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COMMENTARY
Iran: The ongoing threat
By
Stephen Blank
When President George W Bush
labeled Iran part of the "axis of evil" along with Iraq
and North Korea, this dismayed many observers for
several reasons. Not the least of them was that it is,
or was nearly impossible, to discern any collaboration
between Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Indeed, not only
did these two countries fight a bloody and inconclusive
war from 1980 to 88, Iran was one of the Iraqi tyrant's
targets for the use of chemical weapons.
This
Iraqi attack, which went unanswered by the rest of the
world, must be reckoned as one of the principal reasons
for Iran's continuing nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons programs. But even though there has been no
conceivable Iraqi threat since 1991, these programs
continue. And since the termination of Saddam's regime
by the United States, all signs are that Iran's nuclear
program is accelerating at speed.
Worse yet,
Iran's partnership with North Korea unfortunately lends
credence to Bush's "axis" remarks and Tehran's
continuing support for terrorism to derail the Middle
Eastern peace process between Israel and the Palestinian
Authority does so as well.
The other two
principal justifications that are often advanced to
defend Iran's nuclearization are that it is responding
to the threat of Israel, which has nuclear weapons, and
the US threat. However, both of these are smokescreens.
Allegedly Iran fears that Israel will do to it what it
did to Iraq in 1981, namely bomb its nuclear weapons
program. Therefore, much of that program is dispersed
and underground.
Yet if Iran was not the
principal state sponsor of global terrorism, according
to the State Department, and terrorism that is directed
on a global basis against Jews, not just Israelis, not
to mention a state where domestic anti-Semitism is a
state sanctioned policy, Israel would not even think of
threatening Iran.
Indeed, under the US-backed
Shah up to his ouster in the Islamic revolution of 1979,
Israel and Iran had exemplary, almost alliance-like
relations for sound geopolitical reasons. And Tehran's
policies are no longer driven by the same kind of
crusading religious zeal that was the case under
Ayatollah Khomeini in the post-revolution era. Although
Iranian-backed groups apparently function in Azerbaijan,
Iran has virtually given up that kind of overt agitation
in the Persian Gulf. Yet it clearly supports terrorism,
as most assessments of the 1996 bombing of the Khobar
Towers US barracks in Saudi Arabia suggest, for reasons
of national interest, not Islamic ideology as such.
Likewise, Iran's animosity to America is not
only founded on Islamism or whatever sins Washington may
have committed toward Iran under the Shah, but on the
quite rational basis that its consistent anti-American
policies, support of terrorism and alleged proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction directly counter vital
American interests throughout the Middle East and the
former Soviet Union.
If Iran was to cease
support of terrorism and its aggressive policies in
those areas, which have yielded little except to
maintain a kind of state of siege with the outside world
that perpetuates the oppressive Iranian internal regime,
it would stand to benefit immensely and in very tangible
fashion.
Yet, instead, and despite the war in
Iraq it has redoubled its efforts to provoke not only
Washington and Jerusalem, but also its neighbors. In
2001 and 2002 it threatened Azerbaijan and Kazakstan
over Caspian Sea exploration issues. Since the war in
Iraq it has not only accelerated its nuclear program and
maintained a truculent attitude of denial towards the
International Atomic Energy Agency and all other
concerned parties, it apparently has now entered into
discussion with North Korea to develop nuclear warheads
jointly.
This new alliance would represent an
enormous magnification of the nightmare scenario for
many Asian governments, not just Israel and America,
because it means the full materialization of the worst
case scenario of what analysts call secondary
proliferation, ie one proliferating state assisting
another in its weapons development programs. There is no
doubt that this alliance would rattle security agendas
from the Gulf to South Korea and pour much oil on
already troubled waters. But this is not all.
Despite official optimism in Washington
concerning the rejuvenated peace progress between Israel
and the Palestinians, in fact since June 29, when some
of the Palestinian groups involved, Hamas and Islamic
Jihad, announced a truce, there have been 178 terrorist
attacks in Israel, including the pre-1967 boundaries,
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials,
whose intelligence has been exceptional throughout this
war, say that Iran and Yasser Arafat's Fatah
organization have been behind most of these attacks and
that Iran is ordering and financing the attacks carried
out by what they call rogue cells of the al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigade.
Thus Iran is clearly intensifying its
efforts to derail both the peace process between Israel
and the Palestinians, and to obtain nuclear weapons. It
obviously is doing this in part to solidify the hold of
its clerical elites at home by playing the cards of
foreign threats and anti-Semitism to perpetuate the
mullahs' despotic power. But it is also no less clear
that Iran still aims to be able to destabilize its
neighbors and to retain the capacity to intimidate them,
and thereby dominate the Persian Gulf.
Ultimately, this course of action is
unacceptable as far as the other Gulf states and other
Middle Eastern nations are concerned. As long as there
is the threat of terrorism or of weapons of mass
destruction in the region, real peace and stability are
unlikely to occur. Indeed, any effort to bring peace to
troubled areas cannot then come about because other
states must be able to defend themselves against these
threats.
Among other things, this means bringing
in the US military to defend Gulf states against threats
to their sovereignty, integrity and independence, and to
counter the linked threats of terrorism and weapons of
mass destruction. Thus the consuming ambition of Iran's
mullahs to retain power by any means possible and to
pursue an expansionist foreign policy entail both the
subjugation of Iran's peoples and also consigning all
the people within reach of Iran's missiles to varying
degrees of insecurity and fear.
As Iran's
terrorist reach through groups it sponsors is global,
and the expected reach of the missiles it is developing,
whatever their warheads will contain - conventional,
chemical, biological or nuclear warheads - is growing to
include Europe and much of Asia, clearly this is a
threat that must be reversed and terminated sooner
rather than later.
For the moment, the powers
that Iran threatens have resorted to diplomatic and
economic pressure, but if the resort to terrorism and
nuclear weapons, combined with an alliance with North
Korea are true indicators of Iran's trajectory, then
that forbearance may not last very long.
Stephen Blank is an analyst of
international security affairs residing in Harrisburg,
PA.
(Copyright
2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.
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