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Iran: Terrorists, or Defenders of Shia Islam?

Posted in Iran, Middle East, terrorism on February 24, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in The Herald of Randolph

How many readers remember the old saw that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”? And isn’t that the truth! Well, a senior United States Government official has recently reported that Iran is the greatest supporter of terrorism in the world.

 

As difficult as it is for any American to stomach, that can be viewed in a number of different ways. Ask yourself, “How would I label an American Christian missionary caught in a fight for his life in a country wildly hostile to his Christian beliefs. If he took up the sword and smote someone, would he be a terrorist?”

 

Now take a look at Iran, the leading Shiite nation in a world of Sunnis who clearly would like to eliminate all Shias. In fact, the Pew Center, in a comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries, finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims living in the world today. Of that number, 10-13% or 1.57-2.04 million are Shia and 87-90%, or 1.37 – 1.41 billion are Sunni. There are 9 Sunnis for every Shia on the face of the earth and these are people who are happy to kill each other. Not very good odds if you are a Shia.

 

The Shia are like a gigantic tribe in Islam, but one wildly outnumbered by their main competitor, the Sunnis. Add to that the fact that the Shia are spread out all over Islam, existing in countries that are majority Sunni, and the picture becomes more clear. In the Middle East, the only Shia majority countries are Iran 90-95%, Iraq 65-67%, Azerbaijan 65-75% and Bahrain 65-70%.

 

In Syria, the ruling Shia represent only 17% of the total Syrian Muslim population, in Lebanon they are 30-35%, Yemen 35-40%, India 25-30%, Kuwait 30-35%, Saudi Arabia 10-20%, Turkey 10-15%, Pakistan 10-20%, Afghanistan 10-15%, Qatar 10% Oman, 5-10% and the UAE, 10%.

 

As the country with the largest Shia population, Iran can be viewed as self-appointed protector of the world’s Shia. When the Shia come under Sunni attack as they have in Syria, the Iranians commit whatever is necessary to their defense. There is nothing covert about this support. In fact, Iran has set up an entire governmental structure designed to support any and all Shia groups in the Middle East. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC) plays a preeminent role in the defense of Shia Islam. The IGRC is designed to protect the country’s Shia Islamic system by preventing foreign interference as well as hostile coups. The IGRC is comprised of about 125,00 military personnel which includes ground, naval and air capabilities and in addition, controls roughly 100,000 troops in the Basij paramilitary militia and an additional 2-5000 members of the Quds force, the successor organization to the Shah’s Imperial Guard.

 

Over the past decades, Iranian military and paramilitary assets have been involved, either directly or indirectly in just about every Middle East conflict that involved Shias. The Iraq war, the Lebanese civil war and unrest, the Syrian war, Hizbullah operations against Israel, and support for the Shia Houthi rebels in the Yemen conflict are all concrete examples of Iran assisting fellow Shia Arabs in their conflict with Sunni Arabs.

 

It probably seems convenient for American administrations to refer to these operations as “terrorism” or “terrorist operations”. The term “terrorist” carries with it a connotation that simply would not obtain if American officials were referring to these operations as military or as sectarian, either of which would be far more accurate. But of course, this will not happen because it does not meet the needs of any of our recent administrations, Republican or Democrat. No, on an emotional level and to keep the American populace on the “right track”, we need to label our enemies as “terrorists”.

 

If you are one of those Americans who wants to try to understand what is really happening around the world, you mlght consider the strong possibility that the Shia Iranians see themselves locked into a death struggle with Islam’s Sunnis and that in order to preserve their beliefs, they have to confront the Sunnis any time they or any of their Shia brethren feel threatened. Further, add in the fact that the Iranians, probably rightly, see American involvement in their region as anti-Shia and pro-Sunni and you will probably begin to see the depth of distrust that has existed between Iran and America since we engineered the 1953 Coup.

 

The Sunni-Shia schism has existed since the 7th Century. It doesn’t have much to do with Terrorism, but far more with regional power politics.   Since it is not going away, it’s important that Americans understand the nuances of this divisive situation.

 

 

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A Positive Step with Iran

Posted in foreign policy, Iran, Middle East, United States on December 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in The Rutland Herald and in the Barre Times Argus

Since November 4, 1979, when a group of Iranian students took over the American Embassy in Tehran and held its American employees captive for 444 days, America and Iran have been at total odds.

During those 34 years America and Iran have become increasingly mutually hostile.  A succession of American Presidents has instituted crippling sanctions against Iran. The Ayatollahs have responded in every way possible to make our lives increasingly unpleasant by supporting terrorism in the Middle East.  In short, both sides have done just about everything possible to maintain and even increase that level of hostility.

