomb, it will not be for want of the most irresponsible American provocation.

Simon Tisdall
Tuesday May 27, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,963993,00.html


I think this is an example of what G bush is like.Hitler got his people to believe he was doing a good thing making a massive military machine.Bush isbuilding all this high tech stuff.Other countries cant have nukes,but america can...why?

mike65

...and where did that all come from?

found it http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,963993,00.html

DO NOT post other ppls work here without giving them credit or without ading your own comments otherwise the post is worthless.

Mike.

marco murphy

Apologies,the other articles i posted had names on them,i meant to put the name on this,well you just posted the link so there it is.

therecklessone

From the charter:

Starting Threads

Topics should be relevant to the politics board.

Topics should not be verbatim quotes from some article sans comment. Add a comment before or after the post, offering your opinion on the subject, or at the very least, your reason for adding the topic.

Please remeber that we are neither a news channel nor an announcement forum - if you are not willing to discuss what you post, then please don't post it.

sceptre

Please give Simon Tisdall (the author of the above) his due and credit him somewhere as the author. A link to the original article location is also appropriate where possible (you're getting something for nowt, it gives something small back, it's good for other reasons too, like verification for the paranoid). Also, might be of interest that although this seems to have been syndicated by Pakistan's Daily Times (and published in today's edition) it originally dates from the Guardian from the end of May.

Please credit people's work to them. Not just here, everywhere. Merely plucking it and reproducing it is shady ground from a copyright point of view. Just popping it on to a web board with no credit even to the author is plain intellectual theft.

(edit: well covered by mike, /tips hat to mike)

marco murphy

I just said it was a mistake.

therecklessone

Poblachtach wrote:

I just said it was a mistake.

But didn't address the point I raised?

Read the charter.

marco murphy

Yes i agree.Ok.Maybe people dont want my posts,i dont care

therecklessone

Poblachtach wrote:

Yes i agree.Ok.Maybe people dont want my posts,i dont care

Thats not it. People want you (and others) to say something themselves, not quote the work of others without comment. Its a fairly simple expectation.

LegacyUser

US can't invade Iran without reintroducing conscription, there simply are no troops left, even trying to deal with Iraq they are constantly having to call up part time reservist weekend warriors, there is ZERO chance they will invade iran, to do so they will have to completely withdraw from iraq and admit defeat, which aint gonna happen soon, maybe after another two years of 20 troops a week being wasted, but not in the short term

marco murphy

Ok.Iam afriad to say anythign sometimes as people may gang up on me....now for saying nothing ill probably be in the bad books for not obeying rules....only coz i wanted to say nothing

marco murphy

bananayoghurt wrote:

US can't invade Iran without reintroducing conscription, there simply are no troops left, even trying to deal with Iraq they are constantly having to call up part time reservist weekend warriors, there is ZERO chance they will invade iran, to do so they will have to completely withdraw from iraq and admit defeat, which aint gonna happen soon, maybe after another two years of 20 troops a week being wasted, but not in the short term

YAHOO discussion....there taking a lot of troops out of europe 70,000 if i remember...theyd sent in the troops in iraq id say.Take each country at a time.

Hopefully i wont get a load of dissagreements,but a saw a nwes article about reagan wanting to invade the whole of arabia in the 70s

therecklessone

Poblachtach wrote:

Ok.Iam afriad to say anythign sometimes as people may gang up on me....now for saying nothing ill probably be in the bad books for not obeying rules....only coz i wanted to say nothing

Maybe, maybe not. Realising you've made a mistake and accepting it is a good start.

For your own sake, read the charter

marco murphy

I will accpet it.STUPID mistake it was.Now i wont have a great reputation...and it seems easy to get banned here.I admit iam a *** *****,and iam the lastone to take someone elses credit.

Ill also admit i didnt read the charter...but i will

sceptre

Poblachtach wrote:

Ok.Iam afriad to say anythign sometimes as people may gang up on me....now for saying nothing ill probably be in the bad books for not obeying rules....only coz i wanted to say nothing

Naw, you're OK. You probably caught one of those times when quite a few people were online (usually it's only one person saying "Credit the damn article and say something yourself"). Let's put it this way - you'll be fairly likely to credit in the future:)

Reagan was certainly of the opinion (with hindsight - he didn't take power until after the revolution) that Iran should have been invaded to stop the Islamic revolution there. Like bananayogurt said though, they'd have trouble finding enough troops to send this time short of re-introducing the draft (the one Bush evaded), though they could still bring it in next year if Bush gets re-elected.

marco murphy

Ill say sorry,i mean it,no one can i say i didnt.Leave it at that.I will start no thread but il reply.I dont think bush will attack Iran and NOT N Korea.I Reckon iran would throw in a good guerilla war.Plus i dont think Bush will get re elected.

