[Peace-discuss] Why the USG threatens Iran

[Chuck Minne]

Here's some demonizing and escalation of accusations in today's NG.
   
  

"C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
  A predator becomes more dangerous when wounded
Washington's escalation of threats against Iran
is driven by a determination to secure control
of the region's energy resources

Noam Chomsky
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian

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.

In the cold war-like mentality in Washington, Tehran is portrayed as the 
pinnacle in the so-called Shia crescent that stretches from Iran to 
Hizbullah in Lebanon, through Shia 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.

Presumably this minimal gesture toward diplomacy is intended to allay 
the growing fears and anger elicited by Washington's heightened 
aggressiveness. These concerns are given new substance in a detailed 
study of "the Iraq effect" by terrorism experts Peter Bergen and Paul 
Cruickshank, revealing that the Iraq war "has increased terrorism 
sevenfold worldwide". An "Iran effect" could be even more severe.

For the US, 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 US control. By an accident of geography, 
the world's major oil resources are in largely Shia 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 Shia alliance controlling most of the world's 
oil and independent of the US.

Such a bloc, if it emerges, might even join the Asian Energy Security 
Grid based in China. Iran could be a lynchpin. If the Bush planners 
bring that about, they will have seriously undermined the US position of 
power in the world.

To Washington, Tehran's principal offence has been its defiance, going 
back to the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and the hostage crisis at the 
US embassy. In retribution, Washington turned to support Saddam 
Hussein's aggression against Iran, which left hundreds of thousands 
dead. Then came murderous sanctions and, under Bush, rejection of 
Iranian diplomatic efforts.

Last July, Israel invaded Lebanon, the fifth invasion since 1978. As 
before, US support 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 US-Israel invasion is that Hizbullah's 
rockets could be a deterrent to a US-Israeli attack on Iran. Despite the 
sabre-rattling it is, I suspect, unlikely that the Bush administration 
will attack Iran. Public opinion in the US and around the world is 
overwhelmingly opposed. It appears that the US military and intelligence 
community is also opposed. Iran cannot defend itself against US 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 the 
British military historian Corelli Barnett, who writes that "an attack 
on Iran would effectively launch world war three".

Then again, a predator becomes even more dangerous, and less 
predictable, when wounded. In desperation to salvage something, the 
administration might risk even greater disasters. The Bush 
administration has created an unimaginable catastrophe in Iraq. It has 
been unable to establish a reliable client state within, and cannot 
withdraw without facing the possible loss of control of the Middle 
East's energy resources.

Meanwhile Washington may be seeking to destabilise 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.

Threat escalation also serves to pressure others to join US efforts to 
strangle Iran economically, with predictable success in Europe. Another 
predictable consequence, presumably intended, is to induce the Iranian 
leadership to be as repressive as possible, fomenting disorder while 
undermining reformers.

It is also necessary to demonise the leadership. In the west, any wild 
statement by President Ahmadinejad is circulated in headlines, dubiously 
translated. But Ahmadinejad has no control over foreign policy, which is 
in the hands of his superior, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 
The US media tend to ignore Khamenei's statements, especially if they 
are conciliatory. It's widely reported when Ahmadinejad says Israel 
shouldn't exist - but there is silence when Khamenei says that Iran 
supports the Arab League position on Israel-Palestine, calling for 
normalisation of relations with Israel if it accepts the international 
consensus of a two-state settlement.

The US invasion of Iraq virtually instructed Iran to develop a nuclear 
deterrent. The message was that the US attacks at will, as long as the 
target is defenceless. Now Iran is ringed by US forces in Afghanistan, 
Iraq, Turkey and the Persian Gulf, and close by are nuclear-armed 
Pakistan and Israel, the regional superpower, thanks to US support.

In 2003, Iran offered negotiations on all outstanding issues, including 
nuclear policies and Israel-Palestine relations. Washington's response 
was to censure the Swiss diplomat who brought the offer. The following 
year, the EU and Iran reached an agreement that Iran would suspend 
enriching uranium; in return the EU would provide "firm guarantees on 
security issues" - code for US-Israeli threats to bomb Iran.

Apparently under US pressure, Europe did not live up to the bargain. 
Iran then resumed uranium enrichment. A genuine interest in preventing 
the development of nuclear weapons in Iran 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.

© Noam Chomsky, New York Times Syndicate
· Noam Chomsky is co-author, with Gilbert Achcar, of Perilous Power: The 
Middle East and US Foreign Policy
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