"All options,
including the military one, are on the
table." - US Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld
"I announce, officially,
that dear Iran has joined the nuclear countries of
the world." - President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad, saying on Tuesday that Iran
had successfully enriched uranium for the first
time, a landmark step toward its quest to develop
nuclear fuel.
The ominous signs are "on
the table" for all to see. The Pentagon has its
Long War, the rebranded "war on terror" that Vice
President Dick Cheney swears will last for
decades, a replay of the war between Eastasia and
Oceania in George Orwell's Nineteen
Eighty-Four.
President George W Bush
issued a "wild speculation" non-denial denial that the US was
planning strategic nuclear strikes against
Iran, but Iran considerably
upped the ante on Tuesday with President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad's announcement that Iran had enriched
uranium for the first time. In a nationally
televised speech, Ahmadinejad urged the West to
stop pressuring Tehran, saying that Iran was
seeking to develop nuclear energy only for
peaceful purposes.
Iranian nuclear
officials say the country has produced 100 tonnes
of uranium gas, an essential ingredient for
enrichment. The United Nations Security Council
has demanded that Iran stop all uranium-enrichment
activity by April 28. Iran has rejected the
demand.
From the point of view of the
Pentagon's Long War, a strategic nuclear attack on
Iran can be spun to oblivion as the crucial next
stage of the war on "radical Islam". From the view
of a factionalized European Union, this is (very)
bad business; the Europeans prefer to concentrate
on the factionalized nature of the Iranian
government itself and push for a nuclear deal.
Iranian government officials claim that
the Germans and the Italians - big trade partners
with extensive economic interests in the country -
are pushing for a deal more than the French and
much more than the British. As much as the EU
cannot possibly agree on a unified foreign policy,
Europeans in fact reject both sanctions and/or a
possible US military strike.
Hitler
meets Iraqification The demonization of
Ahmadinejad in some quarters in the US as the "new
Adolf Hitler" is beside the point. As Asia Times
Online has shown (The ultimate martyr,
April 12), all crucial decisions in Iran remain
with the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Ahmadinejad has been downgraded by the leader to
play a "domestic" president's role.
His
vocal, nationalist defense of Iran's civilian
nuclear program follows the leader's script, and
is met with approval because virtually all
Iranians regard the issue as a matter of national
right and pride.
According to a
late-January poll by the Iranian Students Polling
Agency, 85.4% of Iranians are in favor of
continuing with the nuclear program. More than 80%
feel the country needs nuclear energy. And about
70% regard the European negotiation side as
"illogical".
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,
the leader of the Islamic Revolution in 1979,
issued a fatwa in the 1980s declaring that
production, possession and use of nuclear weapons
was against Islam. Russia, China and India still
take him at his word.
For the Iranian
government, the nuclear program is a powerful
symbol of independence with regard to what is
perceived as Anglo-Saxon colonialism. The view is
shared by Iranians of all social classes and
education backgrounds. Moreover, Iran is pushing
for a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement,
stating that every country has the right to a
peaceful nuclear program. What Iran officially
wants is a nuclear-free zone in West Asia, and
that includes Israel, the sixth nuclear power in
the world with more than 200 nuclear warheads.
But the issue itself may be beside the
point. What's really at stake is that while the
occupation of Iraq might be downgraded, the
"invisible" US military bases will consolidate the
US presence in Iraq and the Persian Gulf region.
Ahmadinejad in this scenario is the perfect
Hitler; US troops - and bases - must remain on the
ground to prevent Iran from going nuclear and to
prevent Iran's influence in Iraq's "Shi'iteistan".
Meanwhile, Washington's avowed initiative
of financing groups to provoke "regime change"
from within is widely viewed in Tehran as a joke.
What Iranians - both in government and in the
bazaars and tea shops - take very seriously is the
US lending a hand to Israel squeezing Palestine
even more - a development also spun in Washington
as part of the war on "radical Islam". The
Quadrennial Defense Review - the Pentagon's
strategic document calling for the Long War
against terror - can be easily interpreted as a
call for a war on Islam.
