End of story: Israel triumphant By M K Bhadrakumar
Apr 13, 2006
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez' novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold, virtually everyone in the town knows that Santiago Nasar is going to be murdered. Yet nobody can or will do anything to prevent it. The murder is motivated and inexorable. Yet no one quite knows why Santiago Nasar, a rich young swashbuckling fellow, must die.
There is a similar feeling of unforgiving inevitability about President George W Bush's desire to go to war with Iran. In its carefully woven plot and its inventive, non-linear structure that is intended to sustain dramatic tension, Bush's Iran war leaps out of the pages of Marquez' metaphysical murder mystery.
But there is nothing mysterious about the general plot outline. Seymour Hersh, an investigative journalist for The New Yorker magazine, has now filled in the details of Bush's rush to war. Yet for all its sense of inevitability, the story line still has indeterminacies. Truth is continually slithering away from it - like a sly serpent determined to live for another day.
Three concentric circles have been forming for the past six years of the Bush presidency around the "Iran question". Bush administration officials can draw satisfaction that finally they are beginning to reinforce one another. The debate henceforth is less about the main objective; it has come down now to the details of the timing and execution.
Of the three circles, the one outside the perimeter concerns the various factors that the Bush administration is compelled to reckon with within the United States. Inside that lies another circle involving the factors at work in the Arab Middle East. At the center, at its very core, is the US agenda of dominating the region. Put another way, it is about securing Israel's dominant position in a New Middle East.
The most important information that Hersh put in his New Yorker article was not details of the presence of US intelligence operatives on Iranian territory, nor about the Pentagon simulating attacks on Iran. It was not even about the horrendous possibility that the Bush administration might use tactical nuclear weapons against buried nuclear sites. But it was the chilling reality that any military move directed against Iran would become a "bipartisan" matter in the US.
According to Hersh, Bush has included - implicated, one might say - opposition Democrats among the select group of legislators he has begun to brief about the imperative of attacking Iran. That may be why Democrats are either silent on a possible attack or are actually trying to position themselves to the right of the president.
The reluctance of senior Democrats to articulate anti-war sentiments was underscored last weekend when a student audience at Brown University in the state of Rhode Island heckled Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Being the front-runner among apparent Democratic presidential hopefuls in 2008, she apparently believes she can ill afford to articulate anti-war sentiments, even if they don't go over well on campus.
Support for Zionism The support for Israel among the organized Christian groups in the US has increased dramatically in recent years. Christian evangelicals, who currently wield unprecedented influence in US politics, regard the return of the Jews to their ancient homelands as a prerequisite for the Second Coming. No serious politician in either the Republican or Democratic camp can ignore the resurgence of Zionism in US politics.
Iran has been implanted in the US evangelical consciousness as Israel's Enemy No 1. Also, Iran is equated with Islam, and that religion, in turn, is identified with terrorism in Bible Belt America. Conservative Christian ideologues routinely indulge in shrill condemnations of Islam, which is portrayed as a threat to the righteousness of Christian and Zionist principles.
Many US evangelicals believe that God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people and that the Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza should be removed to another Arab country. Some evangelicals believe that God punished assassinated former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin for offering to trade land for peace with the Palestinians.
Thus, curiously, the Bush administration is presented with a political "win-win" situation. The best way of rallying Americans behind the Bush presidency would be to go to war with Iran. That would boost Bush's overall popularity with the voters, which is currently so abysmally low that he may soon become a lame-duck president.
Looking beyond his own shores, Bush sees more opportunities to promote America's and Israel's agenda. Iraq is in the midst of a civil war that threatens to spread throughout the Middle East - paradoxically, on account of the mayhem in Iraq. The pro-American Arab regimes in the region see the Iraq situation with growing alarm.
Their vital interests increasingly overlap Israel's. The pro-American Arab regimes, especially Egypt and Jordan, and Israel alike realize that there is an Arab leadership void in the region. Egypt and Syria are pale shadows of what they used to be. Syria is badly isolated. And in the framework post-September 11, 2001, something has fundamentally changed in the previously tight Saudi-US relationship.
