No end in sight for Iraq fiasco

S P SETH

As the world’s attention is focused on the ongoing Syrian massacre, the killings in Iraq continue unabated. When it was attacked in 2003 under the presidency of George Bush, Iraq was to be rid of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Soon after, then-president Bush appeared on the deck of a US warship wearing military uniform to declare victory, and a new ‘liberated’ Iraq was launched that was supposed to become a model democracy for the region. But that didn’t happen. The US got increasingly embroiled in all sorts of troubles, finally quitting in 2011 leaving the country with Noor al-Maliki as its prime minister. Even though Iraq had elections and Maliki cobbled together a government, it somehow didn’t gain legitimacy among the country’s disparate and divided population. Its Kurdish region is virtually independent, its minority Sunni population is at war with the country’s new majority Shia government, and there is an ongoing al Qaeda insurgency blowing up people here and there. Iraq’s so-called liberation is a cruel joke on its people.

How did it all happen? Indeed, for a time, in the eighties, Saddam was a US favorite in the region, a bulwark against the ‘crazy’ mullahs who had seized power in Iran in 1979 through a popular revolution against the shah. At another time, in 1951, a popular revolution had got rid of the shah electing the country’s nationalist leader Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq as prime minister. But a US engineered coup got rid of Mossadeq, and brought back the shah as their trusted man. But his megalomaniac rule was hugely unpopular. He was deposed once again 1979 in a popular revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini and backed by elements of the liberal-left political spectrum. As the predominantly new clerical political order took hold, it soon became a bloody affair both internally and externally.

Internally, Ayatollah Khomeini adroitly eliminated his one time liberal-left political partners in revolution through a bloody purge, throwing many of them into prison, just like the shah had done earlier with his political enemies. Those who escaped fled into exile operating as People’s Mujahedin of Iran and were given shelter in Iraq by Saddam Hussein. However, within Iran, the new clerical political order, with Ayatollah Khomeini as the supreme leader, continued to have popular support.

The external dimension of the 1979 revolution was a bitter fall out between the new Iranian regime and the United States. Tehran accused the US embassy in Iran of being a hive of spies, and its staff were held hostage by the revolutionary guards for well over one year. To this day, the US and Iran have no diplomatic relations and their relationship remains in a state of crisis. Iran is facing the worst economic sanctions from the US and many other countries for its nuclear programme.

It was against this backdrop of intense US hostility to Iran that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq became Washington’s virtual ally. Saddam had a long-standing maritime dispute with Iran over the Shatt al-Arab river boundary between the two countries. Saddam obviously saw an opportunity in the uncertainty and confusion that prevailed in the period after the revolution in Iran and sought to settle the scores and undermine the new regime. The new Shia political order in Iran was seen as a dangerous development. It was feared that the new regime might be inclined to extend its revolutionary fervor and missionary zeal to whip up Iraq’s majority Shia population. Saddam was, therefore, keen to preempt any Iranian threat in the near future by starting a war in 1980 while the new regime was still finding its feet.

Iran’s ongoing troubles with the United States created a commonality of purpose between Saddam Hussein and the United States. Saddam got encouragement, weapons, chemicals, intelligence, money and much more from the US during his war with Iran. It was a bloody war, lasting 8 years (1980-88), and fought to a stalemate. Iraq extensively used chemicals weapons, such as mustard gas, against Iranian troops. The estimates of casualties, with Iran suffering the most, vary from half-a-million to a million or more.

Saddam Hussein, who was generally not well regarded by his fellow Arab rulers, if not out-rightly hated, received their support in his crusade against Iran under its clerical regime. Some of them, cash rich with their oil revenues, lent him money to prosecute his war against Iran. But when the whole project failed, they wanted their money back with interest. Saddam’s Iran war had bankrupted Iraq and he was looking for some way of replenishing his coffers, as well as to restore his lost prestige among his people and in the region. He decided to attack and occupy Kuwait with its vast oil wealth, which would make Iraq the preeminent oil producer in the world.

He was said to have broached the subject at the time with the US ambassador and received no specific objection. Banking on his friendship with the US, forged during his Iranian adventure, he let loose his armed forces against Kuwait and managed to occupy much of the country in a rather short period of time. Which raised hackles among the Arab world’s oil producing monarchs, many of them US allies as well as important oil suppliers.   The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which threatened to change the region’s geopolitical situation with Iraq commanding significant oil supplies, created alarm bells in Washington that led to the US invasion of Iraq, early 1991. Iraq was easily defeated but the then-president Bush senior desisted from regime change.

