Many of my friends went to the anti-war protest in Washington this past Saturday. Looking at their photos on facebook, I couldn’t help but think to myself how bitterly we’ll look back on these times if another war begins while we’re waking up to the bloody reality of this one.
I am genuinely frightened that there seems ot be a hopeless and resigned consensus among policy-makers, scholars, and journalists that war with Iran is not far off, and is a forgone conclusion. Israel will attack, or the United States will. One way or another, Iran’s nuclear facilities will be destroyed. The consequences will be catastrophic in terms of loss of civilian lives and environmental damage, but these will be viewed as acceptable prices to pay for disarming a nuclear or soon-to-be nuclear Iran.
But not everyone is ready to accept that. In an article titled "Europeans Fear US Attack on Iran as Nuclear Row Intensifies" an unnamed European diplomat describes the mood in Europe’s halls of power.
"There’s anxiety
everywhere you turn," said a diplomat familiar with the work of the
International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. "The Europeans are very
concerned the shit could hit the fan."
And with good reason.
A
US navy battle group of seven vessels was steaming towards the Gulf
yesterday from the Red Sea, part of a deployment of 50 US ships,
including two aircraft carriers, expected in the area in weeks.
Knowing this, and probably understanding how little it can do at this late stage, the EU is making crystal clear that an attack will not be met with European approval.
"No
path is envisaged by the EU other than the UN path," the EU’s foreign
policy chief, Javier Solana, told the Guardian yesterday. "The priority
for all of us is that Iran complies with UN security council
resolutions."
On the possibility of Israel taking military action by itself, two well known Israeli foreign affairs writers wrote in a recent New Republic piece:
If
Israel is forced, by default, to strike, it is likely to happen within
the next 18 months. An attack needs to take place before the nuclear
facilities become radioactive; waiting too long could result in massive
civilian casualties. Still, Israel will almost certainly wait until it
becomes clear that sanctions have failed and that the United States or
NATO won’t strike. The toughest decision, then, will be timing:
determining that delicate moment when it becomes clear that the
international community has failed but before the facilities turn
lethal.Israel will alert Washington before a strike: "We won’t surprise the
Americans, given the likelihood of Iranian reprisals against American
troops in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East," says an analyst close
to the intelligence community. U.S. permission will be needed if Israel
chooses to send its planes over Iraqi air space — and the expectation
here is that permission would be granted. (Israel has two other
possible attack routes, both problematic: over Turkish air space and
along the Saudi-Iraqi border to the Persian Gulf.) Still, according to
the former air force commander, if Israel decides to act, "We will act
alone, not as emissaries of anyone else."
All of this fills me with despair. The best thing for Iran now would be for its religious leaders to remove Ahmadinejad from power and fully comply with the IAEA and the UN Security Council, but the chances of that happening are not good –despite Iran’s current internal political turmoil. So, if Iran pushes ahead, it appears war will soon follow. The pro-democracy movement in the country (its greatest hope currently) will be destroyed, and the danger of a regional war in the Middle East (and all the chain reaction problems it would create) will be more real than ever before.
I can’t shake the feeling of doom closing in. I think of the brave Iranian pro-democracy and human rights activists who have been beaten, jailed, tortured, and executed in the most gruesome ways over the past decade, and I think of how all their sacrifices and suffering could come to nothing.
I don’t see any hope in this, anywhere.
