|
Turning up the heat on Iran
By Victor Kotsev
Asia Times
"Never interfere with an enemy while he's in the process of suicide." This is a quote widely attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, and it is also the advice Israeli analyst Guy
Bechor gives to Israeli leaders. It appears to be more or less the approach of the United States and its allies with respect to Iran at the moment. Whether they have read the situation right, and for how long it will work, is
another matter.
In the past few days, the rhetoric has heated up a bit. On Sunday, chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen became the most recent and perhaps highest-ranking US official
to confirm that a plan for striking Iran exists. He stressed that in his opinion, a strike was "a bad idea", but
added that the risk of Iran going nuclear was "unacceptable", and refused to comment
which would be worse.
Predictably, Iran went ballistic. "If the Americans make the slightest mistake, the security of the region will be endangered. Security in the Persian Gulf should be for all or none,"
threatened the deputy head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Yadollah Javani. "Tehran will burn down Tel Aviv" in response to any attack, said Mohammed Khazaee, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations.
A similarly worrying message echoed in an earlier statement by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: "The specter of real peace in the region is disappearing and the possibility of war is increasing."
Meanwhile, a
Hamas military commander was killed on Friday night in a retaliatory strike for a missile that fell on the Israeli city of Ashkelon, and the Islamic Jihad militia threatened to resume suicide terror attacks on Israel from the
West Bank. (Hamas is seen by many as an Iranian proxy, and Debka reported on Sunday that Iran recently sent "$250 million to Hamas for the creation of a new Palestinian Popular Army in the Gaza Strip".)
Despite
all this, we have yet to see a full-scale appeal by the Barack Obama administration to the international community to support a strike - something that, judging by Obama's behavior so far, we have every right to expect before
such an action. Some analysts, moreover, remain skeptical as to whether a strike will happen at all. Steve Clemons for the Huffington Post writes:
Despite the confidence, even eagerness, of the US Air Force to bomb Iran's nuclear program capacity, the other military services are not so sanguine and fear that the logistics
demands for such a military action and its followup would undermine other major operations. In other words, adding another major obligation to America's military roster could literally break the back of the US military,
erode morale, and result in eventual, massive shifts in American domestic support for the US military machine which had become increasingly costly and less able to generate the security deliverables expected.
At the very least, it would make sense for Obama to give sanctions a little more time before he approves any military action. The US president put so much effort into having the UN
Security Council pass them that, if he is seen to undermine them, this could weaken his international standing considerably.
Moreover, all the military threats could be a powerful impetus for diplomatic progress. There
are persistent reports of intense diplomatic exchanges, indicating that a new round of negotiations might yet be in the making. [2] This only applies, however, as long as Iran is not provoked into doing something stupid first.
The US and its allies are currently turning the screws on the Islamic Republic in two ways: firstly by fomenting social unrest inside Iran through sanctions and other means, and secondly by launching an assault on
Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah.
"As international sanctions mount," writes the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in a recent piece, "Iran is finding it increasing hard to find buyers for its oil,
and is being forced to offer discounts in order to shift as much as it can to a falling number of customers." [3]
Tehran is writhing in internal unrest and economic pain. Even before the most recent round of
sanctions, Iran was gradually slipping further into economic crisis, rising unemployment and popular discontent with the government. Its profligate military and nuclear programs only add to the burden and slowly suffocate the
country financially. This is a kind of war of attrition: given enough time and steady pressure, the West hopes, the Islamic Republic will collapse.
Additionally, an initiative seems to be underway to undermine Hezbollah
in Lebanon as well as other Iranian allies. "Mustafa Badr Aldin, the brother in-law of assassinated Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh, is the prime suspect in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik
Hariri," reported Israeli Channel 1 last Thursday. Such a development would discredit Hezbollah, and perhaps pave the way to its disarmament. The militant organization has vowed not to allow that to happen, and has called
the investigation "an Israeli project". Over the weekend, Saudi King Abdullah, together with Assad, arrived in Beirut, ostensibly to make sure that the indictment does not start a civil war.
A number of
observers reported that something might be afoot between Saudi Arabia and Syria. "The elderly Abdullah would not bother himself had he not been convinced there's someone to talk to and something to talk about," Smadar
Peri writes for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
US think-tank Stratfor concurs: "Saudi Arabia appears to have succeeded in creating a bulwark of sorts against Iran with Turkish and Syrian support."
Assad's comments from Beirut suggest otherwise ("we consider the resistance a red line and we will let no harm come to it"), but there is always a difference between what is said in public and private in the Middle
East, as former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk has explained. [4]
Something else that strikes as odd is Syria's silence when the Arab League endorsed direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations last week.
The
much-talked about peace talks [5], especially if they secure any significant "confidence-building" gestures to the Palestinian Authority, will put strong pressure on Hamas. Moreover, sources are reporting that the
situation in Yemen is deteriorating constantly, and that something is afoot with American, Saudi, and perhaps even Israeli cooperation.
All this pressure could easily produce a violent reaction. "Hezbollah cannot be
expected to go quietly, so the possibility of conflict cannot be entirely eliminated," writes Stratfor. "In fact, Iran and Hezbollah could upset their opponents' efforts to defang Hezbollah by provoking Israel to
attack Lebanon." The Gaza
front has already seen some violence. Furthermore, the incident with a Japanese tanker in the Strait of Hormuz last week raised the possibility of a rogue Iranian Republican Guards attack on
international shipping, as Debka reported. [6] A minor incident, in turn, could fairly easily escalate into a full confrontation.
It is still unclear how well, exactly, the American-led campaign against Iran is working.
Syria's behavior is key, perhaps even decisive. Damascus is the most crucial link between Iran and Hezbollah, and also has a strong influence on Hamas. Moreover, Assad's behavior is a political barometer of sorts.
It is
not inconceivable that the Syrian president does away with Hezbollah; in fact, in that case he would be doing much what his father Hafez Assad did during the Lebanese civil war - first supporting one faction, then throwing it
to the wolves. If he believes that he has squeezed his relationship with Iran and Hezbollah dry, or that his allies are going down, he will probably not hesitate to jump ship.
If, however, he calculates that the
Iran-Hezbollah alliance will come out whole, and if it offers him more, he could easily continue to zigzag. In the meantime, he is all too happy to reap the benefits of his vacillations, such as a warming in his ties with the
West and the rest of the Arab world, saving his close associates the Hariri tribunal, and increasing his influence in Lebanon.
The next few weeks will reveal the true effects of the American pressure. Meanwhile, we can
expect surprises and vacillations.
Victor Kotsev is a freelance journalist and political analyst with expertise in the Middle East.
|