The Saddam regime lived on US sufferance, subjected to severe UN sanctions and barely surviving on the oil-for-food programme. That is to say, it was allowed to sell enough oil to buy its food and other necessities. This didn’t seem to seriously affect the regime, but the Iraqi people, particularly Iraqi children, suffered horribly under this because of shortages of medical supplies and other necessities. The regime change was subsequently effected under George Bush (junior) to complete his father’s half-finished job after he attacked Iraq in 2003. Saddam was hunted down and subsequently hanged by a new Iraqi Shia regime installed under the US occupation.

The prime reasons for the US invasion of Iraq that it had weapons of mass destruction and links with the al Qaeda were found to be untrue. As we now know that the laudable objective of liberating and making Iraq into a model regional democracy has turned out to be cruel joke played on the Iraqi people. Surely, Saddam Hussein was a tyrant and his overthrow by the Iraqi people would have been a welcome development. But its US invasion only compounded Iraq’s tragedy.

Worse still, the increasing involvement of extremists of the al-Qaeda linked Islamic State of Iraq and Levant in the Syrian conflict to support rebels has the potential of turning the two states into another terrorist hub, on the lines of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Iraq’s tragedy is not over yet. It is likely to get worse before it gets better-- if it gets better.   

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

The Syrian question?

S P SETH

Will he or will he not bomb Syria? He said he would. But later, he said he wouldn’t for the time being until the US Congress also had a say on this. However, if the Congress voted against it, it wouldn’t be binding on President Obama and the bombing might still go ahead, so we are told. If you, the readers, are confused, so are many analysts. It would appear, though, that the bombing would go ahead at some point soon as, without it, the US’ ‘credibility’ might suffer. A US naval flotilla is already poised to rain missiles on Syrian sites to destroy command and control centers as well as warehouses with weapons’ stockpiles.

The US wants to punish the Assad regime for crossing Obama’s ‘red line’ with its alleged use of chemical weapons against its civilian population. Logically speaking, the Assad regime would be daft to do this when they were already making inroads against the rebels. And that too at a time when the regime had allowed UN experts to visit the sites said to have been subjected to earlier chemical attacks.

So far, Russia and China have used their status as permanent members of the UN Security Council to veto any military action against the Assad regime, thus denying international legitimacy. The findings of the UN experts on chemical attack on the outskirts of Damascus have yet to be finalized. Indeed, the UN experts had to withdraw hurriedly from Syria with an imminent US attack on the horizon, postponed subsequently with a last minute change of mind by President Obama.

Whatever the inspectors’ findings, the US and its allies have already come to the firm conclusion that the Assad regime was responsible for the chemical attack. John Kerry, the US secretary of state, reportedly said that while the evidence being gathered by the UN experts was important but it was not necessary to prove what was already “grounded in facts, informed by conscience and guided by common sense.” In other words, the corroboration from the UN experts would be a plus but, if it weren’t forthcoming, the enormity of the crime would be pinned on the Assad regime.

In any case, the Syrian regime had engaged in a “cynical attempt to cover up” their actions, not only by delaying the arrival of the UN team but also by their subsequent shelling with conventional weapons of the affected area to leave no trace of a nerve gas attack. In other words, a UN report against Assad regime’s culpability, if forthcoming, will not be credible.

Here is where the entire thrust of the US case against Syria starts looking like the rationale for the Iraq war disaster. President George Bush had come to the conclusion, without objective supportive evidence, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and that he was in league with al Qaeda—both untrue. Which provided the basis for the US and its allies to attack Iraq, for which that country is still paying a heavy price.

One can only hope that the US and its allies would have learnt their lesson from the Iraq war. It was, for instance, supposed to be a war of liberation for the Iraqi people when they would be thronging the streets of Baghdad to welcome the victorious US army. And we know what happened to Iraq and what is still happening there in the aftermath of the war, started in 2003. The US forces finally left in 2011, leaving the mess for the shell-shocked people of Iraq.

As with Iraq in the early stages when the job seemed so easily accomplished, there is the same sense of optimism that a surgical missiles’ strike from the US fleet in the Mediterranean will significantly degrade the Syrian command and control centres and weapons stockpiles, perhaps even destroy chemical weapons, without any need for US troops on the ground. In other words, it will be a sharp and limited intervention with very little cost in human and financial terms. But this is not borne out by the examples of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and earlier, in Vietnam which dragged on.

