May 31, 2003

OPTIONS FOR IRAN

by Srdja Trifkovic

Is Iran next? That question seems far more urgent today than it was two weeks ago. The Washington Post declared, on May 25, that the White House “appears ready to take on an aggressive policy of trying to destabilize the Iranian government.” BBC’s Washington correspondent Justin Webb reported on May 29 that a new, tougher stand by the Bush administration “could conceivably end in an Iraq-style standoff, perhaps even in a war.” Moscow’s Nezavisimaya Gazeta claimed on the same day that Washington has drawn up plans for military action against Iran using not only its newly acquired bases in Iraq, but also some in Azerbaijan. Hong Kong’s Asia Times noted, in its May 31 issue, that in the U.S. “one can already hear orchestrated drums beating for a regime change in Iran.”

In Saddam’s case three arguments for the regime change had been invoked before the war: his links with terrorists, his possession of weapons of mass destruction, and the brutality of his regime. Senior U.S. officials now level the first two of those charges against Iran, and their language is strongly reminiscent of anti-Saddam rhetoric a year ago. The third accusation concerns Teheran’s alleged interference in Iraqi affairs, specifically its supposed encouragement of Shiite militants in southern Iraq.

Teheran’s support for terrorists is treated as an established fact. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said matter-of-factly that al-Qaeda terrorists were present in Iran, and U.S. intelligence sources say that the planners of the deadly suicide bombings of three housing complexes in Saudi Arabia on May 12 were based in Iran. Mr. Rumsfeld also warned that an attempt to remake Iraq in its image would be “aggressively put down.” Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard Myers told NBC TV on May 26: “The issue with Iran is pretty clear. We have to eliminate the safe havens where the terrorists are, and Iran of course has some of the al-Qaeda members. The reports are that al-Qaeda has been in Iran off and on for some time, particularly after our actions in Afghanistan.” Gen. Myers also declared that “Iranian-backed forces and organizations are in Iraq right now trying to influence events there, to the coalition’s detriment.” The senior Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman, says Teheran should have been the focus of attention all along because of its support for the Hezbollah and because of its nuclear program. “It is time for a free Iran,” Michael Ledeen concludes in the tone of Cathago delenda: “Revolutions don't happen by themselves.”

On the nuclear issue, it seems likely that Iran is building several uranium-enrichment facilities in violation of its signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. On May 29 an Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), reported at a Washington press conference the existence of two previously undisclosed uranium enrichment facilities. The group claims the government in Teheran is trying to protect its weapons program from air attack by dispersing plants. While it makes perfect sense for Iran to seek security in nuclear weapons in order to avoid Saddam’s fate, its nuclear program—if proven—would present a direct challenge to President Bush’s repeatedly stated intention not to permit “the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”

Each of those three charges has the potential to become the next casus belli; taken together, they form a powerful mix and may provide justification for pre-emptive action in accordance with the national security strategy inaugurated last September. That action is unlikely to take the form of outright military attack, however. The debate on Iran within the Administration is far from over. Officials are split about whether to isolate, destabilize, or engage the mullahs. Mr. Rumsfeld’s team is promoting an aggressive policy as usual, and the State Department is advocating multilateral approach, dialogue, and quiet diplomacy. “Our policy towards Tehran is not destined to change,” says Colin Powell, but he never has the last word. We may safely predict that he will lose this argument, just as he has lost all others, but even assuming that the hawkish line prevails it is unlikely that there will be another war.

An Iraqi-style invasion would present enormous difficulties. Iran is much bigger than Iraq, with three times the population. While its regime of Shiite clerics is authoritarian it is not a terminally corrupt autocracy of Saddam’s ilk. When Iraq attacked in 1980 it was shown that the regime could count on considerable popular support on nationalist, rather than religious grounds. People would resist an American attack—and it would have to be a strictly American undertaking: not even Britain would support it. With the ongoing mess in Iraq, and with the chronic instability in Afghanistan unresolved, not even the most hawkish of Mr. Rumsfeld’s advisors are audacious enough to advocate an “Operation Iranian Freedom” any time soon.

What we are likely to witness instead is a mix of political pressure, psychological operations, and covert action. The Iraq-based Mojaheddin-e-Khalq, a group within the umbrella Iranian resistance council, will be removed from the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations and allowed to expand its operations. Its activists will receive CIA money and training, and infiltrate Iran from US-controlled safe havens. Government-funded institutions in Washington, such as the National Endowment for Democracy, will channel funds to Iranian reformists, the independent media, and student organizations. There will be pressure on the EU to limit links with Teheran. Russia will be asked to cancel its nuclear power contract. (The Russians will agree, albeit at a price—contracts for Lukoil in Iraq, say—and justify that decision by saying that it is not in its interest to have a radical Islamic regime with a nuclear potential in its southern neighborhood.) Specific U.S. demands on Iran will concern short-notice inspections of its nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency—echoes of Hans Blix here—and an end to its support for the Hizbullah and hard-line Palestinian groups.

While the Europeans will drag their feet they will be keen to avoid another Iraq-style confrontation; the Russians will be bought; while Israel and its friends in Washington will enthusiastically support this course. The Jerusalem Post set the tone by declaring, on May 23, that the prime danger to U.S. national security is in the dark allies of Teheran. The U.S. should be using all its leverage throughout the world to prevent the ayatollahs from acquiring nuclear weapons, the paper says: “The price the U.S. paid in 1990 for ignoring Saddam Hussein in favor of pressuring Israel was the Gulf War. The price it will pay for repeating the mistake with Iran will be a nuclear nightmare.”

Will it work? Iran’s “Islamic democracy” allows a degree of pluralism and a strong reformist movement has taken root in all the usual places: students, middle classes, the young and educated. The danger is that increased U.S. pressure will play into the hands of Islamic militants and open the reformers to the charge of treason. Pro-government papers in Teheran, such as Jomhuri-ye Eslami, are already suggesting that “the enemy is preparing the ground for its lackeys,” and are calling on the country’s law enforcement and the judiciary “not to wait for their superiors before acting decisively.” The destabilization of the relatively moderate Khatami government may result in a regime more reminiscent of the darkest days of Ayatollah Khomeini. It may indeed prove to be less stable, but also more dangerous and unpredictable.

The pressure will almost certainly prompt the regime to accelerate its nuclear weapons program, rather than cancel it. The case for doing so is reinforced by the example of North Korea: having nuclear weapons seems to be the only reliable means of avoiding Saddam’s fate. Even if no Russian technology is available, Pyongyang may be tempted to fill the gap—even by providing a couple of fully assembled, off-the-shelf weapons.

The fundamental question is simple: why should the United States do anything in particular “about Iran”? The claim that it is harboring and helping Sunni terrorists remains unproven, and—if true—would represent a major shift in policy, the one that could and should be reversed under coordinated international pressure. If it seeks nuclear weapons, it is only following in the footsteps of other regional powers, Israel, India, and Pakistan. The notion that it would seek to threaten the United States is preposterous, and that is the only threat that should determine U.S. policy. If it takes an interest in its co-religionists in Iraq, it is doing no more than Pakistan in Kashmir—and certainly less than Turkey in Cyprus. In any event, if Iraq’s Shia majority wants a theocracy it will have it in the end, regardless of Iranian prompting or American disapproval. The place, and the region, should be left to their own devices. Constructive American disengagement from the Middle East is a sound alternative to ever-greater commitments that are risky, expensive, and ultimately futile.

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