The only "threats" have been over the nuclear program. So, is it worth it if it is the source of hostility?
Hardly.
"Threats" are not just military but economic as well. The threats did not just start yesterday, nor can today's administration's threats viewed independently of the context with what has gone on in both the recent and distant past.
After all, our all our sins did not start only as of Bush II. From Bush I to Clinton to Bush I to Truman and Eisenhower, we've been screwing around with the joint, aided and abetted at times by the British, at other times aiding and abetting them (Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) -- leading up to CIA involvement in installing Pahlavi. The old men of Iran still remember these times, as do the old men of the US.
Given that we installed a dictator, who rather effectively and ruthlessly used his own secret police to keep the population under control using all manner of torture that Saddam would be proud of (and we supported him - Carter supped tea with this bastard!), it should be of no surprise to us that the Iranian mindset is not pro-American.
Hell, if the average American knew how direct a role we've had in supporting madmen and dictactors, they wouldn't be pro-Administration either.
Given that we more or less did the same in Iraq with Husayn, you'd think that we'd have learned a lesson by now and would not be doing the same thing over again in Iraq (and probably planning do so in Iran), but I digress.
Well, not so fast - lessons of the past are important. Institutional and individual memory in a country is a very powerful filter. Trust needs to be earned, yet all we've done in that particular country is prove that we can't be trusted. Every action we take today is viewed through the lens of *their* past (much is true on our side of the ocean), and our foreign policy for the region has unfortunately been ineffective at best, a calamity at worst.
Without rehashing *all* of our failed interventions (intervention is such a euphamistic word to be sure, given that our direct actions have cost the lives of many tens of thousands of Iranians), lets look at a few important events and the threats we've employed:
THREAT: You took out our puppet, now we want you to fall.
- direct support from the President to Iraq (and Reagan and Rumsfeld looking the other way while Saddam gassed Iranians against the conventions of war), the US
- sought to destabilize Iran through supporting Saddam during the Iran Iraq war; using economic levers to their fullest (war is so costly) yet even supplying arms to Iran to keep Saddam in check
- sanctions, oil embargoes (very costly)
- US military presense in the area fed into the conflict. Moving right along - conflict, acrimony, battles continue. Both sides supported by the US, inevitably the US ended up squarely in the middle out in the open. The tanker wars were one example. And when Iraq mistook the USS Stark for an Iranian warship and fired French Exocet missiles into it, Iraq apoligized to the US and were forgiven.
- In a stunning example of what happens when forces escalate, and concentrate in a relatively small area, the US shot down Iranian civilian airliner flight 655 killing 290 people. Which of course led to escalation, Iran mining the Gulf, which resulted in further escalation, etc. US apologizes to Iran. "Oops".
(And oil, again, shows up at the core of US foreign policy.)
- Of course, two can play at economic warfar - Iran called upon Islamic oil producing countries in 2002 to embargo Western states, trying to replay the '70's. Crude "soared" above 27. Big deal. And of course Saudi Arabia and other US-aligned states rejected such a threat, and the threat vaporized.
- Reagan: opposition and illegal arms sales.
- Clinton: sanctions
- Clinton: Trade ban.
There's no doubt that US policy is raising the specture and potential for a 70's stype OPEC embargo, or some such action, again - although its hard to believe that Saudi Arabia would fall in with Iran at this time. Mind you, with the US intentionally targetting the Sunni in Iraq, anything is possible I suppose.
- Clinton: engagement (after Khatemi and reformers on the scene)
- Cheney: Lobbies for Haliburton to sell to Iran! (ban the trade ban)
- Bush: Iran is part of an axis of evil.
- Cheney: now VP, doesn't lobby any more...
- Bush: we may allow some US companies to trade for oil which must cross Iran via piplines
- Bush: But we'd much rather build a pipeline elsewhere = economic sanction
- Japan: tries to develop economic relationship with Iran
- Bush: Japan, don't do that.
- Japan: Ok, we won't do it any more and we'll go to war in Iraq as our pennance.
- Bush: hold WTO membership over Iran's head
- Bush/congress (2002): lets try to create a democracy! Lets do deals with former terrorists! NCRI
- Today: Official US Iran foreign policy: Is not regime change. Not yet anyway. But every neocon on Cheney's speed dial is calling for it.
Bringing us to recent times, the end times:
THREAT: Sept 26 2004: US President George W. Bush says "all options are on the table" for making sure Iran dismantles its nuclear program, and that Washington will never let Tehran acquire atomic weapons.
"My hope is that we can solve this diplomatically," Bush said in a three-part interview with Fox News Channel's "O'Reilly Factor" program, excerpts of which were made public on Sunday.
"Let me try to solve it diplomatically first," said Bush. "All options are on the table, of course, in any situation. But diplomacy is the first option."
Sure, all options. That's just what he said with regard to Iraq:
THREAT to IRAQ: Feb 23 2002: "All options are on the table" regarding Iraq, he said in Tokyo, though he was less willing than usual to hint at future military action.
THREAT: March 16 2002: Sydney Morning Herald article commenting on the leaked Pentagon planning document "Nuclear Posture Review" -- "The reason one has a nuclear arsenal is to serve as a deterrence," Mr Bush said.
This is one of Bush's more lucid moments, he actually understands the core of the issue - but apparently fails to understand why Iran might want to deter the US. Why that is hard to understand given our history in the region, I don't understand.
A little diversion:
Nuclear Posture Review
globalsecurity.org
"With a more effective earth penetrator, many buried targets could be attacked using a weapon with a much lower yield than would be required with a surface burst weapon. This lower yield would achieve the same damage while producing less fallout (by a factor of ten to twenty) than would the much larger yield surface burst. For defeat of very deep or larger underground facilities, penetrating weapons with large yields would be needed to collapse the facility." (p. 47)
(Maybe they'd like to test them on Iran?)
THREAT: Rumsfeld, March 30 2003 Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has warned Tehran it will be held responsible for the actions of hundreds of Iranian revolutionaries of the Badr Corps who have crossed the border into Iraq.
THREAT: We don't like your method of government. Watch out.
Nov 5 2004:The president Thursday said he'd made no decisions about appointments, but emphasized that promoting freedom will be part of his foreign policy, even in the face of those who disagree with such interventionist action. "This adminstration's faith in freedom to change people's habits ... will be central to my foreign policy," Bush said at a press conference.
Just as long as its freedom run by someone of our choosing, apparently, and at the muzzle of a gun.
etc, etc, ad nauseum. |
