US-Iran rapprochement?

S P SETH

Will the US and Iran be able to restart where they broke off in 1979 when the Iranian revolution deposed the Shah? The break in their relations of over 30 years has only made things worse. And their problems over the years have come to be crystallized in the strong US opposition to Iran’s nuclear program. Overlaying this, and indeed reinforcing this, is Israel’s pathological distrust of the Iranian regime. Israel’s position is that Iran’s nuclear ‘weapons’ program is an existential threat for them because of its perceived commitment to destroy Israel. And for this they quote some of the rhetorical statements of the former Iranian president Ahmadjinejad. One of the first things President Hassan Rouhani did, as a goodwill gesture, was to send greetings to the Jews on Rosh Hashanah, Jewish new year. He also condemned the killings of the Jews as a “crime that the Nazis committed towards the Jews”.  This is a big change in tone and, even, content, from his predecessor.

                                                                                                                                                                                                       On the question of Iran’s nuclear program, President Rouhani’s administration  has started a dialogue with the United States and other permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany to address the concerns and apprehensions that Iran is engaged in a clandestine nuclear program to make an atomic bomb.  During his recent UN address, Rouhani addressed the nuclear question at two levels. First, he declared, “…Nuclear weapon and other weapons of mass destruction have no place in Iran’s security and defense doctrine, and contradict our fundamental religious and ethical convictions…” Second, while denying categorically that Iran had any nuclear (weapons) ambition, Rouhani however strongly asserted Iran’s “right to enrichment [of uranium] inside Iran and enjoyment of other related nuclear rights.” And to ignore this or demand its surrender, according to Rouhani, “… is, therefore, an illusion, and extremely unrealistic…”

In an article he recently penned for the Washington Post, he outlined why it was important for Iran to master nuclear technology. He said, “…To us, mastering the atomic fuel cycle and generating nuclear power is as much about diversifying energy resources as it is about who Iranians are as a nation, our demand for dignity and our consequent place in the world.” He has also said that Iran “is prepared to engage immediately in time-bound and result-oriented talks to build mutual confidence and removal of mutual uncertainties with full transparency.”

In his UN address, he avoided referring directly to Israel’s hostile role on the nuclear issue but alluded to this indirectly by cautioning the US leadership from “following the short-sighted interest of warmongering pressure groups…” Not surprisingly, though, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel still holds the view that Rouhani is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Israel is going to be even more upset as Rouhani has raised the issue that Israel, which has nuclear weapons but refuses to confirm or deny it, should join the non-proliferation treaty. This has so far been a non-issue in the nuclear proliferation debate because Israel somehow is believed to have a special dispensation, under US and western political protection, from transparency and accountability in this matter. 

Obama’s response to the new Iranian leadership’s diplomatic overtures has been cautiously optimistic. In his UN speech, for the first time an American president acknowledged, “… America’s role in overthrowing an Iranian government [in 1953] during the Cold War.” Such a symbolic gesture is helpful in creating the right atmospherics. While asserting that “… we are determined to prevent them [Iranians] from developing a nuclear weapon” President Obama also said that “…we respect the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful nuclear energy”, while meeting their “responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the UN Security Council Resolutions.” At the same time, Obama noted that, “Meanwhile, [Iran’s] Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons, and President Rouhani has just recently reiterated that the Islamic Republic will never develop a nuclear weapon.”

As part of the process of furthering their dialogue, the US secretary of State and the Iranian Foreign Minister have already met, and Iran and the UN Security Council permanent members (the US, Russia, China, UK and France) and Germany will soon be holding a dialogue on the nuclear question. Another encouraging development has been a telephonic conversation between Obama and Rouhani to break the ice, so to say, enveloping their relations since the 1979 Iranian revolution. For the first time, the dialogue on the nuclear question will be held against a backdrop of some positive exchanges. But that is no guarantee of real progress. According to Obama, “To succeed, conciliatory words will have to be matched [by Iran] by actions that are transparent and verifiable.”

Already, even symbolic diplomatic progress is creating some nervous reaction among countries committed to perpetual hostility to Iran. As New York Times colourfully reported (September 29), “ For Israel and Persian Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, President Obama’s telephone call with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran on Friday was the geopolitical equivalent of discovering your best friend flirting with your main rival.” And it is not just the nuclear issue. To again quote New York Times’ report, “ But beyond that [the nuclear issue], the prospect of even a nonnuclear Iran—strengthened economically by the lifting of sanctions, and emboldened politically by renewed relations with Washington—is seen as a dire threat that could upend the dynamics in this volatile region.” But that is going too far, when the real conversation between Iran and the US and its allies on the nuclear question is yet to begin in earnest.

There are two issues here. While the Iranian President has categorically ruled out Iran’s ambition to develop a nuclear bomb, he is also firm that his country is determined to master the nuclear energy cycle. Any country doing that would have the technical capability to make a bomb, if it were to reach the level of enriching uranium to a very high level of 90 per cent. Iran doesn’t have that capability and neither does it claim to be working to that level. But it probably has up to 20 per cent capacity that is commensurate with peaceful medical and other uses. This is where transparency and verification by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) comes in.

If Iran is categorical about not making a bomb, as it is, it shouldn’t be a terribly difficult exercise to let in the IAEA inspectors for verification. But if the US and its allies were to insist on Iran altogether abandoning its uranium enrichment program for even peaceful uses, that is unlikely to happen.

The future direction of US-Iran dialogue will depend on if Israel would continue to have a veto on US decision-making in this matter. During his UN address and meeting with President Obama, Netanyahu made it clear that Israel would settle for nothing short of dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program. Otherwise, Israel might feel impelled to make a pre-emptive strike at some time on Iranian nuclear installations.

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

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

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