Chris Harmer, a senior naval analyst at the US Institute for the Study of War, said to be a key exponent of the surgical missile strike plan, apparently is having second thoughts. Quoted in the Foreign Policy journal, he said that, “I never intended my analysis of a cruise missile strike option to be advocacy, even though some people [policy makers] took it as that.”  He elaborated that, “Punitive action [against Assad regime] is the dumbest of all actions” because it won’t produce the desired effects.  As for destroying chemical and other weapons’ stockpiles, “The logical response is if any weapons are left in the warehouses, he’s [Assad] going to start dispersing them among his forces if he hasn’t already.” Besides, bombing the weapons warehouses might cause mass casualties.

Against this backdrop, what exactly will the US hope to achieve with punitive military action when even its most loyal ally, the United Kingdom, is baulking at the prospect with the country’s parliament voting against any military action? With the rebel movement now in the grip of the militants and fighters with al Qaeda connections, the US certainly doesn’t want Syria to become a regional centre of jihad, like another Afghanistan.

At the same time, Assad is hardly a preferred alternative for the US and its allies, as it will deepen the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah nexus with disturbing regional implications, including for Israel. The US’ regional allies, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates, will be hugely upset if Assad regime were to prevail. But, at the same time, a limited operation without a follow up strategic plan doesn’t seem to advance US interests in any meaningful way.

Edward Luttwak, a senior associate at Washington’s Centre for Strategic Studies, an old hand and insider, sees a clear logic in it. Writing in the New York Times, he opined, “There is only one outcome that the US can possibly favor: an indefinite draw.” He added, “By tying down Mr Assad’s army and its Iranian and Hezbollah allies in a war against al-Qaeda-aligned extremist fighters, four of Washington’s enemies [and of Israel] will be engaged in war among themselves and prevented from attacking Americans or America’s allies…”

This might appear a smug and satisfying outcome for the US but to prolong the agony of the Syrian people is patently inhuman. Besides, military intervention(s) seldom remains limited, as we know from the recent experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Note: This article first appeared in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

Iran, Israel and US

S P SETH

Having occupied, divided, created apartheid-era Bantustans, and generally ruined Palestine, Israel is now turning its attention to Iran to rally the world, especially the United States, against that country. This has been going on for a number of years because Iran’s nuclear energy program, according to Tel Aviv, is an “existential danger” for Israel as well a threat to global peace. Therefore, it is not just an Israeli issue, but also a global issue requiring a global response.

Israel doesn’t accept Iranian proposition that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. It believes that Tehran is actually working on a nuclear weapons program and indeed is quite within reach of making a bomb, though there is no hard evidence to back it up. It would therefore like the US, its most powerful ally, to stop Iran from heading in that direction by destroying its nuclear facilities. If the US were squeamish about it, Israel would do this on its own with the US standing behind it if things were to go wrong. Short of actually attacking Iranian facilities at this point of time, President Obama has said that the US wouldn’t allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. In other words, the US will keep all its options open including, if necessary, the military option. Which is quite a tight undertaking but not entirely satisfactory to Israel.

Against this backdrop, Israel’s additional worry now is that Iran’s new moderate President Dr Hassan Rowhani might somehow be able to sway the United States and its allies into constructive talks on the nuclear question. Rowhani has called for “serious and substantive talks” to break the deadlock over Iran’s nuclear program. To quote Rowhani, “As the president of the Islamic republic, I am announcing that there is the political will to solve this issue and also take into consideration the concerns of the other sides.” In other words, there is scope for compromise. But he also made it clear that Iran will not give up its nuclear program for peaceful uses as provided under international regulations. According to Rowhani, “Iran’s peaceful nuclear program is a national issue…we will not give up the rights of the Iranian people.” He added, “We will preserve our rights based on the international regulations. In Iran, nobody has said we will give up uranium enrichment, no one and at no time.”

 But Israel, the US and its allies are aiming for Iran to give up its nuclear program. And for that to happen, the US is banking on the harshest sanctions it can impose and force other countries in the world to do likewise to cripple Iran economically. In other words, it is engaged in economic warfare against Iran; there is no other word for it. The logic is that people’s economic hardship will turn them against the clerical regime and replace it with a more responsive (to US pressure) political order. And if that too doesn’t work, there is the ultimate threat of military intervention (bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities).

