In an article in today’s London Times, Tim Ried begins…
“President Bush imposed the harshest sanctions on Iran for a generation and branded its military a supporter of terrorism yesterday, fuelling claims that he is preparing possible air strikes against Tehran.”
I have to be honest; I’m somewhat confused. In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush clearly included Iran in his “Axis of Evil”. Thus, the fact that the United States has taken this step doesn’t really come as a surprise to me, especially given the fact that they’ve been politically and covertly maneuvering against the Iranians for some time now. There’s no question that Washington is looking for a confrontation. The only thing that remains to be seen is if the President will act before he leaves office and if his administration can employ the same tactics that it did with regards to Iraq to sway the House into supporting him. Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has made her views on Iran very clear, and they are by no means tame either. Thus, most of the Democratic majority, who are centrists by every definition of the word, may very well support a White House led initiative regarding air strikes. Given that the United States has already begun the process of instituting forward operating bases along the Iranian border speaks to the administration’s motives.
In no small way, the administration’s focus on Iran has developed to detract from the disaster in Iraq. It serves as an adjunct that provides the administration leeway with regards to the lack of real political and military successes in Iraq. By claiming that Iranian influence in Iraq to be of significant import places the onus on the Iranians, who were demonized even when a relative moderate was in power. Since Ahmadinejad’s seizure of the Presidency, matters have only deteriorated, though it shouldn’t be overlooked that his ‘victory’ in the 2005 Iranian ‘elections’ was a direct response to what was occurring on Iran’s borders, both situations being the result of a very reckless American foreign policy doctrine.
Secretary of State Rice claimed in testimony before Congress on Wednesday that Iran is…
“perhaps the greatest challenge for American security interests in the Middle East, and possibly around the world.”
We’ve heard those words before. They were used in 2002 and 2003 regarding the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Interestingly, little mention is ever made of Saudi influencing in Iraq, of its support of Sunni insurgent factions, or the fact that a very considerable portion of foreign fighters come from Saudi Arabia, helping bolster the numbers of Iraq’s Salafi Jihadi groups – better known to Westerners as al-Qaeda in Iraq.
There is also the Russian’s to factor into matters, who have remained one of the members of the Security Council, along with China, to continue to deal with Tehran rather openly. Of course, there are other matters regarding Russian-American relations that factor into it as well, and Rice’s comment can’t be discounted as one that doesn’t implicate the Russians as a factor regarding “American security interests in the Middle East, and possibly around the world”.
Now, I’m certainly not giving the Iranians a free pass. I’m sure that they have been covertly involved in Iraq, just as the United States, or any other power, would be were there a conflict raging on their border that could ultimately affect them. As for the nuclear question, I have been through that and would suggest using the search engine if you’re interested in reading my thoughts on that subject.
While the Bush administration has claimed, even after the implementation of these new sanctions, that a diplomatic solution to the problem is their preferred method, it can’t be discounted that there is a reason why eleventh hour diplomacy is being employed, and it has little to do with diplomacy itself. More to the point, it may have far more to do with due diligence on the part of the Bush administration in the event that they have to justify military action to the American people; that they can then claim that all avenues were exhausted despite the fact that they have been goading the Iranians for some time and that the American media has been diligently casting the Iranians in such a negative light as to basically pre-program the domestic psyche that a confrontation with Iran is not simply possible, but inevitable. True, Iranian covert involvement in Iraqi affairs has most likely resulted in the loss of American lives; and while that is certainly of concern, given the regional implications of the US occupation of Iraq, how can anyone think that those in the region would not ultimately involve themselves in some way? The Turkish military has bolstered its forces along the Iraqi frontier, even going so far as to suggest an invasion of northern Iraq itself to deal with cross-border raids by the PKK. At present they are attempting to have a list of high-ranking PKK members extradited from Iraq to Turkey. Of course, the United States is cooperating because it does not want to see the Turks invade northern Iraq, as they have threatened to do. The Turks have also threatened sanctions against parts of Northern Iraq, who receive electricity and other services from Turkey. But the reality is that the PKK will obviously not capitulate to the demands, nor do I believe that sympathetic Kurds in northern Iraq that believe in the ultimate creation of a free Kurdish state will easily betray them.
