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2 Bush's last throw against
Iran By M K Bhadrakumar
Playing around with the Persians can be
risky - especially when the endgame nears. US
President George W Bush is learning this
civilizational truth. He could have learned from
the Jimmy Carter administration.
The
similarity is striking. A beleaguered White House
increasingly looks irrelevant while the alienated
country keenly searches for an idea of leadership
that can offer a clean break with the past. That
was also how the Carter administration looked 30
years ago.
What can a superpower do if
someone "threatens" it? The
Pentagon warned on Monday
that five small Iranian speedboats "threatened" a
powerful US fleet comprising one frigate, a
destroyer and a cruiser in the Strait of Hormuz by
coming within 500 meters of them. It warned of
"provocative actions that could lead to a
dangerous incident in the future". Tehran calmly
shrugged it off, "That is something normal that
takes place every now and then for each party, and
it is settled after identification of the two
parties."
Surely, the US can attack Iran
in retribution. That is always the prerogative of
a superpower in a unipolar world. That will also
be fully in accord with the Bush administration's
doctrine of pre-emptive war. The influential
Israeli lobby in Washington would even ensure a
bipartisan consensus, despite the divisiveness and
acrimony in US politics in an election year.
Russian missiles for Iran But
there is a rider. A war against Iran may not be an
option for long. Moscow has begun hinting that
Russia's S-300 missiles are being dispatched to
Iran. There is much constructive ambiguity over
the subject in both Moscow and Tehran, which
leaves Washington nervous and guessing. The
medium-range S-300 surface-to-air missiles,
together with the short-range Tor-M1 systems
supplied by Moscow to Tehran earlier, would help
counter any attempt by the Bush administration to
bully Iran. To quote the Russian daily Izvestiya,
"Iran will be Moscow's trump card in its drive
against the third stage of US missile defenses in
Poland and the Czech Republic."
President
Vladimir Putin's "asymmetrical response" could
drill a hole right through Bush's Middle Eastern
policy bucket. The Tor-M1 is equally effective
against aircraft, cruise missiles and unmanned
aerial vehicles, but it is a close-battle weapon,
the last defense line that engages or eliminates
targets that may get through the S-300s. That is
to say, Tor-M1 plus S-300 would for the first time
provide Iran a credible modern multi-echelon air
defense system covering any key strategic
facility.
What does it add up to? The Bush
administration is beginning to grasp that it has
no option but to negotiate with Iran. But a new
danger is that negotiations with Iran, too, may
soon become a non-option. Persians generally don't
talk with people who are inconsequential. Iran's
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last
week that at the moment, relations with the US are
of "no benefit to the Iranian nation. The day such
relations are of benefit, I will be the first one
to approve of that." He seems to be anticipating
the post-Bush era.
US policy
disintegrating These geopolitical
realities cannot be overlooked. Bush was due to
set out from Washington on Wednesday on his Middle
East tour - Israel, Palestine, Kuwait, Bahrain,
the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and
Egypt - virtually with empty hands. The gamble
looks desperate, even for a congenital gambler.
Distrust of US regional policy in the Persian Gulf
region has extended even to Kuwait, which hosts
about 15,000 US troops and which served as the
launch pad for the Iraq invasion in 2003. Bush has
two objectives in his Middle East mission - weigh
in on the faltering post-Annapolis
Palestinian-Israeli peace process of last November
and seek support for US concerns about Iran.
But Annapolis' pledge to end "bloodshed,
suffering and decades of conflict" is caught up in
the swirl of escalating violence and dwindling
optimism in the Palestinian territories. The
perception in the region is that Bush's blatantly
pro-Israeli vision altogether clouds his
judgement. His sincerity of purpose is held in
doubt. Writing in the moderate Beirut newspaper
Daily Star, one of the Middle East's respected
opinion makers, Rami Khouri, says, "With all due
respect, President Bush might do the region and
the entire world a favor by staying home - if he
plans to visit the Middle East for speeding up the
same American policy of blindly supporting Israel,
sending arms and money to Arab authoritarian
regimes, opposing mainstream Islamist groups that
enjoy widespread Arab popular legitimacy, ignoring
realistic democratic transitions, and actively
pressuring governments and movements that defy the
United States."
When a liberal voice like
Khouri quivers with indignation and passion, the
mood in the region becomes very obvious. In a
nutshell, Arabs view Bush's world as a political
rodeo, which is good only for entertainment. Not
only has the Bush administration's attempt to
weaken Hamas in Palestine failed, but also Egypt
refuses to heed US bidding and cooperate with
Israel in muzzling Hamas.
