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Running
circles around Iran
By Hooman Peimani
A Russian newspaper article last week accused the United States government of
preparing for a military operation against Iran from the Caucasian states of
Azerbaijan and Georgia. While the US ambassador in the Azeri capital Baku
denied the accusation, the article reflected a growing concern about a possible
US attack on Iran as Washington relentlessly raises its rhetoric against
Tehran.
According to the news agency Agence France-Presse, on Thursday a Nezavisimaya
Gazeta article accused the Pentagon of having a plan for a military operation
against Iran of an unspecified scale. Accordingly, US troops stationed in
Azerbaijan and Georgia would be used in the operation, along with those
deployed in Iraq. The article speculated that the latter would be the main
launch pad for the operation.
The Russian report described the alleged operation as part of a broader US plan
for a regime change in Iran. Hence, "the military action is designed to
complete a popular uprising on which the Pentagon is counting". The date of
such an operation, according to that report, was to be determined in a White
House meeting last Friday. However, that meeting, tasked with drawing up a
policy toward the Iranian government, has been reportedly postponed
indefinitely because of policy disagreements within the George W Bush
administration between the hawkish Pentagon and the more conciliatory State
Department.
The two states implicated by the Nezavisimaya Gazeta's article have
categorically denied the mentioned plan. The Azeri government, whose
geographical location as an Iranian neighbor grants it a crucial role in any
such US operation from the Caucasus, has gone beyond this to attribute the plan
to an effort to damage Azeri-Iranian relations. Reacting to the article, an
Azeri official, Fuad Akhundov, reportedly stated: "This article is aimed at
torpedoing relations between Iran and Azerbaijan, which are improving."
The accusation may or may not reflect the realities in the absence of publicly
available information to prove or disprove it. However, the ongoing hostile US
policy toward Iran has left no doubt in anyone's mind that Washington is
considering all options in its dealing with Iran, including a military strike a
la Iraq.
Given Iran's huge size (1.6 million square kilometers), a successful military
attack would require opening many fronts against the Iranians, for which
Azerbaijan would be a potential candidate. Apart from the geographical factor,
the mainly troubled relations between Baku and Tehran since Azerbaijan's
independence in 1991 have created grounds for possible cooperation of the Azeri
government with any US attack against its southern neighbor. The two sides have
sought to improve relations since the late 1990s, with limited success. These
efforts have increased, especially since last year's official visit to Tehran
of Azeri President Haider Aliyev. However, these peaceful relations are yet to
become friendly and reliable because of the existence of certain barriers,
especially a major disagreement over the division of the energy-rich Caspian
Sea, a matter of disagreement in fact among all the Caspian's five littoral
states.
The Azeri leadership's friendly ties with two countries on hostile terms with
Iran, the United States and Israel, also make Baku's cooperation with a US
military operation against Iran a conceivable scenario. While Azeri-Israeli
ties have been a source of irritation in Baku-Tehran relations, the growing
Azeri-American relations have been a very damaging factor in the latter.
The US domination of the Azeri oil industry, on whose revenue Baku hopes to
build its country's prosperity, has consolidated Baku-Washington relations,
while giving a growing influence to the Americans in Azerbaijan. Those
relations have also had a military dimension since the conclusion of a few
military/security agreements in early 2002. These have provided grounds for a
degree of direct US military presence in Azerbaijan, while giving Washington an
upper hand in shaping Azerbaijan's military force.
Washington's "war on terrorism" has expanded the US military presence in South
and West Asia, including in the Caucasus, a region neighboring northern Iran,
where Azerbaijan and Georgia are located. As a result, US military "advisors"
are deployed in Georgia, which has sought North Atlantic Treaty Organization
membership. Georgia has been on friendly terms with Iran despite its expanding
relations with the United States.
Iran's practical encirclement by the US military stationed in the Persian Gulf
countries, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan and in certain Caucasian and Central Asian
countries makes a US military attack on Iran technically feasible. However,
such an action would be unwise both for its predictable failure to impose a
regime change on Iran, a country totally different from Afghanistan and Iraq,
where the US government has embarked on a regime-change program with
questionable success in dominating those societies. It would also be
detrimental to the long-term relations of the two countries, which, ironically,
have common interests in certain strategically important regions such as the
Persian Gulf. For that matter, Tehran and Washington will have to normalize
their relations at some point in the future.
Against this background, no matter if the United States government is actually
contemplating any military operation against Iran, as claimed in the Russian
article, the Iranian government has reasons to be nervous about being encircled
by the US military. Among other factors, Tehran's two-decade history of hostile
relations with Washington leaves no room for optimism for the Iranians, who
should be preparing for the worst-case scenario.
In such a situation, Iran should find strong incentives to close ranks with
neighboring Russia. The two countries have extensive multi-dimensional
relations and common views about many issues, including their opposition to a
US-led unipolar international system and to a long-term US military presence in
their proximity. Their shared concern about a US plan for restructuring the
geopolitical map of their neighboring regions, including the Caucasus, could
likely push them to work together on contingency plans to deal with threats
arising from Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Dr Hooman Peimani works as an independent consultant with international
organizations in Geneva and does research in international relations.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact
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