BEIRUT — Regardless of whether the United States’ current military surge and slight shift in tactics in Iraq succeeds or fails, Washington has clearly defined and started to implement its fallback plan in the Middle East: an across-the-board, active battle against Iran. The United States has unleashed or unsheathed all available military, diplomatic, economic, proxy, clandestine, and rhetorical means to hold the line against Tehran’s growing power in the region.
This is what is called a “full court press” in basketball strategy, where you aggressively harass and push against the opponent at all points on the court, hoping to slow down his momentum and fluster him into making mistakes. I have experienced the thrill of a full court press, but also recognize it as a desperate tactic, used when all else fails, and enjoying very mixed chances of success.
This is an understandable Middle Eastern strategy on Washington’s part, given its recent history of panic, mistakes, and its pro-Israeli-driven policy. Yet actively confronting Iran and its allies is another reckless throw of the dice, engineered by fading Neo-conservatives in Washington, who have transformed our region from an arena of traditional big power strategic confrontations to an ideological casino where a single superpower rolls the dice every few years — testing out half-baked new theories based on wild assumptions, a largely failed track record, and highly unpredictable odds. America’s Neo-con romantics were trouble enough for the Middle East; desperate, back-to-the-wall gamblers wagering on our future well-being are infinitely worse, and much more insulting.
Iran’s growing influence throughout the Middle East is due to several historical factors, most of which are beyond the control of Washington. They include:
• The end of the Cold War;
• Iran’s size, resources, and activist ideology;
• The overthrow of the Baathist regime in Iraq and the rise to power there of Iran-friendly Iraqi Shiite groups;
• The collective diplomatic incoherence of the Arab world;
• Over 5000 years of steady growth of Iranian nationalism, identity, and state power; and,
• the continuing self-assertion of Arab Shiites throughout the region who tend to have good relations with fellow Shiites in Iran.
Sounds to me like a natural regional power that one should coexist with on the basis of shared rules, rather than mutual threats.
Washington’s designation of Iran as a troublemaker and danger to the United States, Israel, and Arab states is couched in the usual American combination of vague threats, dismissive assumptions, unproven accusations and cartoon-like bad-guy denigration.
The charges against Iran disturbingly mirror those in 2002-03 against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. One hopes that the Democrats, the Congress as a whole, and especially the American mass media and religious institutions would not roll over and play dead this time around, but instead demand from the Bush administration credible evidence against Iran, especially if any military action is planned.
Solid, proven evidence would trigger legitimate responses to Iran, and much of the world would probably join in — but only if real proof were presented, rather than Bush’s pre-millennialist ideologo-babble anchored in Israeli penchants for attack and post-9/11 sustained American anger and confusion. We don’t need more of these ugly policy drivers that sent the United States into a criminal, destructive mess in Iraq, and helped push the Middle East to its current state of spreading national fragmentation, political polarization, power contestation and social explosion.
The United States should be awarded a Cosmic Prize for Chutzpah and Chicanery for charging Iran with meddling in Iraq and threatening American lives when the United States invaded Iraq, removed the former state structure, killed tens of thousands of people, unleashed ethnic-religious discord there, and allowed Iran to emerge effortlessly as the dominant regional power. What does the Bush administration take us for, simpletons and idiots? Are all the people of this region supposed only to silently applaud American military aggression, diplomatic adventurism, and Frankenstein-like national experiments with Arab dummies? No wonder that huge majorities of Middle Easterners criticize American policies, and even feel threatened by them.
If we are asked to assault Iran mainly in order to comply with American and Israeli hysteria, the likely response from most quarters in the Arab world, Iran, Turkey and others nearby will be to resist and defy the United States and Israel, and also to fight them when possible, politically or militarily. This is the stage we are at now, as much of public opinion in the region rejects the American-Israeli position, while many Arab governments seek protection under Washington’s wing.
This is a recipe for continued violence and instability throughout the region. We should not play stupid and act surprised by the further collapse of regimes, states and societies in the years ahead. This will occur if current trends persist, in the context of an overarching American-Iranian face-off that includes battles among local proxies, as we witness now in Lebanon and Palestine.
Rami G. Khouri is an internationally syndicated columnist, the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.
Copyright ©2007 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 02 February 2007
Word Count: 808
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