If you toss into the mix the important remaining countries in the Middle East, the situation becomes even more complicated.

Iran has been one of the dominant powers in the region for literally thousands of years.  With that dominance has come a sense of importance.  The Iranians believe they should be real players in their part of the world.

Iran is the largest Shia country in the Middle East.  As such, they are allied with other Shia elements in the almost 14 centuries old blood feud going on with Islam’s Sunnis. There are large Shia minorities in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, Yemen, Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

The result is that there has been almost perpetual friction and occasional war between Shia and Sunni.

If you translate these realities into today’s world of P5+1 (US, Russia, China, UK, France plus Germany) negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, you will see immediately that there are a number of countries in Iran’s neighborhood who not only would not like to see Iran with the bomb, but would really like to see the country and it’s inhabitants obliterated simply because they are Shia.

Important Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia see Iran as a direct competitor for hegemony in the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East.  Seeing a nuclear Iran as far too powerful a competitor, they would like to have someone (read the USA and/or even Israel) bomb the Iranian nuclear capability into oblivion.

So, the biggest wild cards threatening a successful outcome to these negotiations are the Sunni components in the Middle East and the Israelis who over the past three and a half decades have been constantly threatened by Iran.

In fact, Israel’s Likud Party, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, has pulled out all the negative stops on the ongoing negotiations, telling the world, particularly the US, that the interim deal they have reached is a bad deal, with the clear implication that any negotiated deal at all would be equally bad.  In pursuing this policy they have pushed every pro-Israeli button they could reach, not only here, but also in all the P5+1 countries.

So far, it hasn’t worked as can be seen in the interim agreement just now announced.  Nevertheless, they have not given up.  It is understood that if America or the P5+1 place additional sanctions on Iran, as some American congressmen wish to do, that simple fact will abrogate any agreement.  So, there is still room for Israel to manoeuver to kill this agreement.

Remember, Iran is desperate to end the sanctions.

There is one critical fact must be kept in mind.  If the opponents of this impending peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear problem are successful and Iran proceeds to develop a bomb, then the only alternative policy for the P5+1 is to militarily attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Will the difficult nature of the target require boots on the ground?

First, it has not been proven that Iran even has a nuclear bomb program at this time.  Many western analysts, including many of our own, have agreed on that. In addition, the Ayatollah has issued a fatwa (prohibition) against it.

Second, there is absolutely no guarantee that Iran’s nuclear facilities can be destroyed.  They are largely bunkered far under ground giving them high-level protection.  In addition, their heavy water reactor in Arak, which will produce plutonium useable in atomic weapons, will soon be un-bombable as it’s destruction would widely spread lethal radioactivity.

There is no such thing as a perfect agreement, but this one looks pretty favorable for the US.  The Iranian program will be stopped at a point of our choosing. All of the concessions we have made can be unilaterally reinstated if we feel the Iranians are not keeping their end of the bargain.  Further negotiations will continue with the aim of negotiating away any Iranian ability to create nuclear weapons.

A final thought:  The Iranians are anything but stupid.  The bomb is only valuable if it is not used.  They know that if they were to create and use a bomb, their country would be wiped off the map.

 

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Iran after the Arab Spring

Posted in Iran on March 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

  
Originally published in Rural Ruminations
By Haviland Smith
 

Iran appears outwardly to be a relatively stable Middle East country.  The Ayatollahs, backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, look to be firmly in charge.  The only thing that would appear to challenge that notion of stability are the protests that took place after the 2009-2010 election.

What does the future hold for Iran.  Is it a candidate for democratization or moderation?  For a number of reasons, Iran is worthy of examination in the wake of the Arab Spring

First, despite external appearances, Iran has an extraordinarily pro-western population.  Remember, they are Indo-Europeans, not Arabs.  They have long admired western culture and commerce.  The average Persians on the street have comparatively paltry beefs with America, primarily because, unlike other Middle East countries, they have not seen American troops or weapons on Iranian soil this decade.  They are legitimately angry that in 1953 we engineered the covert overthrow of the only elected government they have ever had and because today’s international sanctions, seen appropriately as American sponsored, severely hurt the man on the street, not the leadership.

On the positive side and whether we like it or not, our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq plus our increased military involvement across the region (Libya and Syria) have greatly benefitted Iran.

Iran sees the Taliban as an enemy, so all our Afghan counterinsurgency operations are of potential benefit to them. However, most important, our ouster of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq has removed Iran’s most powerful and hostile regional enemy and replaced his regime with a pro-Iranian Shia government.

At 636,000 square miles, Iran is the 18th largest country in the world.  It has a population of 75,000,000 of whom two thirds are Persian and two thirds are under thirty-five.  Iran’s rate of literacy is over seventy-five percent and sixty-seven percent of university students are women.  Iran produces one quarter of the world’s oil and is repository for two thirds of the world’s crude oil reserves.  They have all the tickets to be a major player in their region.

