Missiles Reigning Down From All Points Possible

They tried it here on the home continent and didn’t get too far. Fears that North Korean missiles might reign down on North Battleford, Saskatchewan, weren’t enough to convince the government that all out Canadian participation in the proposed defense shield was warranted. As many of you are aware, I was very much opposed to Canada’s participation in the BMD program, and was proud to stand with Steve Staples and others involved in the Ceasefire initiative against it.

Unfortunately, and despite the fact the most Czechs want nothing to do with it, the government of the Czech Republic today signed a deal with the United States to base part of its missile defense system in the country. As of yet, the United States has failed to reach an agreement with the Polish to play host to the remaining part of the system. Another positive at this point is that Czech opposition parties are calling for a national referendum on the issue, especially pertaining to US personnel being based in the country.

Of course, and perhaps rightly so, the Russians have raised stringent objections to the implementation of the system in their backyard, and it should not be overlooked that its introduction is a power play on the part of the Bush Administration with regards to shoring up influence in the region. The United States has played quintessential roles behind the scenes with regards to supporting various pro-Western political parties in numerous Eastern European nations in recent years, such as Ukraine, in an attempt to influence outcomes in their favour – primarily to do with the potential acquisition of lucrative defense contracts and other economic opportunities. The introduction of a missile defense shield in the region only strengthens their position and will no doubt provide them other opportunities, primarily with regards to placating the US defense sector.

The fear mongering involved in the implementation of a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe is that Iran could attain nuclear weapons that possess long-range capabilities. Of course, the logical question has to be asked – why would the Iranians employ intercontinental nuclear weapons against anyone in that region? Would it be to target US bases located throughout it, or because the Iranians simply really despise the Poles?

Logic, in this instance, must not be disregarded. The implementation of the system so close to Russia sends a very clear message. It would be absolutely no different than the Russians implementing a ballistic missile defense system in Central America or northern South America. The US response to such a move would be one of utter outrage, and the reaction of the current Canadian government would be no different.

Of course, at that point we would be asking realistic questions, such as – why are the Russians implementing the system? What threat is it protecting the region from, and does the threat have a viable nuclear capability that constitutes a serious threat? And if the answers to those questions are vague at best, then we must also ask them of the US backed missile defense system being implemented in Eastern Europe.

When it comes to the Middle East and the possession of nuclear weapons, Western xenophobia immediately rears its head. Unlike most, Muslim nations* are viewed as being viable nuclear threats were they to possess nuclear weapons because, in the simplest of terms, we think them largely ignorant and immoral. Many believe they lack any capacity of conscience with regards to truly understanding the ramifications of actually employing nuclear weapons, which betrays our hypocrisy all the more.

* It should be pointed out that Pakistan is a nuclear power and is also a Muslim nation.

This is right about the point when some like to point out the fact that a questionable government governs Iran and that it supports Hezbollah. I have, in the past, addressed the realities of what would occur were Iran to either gift a nuclear weapon to a terrorist group for use against, for example, Israel, or if the Iranians themselves were to employ one directly. The truth of the matter is that, in either scenario, Iran would be the recipient of an overwhelming nuclear response, one that would decimate the nation, killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.

Now, you can apply whatever xenophobic malaise that you’d like at this point, but to actually believe the government of Iran, or those within its military infrastructure, would risk the lives of that many of their countrymen, including their own lives and those of their families, is, as far as I am concerned, simply ridiculous. What purpose would it ultimately serve? That Iran was able to use, at best, a handful of weapons (when they actually acquire them, as they have none now) against a nation like Israel that can respond with hundreds of its own? And that’s not even taking into account the American nuclear response that would no doubt be included. It is, in a word, suicide.

Iran’s entire political infrastructure would be wiped out. Its military would be largely decimated, and its people would be left in a wilderness replete with burning ruins and fallout that would make Hiroshima look like Dinseyland. And for what? The off chance that they were able to launch maybe two or three missiles at Israel? The math is madness, but it is a madness that we have come to believe them capable of.

Why? Because as far as most are concerned the entire nation of Iran is home to millions of terrorist sympathizers. And the Iranians are not alone in that distinction either. Most view the majority of the Arab and Persian world to be sympathetic to terrorist actions. Ironically, following 9/11, one million Palestinian students in the Palestinian Territory and East Jerusalem expressed their solidarity with the hundreds of American children that lost family that day by observing five minutes of silence. These are the same children that are commonly cast as ‘terrorists in training’ by many in the West. In Tehran, an immense vigil was held after 9/11, though went completely unreported.

Of course, the Iranian government is definitely guilty of suspect practices. I’ll not deny that. Then again, so is the Saudi government, a nation in which no vigils were held for the victims of 9/11. Mind you, none of the hijackers that day were Iranian, while fifteen of them were Saudis. This ultimately begs the question – why is Saudi Arabia, along with a host of other Arab nations, being gifted some $20 billion dollars in military aid by the United States over the next decade? Why has next to nothing been said about the fact that while the Saudis are routinely promoted as a staunch US ally they have been complicit in covertly funding Sunni groups in Iraq, the very same thing that the Iranians have been routinely condemned for regarding Shi’ite militias? And lastly, what about the fact that the majority of foreign Mujahideen, better known to most Western television audiences as ‘al-Qaeda in Iraq’, are Saudi nationals?

One has to ask a basic question at this point – what if the Saudis wanted to possess a nuclear capability? Given their influence over OPEC and the fact that they have trillions invested in the US, do you honestly believe that the United States would employ threats against them, let alone attempt to have the UN institute economic sanctions? Given that the two holiest places in Islam are located in Saudi Arabia, were the nation invaded, the Muslim world would truly rise up, and not in some wholly propagandized sense as has been promoted these past seven years. It would be no different were Italy invaded by some foreign power and the Vatican occupied.

In the end, how we view the Arab and Persian world is quintessential. As it stands now, and despite our own histories of monumental transgressions, the truth is that many view them as morally inferior, the results of confusing the actions of a zealous and radical handful with an entire faith and the people who follow it. The proliferation of this phenomenon only serves to further alienate those that would seek to find and share common ground, ultimately resulting in widening a gulf that ‘moral people’ should never have allowed to develop in the first place.