Another "Must Read" by Amir Taheri. -- DoctorZin
TEHRAN'S TIPPING POINT
By AMIR TAHERI
August 1, 2003 -- WHEN President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair met in Washington last month, Iran featured prominently in their attention during a tour d'horizon of what is still a dangerous part of the world.
No one quite knows how long it will take before Iraq has a working government based on pluralism and committed to peace. But one thing is certain: With Saddam Hussein gone, Iraq has a chance to build a new life fit for its people while developing normal relations with the rest of the world.
Iran, however, is in a state of uncertainty.
On the one hand, there are powerful domestic forces that could lead Iran onto a new path of reconstruction and peaceful coexistence with the outside world. On the other, there are other forces, their power augmented by their control of the state apparatus and much of the oil revenue, that still pursue the messianic dream of exporting their revolution and conquering the whole world for their pseudo-ideology.
The question for the outside world is: How to deal with this dual reality?
With Iraq liberated, the policy of "double containment" no longer makes sense. Containing Iran is no longer enough. Iran must be engaged, either diplomatically or with a mixture of diplomacy and military force, in order to alter its current trajectory. For if that trajectory is not altered it is bound, sooner or later, to lead into open conflict between Iran and the United States and its allies.
The idea that Iran could be isolated is a non-starter. Iran has 16 neighbors, the largest number for any single country with the exception of Russia.
Iran is located between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Basin that, together, contain some 70 percent of the world's known oil reserves and almost 60 percent of its natural gas. On each side, only one country separates Iran from the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. Iran is also one of the world's 20 largest and most populous countries.
Nearly half of mankind are Iran's immediate or near neighbors. Iran's neighborhood includes five nuclear powers. In that neighborhood live many of the world's great ethnic and cultural families, the Han, the Altaic, the Indo-Dravidian, the Arab, the Turk and the Slav, among others. Directly or indirectly, Iran is involved in more than half of the 22 "current active conflicts" enumerated by the International Crisis Group.
Iran is significant for another reason. Along with Turkey and Egypt it has had a leadership role in the Islamic world for centuries. With Turkey now looking to Europe and Egypt unable to forge a synthesis of its Islamic heritage and its modernizing ambitions, Iran is left as the only major country where Islam could still develop in both positive and negative ways.
For the past quarter of a century, the Iranian experiment has been a model for many Muslims and a warning to many more. That situation is likely to continue as Iran enters a new phase in its political development.
Now that we know that Iran cannot be ignored or isolated the question is: What to do about it?
One answer is: Do nothing.
This would mean letting the Iranians fight it out among themselves until they can create a coherent government capable of developing a national strategy.
Here the danger is that the "exporters of the revolution," who control the nation's wealth and the coercive forces of the state, might eliminate their opponents and establish a tyranny akin to that of North Korea or of Iraq under Saddam Hussein. That would mean letting a dangerous regime acquire nuclear weapons, and build up its arsenal of other weapons of mass destruction, if only for blackmailing real or imagined foes in the region and beyond.
Another answer is to seek a détente-like deal with the hardline faction. That would defuse the situation, at least for a while, but would also prolong the life of a regime that is now in deep, and possibly terminal, crisis.
Yet another answer is to engage the hard-line faction into negotiations aimed at addressing its grievances, allaying its fears and ultimately persuading it to accept a set of changes in its behavior. But that could be seen by the pro-democracy movement as an act of betrayal and might well be construed by the hard-line Khomeinists as a sign of weakness on the part of the major democracies.
According to our sources, Britain favors engaging Tehran in a process of negotiations.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has visited Tehran four times in just over a year and believes that the hard-line mullahs understand the language of realpolitik and that, if assured that the West is not trying to overthrow them, will play the game.
There are also signs that the Bush administration, while keeping the option of using force open, may be tilting toward the British position. Mounting domestic opposition to American involvement in Iraq may well be one factor in persuading Bush not to turn the heat on Iran before the next U.S. presidential election.
The British analysis may be correct as far as short-term considerations are concerned. The Iranian regime is in deep trouble and would agree to largely cosmetic changes in order to ease the pressure. In the medium- and long-term, however, the British analysis misses the central point: The present Iranian system is an anomaly and will have to change.
We are only at the start of what could become known as the great Iranian crisis.
E-mail: amirtaheri@
benadorassociates.com
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/2081.htm