3 comments
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February 1, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Daniel Buk
Our Administrations’ stated reason for going to war with Iran is that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is vehemently anti-US and can support his anti-US views with a military strike against the U.S. and/or Israel, therefore posing a credible threat to that needs to be dealt with. The Administration concludes that we have to stop the threat by launching our own preemptive military strike. This is a terrible idea supported by flawed logic. Yes, Ahmadinejad hates the US. Yes, he is an Islamist. Yes, he opposes Israel’s right to exist. Nonetheless, he currently cannot do anything about it- yet, if we do invade, the political tide will likely turn and Ahmadinejad will then be able to do something about it. He’s all talk- at least for now. Anyone who at least knows anything about Iran’s internal political landscape knows this. I will attempt to explain:
The Iranian President is just a figurehead in Iran with no real authority. As President, Ahmadinejad cannot appoint his cabinet, he cannot appoint military or judicial leaders and most importantly, he is not even the Commander-in-Chief of Iran’s military (that constitutional authority lies with Iran’s Supreme Leader). Iranian President Ahmadinejad is increasingly under criticism from the Iranian Majlis, Iran’s parliament. Ahmadinejad is steadily becoming marginalized by Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, who is in turn supervised by the Iranian Mujtahids (council of 86 Islamic legal experts), who are also critical of Ahmadinejad. Growing numbers of the rest of the Marjas (Grand Ayatollahs) of Iran are marginalizing Ahmadinejad. Parviz Davoodi, First Vice President to Ahmadinejad, also strongly disagrees with Ahmadinejad on some very big issues (there are 10 Vice Presidents in total). More and more Iranian citizens are becoming disenchanted with Ahmadinejad. Ali Larijani, the chairman of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), is progressively alienated by Ahmadinejad and shares Khamnei’s reservations of Ahmadinejad’s policies, especially his confrontational anti-US rhetoric on foreign policy (mind you that criticism of Ahmadinejad ranges from democratic reformers and dissidents within the majority of Iranian civil society to theocratic traditionalists among Iran’s clerics). This mounting criticism will probably dissipate if the US invades Iran, and the rising resentment towards Ahmadinejad will probably be redirected towards the US and a lengthy retaliation against the US will likely stem from a revitalized, consolidated coalition among Ahmadinejad, the Iranian Majlis, the Majras, the Mujtahids and Iranian civil society. They will likely put aside their differences and unite against any US invasion force, probably solidifying and even intensifying Iranian support for Ahmadinejad’s anti-US rhetoric. If we invade Iran, any hopes Iranian society has for democracy will likely be replaced with hatred and contempt for the US presence there. If we invade Iran, we can say goodbye to any hopes for a stable Iranian democracy for (at least) another decade, which in turn will further destabilize the already imperiled Middle East and upset the chances of peace in the region.
If we invade Iran, we will be hurting its chance at stability and democracy. We will also be giving the Iranians every reason to rally around Ahmadinejad and consolidate his anti-US rhetoric into actual policy. Specifically, we might cause the Supreme Leader to transfer his Commander-In-Chief responsibilities to Ahmadinejad, giving him the reigns of Iran’s military and thereby adding military strength to his anti-U.S and anti-Israel rhetoric. Iran’s military is significantly larger than Iraq’s, more experienced and better equipped for a war. Plus, there’s a real chance that Hizballah might come in to help their sponsors, brining in their extra firepower- in effect reinforcing Iran’s already powerful military. Our military is already stretched thin in the Middle East, currently in Iraq and Afghanistan and our generals and the NeoCons (notably Richard Perle and Francis Fukuyama) are already calling our war in Iraq a losing battle. In short, we will be making a disastrous mistake if we invade Iran. Considering Iran’s vastly superior military and intelligence capabilities compared to Iraq’s, we will be there longer than we’re spending in Iraq.
Alas, our President recently authorized the use of force against Iranian scientists in Iraq. So in the end, Bush might not have given the American public a choice. In effect, he’d be sending more of our men, women and children to die for a plan he should by now know will fail and that he will be recklessly adding more blood to the bloodbath that he helped create.
February 4, 2007 at 11:54 pm
Aditya
I share your frustration as I have written about this in a blog I started a few days ago http://aditya137.blogspot.com/2007/02/iran-attack-imminent.html
All I can think of doing is contacting your elected officials and letting them here and earful. Spreading the word, petitioning government, and speaking of the unmitigated disaster we are approaching rapidly(something that will make our adventure into Iraq look like a trip to Disney World) is seemingly the most effective weapon of that one in 300 million can have.
What More Can One Do?
February 5, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Melinda
I thought AID members might find a recent, groundbreaking poll of Iranians and Americans interesting. It can be viewed at: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org.
This concurrent poll finds that Americans and Iranians share concerns about terrorism, and Iranians overwhelmingly reject bin Laden.