On a hot and humid day in September 1984 Raoul Cedras, Haiti’s military dictator at the time, received me in his ramshackle villa in Port-au-Prince for an interview for Asharq Al-Awsat. Having seized power in a military coup, Cedras and his junta had defied demands by Washington to restore the elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. “The Americans cannot do a thing,” Cedras said. “Haiti is not Granada.”
Grenada was the tiny Caribbean island that the US had invaded more than decade earlier in what can now be seen as an early exercise in “regime change”. After the meeting, our guide took us on a tour of the city where we met a number of excited teenagers toting ancient guns and promising to “fight to the last drop of blood.” Their sight persuaded us that no one would fight. (People who wish to fight don’t brag!) A few weeks after our interview, the US sent an expeditionary force that forced the dictator and his junta to run for holes to hide in.
More than a decade later it was the turn of Ratko Mladic, the butcher-general of the Serbs in Bosnia, to echo Cedras’ words against the US. “Bosnia is not Haiti,” he told a reporter. The British TV showed gun-toting adolescent Serbs amplifying Mladic’s message of defiance. Once again, however, the Americans did intervene while Mladic ran away and has been hiding ever since.
A few years later it was the turn of Slobodan Milosevic. “Serbia is not Bosnia,” he warned. Well, again the Americans did intervene. A few months later he was in jail in The Hague, charged with war crimes.
It was next the turn of the Taleban in Kabul to prolong this tale of folly. In December 2001, the Taleban chief, Mullah Muhammad Omar, breaking his silence, told a radio interviewer that the US attack on Afghanistan would mark “the destruction of America.” Need one recall what happened?
Next, it was the turn of Saddam Hussein to make heroic noises. “Iraq is not Afghanistan,” he told his Revolutionary Command Council in January 2003. The television channel owned by Uday, Saddam’s son, showed his “fedayeen”, some with beer bellies, toting Kalashnikovs and promising to “annihilate the Americans.” Again, the Americans did attack, and Saddam, Uday and other members of the Baath gang were the first to run for cover.
In every case, unpopular leaders, blinded by hubris took their wishes for reality. From Cedras to Saddam, and passing by Mladic, Milosevic and Mullah Omar, they had promised to create “another Vietnam” for the Americans. But none became another Vietnam.
And yet it seems there are people who have not learned a lesson. Some of the mullas ruling in Tehran are repeating the same hubris-inspired nonsense that came from Cedras, Mladic, Milosevic, Omar, and Saddam. “Iran is not Iraq,” says Hassan Rouhani, a junior mulla who acts as secretary-general of the High Council of National Defense in Tehran. “Our heroes will fight to the last drop of their blood. The Americans will have another Vietnam.” Similar commends have come from other Khomeinists, unable to see what has happened to their east in Afghanistan and to their west in Iraq.
Sure, Iran is not Iraq just as Iraq was not Afghanistan and so on. But the truth is that Iran under its present regime is in no position to defend itself against a major attack by the US. This is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a fact. Iran does not have the economic power, the industrial base, the technological capabilities, the demographic base, and the advanced weaponry to fight the US. It is also certain that a majority of Iranians, knowing the facts, would not be prepared to die unnecessarily in defense of a regime that many, if not actually most, do not like.
As the “Iran Next” lobby gathers momentum in Washington, wisdom dictates that the leaders in Tehran stop fooling themselves with old slogans. They should look for a realistic policy that addresses the problems their regime has with Washington. This does not mean surrendering to a US diktat; it means abandoning adventures that can prove deadly for Iran. A wise leadership would not provoke a situation just to see whether or not Iran becomes” another Vietnam.”
Arab News Opinion 13 June 2003
