Posted on 06/03/2003 1:17:52 PM PDT by knighthawk
After Iraq, Iran? After the frying pan, the fire? If the more excitable European statesmen and American pundits are to be believed, the U.S. is on the verge of invading Iran in order to advance its strategic plan to reshape the entire Middle East along democratic lines. Or if not actually invading Iran, then the U.S. is planning to overthrow its government. Or if it is not planning actually to overthrow the mullahs in Tehran, Washington intends to help the Iranian opposition. Or maybe the U.S. will simply shake its fist threateningly and mouth insults.
Or, in the immortal phrase of Bob Dole: Whatever.
These vague and uncertain menaces are the symptoms of a problem with no very good solution. No one really doubts that Iran is a serious international problem.
It is a terrorist state that gives financial, military and logistical support to terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, in and beyond the Middle East. It seems to be harbouring al-Qaeda terrorists wanted by the U.S. -- though it denies doing so, or at any rate harbouring them in large numbers, or maybe harbouring them for long periods of time. (Whatever ...)
It is currently seeking to undermine the Anglo-American occupation forces in next-door Iraq by supplying money and arms to Shiite forces and helping them organize resistance to U.S. forces.
And it is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons through an ostensibly peaceful program of nuclear power (and the means of their delivery.)
As the principal target of international terrorism, the U.S. cannot acquiesce in the rise of a nuclear-armed Iran ruled by its regime of revolutionary mullahs. Either Iran must cease to be a terrorist state -- or it must be compelled to give up its nuclear weapons program. There is no third way. As UPI's Eli Lake has pointed out, however, the U.S. has two very different strategies designed to achieve its objectives.
The first broad strategy is that outlined, with variations, by the U.S. State Department, the European Union, and bien pensant liberal opinion generally -- the strategy of "dialogue," trade and "constructive engagement" with the Tehran regime designed to persuade the mullahs to become good international citizens, both giving up aid to terrorism and subjecting their nuclear programs to international UN and IAEA inspection.
Reasonable though it sounds, there are drawbacks to this approach. Iran's mullahs, if they are to remain in power at home, cannot afford to allow the development next door of a democratic Iraq with a large Shiite majority and influential Shia clerics who preach a very different brand of Islam. Their efforts to subvert this potentially appealing Islamic alternative will inevitably carry them into a sustained clash with the U.S.
Even without this incentive, the Iranian mullahs would be very unlikely to give up their support of terrorism. It is their main means of prosecuting their wider foreign policy against the Great Satan and Israel. And it explains why they are apparently harbouring al-Qaeda operatives inside Iran -- and telling the U.S. they have arrested them but are not turning them over. Hmmmn.
Above all, the policy of persuading Tehran not to develop nuclear weapons by a combination of trade, aid and inspections is exactly the policy that failed against North Korea. The North Koreans went along with an inspections regime until they reached the point where concealment was impossible -- whereupon they kicked the inspectors out. What is to prevent Iran doing the same thing? Nothing at all.
All in all, then, the policy of constructive engagement is a bust. But unlike the Roman Emperor who, judging a song competition with two singers, heard the first and promptly gave the prize to the second, we cannot simply adopt the second strategy.
This is the strategy, favoured by the Pentagon and the fabled neo-conservatives, of bringing about "regime change" in Iran on the grounds that the present Tehran regime is worse than hopeless. Even if the justification is valid -- and the present Teheran regime is worse than hopeless -- that still leaves the vital question of how regime change is to be accomplished.
Despite the fevered European media theories that "neoconservatives" have captured George Bush's brain and are bent on war everywhere, the U.S. does not contemplate war against Iran unless the mullahs are foolish enough to start it themselves. That leaves giving to the Iranian student opposition on the streets the same kind of aid the U.S. gave Solidarity in Poland in the early 1980s -- namely, the means of communication and propaganda to enable them to sustain riots and dissidence against what is now a deeply unpopular regime. If this support for Iran's domestic democratic resistance were combined with a policy of diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions, it might conceivably result in the gradual collapse of the Iranian mullahs before a long-drawn-out popular uprising.
Unfortunately it might result in no such thing -- as the survival of Castro in Cuba against a long U.S. embargo demonstrates. In addition, its chances of success would be greatly reduced if countries like France and Germany were to persist with the first policy of trade and dialogue.
Perhaps, however, a judicious combination of these strategies might have better prospects of success. The U.S. might begin by hinting, for example, that if all other methods failed, it might be compelled to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities -- just as Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak reactor 20 years ago. Then President Bush might suggest to the European allies that, in order to avoid this regrettable necessity, both sides should co-operate on a policy of imposing the strictest possible inspections regime on Iran -- one that includes the use of military force -- until either the mullahs abandon their nuclear program or are overthrown by internal opposition.
Mr. Bush's "Proliferation Security Initiative" at the G8 meeting in Evian this week -- proposing that ships suspected of carrying nuclear contraband, should be stopped and inspected on the high seas -- could well be part of such a strategy. It already has the support of those allies that backed the U.S. over Iraq. And if France and Germany resist such ideas unreasonably, they convict themselves of not taking the threat of nuclear terrorism seriously.
Suppose, however, that this mixed strategy is adopted and in due course fails too. America would then be compelled to make good on its hint, reach for the Osirak option, and bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.
Or if the Americans are feeling shy, they might ask Israel to do so on their behalf.
Whatever.
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