In terms of the ongoing impediments to political moderation, Iran is in pretty good shape.  Over ninety percent of Iranians are Shia, while less than ten percent are Sunni.  In terms of nationalities, two thirds are Persian with the largest minority found in Azerbaijanis at sixteen percent.  As Aryans (non-Arabs), tribes play a far lesser role than they do in most of the rest of the Middle East.  Thus, the pressures and divisive problems created by Nationalism, Sectarianism and Tribalism are greatly reduced.

In any examination of discussion of Iran it is extremely important to know some Iranian/Persian history.  Settlements in Iran date to 7,000 BC.  The first Persian kingdom existed in the third century BC and around 500 BC, the Persian Empire stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River.  It was the greatest empire of its time and made major contributions to Art and Science.

This kind of history affects peoples’ attitudes.  Iranians have a real sense of who they are.  They are educated, thoughtful, smart, clever and nationalistic and have a very good understanding of how the world works.

Why would the Iranians want to develop nuclear weapons, if, in fact, that is what they are doing?  Largely because ownership of the bomb would be a virtual guarantee that they would not be attacked by any conceivable enemy.  Iranians want the bomb simply because having it, as opposed to using it, is power incarnate.

Additionally, they almost certainly believe that the bomb will bring them the respect they feel is due them as a power in the region. In that context they have everything else they need to gain that respect and influence.

Iran was a player in the Cold War and understands how the West dealt with the Soviet threat. The Iranians understand MAD. They know that if they were to acquire the bomb, any use they might make of it — say, against Israel or some other American friend in the region — would result in the obliteration of their country.

In short, like all today’s members of the nuclear club, they know that the bomb is useful only as a threat. It is essentially useless as a weapon because its use leads inevitably to self-annihilation.

All of that aside, the best reason America has to forget an attack on Iran and undertake a dialog with them is that only an attack by America, with or without Israel, can unite the population behind the regime.  Absent that, they will always represent festering potential trouble for the Ayatollahs.

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Iran after the Arab Spring

Posted in Afghanistan, foreign policy, Iran, Middle East, Syria, United States on March 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 
Originally published in Rural Ruminations
 

Iran appears outwardly to be a relatively stable Middle East country.  The Ayatollahs, backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, look to be firmly in charge.  The only thing that would appear to challenge that notion of stability are the protests that took place after the 2009-2010 election.

What does the future hold for Iran.  Is it a candidate for democratization or moderation?  For a number of reasons, Iran is worthy of examination in the wake of the Arab Spring

First, despite external appearances, Iran has an extraordinarily pro-western population.  Remember, they are Indo-Europeans, not Arabs.  They have long admired western culture and commerce.  The average Persians on the street have comparatively paltry beefs with America, primarily because, unlike other Middle East countries, they have not seen American troops or weapons on Iranian soil this decade.  They are legitimately angry that in 1953 we engineered the covert overthrow of the only elected government they have ever had and because today’s international sanctions, seen appropriately as American sponsored, severely hurt the man on the street, not the leadership.

On the positive side and whether we like it or not, our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq plus our increased military involvement across the region (Libya and Syria) have greatly benefitted Iran.

Iran sees the Taliban as an enemy, so all our Afghan counterinsurgency operations are of potential benefit to them. However, most important, our ouster of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq has removed Iran’s most powerful and hostile regional enemy and replaced his regime with a pro-Iranian Shia government.

At 636,000 square miles, Iran is the 18th largest country in the world.  It has a population of 75,000,000 of whom two thirds are Persian and two thirds are under thirty-five.  Iran’s rate of literacy is over seventy-five percent and sixty-seven percent of university students are women.  Iran produces one quarter of the world’s oil and is repository for two thirds of the world’s crude oil reserves.  They have all the tickets to be a major player in their region.

In terms of the ongoing impediments to political moderation, Iran is in pretty good shape.  Over ninety percent of Iranians are Shia, while less than ten percent are Sunni.  In terms of nationalities, two thirds are Persian with the largest minority found in Azerbaijanis at sixteen percent.  As Aryans (non-Arabs), tribes play a far lesser role than they do in most of the rest of the Middle East.  Thus, the pressures and divisive problems created by Nationalism, Sectarianism and Tribalism are greatly reduced.

In any examination of discussion of Iran it is extremely important to know some Iranian/Persian history.  Settlements in Iran date to 7,000 BC.  The first Persian kingdom existed in the third century BC and around 500 BC, the Persian Empire stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River.  It was the greatest empire of its time and made major contributions to Art and Science.