But Israel wants urgent action to destroy Tehran’s nuclear program. And it considers Rowhani an even bigger danger being a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”, as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described him. Netanyahu warned a group of visiting US congressmen against putting hopes in Rowhani as: “ He knows how to exploit this, and yesterday he called for more talks. Of course, he wants more talks. He wants to talk and talk and talk.” He added, “ And while everybody is busy talking to him, he will be busy enriching uranium. The centrifuges will keep on spinning.”

It is not just Netanyahu who is warning against Rowhani. It would appear that much of the Israeli state machinery has gone on the offensive. For instance, Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister for international affairs, reportedly said, “Rowhani is charming, he is cunning, and he will smile all the way to the bomb” And his advice to the US and the world reportedly is that Iran should be told unmistakably that it had only two choices: close its uranium enrichment program or “see it destroyed with brute force” that, in his view, would take only “a few hours of airstrikes, no more.” And he was very dismissive about a possible Iranian counter-attack, which might involve firing “several hundred missiles” with “very little damage because we can intercept many of them.” Therefore, as far as Israel is concerned it is time to go after Iran with all guns blazing to destroy its nuclear facilities. Indeed, according to some press reports, the US response to an Israeli attack on Iran might be softening.

Iran’s new President Rowhani is aware of the dangers. He has said, “Unfortunately, the war-mongering lobby in the US is opposed to constructive [talks] and only protects the interests of the foreign regime [Israel], and often receives orders from that regime…” If such were the state of affairs, the only solution for Iran would be to surrender and junk its nuclear program. Which, most probably, is unlikely to happen.

But surely, there would be some policy makers in the US worrying about stoking another conflict in the Middle East, when the US is trying hard to extricate itself from Afghanistan and its Iraq war project went so terribly wrong, with the country hit by bombs all too often. If a recent article in the New York Review of Books by William Luers, Thomas R. Pickering and Jim Walsh entitled, “For a New Approach to Iran”, is any indication, there apparently is concern at some levels about the dangerous drift in US-Iran relations that have struggled since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

The article broadly favours a diplomatic path to deal with the nuclear issue, complementing it with a broader dialogue on a whole range of issues, involving the region. It rightly evokes Obama’s March 2009 message that said, “My administration is now committed to diplomacy… and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran, and the international community. …We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.” In the same way, Iran’s new President has announced, “… there is political will to solve this [nuclear] issue”, taking into consideration the “concerns of the other sides.”  

The authors of the article have called upon their government to recall what President Kennedy said fifty years ago, in another context, urging his countrymen “not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.” This message is as apposite today in the context of US-Iran relations as it was in the era of Cold War. But to pursue this course, the US will have to rid itself of Israel’s pernicious and self-serving influence on its foreign policy.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

Egypt facing a civil war

S P SETH

When is a coup a coup? Apparently, when the US says so. And so far (at the time of writing) the US has refused to call the removal from power of President Morsi by the military on July 3 a coup. The chain of events unleashed since then has led to an orgy of killings of Muslim Brotherhood supporters wanting their leader back as the country’s president. Though the US has condemned the recent use of military force, it was not prepared to call the military coup a coup.  Indeed, during his recent Pakistan visit, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, justified the military coup in Egypt when he said that the Egyptian generals had acted to restore democracy.

Kerry was not entirely wrong to point out that the Morsi administration had indeed incurred the wrath of many Egyptians’, probably a majority, in trying to hijack a broad based revolution to rid the country of the Hosni Mubarak regime. For instance, the youth movement, Tamarrud (the rebellion) had collected 22 million signatures urging Morsi to resign, and had indeed organized the largest demonstrations to support their campaign.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its political wing, Freedom and Justice Party, simply couldn’t wait to use their political power to push their own agenda by riding roughshod over their opponents. Worse still, they even alienated some of their own political partners, like the radical Islamic outfit, the al-Nour Party, which supported Morsi’ removal. With power in their hands, the Brotherhood conveniently forgot what had won them the election; and that was to remain part of an inclusive national movement without seeking domination. They had, for instance, undertaken not to nominate for the country’s presidency. They had also undertaken not to run candidates in all parliamentary constituencies. In both cases, they backtracked.

These assurances were meant to assure the secular and youthful pioneers of the revolution that the Brotherhood would be real partners in the unfolding revolutionary enterprise. But when they won the presidency and a large number of parliamentary seats, they decided to push through a constitution that seemed very much like an Islamist document, ignoring the rights of women, minorities, secular and liberal elements of the country’s new revolutionary political spectrum.