Victor

Hmmmm. The obvious thing (if I were Iran) to do would be to suffer from imperialist infidel Yankee terrorism and suffer severe blows to Iran's oil exports, expecially for November's contracts and see oil hit $70-100 dollars a barrel and $2.50-3.00 a gallon at the pumps, just in time for the election.

Of course, if the Americans invade Iran, they have to invade North Korea at the same time. Otherwise, North Korea could simply pre-empt the expected American attack. They have huffed and puffed. They've blown down the house of straw down. Once the house of sticks is attacked, the brick house knows whats coming.

Interesting side note. The Muslim version of "The Three Pigs" is "The Three Lambs". No doubt to boost the victim's status as pigs are considered 'unclean'. http://paknews.com/editorials.php?id=1&date1=2002-11-07

While identifying WMD proliferation as the main global threat, its bellicose post-9/11 policies have served to increase rather than reduce it. Washington ignores, as ever, its exemplary obligation to disarm under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). Despite strategic reductions negotiated with Russia, the US retains enormous firepower in every nuclear weapons category. Worse still, the White House is set on developing, not just researching, a new generation of battlefield "mini-nukes" whose only application is offensive use, not deterrence. Its new $400bn defence budget allocates funding to this work; linked to this is an expected US move to end its nuclear test moratorium in defiance of the comprehensive test ban treaty.

This is interesting. You see I've known that the US have been continuing to research Nukes, aswell as chemical & biological weapons, but I never knew any specifics. Kinda grabs you at the throat when you truely realise that the nation thats so against any other nation developing nukes (of any sort), has themselves the largest arsenal of WMD's in the world. And they're continuing to expand that arsenal.

You see, this is something thats really starting to annoy me. The double standards. We have WMD's but you're not allowed to, simply because you're not trustworthy. We've invaded two nations within the last decade, but despite your lack of military aggression, we still don't trust you. Hell, even when we lie to our own allies, as regards military intelligence, we won't believe you if you say anything.

The US is the worlds only true superpower, and the article does make the comparison between the US and the USSR. Oddly enough, I'm starting to see more and more similarities as time goes by.

Iran is in trouble. In spite of the US's lack of enough ground troops from its existing army groups, they still have plenty composed of marines (Doesn't the Marine consist of nearly half a million personel), Air force personel, and home guard battalions. Remember, the Bush administration have already changed a number of US laws, I daresay they'd have few problems introducing the allowance of Home Guard divisions in an invasion of Iran.

the one problem is all this is that the US is loosing its safety zone. With Afghanistan it was retribution, and everyone agreed it was ok. With Iraq, it was shock, and lack of co-ordination that failed to prevent it. One more nation will probably fall to the US before the rest of the world prepares properly. If the US take and hold Iran, and try again with another nation, I wouldn't be too suprised to see pre-emptive strikes being made against the US themselves.

However, Iran itself is screwed. My opinion at least.

Hobbes

I don't think Iran is screwed. I would say that the US attacking Iran may be the straw that breaks the camels back.

The US attacks under only these conditions.
1. Serves US intrests.
2. Serves the US publics intrests.

For examples.

Afganistan - Good for oil/contracts (thats 1) and going after OBL (thats 2).
Iraq - Good for oil/contracts (thats 1) and going after Saddam as he plans to use WMD on the US public (thats 2).

Before anyone says I am wrong, I should point out the reasons don't have to be true/valid, only true and valid at the time of going to war.

I don't see that with Iran. Certainly Israel may take an attack at them, but the US there is no option to invade that won't be seen as an invasion and not liberation.

That said, Iran is certainly a target but not one the US can get through war.

Gurgle

Hobbes wrote:

The US attacks under only these conditions.
1. Serves US intrests.
2. Serves the US publics intrests.

Within a couple of days of the Iraq invasion, the PR guys were changing the tune from WMD to liberation of the oppressed.

bonkey

Hobbes wrote:

Before anyone says I am wrong, I should point out the reasons don't have to be true/valid, only true and valid at the time of going to war.

I wouldn't even go that far. The reasons offered to the public only have to be sellable to the public. As long as they buy into it, its good.....because once you shift stance later, they'll follow along to a large extent and buy whatever it is you sell next rather than admit they were duped.

(And no, thats not a jibe at Americans....its something I believe is true of most - if not all - nations)

marco murphy

I said it before,id say iran would put up a good guerilla war...