This where we come to the rather interesting ambiguity of what the sanctions implemented against Iran imply and the reality that exterior factors are playing a very real role in the situation. But before I delve into that, I want to focus on an overlapping issue – the issue of covert military complicity and how it is condemned by nations that have long standing traditions with regards to its use. In this case, I want to use Iran and the United States as examples.
The Hypocrisy Of ‘Might Makes Right’ Covert Military Complicity
The Iranians have been accused of training Shi’ite militants in Iran that then operate inside of Iraq in both an anti-occupational and sectarian manner.
The United States has trained countless paramilitary and militant organizations that have acted in those capacities throughout the world. Their support for a variety of military juntas and dictatorial regimes has also been considerable. One such regime was that of the Shah of Iran itself, who the United States and Great Britain put back into power after the democratically elected leader of Iran in the 50’s attempted to nationalize segments of the Iran’s oil industry.
US covert military support and training is, in fact, globally unprecedented. It knows very little limitation or restriction, operating in economic spheres, such as through numerous aid programs and the underwriting of World Bank loans to secure both privatization rights and military contracts. It has, and continues to, help develop, and by way influence, the intelligence capacities of foreign nations, train irregular and regular forces in nations that benefit their current policy platforms or have lucrative arms agreements with US defense contractors or third parties representing US arms interests. They have trained paramilitary groups, foreign domestic forces, and rogue militant groups that have been guilty of mass killings and disappearances, torture, mass imprisonments, industrial espionage, acts of terrorism, and psychological warfare. They possess a significant capability to manipulate information abroad, to control the flow of information, and employ counter-intelligence operations on a multi-national level.
Compared to this, the Iranians are the tiniest of bugs. While they are responsible for aiding numerous organizations, such as Hezbollah, theirs are operations that, by comparison, are utterly minuscule. Thus, placing things into proper context is obviously of importance, especially when anything that is going to come out of Iran about US covert activities is going to automatically be taken as a lie by the general public.
Iran As A Proxy Issue
Given the growing tensions between the United States and Russia, the use of Iran as a proxy issue is something that shouldn’t be overlooked. The sanctions out in place are focused on Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps. The Russians, on the other hand, (along with China) sell arms to Iran, and thus equip its military.
Today, Russian President Putin claimed that the implementation of a missile shield in Eastern Europe was akin to the introduction of MRBM’s by the Soviet Union into the Western Hemisphere…
“Similar actions by the Soviet Union, when it deployed missiles in Cuba, provoked the Caribbean crisis. For us, technologically, the situation is very similar.”
Of course, he went on to claim that the United States and Russia are allies and that he and Mr. Bush are good friends, but a statement of that magnitude is not made without purpose behind it. Nor are statements regarding the sale of weapons to Iran by the Russians made by the Assistant Secretary of State without purpose.
The two issues are, of course, conjoined, being that the defense shield is being implemented to guard against attacks from nations such as Iran. In fact, Iran has been specifically sited as one of the foremost reasons for the necessity of the shield.
Thus, you have the Russians and Chinese, two of the five permanent Security Council members, that have arms agreements with Tehran – and in the case of Russia have technologically aided in the advancement of the Iranian nuclear program, and the rest of the Council at odds with the Iranian program, sighting it as a threat. Interestingly, the implementation of the defense shield is in nations with which the US has burgeoning military ties and thus refuses to back down from its implementation.
At the end of the day, the five permanent members of the Security Council represent the five largest arms dealers in the world. So basically, this is all just mathematics. You need enemies to ensure return in the business of war, and when an age as politically and militarily ambiguous as the one in which we now find ourselves is ushered in, all bets are off.