The
Final Punch: Removing Iran From The New Middle East Equation
By Ramzy Baroud
24 February, 2007
Countercurrents.org
The
configuration of the New Middle East — as envisaged by US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice during the Israeli war against Lebanon in
July-August 2006, most certainly has no place for more than one regional
power broker, namely Israel.
Under such an arrangement
— subservient Arabs and Iran governed by an all powerful Israel
and supervised, even from afar by the seemingly philanthropic United
States — would ensure Israel’s ‘security’, which
has for long served as a casus belli, and supposed American interests
in the region; regardless of what one thinks of such logic, in Washington,
it is still prevailing.
With the elimination of Iraq
— not just Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party as some in the mainstream
media tirelessly reiterate, but rather Iraq as a strong Arab nation
with immense regional influence — the long sought pact is close
at hand. Iran, however, remains the only menacing reality that stands
between Israel and its powerful Washingtonian allies and this New Middle
East.
This means that the war of
words between Teheran and Washington is mostly inspired by this redoubtable
strategic chasm: where Washington strives to knock the Iran factor out
of the regional equation, and Teheran pushes with all of its might to
keep itself pertinent, indeed equally relevant to the shaping of the
region’s future.
This conflict has been reduced,
as required by rhetorical necessity, to that of Iran’s alleged
intent to manufacture nuclear weapons, a right that has been exclusively
reserved for Israel, who possesses hundreds of nuclear heads and the
technology to deliver them, even past the threshold of its intended
targets, neighbouring Arab capitals.
Iran might in fact be aspiring
to obtain nuclear technology to produce the lethal weapon, to assert
itself regionally, to create an equilibrium of terror, and to —
in this age of global unipolarity — shield itself from the troubling
fate of its neighbour to the West.
The Iraq and Korea example
are textbook illustrations of how small countries with or without deadly
means of defence are treated with partiality in the global arena; Iraq,
who possesses no weapons of mass destruction is experiencing prolonged
genocide, while North Korea has admitted, even boasted about the possessing
and testing of its nuclear capabilities and is now being rewarded with
generous US aid packages and security guarantees. Chances are also great
that Kim Jong II will not meet the gallows, unlike Saddam and will die
peacefully in his bed. (Professor Steven Weber’s article in the
January-February issue of Foreign Policy Magazine: How Globalization
Went Bad, offers a detailed elaboration on this topic.) It’s also
important to note that the Koreans pose no danger to Israel, a fact
that must have relegated their threat level significantly.
Thus the escalating war of
words between the US and Iran must be settled somehow in a manner that
yields a favourable solution for both sides, or military confrontation
is simply unavoidable.
The British Guardian revealed
in a mid-February report, quoting US officials and analysts, that the
Bush administration is in the “advanced stages” of preparing
for a military strike, targeting Iran’s nuclear sites. Though
US deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, Mark Kimmitt
dismissed allegations that his country is seeking a military confrontation
with Teheran, the US action — the intensification of its naval
build up, seeking the elimination of Iranian ‘agents’ in
Iraq, and so forth — suggests that the Guardian report is quite
accurate in its estimation.
Iran is still unwavering,
however. Iran’s state television quoted the country’s supreme
leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 17, as he defended the country’s
pursuit for nuclear technology. “Oil and gas reserves won't last
forever. If a nation doesn't think of producing its future energy needs,
it will be dependent on domination-seeking powers,” he was reported
as saying. Again, regardless of the dialectics of Khamanei’s rationale,
the US understands this view as continuing ‘defiance’, an
understanding that positions the military option, from the US viewpoint,
as inevitable.
US Democrats are practically
ruling out any serious challenge to Bush’s war policies —
House leader Nancy Pelosi dismissed from the outset any possibility
to impeach the president despite his administration’s unequalled
indiscretions, to say the least, of dragging the country into a most
destructive war under false and largely forged pretexts. At the US Senate
and for the second time in a week, Republicans managed to block a ‘debate’
on a resolution that would simply ‘rebuke’ the president
for his Iraq troop buildup. Even if the debate convened and a resolution
was passed, it would remain pitifully lacking, for it is simply non-binding.
It is unlikely that Iran
will back down; again the North Korea lesson is too fresh, too poignant
to ignore. Moreover, the Islamic Republic has a formidable power base
in Iraq and Lebanon: Shia militias and the Hezbollah resistance movement
respectively; the former is capable of worsening the US army’s
plight in Iraq by several fold if decided to join the ongoing Sunni
resistance, and the latter has proved an insurmountable foe to Israel
in their latest military showdown last summer.
Naturally, the US —
which is caught in an unwinnable war in Iraq, confined and blinded by
its bizarre alliance with Israel, which is more of a liability to Washington
than a strategic advantage and who is watching its own New World Order
faltering under its feet, with Latin America going its separate ways,
and China moving into what has been the unchallenged domains of the
United States for decades — should be expected to avoid a military
confrontation at any cost. Savvy US diplomat and former Secretary of
State James Baker had many ominous warnings in his Iraq Study Group
recommendations. A traditionalist and a pro-business politician, Baker
knows well that without a quick exit from Iraq, chaos will befall the
waning empire, which is ultimately bad for business. Baker also knows
that without solving the Arab-Israeli conflict, the US regional woes
will amplify beyond repair.
But as the voice of reason,
from a traditionalist viewpoint, is being hushed or sidelined, the warmongers’
hold on Washington is still as tight as ever, one of whom is Israel
and its dedicated friends on Capitol Hill.
Evidently, Israel is a prime
cheerleader for war, and most likely Israeli agents are working overtime
to provide the needed case for war; at least we know, through news reports
that Israeli agents are actively involved in Iraq and there is a possibility
that they have penetrated the Iranian domain as well, through the northern
Kurdish areas. Last November, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appointed
a major war advocate, Avigdor Lieberman, as the country’s Minister
of Strategic Affairs and also as Deputy Prime Minister. Lieberman’s
appointment was principally aimed at ‘countering’ the Iranian
threat; championing the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, has recently
visited Washington to largely discuss the Iranian threat and won standing
ovations and endless praise of Democrats and Republicans alike.
Other Israeli politicians
have been adamant in their efforts to convince Washington that a war
against Iran will yield strategic dividends and will ease the US mission
in reigning in occupied Iraq, and will provide Israel with the security
it covets. Of course, Israel knows well the disastrous affect that a
war on Iran will bring to the waning American empire (even if merely
by observing the Iraqi situation) but it matters little in the end,
as long as the Iranian threat is eliminated, or so goes the Israeli
logic.
-Ramzy Baroud’s latest
book, The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s
Struggle (Pluto Press), is available at Amazon.com and also from the
University of Michigan Press. He is the editor of PalestineChronicle.com;
his website is ramzybaroud.net