These Arab regimes (and Israel) harbor deep misgivings about the Shi'ite ascendancy in Iraq and the likelihood of its spilling over its borders. Also, they equate the Shi'ite ascendancy with an expanding Iran. King Abdullah of Jordan has warned about the specter of an emergent "Shi'ite crescent" in the region. Lately, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has sounded a similar alarm. "There are Shi'ites in all these countries who are significant percentages [of the population], and Shi'ites are mostly loyal to Iran and not to the countries where they live," he said.
Mubarak's statement calls attention to the heightening sectarian divide across the Middle East. But that is its side0effect. A seasoned politician like Mubarak would speak with deliberation. He was addressing Washington on behalf of fellow Arab rulers who harbor a deep sense of disquiet over the planned talks between the US and Iran over the future of Iraq originally scheduled to begin this weekend. Israel of course is perennially nervous about any US-Iran face-to-face dialogue of any kind.
Specifically, Arab rulers such as Mubarak are terrified of the prospect of the US keeping them out of the loop on decision-making in Iraq. On April 5, Cairo hosted a ministerial meeting of Arab countries to exchange views on these very concerns. Earlier, the intelligence chiefs of these Arab countries also met in this regard. (Syria is excluded from these hush-hush parleys.)
Israel shares the unease of these Arab regimes that the "Sunni Arab core is becoming a political periphery relative to the new core, which has moved eastwards to Iran", to quote Asher Susser, a prominent Israeli strategic thinker. He added: "Saddam Hussein's Iraq was once the Arab bulwark in the east, but its removal has opened the floodgates for Iranian regional ascendancy, for which nothing positive can be said from an Israeli standpoint."
Furthermore, Iraq's possible breakup is a nightmare for the Arabs (and Israel) since southern Iraq would come even more under Iranian influence. That could trigger massive Arab street protests, jeopardizing the very existence of the Arab regimes by further strengthening the forces of radicalism such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Muslim Brotherhood. (There is a method after all in Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's seemingly outrageous statements.)
Beyond these regional equations in the Middle East lies the inner core, the first circle, of the Bush administration's strategy toward Iran. It is, and has always been, securing Israel's regional dominance. Here any unfinished business is simply impermissible since it can have catastrophic effects on Israel's security. Let's see what has been achieved so far since the invasion of Iraq three years ago.
Saddam Hussein's removal brought Syria under sustained pressure - weakening it, containing it somewhat and even rolling it back from Lebanon. Syria can no longer challenge Israel on Lebanese soil. Israel may still have some way to go to seize the strategic initiative along its northern border, but a beginning has been made. On the other hand, Syria's territorial integrity remains intact, and that is a fundamental roadblock to any redrawing of the map of the Middle East. A fragmentation of Iraq could have the "positive" outcome of disintegrating Syria.
Meanwhile, Syria is hardly in a position anymore to undermine and humiliate Jordan. To that extent, Israel can still hope to shape its strategic environment further in cooperation with Jordan. But Iraq's future is bound to affect the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly. This also hampers the optimal utilization of Jordan's secret cooperation with Israel.
Ideally, of course, if Jordan can replace Iran as the main influence over the Iraqi Shi'ites, that would enable King Abdullah to wean the south Lebanese Shi'ites away from Iran as well. In such a scenario, the Jordanian king can be of real help to Israel in bringing the Lebanon problem under control.
But for all this come to fruition, Iran needs to be contained. Once Iranian influence is rolled back, the Shi'ites in Iraq and Lebanon will naturally gravitate to the Hashemites of Jordan. An orderly transition becomes possible even in Saudi Arabia.
Finally, Israel has come some way already toward forging a new relationship with the Palestinians on its terms. Israel no longer has any obligations under the old Oslo agreements. But here again, much work lies ahead. Jordan could have helped Israel in cultivating Palestinians willing to work with Israel in the era post-Yasser Arafat. Instead, Israel today has to contend with the rise of Hamas (with Iranian backing) as the alternative to the Fatah's base of power. Any way you look at the equation, Iran stands in the way.
