A New Paradigm
for Dealing with Iran
By Zaheer Jan
Bedminster, New Jersey
No
one has to tell us. We know we are the Super Power
of the planet. And, lest we forget, our media
constantly keeps harping about it. Isn’t
it time though that we brought it down a thousand?
With our budget deficit estimated to hit a record
$371 billion for the year 2006; the present value
of our National Obligations (Debt) as of May 1,
2006 standing at $49 trillion or $156,000 for
every citizen of the United States and climbing
(Financial Times May 1, 2006); oil prices burgeoning
to $3.25 per gallon and no upper limit in sight,
the Financial Times in its issue of April 27 has
editorialized, “Bush’s oil rhetoric
is running on empty”: “… As
but one example, a more considered, less bellicose
US attitude towards Iran would do more to steady
the oil market than all Mr. Bush’s measures
put together”. But no! In this hour when
the need for statesmanship is paramount our administration’s
circles are repeating the mantra of “all
options are on the table, including a pre-emptive
strike”.
With our troops bogged down in Iraq, why are we
in such a hurry to put Iran in our cross hairs?
Is it to avenge the humiliation of the hostage
crisis, when 52 American diplomats were held in
Iran for 444 days until their release in January
1981 or do we have some other motivation? Have
we ever taken time to analyze the reasons which
forced the Iranians to take that suicidal action
back in 1979?
The Iranian’s encounter with the US has
been a story of disillusionment and betrayal.
The US was always regarded by the Iranian’s
as a disinterested yet benevolent power compared
to Britain and Russia that had long interfered
in their affairs. They had assumed that because
of its democratic ideals the US would support
Iran’s nationalization of its oil resources
and were bitterly disappointed when it backed
Britain instead; orchestrated the deposing of
the popularly elected nationalist leader Mohammed
Mossaddeq in 1953, installed the much hated Shah
and kept him in power for the next 25 years.
The Iranians were surprised, yet again, by our
hostility to their revolution of 1979. It didn’t
make sense to them: the Americans too had rebelled
against a tyrannical King to gain their independence,
why then would they not laud the Iranians for
getting rid of their Shah? Keeping our diplomats
hostage was the only way to ensure that the CIA
would not bring him back again. In a CNN interview
in 1988 former President Khatami denounced Washington’s
“flawed policy of domination” of Iran,
specifically mentioning the 1953 coup. Iranians
know that the Shah was our creature and they blame
us for his autocratic ways and human rights abuses;
also that we and Israel’s Mossad trained
and equipped his hated secret police, the SAVAK.
We claimed having accepted the Iranian revolution
but for all that President Clinton pledged to
contain Iran unilaterally and even tried to persuade
US allies to do the same. In 1995 the US prohibited
an agreement between a US company Conoco and Iran
to develop two offshore oilfields. In August 1996,
a new law was passed threatening sanctions on
any foreign company that invested more than $20
million in Iran. Even now, with the changing political
dynamics of the world, the emergence of China
and India as economic powers and their respective
need for the Middle Eastern oil, we have continued
to follow strong arm tactics towards Iran.
In the aftermath of 9/11 the Iranians had offered
us a helping hand and were most sympathetic to
the victims. We were able to work with them in
Afghanistan. Yet, all the goodwill generated by
that cooperation was cut short by President Bush
designating Iran as part of an “axis of
evil”, in his State of the Union address
of January 2002.
Although difficult, we should however try to resolve
our impasse with Iran without resorting to harsh
measures:
• The Council on Foreign Relations report
on Iran finds that “the current lack of
sustained engagement with Iran harms US interests
in a critical region of the world; that direct
dialogue with Tehran on specific areas of mutual
concern should be pursued.
• Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has called
for an active engagement with Iran.
• One appealing school of thought in the
West says, “The best way to wean Iran from
its nuclear obsession is therefore to offer it
security and reassurance – a grand bargain
that would end its quarter century of estrangement
from the United States.” We could offer
guarantees not to interfere in Iran’s internal
affairs. And, Iran in its turn could guarantee
not to interfere with the Middle East Peace Process.
“It is often said in defense of Iran’s
nuclear appetite that this is a country with good
reason to want a way to deter its enemies. Israel
has never attacked it, and would have no conceivable
reason to do so if the Iranians left it in peace.
But Iran does have recent experience of invasion.
The eight-year war Saddam Hussein forced on it
in the 1980s cost perhaps a million Iranian lives.
Today, the armed forces of a hostile America are
encamped in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan.
Iranians listen to talk of regime change from
Washington and remember how British and American
spies helped to fell an elected nationalist Iranian
government in 1953. Given both its recent history
and present predicament, Iran’s fears are
understandable”.
• Gareth Evens, the President of the International
Crisis Group, goes on to say in an article “…The
world and the West in particular need to take
a deep breath and accept that Iran does have the
“right to enrich” domestically, not
just the right to produce nuclear energy using
fuel externally supplied”. (Financial Times
Thursday February 23, 2006).
• The following philosophical thoughts,
from an excellent article titled Modern America’s
Roman predicament by Harold James, published in
the Financial Times of Tuesday February 21, 2006,
should give us pause to think and reflect:
“The propensity for subversion and destruction
of a rule-based order, as we are noticing in the
world today, comes about because – and whenever
– there is perception that rules are arbitrary,
unjust and reflect the imposition of particular
interests in a high handed imperial display of
power. Power protects commerce and peace but power
is clearly not necessarily a good in itself as
the US is projecting these days. Power offers
a basis on which greater power constantly accumulates,
as it is used to affect the outcome of social
processes. And, the exercise of power has an addictive
quality…” Our policies are becoming
more and more intransigent and our pronouncements
threatening to anyone who disagrees with us. “…
policy makers in the industrialized world need
to think and talk explicitly about values and
traditions. What does Islamic tradition have in
common with Western traditions that respect human
dignity; and how can America show that it respects
these values too.”
• Finally, in the words of Geoffrey Aronson
who says in the Financial Times of June 13, 2006,
“A serious security dialogue between the
US and Iran that focuses on Iran’s security
nuclear aspirations will have to address Iranian
security concerns. This includes Israel’s
nuclear weapons…..”. “With the
right kind of leadership from the US, the creation
of a Palestinian state along the June 1967 frontier
can help end the strategic stand-off between Iran
and Israel”. “Mr. Bush has made one
fateful choice in the Middle East during his remarkable
tenure – the invasion of Iraq. By negotiating
in good faith with Iran he can make another choice,
and by doing so redeem his blood-stained legacy
and that of the region’s long suffering
millions”.
The author would like to acknowledge, with gratitude,
the following sources for his information: Great
Decisions, Magazine of American Foreign Policy
Association, Financial Times, the New York Times
Magazine and the Economist.
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