This kind of history affects peoples’ attitudes.  Iranians have a real sense of who they are.  They are educated, thoughtful, smart, clever and nationalistic and have a very good understanding of how the world works.

Why would the Iranians want to develop nuclear weapons, if, in fact, that is what they are doing?  Largely because ownership of the bomb would be a virtual guarantee that they would not be attacked by any conceivable enemy.  Iranians want the bomb simply because having it, as opposed to using it, is power incarnate.

Additionally, they almost certainly believe that the bomb will bring them the respect they feel is due them as a power in the region. In that context they have everything else they need to gain that respect and influence.

Iran was a player in the Cold War and understands how the West dealt with the Soviet threat. The Iranians understand MAD. They know that if they were to acquire the bomb, any use they might make of it — say, against Israel or some other American friend in the region — would result in the obliteration of their country.

In short, like all today’s members of the nuclear club, they know that the bomb is useful only as a threat. It is essentially useless as a weapon because its use leads inevitably to self-annihilation.

All of that aside, the best reason America has to forget an attack on Iran and undertake a dialog with them is that only an attack by America, with or without Israel, can unite the population behind the regime.  Absent that, they will always represent festering potential trouble for the Ayatollahs.

 

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Best We Can Hope for

Posted in foreign policy, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, United States on March 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in the Rutland Herald and the Barre Times-Argus

When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq in 2003, a course of action was started that has left the United States virtually without influence today in that important “country”.

The probable intention of the Bush administration, heavily influenced as it was by the neoconservatives who populated it, was to create an Arab democracy which could be emulated by other Arab nations. That would create and encourage a democracy-dominated environment that would make the region safer for Israel.

What the Bush Administration either was too ill-informed to know, or refused to acknowledge was that Iraq was the absolute least likely candidate in the Middle East for the installation of democracy.  Sad to say, Iraq contains in superabundance, all those elements that make democracy problematic:  Nationalism, Sectarianism and Tribalism.

Iraq, a “country” of 31 million people, is composed of around 75% Arab, 20% Kurd and 5% Assyrian, Turkoman and others.  It is important to note that Iraq’s better than half million Kurds are a part of an overall Kurdish regional population of 30 million, giving them a non-Arab support base outside Iraq.   They are “not alone”.  Their geographic location next to large Kurdish populations in Turkey, Syria and Iran is important as it gives them regional national allies and a sense of belonging not shared by other national minorities in the region.

Iraq remains a strongly tribal state.  When law and order break down, as it has in Iraq today, and populations increasingly fear for their safety and well-being, people tend to return to their most basic social units, the groups from which they stem and with which they feel safe.

Of the roughly 150 tribes in Iraq, two dozen dominate.  Most of the tribes and their subordinate clans and families are grouped into tribal federations.  Even though tribalism generally has been discouraged since the Baath Party came to power in 1968, it was often encouraged during the war with Iran in the belief that it helped hold the Iraqi people together against a common enemy.

The greatest problem that today’s Iraq has to face is Sectarianism.  Muslims comprise about 97% of Iraq’s population.  Those Muslims are roughly 65% Shia and 35% Sunni.  The remaining 3% of the population contains a smattering of “Christians and others”.  Repressive foreign and native rule over the past 14 centuries has been the only thing that has prevented the Shia and Sunnis from killing each other.  Absent that coercion, as we see today, the killing is almost incessant.

The Baath Party, a Sunni organization, ruled Iraq from its coup in 1968 until the 2003 American invasion.  It is interesting to note that during that entire period, many Sunnis really believed that they represented a majority of the Iraqi people.  Such Iraqi Sunnis have been amazed to hear and often unwilling to believe that the real majority is the Shia population, clinging to the premise that they are the rightful rulers of Iraq.

Iraq is rich in oil.  There are oilfields in Shia southeastern Iraq and in Kurdish northeastern Iraq, leaving the Sunnis with mostly desert.  Oil ownership is one of the major issues involved in today’s negotiations between the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds.  When you think of Iraq, its ongoing sectarian violence and its prospects for the future, remember that the Sunnis who once had all the power and all the resources, now have a large patch of sand.  Unsurprisingly, they are said to be running death squads against the Shia with sharply increasing regularity.

Iraq is now trying to negotiate its way into stability.  Unfortunately, the Shia under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki are playing real hardball.  It is clear that after decades of political, economic and physical mistreatment by the Sunnis, they have little interest in compromise or fairness.  Add to that the meddling of Shia Iran in Iraqi affairs at the expense of Sunnis and Kurds and prospects become more bleak.

And while the realities of Sectarian conflicts persist, Iraq bubbles along with periodic acts of sectarian and nationalist violence and terrorism while apparently trying to create conditions that will permit Iraq to remain on the scene as a cohesive “country”.

