[Peace-discuss] US policy and prospects in the ME

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Here (as an example of what Bob would dismiss unconsidered as
"ideology") is a factual account of the US government's present position
in the Middle East.  It's worthwhile for serious people to consider the
facts, if only because they're entirely covered by fantasies and lies in
American political discourse (as in Obama's speech yesterday).  Compare
this with the candidates' debate and judge for yourself.  --CGE]


In the energy-rich Middle East, only two countries have failed to
subordinate themselves to Washington's basic demands: Iran and Syria.
Accordingly both are enemies, Iran by far the more important.

As was the norm during the Cold War, resort to violence is regularly
justified as a reaction to the malign influence of the main enemy, often
on the flimsiest of pretexts. Unsurprisingly, as Bush sends more troops
to Iraq, tales surface of Iranian interference in the internal affairs
of Iraq -- a country otherwise free from any foreign interference, on
the tacit assumption that Washington rules the world. [Irony alert! --CGE]

In the Cold War-like mentality that prevails in Washington, Tehran is
portrayed as the pinnacle in the so-called Shiite Crescent that
stretches from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, through Shiite southern
Iraq and Syria. And again unsurprisingly, the "surge" in Iraq and
escalation of threats and accusations against Iran is accompanied by
grudging willingness to attend a conference of regional powers, with the
agenda limited to Iraq -- more narrowly, to attaining U.S. goals in Iraq.

Presumably this minimal gesture toward diplomacy is intended to allay
the growing fears and anger elicited by Washington's heightened
aggressiveness, with forces deployed in position to attack Iran and
regular provocations and threats.

For the United States, the primary issue in the Middle East has been and
remains effective control of its unparalleled energy resources. Access
is a secondary matter. Once the oil is on the seas it goes anywhere.
Control is understood to be an instrument of global dominance.

Iranian influence in the "crescent" challenges U.S. control. By an
accident of geography, the world's major oil resources are in largely
Shiite areas of the Middle East: southern Iraq, adjacent regions of
Saudi Arabia and Iran, with some of the major reserves of natural gas as
well. Washington's worst nightmare would be a loose Shiite alliance
controlling most of the world's oil and independent of the United States.

Such a bloc, if it emerges, might even join the Asian Energy Security
Grid and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), based in China. Iran,
which already had observer status, is to be admitted as a member of the
SCO. The Hong Kong South China Morning Post reported in June 2006 that
"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the limelight at the annual
meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) by calling on
the group to unite against other countries as his nation faces criticism
over its nuclear programme." The non-aligned movement meanwhile affirmed
Iran's "inalienable right" to pursue these programs, and the SCO (which
includes the states of Central Asia) "called on the United States to set
a deadline for the withdrawal of military installations from all member
states."

If the Bush planners bring that about, they will have seriously
undermined the U.S. position of power in the world.

To Washington, Tehran's principal offense has been its defiance, going
back to the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and the hostage crisis at the
U.S. embassy. The grim U.S. role in Iran in earlier years is excised
from history. In retribution for Iranian defiance, Washington quickly
turned to support for Saddam Hussein's aggression against Iran, which
left hundreds of thousands dead and the country in ruins. Then came
murderous sanctions, and under Bush, rejection of Iranian diplomatic
efforts in favor of increasing threats of direct attack.

Last July (2006), Israel invaded Lebanon, the fifth invasion since 1978.
As before, U.S. support for the aggression was a critical factor, the
pretexts quickly collapse on inspection, and the consequences for the
people of Lebanon are severe. Among the reasons for the U.S.-Israel
invasion is that Hezbollah's rockets could be a deterrent to a potential
U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.

Despite the saber-rattling, it is, I suspect, unlikely that the Bush
administration will attack Iran. The world is strongly opposed.
Seventy-five percent of Americans favor diplomacy over military threats
against Iran, and as noted earlier, Americans and Iranians largely agree
on nuclear issues. Polls by Terror Free Tomorrow reveal that "Despite a
deep historical enmity between Iran's Persian Shiite population and the
predominantly Sunni population of its ethnically diverse Arab, Turkish
and Pakistani neighbors, the largest percentage of people in these
countries favor accepting a nuclear-armed Iran over any American
military action." It appears that the U.S. military and intelligence
community is also opposed to an attack.

Iran cannot defend itself against U.S. attack, but it can respond in
other ways, among them by inciting even more havoc in Iraq. Some issue
warnings that are far more grave, among them by the respected British
military historian Corelli Barnett, who writes that "an attack on Iran
would effectively launch World War III."  [Cf. the events of August 1914
--CGE]

The Bush administration has left disasters almost everywhere it has
turned, from post-Katrina New Orleans to Iraq. In desperation to salvage
something, the administration might undertake the risk of even greater
disasters.

Meanwhile Washington may be seeking to destabilize Iran from within. The
ethnic mix in Iran is complex; much of the population isn't Persian.
There are secessionist tendencies and it is likely that Washington is
trying to stir them up-in Khuzestan on the Gulf, for example, where
Iran's oil is concentrated, a region that is largely Arab, not Persian.
[I wrote about this last year in "A US War Plan?"
<http://www.counterpunch.org/estabrook02102006.html> --CGE]

Threat escalation also serves to pressure others to join U.S. efforts to
strangle Iran economically, with predictable success in Europe. Another
predictable consequence, presumably intended, is to induce the Iranian
leadership to be as harsh and repressive as possible, fomenting disorder
and perhaps resistance while undermining efforts of courageous Iranian
reformers, who are bitterly protesting Washington's tactics. It is also
necessary to demonize the leadership. In the West, any wild statement of
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, immediately gets circulated in
headlines, dubiously translated. But as is well known, Ahmadinejad has
no control over foreign policy, which is in the hands of his superior,
the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The U.S. media tend to ignore Khamenei's statements, especially if they
are conciliatory. For example, it's widely reported when Ahmadinejad
says that Israel shouldn't exist -- but there is silence when Khamenei
says that Iran "shares a common view with Arab countries on the most
important Islamic-Arabic issue, namely the issue of Palestine," which
would appear to mean that Iran accepts the Arab League position: full
normalization of relations with Israel in terms of the international
consensus on a two-state settlement that the U.S. and Israel continue to
resist, almost alone.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq virtually instructed Iran to develop a nuclear
deterrent. Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld writes that
after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, "had the Iranians not tried to build
nuclear weapons, they would be crazy." The message of the invasion, loud
and clear, was that the U.S. will attack at will, as long as the target
is defenseless. Now Iran is ringed by U.S. military forces in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey and the Persian Gulf and close by are
nuclear-armed Pakistan and particularly Israel, the regional superpower,
thanks to U.S. support.

Iranian efforts to negotiate outstanding issues were rebuffed by
Washington, and an EU-Iranian agreement was apparently undermined by
Washington's refusal to withdraw threats of attack. A genuine interest
in preventing the development of nuclear weapons in Iran -- and the
escalating warlike tension in the region -- would lead Washington to
implement the EU bargain, agree to meaningful negotiations and join with
others to move toward integrating Iran into the international economic
system, in accord with public opinion in the United States, Iran,
neighboring states, and virtually the entire rest of the world.

--from Noam Chomsky, Interventions (2007)

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