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Ehsan Ahrari responds to readers

Asia Times Online published three letters on August 23 about Ehsan Ahrari's August 21 article Iran: The babble and the bomb. Dr Ahrari here responds to all three.

Bach McClure: I am not sure what you mean by "what will happen if the US and/or Israel do attack Iran". My short response is nothing is likely to happen. There is not likely to be a major war as a result of that. Iran would issue strident criticism, and so would Arab states, even though in the case of the latter, I am not sure whether their criticism of a preemptive action against Iranian nuclear facilities would be entirely genuine.

The unipolar system - by which I mean a system where the United States remains a dominant power in the realms of military and economic power - has created an environment where the lone superpower and its cohort (in this instance Israel) would pretty much determine what is in their best interest and would take whatever action they deem necessary. Iran knows that. That might be one reason it is cooperating with the European Union Three (EU-3: France, Germany and the United Kingdom), but still keeping some semblance of independence by insisting that it will continue to process highly enriched uranium.

My guess is that the US is at the end of its pursuit of a diplomatic solution of Iran's nuclear-weapons option. One deft option for the United States is to let Israel do its dirty work by launching a preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that were to happen even before the forthcoming US presidential elections. The chief reason for taking any preemptive action against Iran is that Washington does not want to keep waiting and find out in the near future that Iran has indeed developed nuclear weapons a la North Korea.

Regarding China's takeover of Taiwan during any crisis involving Iran carries high risks for the People's Republic. The United States' commitment to Taiwan - a fledgling and vibrant democratic entity - is quite firm. My sense is that China will make a lot of noise about the use of force, but still opt for a political solution. Fortunately from the perspective of world peace, China has become too capitalistic in its orientation to risk its extant highly lucrative economic system. The first and last true perpetual revolutionary was Mao Zedong. Today's China is only producing wanna-be millionaires and billionaires.

Jose R Pardinas: I am not in the business of counseling Islamic or any other societies. The international reality is that the United States will not allow the emergence of another nuclear power, especially a Muslim country.

India and Pakistan became nuclear under a "non-crisis" international environment. After absorbing terrorist attacks from Islamist forces on September 11, 2001, no US government would allow the emergence of another nuclear state, especially from the Middle East. I would strongly recommend that you revisit President George W Bush's West Point speech of June 2002. That is more revealing than even his National Security Strategy, which was issued in September 2002. Even in the case of North Korea, my guess is that if it has indeed developed nuclear weapons, wait until the presidential election. I have a strong feeling that the North Korean crisis will be resolved, if not diplomatically, then militarily for sure.

Iran is a country where religious extremism is very much alive and well. The United States sees only that aspect of it and reacts to it. Pragmatic groups led by President Mohammed Khatami are too weak - and, I would even argue, hapless - to hold the world's attention. As a country where religious extremists are pretty much running the show, Iran should not be allowed to continue with its nuclear program. There is no disagreement within the United States or even in Europe on that issue. Consequently, the best bet for Iran is to use the EU-3 forum and extract the same type of ironclad guarantees from the United States against any preemptive attack or regime change, as Pyongyang is seeking. The current nuclear status quo is not likely to be altered.

I would disagree with you about your point on "partial redressing" etc. A cornered Israel can also use the Samson option. The best solution, as I see it, is for the United States to put pressure on Israel to engage with the Palestinians. Unfortunately, President Bush has remained entirely too one-sided on the issue. At the same time, I am not at all certain that a President John Kerry would have too much of a different approach. If he does, he has not yet talked about it except for some generalities regarding multilateralism.

A partial redressing of balance of power is not likely to happen short of a major war. Even then, the subsequent balance of power is not likely to improve the Arab lot. Just examine the current state of their economic, social and political development, or the lack thereof. I am sorry, I don't mean to be a pessimist, but I certainly am a realist.

Dale Stoy: Every time I talk about Western democracy in my writing, I am obviously discussing Western liberal democracy. In a number of my essays, I have argued for a moderate Islamic democracy, for instance in Iraq after the general elections of 2005. This is a system, as I envisage it, where some sort of representation and consultation is institutionalized through popular participation and periodic elections.

Iran itself has some semblance of it, except that the hardliners have been consistently undermining the will of the majority though the use of the Council of Guardians. However, I am still hopeful that Islamic democracy would emerge in Iran, if no one sabotages it from within or without. Remember, it took the United States more than 200 years to establish the current egalitarian state, or at least a pretty good approximation of it. Give Iran and other Muslim countries that are incrementally opening up their political systems another 50 years to continue with their experimentation, and I will show you "Eastern-style" democracy.

Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst.

Aug 25, 2004

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