Unfortunately, this goal seems unlikely at best.  The Kurdish-Arab differences are bad enough, but when added to the Sunni-Shia rivalry and their propensity toward violence, the only logical, peaceful end in sight is the division of Iraq into its component parts.

We could very well see Kurdish, Shia and Sunni “countries” evolve out of today’s Iraq.  However, with the possible exception of the Kurds, there is nothing in Iraqi history or culture that could lead a rational observer to hope for democracy there.  Moderate Islam is about the best we can hope for, a new dictatorship, the worst.

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Bahrain is a Gulf Powder Keg

Posted in foreign policy, Gulf, Iran, Middle East, United States on February 24, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in the Rutland Herald and the Barre Times-Argus

 

Bahrain is comprised of a group of islands located near the Western shore of the Persian Gulf. Given its physical location and local political reality, Bahrain has been ruled primarily by successive Persian empires since well before the birth of Christ.

What makes Bahrain different from all of its Persian Gulf neighbors is the fact that it is home to US Naval Forces Central Command and the US Fifth Fleet at Naval Support Activity Bahrain (NSA Bahrain).   Initially begun as a modest support activity to the smallish US Naval presence in the Gulf when the British left Bahrain in 1971, it is currently undergoing over a half billion dollar expansion which will double its current 62 acres and seriously upgrade its security and its ability to support Fifth Fleet Gulf operations.

The Fifth Fleet normally consists of around 20 ships, with about 1,000 people ashore and 15,000 afloat.  It usually contains a Carrier Battle Group, an Amphibious Ready Group, combat aircraft, and other support units and ships.

NSA Bahrain is designed to play a major support role in all naval operational activities in the Gulf, particularly in tactical air support of ground operations in Syria, Iran or elsewhere, should America decide to become militarily further involved in the Middle East.

Bahrain became independent of England in 1971.  Geographically situated as it is, 120 miles due south of Shia Iran, there is small wonder that Sectarian issues exist because the Muslim share which is about 82% of the population, is comprised of 70% Shia and 30% Sunni.

Nationally, they are even more diverse.  In an overall population 1.2 million, Bahrainis are in the minority at 46%, with 54% non-native, primarily Sunnis.  Of those non-natives, “other Arabs” comprise 5.4%, Africans 1.6%, Asians 45.6%, Americans 0.4%, and Europeans 1.0%.  From these facts, it is clear that the labor demands of the nation far exceed the available workers.

The Al Khalifa royal family has ruled Bahrain since the late 18th century.  Virtually all important government jobs are held by members of that royal Sunni family, specifically and importantly including all the security and police organs.  It is widely charged in Bahrain that many if not most of those forces are non-native mercenaries.

Significant civil protests begin in Bahrain on February 14, 2011, with Bahrainis calling for greater political freedom and fairer treatment of the majority Shia population by the minority Sunni government. The government reacted swiftly, repressively and brutally to what were essentially peaceful demonstration.  Security forces killed and wounded indiscriminately during these early protest marches, demonstrations and funerals, and arrested thousands of Bahrainis.

These early protests cooled a bit when an investigative body, the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, sanctioned by the government, confirmed the Bahraini government’s use of systematic torture and other forms of physical and psychological abuse on detainees, as well as other human rights violations.

Since that time, Bahrain has been in a state of sustained civil resistance and disobedience, most recently over the death of a protestor, and more protests are expected for the imminent second anniversary of the 2011 uprising. This has left the country in a state of turmoil for over two years despite the beginning of talks between Shia and Sunnis designed to find a way out of the various demands being made against the Bahrain government.

Bahrain has all the ingredients that foster insecurity in the Middle East.  Most important among those is the fact that Bahrain is ruled by a minority Sunni Government under the nose of Shia Iran.  The potential for Iran to make mischief is almost limitless in Bahrain, particularly given the presence there of the US Fifth Fleet.

Further, where tribalism does exist, it is almost overridden by the large numbers of foreigners who live and work for the relatively high wages available in Bahrain.  Those foreigners represent an additional wild card in the event of greater turmoil in Bahrain.

Most important, Bahrain is the home away from home for the US Fifth Fleet which does all its bunkering and support work at NSA Bahrain.  The Fifth Fleet would carry a critical load in any further hostilities in the region. Because any such hostilities are likely to be based on sectarian issues, the fact that half the Bahrain population is Shia, politically discontent and religiously aligned with and friendly to Iran, could create enormous security problems for the Fifth Fleet.