Indeed, even Sheikh Mohamed Abdel Zaher, one of al-Azhar’s leading clerics, was not impressed with Morsi’s attempts to refashion Egyptian society along more rigid Islamic lines. He reportedly felt that, “ He [Morsi] was guilty of bad behaviour.”  He added, “He and his people tried to take all the important positions of Egypt for themselves and the people rejected this.  He became like something of the old regime.”

The problem with the Muslim Brotherhood in government was that they had never been in power before. Ever since its formation in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna with a view to refashion Muslim society, on a global scale hopefully, to follow the Islamic scriptures and precepts, it struggled to make  headway clashing with established political order and system. As a result, they found themselves hounded, persecuted and proscribed, while trying to survive under the most difficult circumstances, whether it was in Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Tunisia and elsewhere.

Indeed, in the early nineties when Islamists were about to win elections in Algeria, the country’s military annulled the vote leading to a bloody civil war costing nearly 200,000 lives. Within Egypt too, the country’s military regime from Nasser down to Mubarak persecuted and tortured them, banning them from any overt political role. But the movement still survived and lived to win an election in revolutionary Egypt when Morsi was elected the country’s President in 2012.

But without any political experience of governing and lacking the art of political consensus and compromise, they took their election win as a holy edict of sorts, quoting ad infinitum from their new political bible of democracy. And they felt terribly wronged when President Morsi was unceremoniously removed from power. In this situation, the only vindication for them of their principled position would be the restoration of Morsi to the country’s presidency. As against this was the army’s position that they were only following the people’s will to remove Morsi and his regime from power. In other words, both the Brotherhood and the army had reached an irreconcilable situation.

 At this point it is important to examine the role of external forces. The first overt sign of US displeasure with the Morsi regime came when President Obama said last year that the US considered Egypt neither an ally nor an enemy. Which, in simple language, meant that the Morsi regime was not reliable. But, at the same time, they didn’t want to cut them off completely. In other words, the US was sending confusing signals to both the military and the Morsi regime. General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the army chief, bolstered up by popular and widespread demonstrations against the Muslim Brotherhood, preferred to read US signals, however confusing and ambivalent, as signs of US support. And when the 48-hour ultimatum for a political resolution of the crisis expired, el-Sisi felt confident, both domestically and internationally, about the popular and political correctness of his decision to depose Morsi as the country’s president, replacing him with an army-appointed interim president and a new government with himself as defense minister and deputy prime minister.

By refusing to call the coup a military coup, the US seemed to be showing some preference for the army’s interim solution. But, at the same time, it was working for some kind of political reconciliation between the warring parties. Which didn’t impress the Brotherhood. While in Pakistan, John Kerry clearly expressed US preference for the military’s removal of President Morsi by calling it an exercise in restoring democracy backed by popular demand.

Still the army was not terribly happy as General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi blasted the US government for its lack of support. And it is even more unhappy now when President Obama has condemned the army’s killing of civilians, and announced the cancellation of a joint military exercise next month; though the $ 1.5 billion annual US aid, much of it for the army, will continue as usual. The fact is that the US can’t afford to cut off the Egyptian army, which is the lynchpin of its strategy of maintaining Israel’s security, an important component of which is the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

All the efforts of the US, European and Arab envoys to mediate and prevent a bloodbath in Egypt having failed, the military let loose its fire power and went on a killing spree. The way things are in Egypt, the country looks like descending into a civil war, like the one in Algeria when that country’s elections in 1992 were annulled by the military to prevent Islamic Salvation Front gaining power. If that happens, it will have catastrophic effects for the entire region.

 Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth @yahoo.com.au

Iran: Rouhani’s unenviable challenge

S P SETH

While the 2009 Iranian elections posed a serious challenge to the country’s political system, and were interpreted by the ruling clerical hierarchy as a foreign-inspired, if not instigated, conspiracy, the recently held elections, on the other hand, passed off peacefully. The election result was conclusively in favour of the 64-year old cleric Dr Hassan Rouhani as the country’s new president, effective from August 3. His outright victory, though, was a surprise because there was a general view that he would have to fight it out in a second round, being unlikely to pass the 50 per cent mark.

