Pro-Israeli Americans
pushing Iran issue as pathway to change in region
uploaded 25 May
2003
U.S. MUST SOLVE PALESTINIAN, IRAQ ISSUES
BEFORE IRAN
Now that Iraq has been conquered, hard-line American
Jews, supporters of Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, are urging
the United States to overthrow the Islamic government in Iran.
A systematic campaign of accusations, lies, propaganda and
disinformation, very similar to the one which preceded the attack on
Iraq, is now being mounted against Iran by a cabal of
neo-conservatives in Washington.
As in the case of Iraq, the
real reasons for the campaign against Iran remain uncertain and
ambivalent.
Is the goal to spread "democracy" in the Middle
East so as to make the United States safe from "terrorism"? Or is it
to destroy any regional challenge to Israel?
The most likely
explanation is that it is a combination of both. The
neo-conservatives, who now dictate the pace and direction of
American foreign policy, consider that American and Israeli
interests are identical and cannot be separated. To understand the
way Ameri-can opinion is shaped, one needs to read and listen to
what is being said in the American press and in Washington's
numerous right-wing think-tanks.
The Weekly Standard is a
leading organ of neo-con opinion. Its editor, William Kristol, one
of the most strident voices in favour of the Iraq war, has now
turned his bellicose attention to Iran. In a lead editorial on May
12 he wrote:
"... The liberation of Iraq was the first great
battle for the future of the Middle East. The creation of a free
Iraq is now of fundamental importance...We are already in a death
struggle with Iran over the future of Iraq.
The theocrats
ruling Iran understand that the stakes are now double or nothing...
as success in Iraq sounds the death knell for the Iranian
revolution.
"So we must help our friends and allies in Iraq
block Iranian-backed subversion. And we must also take the fight to
Iran, with measures ranging from public diplomacy to covert
operations. Iran is the tipping point in the war on proliferation,
the war on terror, and the effort to reshape the Middle East. If
Iran goes pro-Western and anti-terror, positive changes in Syria and
Saudi Arabia will follow much more easily. And the chances for an
Israeli-Palestinian settlement will greatly improve...
"On
the outcome of the confrontation with Tehran, more than any other,
rests the future of the Bush Doctrine - and, quite possibly, the
Bush presidency - and prospects for a safer world..."
I have
quoted Kristol's editorial at length because it is a clear
_expression of the neo-con's determination to pressure, even
blackmail, President George W. Bush into using American power to
"reshape" the Middle East in Israel's interest.
At a
conference at the Saban Center in Washington on May 14, Kristol
enlarged on his views by remarking that an American strike against
Iran might possibly take place before the November 2004 American
presidential elections.
Another leading neo-con guru,
Michael Ledeen, who throughout the 1990s called for an attack
against Iraq, is now pressing as persistently for an attack on Iran.
The new "Center for Democracy in Iran", an American action
group calling for regime change in Tehran, is largely his creation.
The flavour of his approach may be grasped from a speech he
delivered at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
(JINSA) in Washington on April 30, entitled Time to focus on Iran -
The Mother of Modern Terrorism.
In it, he declared: "The
time for diplomacy is at an end; it is time for a free Iran, free
Syria and free Lebanon."
A week later, on May 6, at a
conference at the American Enterprise Institute, another leading
neo-con think-tank, Ledeen repeated his call for a U.S. attack on
Iran, in which he was supported by Uri Lubrani, a long-time adviser
to Israel's Ministry of Defence and architect of Israel's disastrous
"security zone" in Lebanon, which was only wound up when Israeli
forces were finally driven out of south Lebanon in 2000.
In
their campaign against Iran, neo-cons and pro-Israeli lobbyists are
joined by exiled Iranian monarchists, active among the large Iranian
community in California, who pin their hopes on Reza Pahlavi, son of
the late pro-Israeli Shah.