Israel's interests today are, of course, radically different from what they were in the past. Israel has made peace with the key countries of the "Arab core" - Egypt and Jordan. Israel has contained its foes. But Israel is still far from transcending the Arab-Israeli conflict and becoming the most important element in the history of the Middle East, which would lead to a truly New Middle East.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
"All options, including the military one, are on the table." - US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
"I announce, officially, that dear Iran has joined the nuclear countries of the world." - President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, saying on Tuesday that Iran had successfully enriched uranium for the first time, a landmark step toward its quest to develop nuclear fuel.
The ominous signs are "on the table" for all to see. The Pentagon has its Long War, the rebranded "war on terror" that Vice President Dick Cheney swears will last for decades, a replay of the war between Eastasia and Oceania in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
President George W Bush issued a "wild speculation" non-denial denial that the US was planning strategic nuclear strikes against Iran, but Iran considerably upped the ante on Tuesday with President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's announcement that Iran had enriched uranium for the first time. In a nationally televised speech, Ahmadinejad urged the West to stop pressuring Tehran, saying that Iran was seeking to develop nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes.
Iranian nuclear officials say the country has produced 100 tonnes of uranium gas, an essential ingredient for enrichment. The United Nations Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all uranium-enrichment activity by April 28. Iran has rejected the demand.
From the point of view of the Pentagon's Long War, a strategic nuclear attack on Iran can be spun to oblivion as the crucial next stage of the war on "radical Islam". From the view of a factionalized European Union, this is (very) bad business; the Europeans prefer to concentrate on the factionalized nature of the Iranian government itself and push for a nuclear deal.
Iranian government officials claim that the Germans and the Italians - big trade partners with extensive economic interests in the country - are pushing for a deal more than the French and much more than the British. As much as the EU cannot possibly agree on a unified foreign policy, Europeans in fact reject both sanctions and/or a possible US military strike.
Hitler meets Iraqification The demonization of Ahmadinejad in some quarters in the US as the "new Adolf Hitler" is beside the point. As Asia Times Online has shown (The ultimate martyr, April 12), all crucial decisions in Iran remain with the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad has been downgraded by the leader to play a "domestic" president's role.
His vocal, nationalist defense of Iran's civilian nuclear program follows the leader's script, and is met with approval because virtually all Iranians regard the issue as a matter of national right and pride.
According to a late-January poll by the Iranian Students Polling Agency, 85.4% of Iranians are in favor of continuing with the nuclear program. More than 80% feel the country needs nuclear energy. And about 70% regard the European negotiation side as "illogical".
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, issued a fatwa in the 1980s declaring that production, possession and use of nuclear weapons was against Islam. Russia, China and India still take him at his word.
For the Iranian government, the nuclear program is a powerful symbol of independence with regard to what is perceived as Anglo-Saxon colonialism. The view is shared by Iranians of all social classes and education backgrounds. Moreover, Iran is pushing for a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement, stating that every country has the right to a peaceful nuclear program. What Iran officially wants is a nuclear-free zone in West Asia, and that includes Israel, the sixth nuclear power in the world with more than 200 nuclear warheads.
But the issue itself may be beside the point. What's really at stake is that while the occupation of Iraq might be downgraded, the "invisible" US military bases will consolidate the US presence in Iraq and the Persian Gulf region. Ahmadinejad in this scenario is the perfect Hitler; US troops - and bases - must remain on the ground to prevent Iran from going nuclear and to prevent Iran's influence in Iraq's "Shi'iteistan".
Meanwhile, Washington's avowed initiative of financing groups to provoke "regime change" from within is widely viewed in Tehran as a joke. What Iranians - both in government and in the bazaars and tea shops - take very seriously is the US lending a hand to Israel squeezing Palestine even more - a development also spun in Washington as part of the war on "radical Islam". The Quadrennial Defense Review - the Pentagon's strategic document calling for the Long War against terror - can be easily interpreted as a call for a war on Islam.
