Ever since the November 1979 hostage crisis, US-Iran relations have remained antagonistic. The nuclear crisis has precipitated matters but that is not the only irritant. Now the Bush administration’s charge sheet against the President Ahmadinejad’s regime also includes his support for insurgency in neighboring Iraq, for “terrorists” in the region including Hamas. Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israeli rhetoric, especially the statement that the Jewish state be “wiped off the face of the earth” has strengthened the hands of those Israelis and Americans who want him ousted from power. The Bush administration has sought Congressional approval for $70 million to support the Iranian opposition.
The growing antagonism of this relationship has been funneled into the media and through that permeated into the popular psyche. In the latest 1002 phone-calls based Gallup poll on who was US’ “greatest enemy” Iran topped the list. This year 31 percent respondents identified Iran as America’s “greatest enemy.” Last year it was only 14 percent.
Significantly the hawks in Washington and Tel Aviv who seek a military solution to Iran’s nuclear crisis are now contemplating the “victory” over Tehran as an election issue. The Democrats have attacked the Bush administration’s weak Iran policy. Yet there are no indications that any of this criticism will push the Bush administration toward immediate use of force against Iran.
In fact US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is more likely to buy into the “implosion in Iran” view. She would go along with experts like Jack A. Goldstone, a professor at George Mason University, who argues that the arrival of a reckless radical (Ahmadinejad) will itself cause a “counter-revolution” in Iran.
So the administration is likely to continue its current “containment Iran” policy. This policy has three specific elements. First, it seeks regime change through active support to Ahmandinejad’s opponents inside and outside of Iran. In Iran itself high-profile figures including the former President Hashemi Rafsanjani have questioned Ahmadinejad’s conduct of policy. Bush’s repeated calls for democracy in Iran and the publicized allocation of $70 million for the Iranian opposition are to facilitate what some US experts believe will be an ‘internal implosion.”
Second, the administration seeks a strategic consensus of key UN Security Council members and of the European and Middle East allies. Iran figures as a central issue in virtually all of Washington’s bilateral and multilateral negotiations.
Third, to increase diplomatic, political and economic pressure on Tehran through censure and sanctions imposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the UN. The IAEA Board meets on March 6 to vote on a formal referral of the Iran case to the UN Security Council.
This means the multipronged pressure on Iran will not ease up. The Bush rhetoric that “a non-transparent society that is the world’s premier state sponsor of terror cannot be allowed to posses the world’s most dangerous weapons” too will continue. The US hopes to tighten the squeeze on Iran. Bush and Rice have repeatedly and publicly spoken against the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project.
Meanwhile, Russia and China have stepped up their efforts to persuade Iran to accept a compromise proposal for its nuclear program that may avert the threat of UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic. On Sunday there were reports of Iran and Russia having signaled agreement on a joint uranium enrichment project aimed at reducing suspicions that Tehran is bent on building a nuclear bomb. But the agreement lacks long-term prospects of surviving, according to regional experts.
Also reportedly Iran has allowed the IAEA inspectors to check the controversial Green Salt Project — a uranium-processing project where, according to unconfirmed reports, enriched uranium is being produced.
Tehran’s leverage in the current crisis flows from US troubles in Iraq and Washington’s keenness to avert any additional pressures on oil supplies. Washington knows only too well that Iran can play the Iraq card to the detriment of US interests.
There are limits to US power. Even in the US there are people like Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser who know this and are ready to admit it. Brzezinski said, “Preponderance should not be confused with omnipotence.” This was also demonstrated by Pakistan and India’s successful acquisition of nuclear capability, despite opposition from Washington. Washington’s Iran policy has been one of missed opportunities and of provoking the regime in Tehran unnecessarily. There was active US-Iranian cooperation to remove the Taleban from power in Afghanistan. This could have been continued and converted into a policy of détente with Iran. But Washington’s decision to resort to force after Sept. 11 attacks led to the end of cooperation with Tehran. Clearly the opening up with Tehran was merely to remove the Taleban. It was not part of a strategic thinking. Similarly the former Iranian President Khatami’s offer of a dialogue of civilizations, made at the UN General Assembly, was shunned by the Americans. Instead Washington lumped the Iranians into the Axis of Evil. Such shortsighted policies have only increased political extremism within Iran leading to the rise of angry and hard-line leaders like Ahmadinejad.
Washington needs a comprehensive strategic review of its Iran policy. Without a US-Iran detente the world’s most critical geostrategic region will remain in turmoil.