 

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Letting Iran Go Nuclear Might Be Best

Posted in foreign policy, Iran, Middle East, Uncategorized on July 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

First Published in the Valley News
Foreign Affairs Magazine has recently published an article arguing
that Iran should get the bomb. This is, to say the least, a
revolutionary and provocative statement. Nevertheless, it is worth
serious examination.
No one really knows Iran’s nuclear intentions. For the sake of the
discussion, however, let’s assume a worst-case scenario — that it really
is intent on getting the bomb.
Figuring out the best way the U.S. should respond is quite a challenge.
For starters, the country is now sharply divided on virtually every
contentious foreign policy issue, at least at the political fringes of
right and left. On the left, we have a vast array of Democrats who
simply are unprepared to consider that additional military action in the
Middle East makes any sense under any conditions. The right appears to
favor military action in Syria and Iran.
Further, AIPAC, the dominant pro-Israel lobbying organization, has
proudly reported that 32 senators from both parties have said that they
would reject “any United States policy that would rely on efforts to
contain a nuclear weapons-capable Iran.” This underlines the Israeli
position that it will not accept Iranian possession of nuclear weapons.
It also supports the assessment that Israel really wants to attack
Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Yet, aggressive military action by us or Israel, which our experts say
can at best only briefly slow down an Iranian quest for these weapons,
is the only thing that will unite a viscerally pro-Western Iranian
population against us and create massive problems for us in the Middle East.
Are there any good foreign policy options regarding Iran?
During the Cold War, we managed a highly competitive, tense,
nuclear-armed world with a policy called “nuclear deterrence.” Nuclear
deterrence was the doctrine that assumed that an enemy would be deterred
from using nuclear weapons as long as it recognized that it would be
destroyed as a consequence. In other words, the threat of nuclear
annihilation as a response to the use of nuclear weapons was sufficient
to keep all parties from using those weapons. Everyone with nuclear
weapons in the Cold War knew the facts. Those weapons were never used.
There are two critical issues involved in this doctrine of nuclear
deterrence. First, all concerned have to realize that nuclear weapons
are a powerful tool only as long as they are not used. For once they are
used, deterrence is irrelevant and the combatants are literally consumed
by their own stupidity.
And that brings the second critical point. Despite their incredibly
contrasting sets of values and interests, the Soviet Union and its
allies and the U.S. and its allies were not stupid enough to use the
bomb. If they had, most of us would not be here today.
And there’s the hooker. Those who cannot abide the notion of nuclear
deterrence as the foundation of our Iran policy say that the Iranians
would use the bomb, probably against Israel. Of course, what they are
implying is that the Iranians are a bunch of know-nothing rag heads,
prone to self-destruction.
How far from the truth can that be? The ancient Persians — the forbears
of modern-day Iranians — were in the process of working out a viable
alphabet when Europe’s ancestors were scuttling about in their caves
dressed in bearskins. Organized communities first existed in Iran around
8,000 B.C. The first Persian kingdom began around 2800 BC. Those
Persians ruled from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River until about
the sixth century B.C. It was the first great kingdom to exist in the
world and was certainly the greatest empire of its time.
The Persian cultural contribution to the world has ranged from art
through architecture, music, technology (underground aqueducts; some
close to 3,000 years old, some 1,000 feet deep and some dozens of miles
long) and science to literature.
Modern-day Persians are educated (77 percent literate), nationalistic
and anything but stupid. Despite the stupidly ugly rhetoric employed by
some of their political leaders since 1979, they are anything but the
wild-eyed fanatics that some in the West portray them to be. They are in
no way suicidal. They have the requisite characteristics to participate
successfully in “nuclear deterrence.”
Purely objectively, Persia is smart enough to avoid self-destruction and
enough aware of its history to believe it has a major role to play in
the Middle East. With Iran possessing a land mass of over 630,000 square
miles, a military establishment over 500,000, an educated population of
over 75 million, two-thirds of the world’s crude oil reserve and
potential control over the Arabian Gulf, it is time we recognized that
Iran has a role to play in its region and that we can help that role to
be either positive or negative.
There is no reason to believe that Iran will not respond positively to
respectful negotiations. They are worthy candidates for “nuclear
deterrence.”
In many ways, Iran’s future is really up to us.
 
 

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Iran Revisited

Posted in foreign policy, Iran, Middle East, Military Polilcy, United States on May 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in The Herald of Randolph

Let’s stop kidding ourselves.  If America attacks Iran or can legitimately be accused of approving such an attack by Israel, the results will be a disaster for us.  Even if Israel goes ahead with such an attack without our approval, the world will be in deep trouble.

It is an unfortunate fact that in matters like this, US foreign policy is normally made on the basis of the domestic political needs and objectives of the party in power.  What that means today is that the Democrats probably believe that it would be political suicide in the face of the upcoming national elections to do anything that would appear to be contrary to the Israeli government’s needs or wishes.