In a recent interview with the
Italian newspaper La Stampa, Reza Pahlavi declared: "The fall of the
current regime would not only liberate the forces of a great nation,
it would free the world of an imminent atomic risk and the biggest
terrorist network in existence."
Inflammatory accusations
levelled against Iran by American officials, by friends of Israel,
right-wing ideologues and others are given wide prominence on
American television and in the mainstream American press.
They usually include the following: that Iran's nuclear
programme has reached such an advanced stage that it might soon test
a nuclear weapon; that it is developing biological weapons and is
seeking foreign help in developing chemical weapons; that it
supports such "terrorist"
organisations as Hezbollah in
Lebanon as well as militant Shiite groups in Iraq and Afghanistan;
and, most recently and sensationally, that the suicide bombings
against residential compounds in Riyadh were planned by top Al Qaida
commanders sheltering in Iran!
According to the American TV
programme Nightline, Al Qaida leaders in Iran include Saif Al Adel,
wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of two American
embassies in East Africa.
Needless to say, no firm evidence
in support of these serious allegations is ever produced. It is
noteworthy, however, that the charge of Iranian-Al Qaida complicity
strongly resembles the accusation of links between Iraq and Al Qaida
made repeatedly against Baghdad in the run-up to the war (including
regrettably by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell himself) - but
of course never documented or proven.
In spite of the
clamour from the neo-cons, few experts predict an early American
military assault on Iran.
For one thing, fear of a new wave
of terrorist attacks, following the bombings in Riyadh and
Casablanca, has captured America's attention, almost to the
exclusion of other foreign policy worries.
For another, the
United States has its hands full in Iraq, where resistance is
mounting to the American occupation and where the task of putting
the country back on its feet is proving far more difficult than
Washington had anticipated.
Another reason for caution on
the Iran front would be strong European opposition to any U.S.
military attack - including this time opposition from Britain's Tony
Blair.
For all these reasons, some experts believe that a
military strike against Iran by either the U.S. or Israel - or by
both together - would only become a possibility if there were
convincing proof that Iran was about to test a nuclear weapon or
that an Al Qaida cell located in Iran had attacked U.S. or Israeli
targets in the past or was about to do so in the immediate future.
Rather than risk a major military assault, these experts
believe that, if the United States and Israel wanted to send a
strong message to Iran, they were more likely to use special forces
against Iranian proxies in Iraq or Lebanon, or seek to undermine the
Tehran regime by encouraging separatist tendencies among Iran's
Azeri and Baluchi communities, in an effort to destabilize the
country.
The truth would seem to be that policy-makers and
opinion formers in the United States are divided over what to do
about Iran.
Some follow the President's lead in
characterising the Islamic Republic as the leading member of the
"Axis of Evil".
They identify political Shiism backed by
Iran as one of America's most dangerous enemies and they fear that
Iraq can never be stabilised unless Iran and its Shiite supporters
in Iraq are neutralised -- a totally impossible task unless the
Shiite community is slaughtered en masse!
A radically
different point of view, however, is that America's most fearsome
opponent is not Shiism but fundamentalist Sunni Islam, as preached
and practiced by Osama bin Laden and other Islamic extremists.
According to this view, the United States should forge an
alliance with Shiite Iran and encourage the emergence in Iraq of a
Shiite-dominated government.
There have been repeated
references in the American press to discreet meetings of U.S. and
Iranian representatives in Geneva, suggesting that some sort of
dialogue is, in fact, in progress.
The policy debate in
Washington has rarely been sharper. Following the swift military
victory in Iraq, the neo-cons imagined they had gained in influence
and routed their critics. Now, however, with Iraq in chaos,
terrorism rampant, Sharon unrestrained, and the dollar and the
American economy heading lower, the tide is turning once again.
The strategic wisdom of the neo-cons is being questioned.
The sensible opinion would seem to be that America will need
to show some success in rebuilding Iraq and resolving the
Arab-Israeli conflict before it turns its attention to the mullahs
in Tehran.
Source: Gulf
News
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