The first steps towards war A war on Iran could involve many military scenarios. Iranian officials are aware that the US may go for an initial "shock and awe". But they play down the possibility of a street revolution toppling the nationalist theocracy, as Washington hopes; the regime controls everything, and in the event of a foreign attack, virtually the whole population would rally behind the government. They also exclude attacking Israel, because they know Israel may respond with a nuclear strike. But they do not rule out the possibility of the US dropping nuclear bombs on Iran.
Iran's current demonology instrumentalizes the UN Security Council, in the name of "peace" and nuclear non-proliferation. But Iranian officials keep complaining that the country's official nuclear proposal was never examined in full by the EU. It included a provision that Iran would continue to negotiate with the EU-3 (Germany, France and Britain) on uranium enrichment for two more years, and would resume enrichment only if negotiations failed. The next step in the Security Council may be the imposition of "intelligent sanctions" - an oxymoron. In practice, that would mean a partial trade embargo on Iran, excluding food and of course oil and gas. Oil and gas are once again the heart of the matter. A recent energy conference in Tehran (In the heart of Pipelineistan, March 17) made it clear that Iran is a crucial node of a proposed Asian energy-security grid, which includes China, Russia and India. This grid would bypass Western - especially US - control of energy supplies and fuel in a real 21st-century industrial revolution all across Asia. It's no wonder that many analysts view the war on Iran in essence as a war of the United States against Asia.
The ultimate prize As was the case with Iraq, Iran is being sold as a threat to world peace (it may be pursuing nuclear weapons). Bush - at least vocally - hopes diplomacy will prevail. But the decision to attack may have been made already, just as it was taken regarding Iraq way before March 2003.
Iraq had signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but was accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). UN weapons inspectors were expelled on the eve of the 2003 war. Iran has also signed the NPT, but is being accused of pursuing a nuclear-weapons program. UN weapons inspectors still work in the country on and off - but for how long?
In 1995, Iraq told UN inspectors, via Saddam Hussein's brother-in-law Hussein Kamel, about a secret nuclear-weapons program, which had just been scrapped. This did not prevent the regime from being accused of concealing WMD just before the March 2003 invasion. In 2002, Iran told the UN that it had a secret nuclear program - not a weapons program. This did not prevent Iran from being accused four years later by the EU-3 of "concealment and deception".
In November 2002, the US threatened to strike Iraq unless it cooperated with UN inspectors. The US invaded Iraq anyway, without Security Council backing. In January, the EU-3 called for Iran to be referred to the Security Council. Sanctions may be applied. If no diplomatic solution is found, the Pentagon may find the opening it seeks for the next stage of its Long War.
Iran is not to be easily intimidated. Few in Tehran take the threat of oil sanctions seriously. Iranians know that even if the US decided to bomb the country's nuclear sites, they are maintained by Russian advisers and technicians; that would mean in effect a declaration of war against Russia. Russia recently closed a US$700 million deal selling 30 Tor M-1 surface-to-air missiles to Iran - very effective against aircraft, cruise missiles and guided bombs. The missiles will be deployed at the nuclear-research center at Isfahan and the Bushehr reactor, which is being built by Russia.
Iranians know Shi'ites in the south and in Baghdad would turn extreme heat on the occupation forces in Iraq. Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, on an official visit to Iran, according to his spokesman, said that "if any Islamic state, especially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is attacked, the Mehdi Army would fight inside and outside Iraq".
Iranians also know they can bypass any trade sanctions by trading even more with China. Anyway, Mohammed-Nabi Rudaki, deputy chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, which sits at the majlis (parliament), has already threatened that "if Europe does not act wisely with the Iranian nuclear portfolio and it is referred to the UN Security Council and economic or air travel restrictions are imposed unjustly, we have the power to halt oil supply to the last drop from the shores of the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz".
Up to 30% of the world's oil production passes through the strait. Were Iran to block it, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait would not be able to export their oil. The Pentagon may eventually get its Long War - but not exactly on its terms.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