That reality has given the Republicans conservatives the opportunity to attack the Democrats if they do not take on Iran, either through Israel or unilaterally.  In fact, the war cries from the far right are increasingly strident.

Yet, in Israel, relative calm and prudence remain.

Current and former Israeli military and intelligence chiefs continue to maintain that they do not support a strike on Iran and that Iran is not an existential threat to Israel.

A recent Tel Aviv University poll found that 62.9 percent of Israelis strongly or moderately oppose Unilateral Israeli attack on Iran.  That same poll found that 70% of Israelis believe such an attack would be ineffective in “stopping Iran’s nuclearization for a substantial time”.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and the US intelligence Community have both said that Iran has not yet decided whether or not to build a bomb.  In addition, Michael Hayden, the former CIA Director said recently that the CIA under President Bush II determined that an attack on Iran was a bad idea and strongly advised against such an attack today.

Further, American intelligence and military estimates say that at best an air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would only delay their nuclear program and could “carry unforeseen risks”.

Consensus in the US intelligence and military communities, including former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates concludes that damage would not be great and that Iran would rebuild. “The regime’s resolve to build a weapon, if it so chooses, may only be hardened” and that “If Iran did attempt to restart its nuclear program after an attack, it would be much more difficult for the United States to stop it.”

The more practical military question is whether or not either the US or Israel actually has the weapons needed to have any real impact on the Iraqi nuclear program.  Largely as a result of perceived threats from the United States and Israel, Iran long ago decided the put that program as far out of reach as possible.  That decision lead to burying the program far under ground in locations that are extremely difficult to attack.  That fact makes the construction of an effective weapon technically difficult and requires extraordinary precision in delivery and aim.  It is unclear whether either of these criteria can be met and whether there is any hope of materially damaging the Iranian program.

What would a post-attack world look like? The first danger would be to all US military and civilian personnel and interests in the Middle East.  Acting through Shia allies throughout the region, as well as Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran would certainly move to make our lives as untenable as possible.  In addition, they would likely close the Straits of Hormuz, shutting down the movement of one fifth of the world’s crude oil to its western markets and creating western economic chaos

In the longer term, an attack on Iran, whether by Israel, the US, or both, is about the only thing that can unite the essentially pro-Western, anti-regime population in Iran against us.  That bodes really ill for the future.  Along with that would come the virtual guarantee that Iran, irrespective of what we think they are doing, or not doing today, will undertake a nuclear weapons program in the future.

There certainly doesn’t seem too much in it for the United States in an attack on Iran.  In fact, it looks like a disaster waiting to happen.  In return for an attack of highly dubious efficacy, we get in return Iranian and Iranian-sponsored attacks on us and our interests, international economic instability and regional chaos.  And we would be a part of this without conclusive proof that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon?

When does America get to define her own national interests?


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Whatever happened to talking about a war before launching it?

Posted in Afghanistan, foreign policy, Iran, Iraq, Military Polilcy, United States on March 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in Harvard’s Nieman Watchdog

Over the past dozen years, the United States has spent vast amounts of its human treasure and national resources on a series of foreign interventions.  We have now been involved in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, with Syria and Iran and Central Africa representing candidates for the immediate future.

All of this has been and will be done without declarations of war, over the supine body of our Congress, without the agreement of the majority of the American people and without real scrutiny from the press. We have become a nation of onlookers.

In the United States, Congress has the power under the constitution to “declare war”. However neither the US Constitution, nor the law, tell us what format a declaration of war must take.  The last time Congress passed joint resolutions saying that a “state of war” existed was on June 5, 1942, when the U.S. declared war on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania Since then, the U.S. has used the term “authorization to use military force”, as in the case against Iraq in 2003.

For a variety of reasons, all of which are based on local historical, tribal, ethnic and national realities, our adventures in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are not turning out as we might have wished.  Despite early warnings from our governmental and academic experts on those areas, it seems clear that any hopes we had for bettering the situations that existed there are likely to fail.  In fact, our military involvement in the region has lead to instability in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, as it almost certainly will if we succumb to local and international pressures to become involved in Syria and Iran.  And now we are told we should become militarily involved in Central Africa.

This is all well and good, but one key ingredient is missing.  We have never had a national discussion about the efficacy of American military intervention abroad.  We have seen two Presidents act in ways that made Congress disposed to support them without intelligent discussion of the activities proposed.

Over the past year, two thirds of Americans have been polled as opposed to our activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Americans are now faced with the specific prospect of military activity in Syria and Iran and with further future interventions around the world, it is time for America to have this discussion.

First, we need to discuss whether or not we want to conduct such operations at all.  If so, should we act independently of the UN and international coalitions, as stipulated, or unilaterally as many of our hawks and neocons would wish?

