Patrick Seale writes in Al-Hayat:
"Now that Iraq has been conquered, hard-line American Jews, supporters of Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, are urging the United States to overthrow the Islamic government in Iran. A systematic campaign of accusations, lies, propaganda and disinformation, very similar to the one which preceded the attack on Iraq, is now being mounted against Iran by a cabal of neo-conservatives in Washington."
Is Iran the Next Target?
Patrick Seale Al-Hayat 2003/05/23
Now that Iraq has been conquered, hard-line American Jews, supporters of Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, are urging the United States to overthrow the Islamic government in Iran. A systematic campaign of accusations, lies, propaganda and disinformation, very similar to the one which preceded the attack on Iraq, is now being mounted against Iran by a cabal of neo-conservatives in Washington.
As in the case of Iraq, the real reasons for the campaign against Iran remain uncertain and ambivalent. Is the goal to spread 'democracy' in the Middle East so as to make the United States safe from 'terrorism'? Or is it to destroy any regional challenge to Israel? The most likely explanation is that it is a combination of both. The neo-conservatives, who now dictate the pace and direction of American foreign policy, consider that American and Israeli interests are identical and cannot be separated.
Shaping American Opinion
To understand the way American opinion is shaped, one needs to read and listen to what is being said in the American press and in Washington's numerous right-wing think-tanks. The Weekly Standard is a leading organ of neo-con opinion. Its editor, William Kristol, one of the most strident voices in favour of the Iraq war, has now turned his bellicose attention to Iran. In a lead editorial on 12 May he wrote: '... The liberation of Iraq was the first great battle for the future of the Middle East. The creation of a free Iraq is now of fundamental importance...We are already in a death struggle with Iran over the future of Iraq. The theocrats ruling Iran understand that the stakes are now double or nothing... as success in Iraq sounds the death knell for the Iranian revolution.
'So we must help our friends and allies in Iraq block Iranian-backed subversion. And we must also take the fight to Iran, with measures ranging from public diplomacy to covert operations. Iran is the tipping point in the war on proliferation, the war on terror, and the effort to reshape the Middle East. If Iran goes pro-Western and anti-terror, positive changes in Syria and Saudi Arabia will follow much more easily. And the chances for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement will greatly improve...'On the outcome of the confrontation with Tehran, more than any other, rests the future of the Bush Doctrine - and, quite possibly, the Bush presidency - and prospects for a safer world...'
I have quoted Kristol's editorial at length because it is a clear expression of the neo-con's determination to pressure, even blackmail, President George W Bush into using American power to 'reshape' the Middle East in Israel's interest.
At a conference at the Saban Center in Washington on May 14, Kristol enlarged on his views by remarking that an American strike against Iran might possibly take place before the November 2004 American presidential elections.
Another leading neo-con guru, Michael Ledeen, who throughout the 1990s called for an attack against Iraq, is now pressing as persistently for an attack on Iran. The new 'Center for Democracy in Iran', an American action group calling for regime change in Tehran, is largely his creation. The flavour of his approach may be grasped from a speech he delivered at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) in Washington on April 30, entitled 'Time to focus on Iran - The Mother of Modern Terrorism'. In it, he declared: 'The time for diplomacy is at an end; it is time for a free Iran, free Syria and free Lebanon.' A week later on May 6, at a conference at the American Enterprise Institute, another leading neo-con think-tank, Ledeen repeated his call for a U.S. attack on Iran, in which he was supported by Uri Lubrani, a long-time adviser to Israel's Ministry of Defense and architect of Israel's disastrous 'security zone' in Lebanon, which was only wound up when Israeli forces were finally driven out of south Lebanon in 2000.
In their campaign against Iran, neo-cons and pro-Israeli lobbyists are joined by exiled Iranian monarchists, active among the large Iranian community in California, who pin their hopes on Reza Pahlavi, son of the late pro-Israeli Shah. In a recent interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Reza Pahlavi declared: 'The fall of the current regime would not only liberate the forces of a great nation, it would free the world of an imminent atomic risk and the biggest terrorist network in existence.'
What is Iran accused of?