And Hamas
remains defiant. with its chief Khalid Meshaal
saying on Monday in a speech in Damascus, "No Arab
country has asked Hamas to give up on the current
situation in Gaza ... Hamas will resist until the
last Israeli soldier leaves Palestinian soil. This
is a strategic choice. Resistance will continue -
no one can stop it."
Meshaal revealed that
Hamas turned down a European proposal for a
meeting with "Zionists who are our enemies". Hamas
isn't alone in thinking of Bush's visit to the
region as nothing more than an attempt to enhance
his image before he quits the White House. Fatah
and the Islamic Jihad remain equally skeptical.
Opinion polls show that almost two thirds of
Palestinians (and three fourths of Israelis) doubt
Bush's capacity to influence events in the
Palestinian territories.
Bush targets
Iran But where people misjudge is that the
real purpose of Bush's visit to the region lies
elsewhere. His principal aim is to keep the heat
on Iran. Bush admitted that in his talks in the
region, he would focus on containing the "hostile
aspirations" of Iran. He told the Israeli
newspaper Yediot Ahnronot, "Part of the reason I'm
going to the Middle East is to make it abundantly
clear to nations in that part of the world that we
view Iran as a threat, and that the National
Intelligence Estimate [NIE] in no way lessens that
threat, but in fact clarifies that threat."
At the first halt of his tour on Thursday
- Israel - Bush will certainly have a receptive
audience. Israel hopes to hear Bush's assurance
that the NIE released late last year changes
nothing in the direction of US policy toward Iran,
even though it concluded that Iran is no longer
pursuing a nuclear-weapons program.
But
Israel also knows that's an assurance Bush is no
longer competent to give, as the Iran problem has
become a medium-term issue. Indeed, there are
voices within the Israeli security and
foreign-policy community who think it would not be
a bad thing if Washington opened a direct channel
to Tehran. Then again, there is the perennial
sense of uneasiness that once the US and Iran get
going, they will leave Israel out in the cold.
Having said that, the Bush administration
is ratcheting up rhetoric against Iran. No doubt,
the Strait of Hormuz incident comes in very handy.
Whether Washington orchestrated the incident, we
will never know. But the incident most certainly
makes out a neat case for the massive arms deals
worth US$20 billion that Washington is offering
pro-Arab regimes in the Persian Gulf.
It
corroborates US Defense Secretary Robert Gates'
recent call for the establishment of an "air and
missile defense umbrella" over Persian Gulf states
to deter missile attacks by Iran. (It is
immaterial whether the real US target is Iran, or
Russia.)The Pentagon announced last month proposed
sales of Patriot missile defense and early warning
systems to the UAE and Kuwait worth more than $10
billion. The Pentagon also notified the US
Congress of a sale to Saudi Arabia of upgraded
airborne warning and control systems worth $400
million.
The Persian Gulf is skeptical
Arms purchases are always an interesting
affair for Arab rulers, especially in such roaring
times when oil sells for US$100 a barrel. However,
it is an entirely different thing that they do not
believe in Bush's rhetoric about Iran's
"aggressive ambitions". Al-Hayat, the Saudi-owned
newspaper published from London, commented on
Bush's rhetoric: "This language is rendering the
US's regional allies confused about the real
policies of Washington ... Washington is speaking
in dual tone, with US military officials
commending the Iranian role in minimizing the
threat to the forces in Iraq, and the CIA at the
same time highlighting the danger posed by Iran's
alleged nuclear program."
Arab League
secretary general Abu Moussa posed a tricky
question to the Washington Post: "As long as they
[Iran] have no nuclear program ... why should we
isolate Iran? Why punish Iran now?" Clearly,
Washington's plan for creating an anti-Iran
alliance of "pro-West" Arab states in the Persian
Gulf region - raison d'etre of the Annapolis
conference - has conclusively disintegrated.
Not only that, Arab regimes are working
out their own accommodation with Tehran. Iran, on
its part, has sustained the active momentum of its
diplomacy with its Persian Gulf neighbors. Thus,
Tehran has done a smart thing by scheduling for
the weekend the visit of the chief of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed
ElBaradei, precisely when Bush touches down in the
Persian Gulf. From all accounts, the Iranians plan
a red-carpet welcome for ElBaradei, including a
meeting with Khamenei.
Again, Iran is
swiftly building on the positive climate generated
by
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