We need to have a discussion that defines the specific intervention problem and its solution.  We need to know the precise goal of the intervention, how long it will last and what the likely response to our intervention will be.

Then we need to and how it will be funded.  Are there to be more unfunded interventions like Iraq and Afghanistan at a time when we are already in deep economic trouble resulting from our past interventionist adventures?

Additionally, we need to be reassured that if the intervention involves terrorism, our approach will be limited to police and intelligence work.  We have learned far too much from Iraq and Afghanistan to again involve our military establishment in counterterrorism operations.

If we learn that an insurgency is involved, we need to know how our government plans to avoid subsequent nation building and the export of democracy.  Again, Iraq and Afghanistan provide the wholly negative lesson for us here.

Finally, we must determine whether or not any proposed intervention is in our true national interest and we need to do that in the absence of foreign pressures.

The only way we will learn the answers to these critical questions is through a national discussion of any proposed future intervention.  Our Government isn’t holding such a debate except for a little squawking by individuals now and then.  The media should and could do so, with one or more news organizations making it a front-burner item, interviewing experts and political leaders and staying on the subject.

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In Search of an American Intervention Policy

Posted in Afghanistan, foreign policy, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, United States on March 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »


What Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us and what Syria and Iran can teach us further is that American needs to have a robust debate on if, why, where and when we should be involved in future foreign interventions.

In 2001, solely as a result of the events of 9/11, the United States invaded Afghanistan.  There were some Americans who spoke out against that invasion, largely on moral grounds, but in the main, we understood why we were doing it and agreed with that invasion.

In the longer run, as is now becoming painfully clear to the average American, absent repressive governance, the bitterly tribal Afghanis are so resistant to any central government that they are unlikely to achieve any kind of unity.  The likely result is instability.

When we had wiped out Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, we shifted our aim to Iraq and for reasons still largely unknown to the American people, we invaded there.  In our rationale for that invasion, we painted Iraq as “a regime that developed and used weapons of mass destruction, that harbored and supported terrorists, committed outrageous human rights abuses, and defied the just demands of the United Nations and the world”.

None of those reasons passed muster with us.

Although most of our governmental and academic experts on the region said that would not work, the Bush administration implemented the plan.  Since then, we have seen no sign of ultimate success.  Sectarian and national differences within that country make unity illusory, as many experts told us in 2003.  How can we expect Sunni, Shia, Arab and Kurd to get together when they have never previously done so except when coerced?  The likely result is instability.

Our next Middle East adventure was in Libya where we became involved primarily with air support for the anti-Ghaddafi rebels.  In the case of Libya, we were ultimately “successful” in that the rebels did bring about the demise of Ghaddafi.  In the longer run, we are seeing the effect of centuries-old tribal realities – about 150 of them – which split the country and make non-coercive, central government extremely difficult, if not impossible.  The likely result is instability.

Now, the pressure is on here at home for us to “do something” in Syria.  “Do something” apparently ranges in the minds of Americans from Invasion, through air support, to the creation of “safe zones”, but the fact is that we really don’t know what to do.

In Syria sectarianism is at work.  It is a country ruled by a 12% minority Shiite government of Alawites, over the the 74% majority Sunnis.  Since its beginnings in 1963, it has not been a happy arrangement.  The people don’t like either the Baath Party or the Assad family.  Unfortunately, that’s about all they have in common.  There is no indication that those rebellious Syrians have anything much in common when it comes to what sort of post-Assad, post-Alawite government they would support.  Given the extent of anger on both sides, it is probably safe to assume that the losers in this ongoing

struggle will exit Syria in coffins.  There seems to be little hope for a triumph of either reason or humanity.  The likely result is instability.

And finally, let’s move on to Iran where American pro-war activists and the Israeli government are clambering for the invasion of a country which has not yet decided, according to the US and Israeli governments, whether or not to build nuclear weapons, where the Supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has referred to nuclear weapons as a sin and where, in 2005, he issued a fatwa forbidding their production, stockpiling and use.

Given the other salient realities of Iran and their unquestioned ability to harm our interests in the region, one has to wonder why we are so intent on an attack. In addition, there are current Iranian overtures for talks and the fact remains that any attack on Iran will be the only event that will unite the fractious and unhappy Iranians under its current leaders, which is certainly not in our interest.

The real issue here is whether or not Americans want to be involved in such activities at all and if we do, how will we decide where to intervene?  Is it in our national interest?  Should we involve ourselves in Syria, Iraq, or, as President Obama seems to wish, in Central Africa?

The American people have never had that discussion.  With a war-weary population and before we rush off to some new “worthy” intervention, the discussion simply has to take place.

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