Inflammatory accusations leveled against Iran by American officials, by friends of Israel, right-wing ideologues and others are given wide prominence on American television and in the mainstream American press. They usually include the following: that Iran's nuclear programme has reached such an advanced stage that it might soon test a nuclear weapon; that it is developing biological weapons and is seeking foreign help in developing chemical weapons; that it supports such 'terrorist' organizations as Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as militant Shiite groups in Iraq and Afghanistan; and, most recently and sensationally, that the suicide bombings against residential compounds in Riyadh were planned by top Al Qaeda commanders sheltering in Iran!
According to the American TV programme Nightline, Al Qaeda leaders in Iran include Saif al Adel, wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa. Needless to say, no firm evidence in support of these serious allegations is ever produced. It is noteworthy, however, that the charge of Iranian-Al Qaeda complicity strongly resembles the accusation of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda made repeatedly against Baghdad in the run-up to the war (including regrettably by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell himself) - but of course never documented or proven.
In spite of the clamour from the neo-cons, few experts predict an early American military assault on Iran. For one thing, fear of a new wave of terrorist attacks, following the bombings in Riyadh and Casablanca, has captured America's attention, almost to the exclusion of other foreign policy worries. For another, the United States has its hands full in Iraq, where resistance is mounting to the American occupation and where the task of putting the country back on its feet is proving far more difficult than Washington had anticipated. Another reason for caution on the Iran front would be strong European opposition to any U.S. military attack - including this time opposition from Britain's Tony Blair.
For all these reasons, some experts believe that a military strike against Iran by either the U.S. or Israel - or by both together -- would only become a possibility if there were convincing proof that Iran was about to test a nuclear weapon or that an Al Qaeda cell located in Iran had attacked U.S. or Israeli targets in the past or was about to do so in the immediate future.
Rather than risk a major military assault, these experts believe that, if the United States and Israel wanted to send a strong message to Iran, they were more likely to use special forces against Iranian proxies in Iraq or Lebanon, or seek to undermine the Tehran regime by encouraging separatist tendencies among Iran's Azeri and Baluchi communities, in an effort to destabilize the country.
Should Iran be America's ally?
The truth would seem to be that policy-makers and opinion formers in the United States are divided over what to do about Iran. Some follow the President's lead in characterizing the Islamic Republic as the leading member of the 'Axis of Evil'. They identify political Shiism backed by Iran as one of America's most dangerous enemies and they fear that Iraq can never be stabilized unless Iran and its Shiite supporters in Iraq are neutralized - a totally impossible task unless the Shiite community is slaughtered en masse!
A radically different point of view, however, is that America's most fearsome opponent is not Shiism but fundamentalist Sunni Islam, as preached and practiced by Osama bin Laden and other Islamic extremists. According to this view, the United States should forge an alliance with Shiite Iran and encourage the emergence in Iraq of a Shiite-dominated government, thereby creating a 'friendly' counterweight to the Sunni-ruled oil states of the Gulf! There have been repeated references in the American press to discreet meetings of U.S. and Iranian representatives in Geneva, suggesting that some sort of dialogue is, in fact, in progress. The policy debate in Washington has rarely been sharper. Following the swift military victory in Iraq, the neo-cons imagined they had gained in influence and routed their critics. Now, however, with Iraq in chaos, terrorism rampant, Sharon unrestrained, and the dollar and the American economy heading lower, the tide is turning once again. The strategic wisdom of the neo-cons is being questioned.
The sensible opinion would seem to be that America will need to show some success in rebuilding Iraq and resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict before it turns its attention to the mullahs in Tehran.
I disagree.
You don't have to be much of a student of history to realize that Iran is at a knife edge. The mullahs have two ways to go:
1. Stick their head in the sand and become more repressive, and more ridiculous. As the current generation gets older they will become less and less tolerant of the regime. Eventually, Iran succumbs to a bloody revolution. This is the worst possible outcome.
2. Realizing where the wind is blowing, and that theocracies inevitably lead to governments that are more immoral then their secular equivalents, the mullahs could take steps to transition from a partial democracy to a full democracy.
The fact is, the chances of #2 happening WITHOUT US pressure is very low. That doesn't mean we should invade, but we should "support a peaceful transition to full democracy".
Posted by: Pierce T. Wetter III at May 23, 2003 09:45 AM