Iran And The United States: The Next War?

[Waqar Abro]

IRAN AND THE UNITED STATES: THE NEXT WAR?



Will the United States and Iran come to blows? Nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and Iranian influence in Iraq and Lebanon are questions that make war a real possibility. How did the tension between the U.S. and Iran reach such levels, and are there alternatives for the two countries besides open war? These are the issues this article will examine.



BACKGROUND:



The Iranian people have proud heritage, going back to Persian Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad. Persian culture added greatly to Islamic civilization in its formative years, and the Persian poetry of Rumi and Hafiz is still widely read. But from the 17th century, Iran found itself becoming weaker. By the early 20th century, the Russians and the British were busy carving Iran and its resources up into spheres of influence. During World War II the British and the Soviets simply overthrew the government and occupied the country. Small wonder then, that the Iranian people are wary of outside influence, and long for a stronger, more independent Iran.



At first, the United States had a good relationship with Iran. In the years before World War I American advisors like Morgan Shuster sought to strengthen Iran against the inroads of imperial powers. But after World War II, the United States found itself increasingly dependent on Middle Eastern oil supplies, and sought for an ally against Soviet influence in the Middle East. It was in 1953 that the U.S. and Great Britain made the fatal decision to use covert action to bring down the popular nationalist regime of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, and install the Shah as absolute ruler. It seemed a smart move at the time. The Shah was an ally of the West. He sought to modernize the economy of Iran, and gave women a wider role in Iranian society. So Americans forgot that the Shah remained a tyrant, who ruled by fear. We were then surprised in 1979 when the Shah’s regime was swept away by a popular revolution, and a hostile Islamic republic was established in its place. The new Iranian leadership, under the Ayatollah Khomeini, denounced the United States as ‘the Great Satan’ and an ally of Israel.



The situation was drastically worsened when Iranian students, with the tacit approval of Khomeini, seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage. Not only did this cause many Americans to equate Iran with fanaticism and terrorism, but Jimmy Carter’s failure to win release of the hostages through negotiation, and his subsequent defeat for re-election in 1980, served as a red warning to American politicians of both parties - never appear ‘weak’. The seeds of the American government’s present unyielding stance in the Middle East go back to the successful election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, who ran on a campaign pledge to keep America strong. American hostility to Iran since 1979 is one reason why the United States was willing to work with Saddam Hussein in Iraq for as long as it did. We were more than happy to let Saddam hammer away at Iran in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.



THE SITUATION TODAY:



The collapse of the Soviet Union and the defeat of Saddam Hussein freed Iran from its two most pressing military threats, while in the same period rising oil prices have vastly strengthened Iran’s economy. Iran now has the Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile, which, with a range of 1,300 kilometers (994 miles), can hit Israel. Iran is working on intermediate range ballistic missiles with a range of 3,000 kilometers (1,860 miles). These could hit Western Europe. As of April, 2006 Iran announced plans to begin enriching uranium on a large scale. Iran, with its regular army of 350,000 men, and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of 125,000 men, is already a potent force in the region. With the second largest proven oil reserves in the world, and the second largest natural gas reserves, Iran is emerging as an important player on the world scene.



Besides its power in its own right, Iran plays an important role in three areas of U.S. interest. Iran shares a long, open border with Afghanistan. While Iran was not a supporter of the Taliban, if the Iranians ever felt the need, they could funnel money, arms and guerilla fighters into western Afghanistan. Iran might not be able to turn the tide in Afghanistan, as the Taliban is currently strongest in the southeastern third of the country, closer to Pakistan; but the Iranians could still harass the U.S. and its allied government in Kabul, in a country where logistics work heavily against the U.S.



Iran provides between $25-50 million a year to the Hezbollah, who have a strong position among the Shi’ites of southern Lebanon. It was reported that the Hezbollah used Iranian made Fajr-5 artillery rockets in their clash with the Israelis earlier this year, allowing them to fire deeper into Israel than ever before. By surviving the Israeli incursion into Lebanon, the Hezbollah has gained considerable status as an effective opponent of Israel. In short, Iran has a means of putting pressure on the Israelis, and/or goading them into retaliatory strikes that enrage Muslim public opinion.



But it is in Iraq that the Iranians can most effectively make trouble for the United States. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a striking military success. U.S. forces defeated the Iraqi regular army as fast as it could get at it. But by bringing down Saddam Hussein, his military and the Baath Party power structure, the United States cut the threads holding Iraq’s patchwork of ethnic and religious factions together. Not only has lawlessness and the war with the insurgents brought chaos, but since the February bombing of the Shi’a Al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, we may effectively consider Iraq to be in a state of civil war. The Shi’a Muslims, who form 60-65% of Iraq’s population, kept down for years by the Sunni minority, are now asserting themselves. One reason why southern Iraq has been relatively quiet compared to the Sunni Arab dominated northwest is that the Shi’ites have been willing to work with the American Coalition forces.



