Page 2 of 2 Bush's last throw against
Iran By M
K Bhadrakumar
the invitation to Iranian President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad to attend the Gulf Cooperation
Council summit in Doha on December 2 and by the
friendly gesture by Saudi King Abdullah to invite
him to attend the hajj in Mecca. Tehran has
reached out to Cairo in a major initiative to
repair the ties with Egypt, which were disrupted
during the Iranian revolution in 1979. In a
path-breaking visit to Cairo last week, Khamenei's
representative to the National Security Council,
Ali Larijani, offered a resumption of diplomatic
relations, as well as cooperation in the nuclear
field.
From Cairo, Larijani proceeded to
Damascus, where he met Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal,
the secretary general of the
Islamic
Jihad,
Ramadhan Abdullah Shalah, and top officials of the
Lebanese Amal and Hezbollah movements. Later,
talking to newsmen in Damascus, Larijani likened
Bush's recent threats against Iran to the "cries
of worried aged women who create a commotion to
cover up their fears".
The soft-spoken
Iranian intellectual seldom uses such colorful
language. He was obviously making a harsh point.
The purpose of Larijani's visit to Damascus was
clear. Tehran wants to express solidarity with
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's rejection of
the American (and French) overtures aimed at
persuading Damascus to cease its ties with
Hezbollah and Hamas and to distance itself from
Tehran. Iran is simply delighted that the Syrian
leadership "rejected this barter, preferring the
'hell' of its relationship with Iran and the
preservation of its interests in Lebanon to the
'paradise' of an opening to America", to quote
al-Hayat.
Khamenei praises Ahmadinejad
Meanwhile, Tehran remains firm on the
Palestinian issue and Lebanon, confident in the
knowledge that its alliance with Damascus is
intact, and, more important, that its stance is in
tune with the overwhelming public opinion in the
region. Indeed, Helena Cobban, the shrewd
contributing editor of the Boston Review, posed a
couple of questions in her blog: "Did the leaders
of all these countries transmit warm and hearty
invitations to the US president that he couldn't
turn down? Or, did Washington propose these
visits, and the Arab rulers involved found they
had no way to squirm out of their duties as US
satraps in the region?"
Also, in the
immediate run-up to Bush's arrival in the region,
Khamenei made it abundantly clear in a series of
speeches that he solidly endorses the policies of
Ahmadinejad. Khamenei was signaling to Washington.
Last Thursday, in one of his most significant
foreign-policy speeches in the recent period,
Khamenei went to the extent of chastising anyone
who propagated that US hostility toward Iran was a
reaction to Ahmadinejad's firebrand statements.
"Its [US] enmity is with the principles of the
Iranian nation and it has been there since the
beginning of the Iranian revolution," Khamenei
insisted.
He admonished any "moderates"
within Iran who would want a halt to Iran's
uranium enrichment activities so as to placate the
West. Khamenei warned, "Some people are
challenging the system and the government over
this and, acting in concert with the enemy, they
attempt to create despondency. The nation should
be watchful about such [Western] infiltration."
(Interestingly, in a debate televised live on
December 16, prior to his departure for the
hajj pilgrimage, Ahmadinejad warned that at
an "appropriate time" he would disclose some
"untold stories" about the nuclear issue, which,
he said, was one of Iran's "toughest battles",
more momentous than the nationalization of the
country's oil industry.)
Again, in another
speech, Khamenei pointed out that the Ahmadinejad
government's "sense of responsibility" and its
"self-belief" is the sure guarantee of the
country's progress. He praised the government for
observing "justice" and "perseverance and
self-belief" in advancing the goals of the Iranian
revolution. Khamenei said Ahmadinejad has
"successfully carried out development projects and
helped remove the problems of the people as well
as honorably proceeding with the goals and values
of the Iranian revolution", and this despite US
propaganda aimed at "weakening national resolve
and forcing the people to backtrack from their
legitimate rights".
Bush's last gamble
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad remains
focused on his domestic priorities. He just
announced that Iran's budget for the coming fiscal
year will make a whopping 30% increase in
allocations for development plans. Addressing the
Majlis (Parliament)on Tuesday, he announced
legislation for disbursing a part of Iran's oil
revenue for the first time directly to the common
people - in fulfillment of his major election
pledge.
Evidently, Tehran is keeping cool
nerves. It factors a real possibility that the
Bush administration is capable of resorting to
something irrational out of sheer desperation. It
is conscious of the growing sense of frustration
in the White House. In his recent speeches,
Khamenei warned that Iran shouldn't lower its
guard since it is still passing through a "crisis
period". But then, he added, the situation at
present could only be as sensitive as numerous
past occasions since the Iranian revolution, which
the regime successfully overcame. He referred to
Washington's encouragement of Saddam Hussein for
launching the eight-year war in the 1980s and the
numerous US conspiracies since then against the
Iranian regime.
All in all, the Bush
administration finds itself entrapped. The Iranian
regime has proven to be a tough nut for it to
crack. All the talk about dissensions within the
Iranian regime spilling over in lava form has
turned out to be whistling in the wind.
The leitmotif of Bush's high-profile tour
of the Middle East is unmistakably Iran. But
Washington's Iran policy lies in tatters and it
has no choice but to ratchet up anti-Iran
rhetoric, though it realizes there are no takers
in the Middle East for such rhetoric of fire and
brimstone. The danger now is that Tehran may
choose to hunker down and prefer to deal with the
next US administration.
Tehran once heeded
back-channel pleas from Ronald Reagan's campaign
managers not to negotiate the hostage crisis with
the Carter administration in its final months in
the White House so that Reagan could claim the
credit for the denouement. Bush is certainly
better placed than Carter insofar as presidential
hopefuls such as Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee
would never do such a Reaganite thing on him.
Actually, the danger to the Bush legacy
comes from faraway places. Continued delay in
constructively engaging Iran will only open the
gateway wider for the international community to
encroach into a region that until four years ago
used to be the exclusive strategic preserve of the
US. China is already wading deep into the region,
and Russia too. The S-300 missiles from Russia are
a sign that US dominance of the Middle East is in
serious jeopardy.
M K Bhadrakumar
served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service for over 29 years, with postings including
India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and
to Turkey (1998-2001).
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