The first
steps towards war A war on Iran could
involve many military scenarios. Iranian officials
are aware that the US may go for an initial "shock
and awe". But they play down the possibility of a
street revolution toppling the nationalist
theocracy, as Washington hopes; the regime
controls everything, and in the event of a foreign
attack, virtually the whole population would rally
behind the government. They also exclude attacking
Israel, because they know Israel may respond with
a nuclear strike. But they do not rule out the
possibility of the US dropping nuclear bombs on
Iran.
Iran's current demonology
instrumentalizes the UN Security Council, in the
name of "peace" and nuclear non-proliferation. But
Iranian officials keep complaining that the
country's official nuclear proposal was never
examined in full by the EU. It included a
provision that Iran would continue to negotiate
with the EU-3 (Germany, France and Britain) on
uranium enrichment for two more years, and would
resume enrichment only if negotiations failed. The
next step in the Security Council may be the
imposition of "intelligent sanctions" - an
oxymoron. In practice, that would mean a partial
trade embargo on Iran, excluding food and of
course oil and gas. Oil and gas are once again the
heart of the matter. A recent energy conference in
Tehran (In the heart of
Pipelineistan, March 17) made it clear
that Iran is a crucial node of a proposed Asian
energy-security grid, which includes China, Russia
and India. This grid would bypass Western -
especially US - control of energy supplies and
fuel in a real 21st-century industrial revolution
all across Asia. It's no wonder that many analysts
view the war on Iran in essence as a war of the
United States against Asia.
The
ultimate prize As was the case with Iraq,
Iran is being sold as a threat to world peace (it
may be pursuing nuclear weapons). Bush - at least
vocally - hopes diplomacy will prevail. But the
decision to attack may have been made already,
just as it was taken regarding Iraq way before
March 2003.
Iraq had signed the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but was accused of
possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). UN
weapons inspectors were expelled on the eve of the
2003 war. Iran has also signed the NPT, but is
being accused of pursuing a nuclear-weapons
program. UN weapons inspectors still work in the
country on and off - but for how long?
In
1995, Iraq told UN inspectors, via Saddam
Hussein's brother-in-law Hussein Kamel, about a
secret nuclear-weapons program, which had just
been scrapped. This did not prevent the regime
from being accused of concealing WMD just before
the March 2003 invasion. In 2002, Iran told the UN
that it had a secret nuclear program - not a
weapons program. This did not prevent Iran from
being accused four years later by the EU-3 of
"concealment and deception".
In November
2002, the US threatened to strike Iraq unless it
cooperated with UN inspectors. The US invaded Iraq
anyway, without Security Council backing. In
January, the EU-3 called for Iran to be referred
to the Security Council. Sanctions may be applied.
If no diplomatic solution is found, the Pentagon
may find the opening it seeks for the next stage
of its Long War.
Iran is not to be easily
intimidated. Few in Tehran take the threat of oil
sanctions seriously. Iranians know that even if
the US decided to bomb the country's nuclear
sites, they are maintained by Russian advisers and
technicians; that would mean in effect a
declaration of war against Russia. Russia recently
closed a US$700 million deal selling 30 Tor M-1
surface-to-air missiles to Iran - very effective
against aircraft, cruise missiles and guided
bombs. The missiles will be deployed at the
nuclear-research center at Isfahan and the Bushehr
reactor, which is being built by Russia.
Iranians know Shi'ites in the south and in
Baghdad would turn extreme heat on the occupation
forces in Iraq. Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, on
an official visit to Iran, according to his
spokesman, said that "if any Islamic state,
especially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is
attacked, the Mehdi Army would fight inside and
outside Iraq".
Iranians also know they can
bypass any trade sanctions by trading even more
with China. Anyway, Mohammed-Nabi Rudaki, deputy
chairman of the National Security and Foreign
Policy Commission, which sits at the majlis
(parliament), has already threatened that "if
Europe does not act wisely with the Iranian
nuclear portfolio and it is referred to the UN
Security Council and economic or air travel
restrictions are imposed unjustly, we have the
power to halt oil supply to the last drop from the
shores of the Persian Gulf via the Strait of
Hormuz".
Up to 30% of the world's oil
production passes through the strait. Were Iran to
block it, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait
would not be able to export their oil. The
Pentagon may eventually get its Long War - but not
exactly on its terms.
Copyright 2006 Asia
Times Online Ltd.
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