All this could change quickly if Iran and the United States come to blows. The Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr is a Shi’ite militia group with a strong following in much of southern Iraq, as well as in the Sadr City district of Baghdad. Fielding a force of some 10,000 Shi’ite militia, the Mahdi Army clashed with Coalition forces in 2004, and as again recently as October of 2006. Another Shi’ite militia, the Badr Organization, has its origins in a group of Iraqi exiles trained in Iran before the U.S. invasion. Centered on Karbala in southern Iraq, the Badr Organization has close ties to Iran. It should be noted that southern Iraq is currently patrolled by Polish and Italian troops, who will be withdrawn at the end of 2006, and British forces, who may well be leaving when Tony Blair leaves office. If the United States openly attacks Iran, the reaction among the Iranians’ Shi’ite co-religionists in Iraq could be explosive. If southern Iraq becomes as hostile as Sunni Arab areas like Anbar Province, the U.S. position in Iraq could quickly become untenable.



While Iran can cause the United States a great deal of trouble, Iran has problems of its own. 40% of Iranians still live in poverty. U.S. sanctions have hurt Iran’s economy, frightening off potential investors. Iran’s refineries are so under-capitalized that Iran actually needs to import gasoline. The official unemployment rate is nearly 12% - the actual unemployment rate is probably significantly higher. The median age in Iran is just under 25. To put this another way, the average Iranian was not even alive during the Iranian Revolution or the Hostage Crisis. The new generation of Iranians is less interested in returning to traditional values, and more interested in the freedoms and economic opportunities that the West has to offer.



It is true that overrunning and occupying the whole of Iran would be very difficult and expensive for the United States, but in the event of a war the U.S. could simply opt to bomb and/or occupy the Iranian oil fields, which are clustered heavily in Khuzestan and Bushehr Provinces along the Persian Gulf coast. Even a U.S. blockade of the Gulf, while it would not choke off all Iranian trade with the outside world, would seriously hurt the Iranian economy.



Iran’s missile and nuclear programs only give Iran so much leverage. While Iran claimed in April, 2006 to have enriched uranium to 3.5% U-235 at its Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, a nuclear weapon would require enriching uranium to 90% U-235. This can be done, but in the interim it leaves Iran vulnerable to a determined attack on its nuclear facilities. Even when Iran builds sufficient stockpiles of fissile material for a nuclear strike capability, actually using a nuclear weapon would invite an apocalyptic response from either the United States or Israel. In short, having nuclear weapons will strengthen Iran, but only marginally so, and they will not solve Iran’s underlying economic problems, which will only worsen as its population grows.



The United States therefore has a window of opportunity in which to transform the situation with Iran. First and foremost, the U.S. needs to take the lead in forming a consortium to aggressively develop solar, fusion, and hydrogen fuel cell technologies. This needs to be a national priority on a par with the Manhattan and Apollo Projects. If we ever want to deal with Iran from a position of strength, this is the way to do so, besides offering boundless advantages in every area from the environment to America’s balance of trade.



We should also try conciliation. Overthrowing the democratically elected government of Mossadegh in hindsight was a mistake for which we are still paying. We should also not have backed the Shah as unquestioningly or as long as we did. Owning up for our mistakes, and unfreezing Iranian assets in the U.S. would be an enormously effective gesture of goodwill, and would win us back badly-needed friends in both the Middle East and in Europe. It would be a first step toward ending the destructive cycle of jihad and retaliation that does nothing but bring to the fore the most belligerent factions in both countries.



We should take a lesson from European history, and call a regional conference to begin negotiating settlements to some of the issues afflicting the Middle East. Inviting Syria and Iran to a conference table, as Tony Blair has recently suggested, would give both powers a stake in resolving the situation in Iraq. Iran has a vested interest in a) seeing American troops pull out of Iraq, and b) safeguarding the Shi’ite majority there. This gives the U.S. and Iran a convergence of interests, enough to begin talks on defusing the situation in Iraq and Lebanon.



Europe offers a deeper lesson for us. Europe has known savage atrocities, and bitter feuds. But despite that, today Spaniards and Dutchmen, Germans and Czechs, Englishmen and Frenchmen, can sit down in the EU and do business with each other. They can dance in discos and watch the World Cup together. Surely if these peoples can work out their differences to sit together in NATO and the EU, then surely we can reach some accord with Iran. The most destructive attack on our nation’s capital in American history was not carried out by Muslims, but by the British in the War of 1812. Today the British are our closest allies. At one time the West was torn by religious wars as savage and murderous as anything seen in the streets of Gaza or Fallujah today. There will come a day when the conflicts that divide us now may seem as petty and as distant as the religious wars of the past, and one will have to consult a dusty military encyclopedia to learn about the Gulf War or the fighting in Lebanon. That is the day we need to set our sights on. We may not live to see that day, but if we have the courage and the vision, we can act now to give it as a legacy to our children.