There are two challenges awaiting Rouhani, at home and internationally. Internally, the ruling hierarchy is divided between moderates and conservatives/hardliners. It is not a division that challenges the existing system. It is, in some ways, like the Democrats and Republicans in the United States, with a common commitment to the political system. This is not to equate the two systems. The big difference is that in Iran the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the ultimate power; appointed to the position by Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of Iran’s 1979 revolution. He can, if he chooses, make and break president’s power. The 2009 Green Movement, unlike the Rouhani-led moderates, sought to challenge the system and was crushed. Rouhani is part of the system, with relatively pragmatic and flexible approach to accommodate the changing times at home and abroad. For instance, Rouhani would like to be more flexible to the changing modes of women’s dress code and respond to the desires of the country’s youth and middle class for greater freedom.

Will this put him into confrontation with the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameini, and his Guardian Council? Not necessarily. There was admittedly some tension when Mohammad Khatami was president and was not allowed to push forward moderate reforms. Which created a lot of disappointment and frustration among the middle class and the country’s youth. These frustrations further built up under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, finally bursting out in the 2009 Green Movement challenging the country’s political system. It was crushed to give Ahmadinejad another term. His second term has been an even bigger disaster at home and abroad.

Against this backdrop, one hopes that the Supreme Leader and the clerical hierarchy around him would give Rouhani enough latitude to fine tune the system for changing times. And if that were to happen, Rouhani might give the system a new legitimacy for new times. The fact that the elections, that makes Rouhani the new president (effective August 3),  were free and fair without interference from the clerical hierarchy and its militia, would seem to suggest that this time Iran might see a managed switch to moderation in its internal and external politics.

Another reason for a moderate shift is that the tough talk by the conservatives so far has brought considerable pain to the Iranian people from massive international sanctions that are crippling Iran’s economy. The sanctions are the result of Iran’s nuclear program. The world, by and large, doesn’t believe Iranian protestations about the peaceful nature of their nuclear program, even though, by most accounts, Iran doesn’t have any active program of making a nuclear bomb. This distrust is as much due to Iran’s opaque nuclear program as the harsh and aggressive tone of Iranian diplomacy on the subject, particularly rhetorical utterances of President Ahmadinejad.

Dr Rouhani, as Iran’s new president with his nickname “the diplomat sheikh”, hopes to change that. Which doesn’t mean that Iran is likely to abandon its nuclear program. What it means is that under Rouhani it is likely to become more transparent, possibly with a low enrichment target, to defuse bomb-making accusations. In return, the incoming Rouhani administration might ask for progressive lifting of international sanctions. Will it work?

This is the big question; because it didn’t work when as Iran’s nuclear negotiator in 2004, Rouhani played a key role in voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment. The US was not satisfied as it wanted Iran to abandon its nuclear program altogether. One might hope that this time, with Rouhani as president, the US might be inclined to explore more seriously Iran’s claims about peaceful uses of its nuclear program. And if the US response were to be as negative as under the Bush administration, intoxicated at the time with its initial military successes in Iraq, it could once again push Iran into a radical Islamic mode and even national mobilization against a perceived US-Israeli attack on its nuclear installations.

Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel has already started his aggressive campaign threatening unilateral attack on Iranian nuclear installations to put pressure on the United States. It might be worth recalling that Iran, even when its revolution was in its infancy, fought off a US-inspired and aided Iraqi attack under Saddam Hussein to a standstill and to see him eventually overthrown by its former benefactor, the US. Of course, the new Iranian middle class might not be willing to undergo the same sacrifices to maintain their nuclear independence but that would remain to be seen.

The nuclear issue aside, Iran is also a serious thorn in the US side with its commitment to stand by the Bashar al-Assad regime and its support of the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Syria is Iran’s only Arab ally, and both the Assad regime and Hezbollah are receiving considerable military and financial assistance from Iran, including possibly some Iranian Revolutionary Guards fighting in Syria against the rebels. Iran believes, as does the Hezbollah in Lebanon, that if the Syrian regime were toppled, the rebels and their regional Arab allies, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others, would go after them. Therefore, for Iran, Syria would appear like its forward base to ward off a bigger enemy.

As it happens, the need to topple the Assad regime has created strategic convergence between the US, most Arab states and Israel; because it would break the crucial political and strategic nexus with Iran and thwart its regional ambitions. And they are also are opposed to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Iran’s newly elected president Rouhani has the unenviable task of convincing the US and its allies that its nuclear ambitions are not weapons-related, and that it has a legitimate role in the region that is not disruptive. And at the same time to be pursing a reformist agenda within the country without provoking the ire of the Supreme Leader. It is going to be difficult but not impossible as long as the US and its allies are not bent on Iran’s virtual surrender.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au