Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

Punitive measures are only weapon left to foil nuclear Iran

If it were possible for the United States or Israel to successfully prosecute a surgical, limited war on Iran to cripple or significantly delay its nuclear weapons program, that war would already be under way.

The fact that war has not yet broken out - despite renewed sabre-rattling in the Persian Gulf - suggests that the key agents in this new cold war have concluded that none of their interests would be served by the conflict going hot now. Regardless of the outcome, they know there would be no winners.

This is not to say there is not a risk, this year, of the wider regional Middle Eastern conflagration many feared immediately after 9/11, with Iran the crux. But it may just be that resolve in the White House, in Tel Aviv, in Paris and London (with support from Ottawa) and simple self-interest in Tehran, will coalesce to forge, if not peace, then at least an absence of mutually disastrous mass violence.

Here is what Western public opinion often fails to grasp about Iran's nuclear program: It has massive popular support.

Iran was the seat of the Persian Empire. It is a geographically large nation of 80 million people, rich in natural wealth, at the epicentre of the world's most strategically vital region. As the standard-bearer for Shia Islam, it has many natural enemies, of which Israel and the United States are only two. Saudi Arabia, and Sunni-led regimes generally, are believed to be quietly pushing the U.S. to attack Iran sooner rather than later.

Moreover, Iranians have seen first-hand what happens to enemies of the U.S. who have no nuclear deterrent, versus those who do.

Saddam Hussein's nuclear program at Osirak was destroyed by an Israeli bomb strike in 1981. Saddam possessed chemical weapons during the first Gulf War in 1990, but was persuaded not to use them by a quiet U.S. threat to retaliate with nuclear weapons. By the time of the U.S. invasion in 2003, Saddam had neither nukes nor chemical weapons. He was toppled and later hanged.

Pakistan acquired nukes and achieved an uneasy balance of terror with India. North Korea acquired nukes, albeit in primitive form, but has not been attacked as a result. Moammar Gadhafi had an active WMD program but gave it up in 2004, while penning love songs to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Gadhafi's end is on You-Tube for all to see.

Set against the popular Iranian idea of nuclear manifest destiny, and self-protection, is a rock-steady, deeply-held belief by most Israelis, including the leadership among all parties and in the military, that a nuclear Iran cannot be allowed. Contrary to the caricatures in Western media, this is not driven by a simple belief that, given the power, Iran would drop a nuclear bomb on Tel Aviv.

Rather it's about the balance of power, and of fear.

In the six decades since its founding, Israel has always maintained overwhelming military supremacy as its best defence in a hostile neighbourhood.

Israel is believed to have some 200 nuclear warheads, with which it can threaten the existence of any nation that would threaten its existence. Iran's going nuclear, combined with its leaders' professed hatred of Jews and of Israel, would upend that balance. Israel's tiny land mass makes it particularly vulnerable to nuclear attack.
A nuclear Iran would in a stroke become a dominant regional power - able to offer shelter to other regimes hostile to Israel.

Iraq, formerly a Sunni-led counterbalance to Iran, is now Shia-dominated. This raises the prospect of a Shia regional superpower, which Sunni regimes - led by Saudi Arabia - would feel compelled to offset. A regional nuclear arms race likely would ensue.

Here's why, despite all that, Israel has not already attacked.

Though Iran's navy and air force are a ramshackle joke set against the might of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, or indeed the Israeli Defense Forces, Iran has 450,000 men under arms. It has an arsenal of short-range, Chinesebuilt anti-ship missiles with which to harry tanker traffic in the Gulf.

And it has Hezbollah in Lebanon, where it has been re-arming its rocket brigades since the war of 2006, and from which it can strike northern Israel.

Iran cannot be invaded and occupied, as Iraq was: It is too big and too populous. And Iran's nuclear sites are dispersed: Destroying key facilities at Natanz, Bushehr and Arak would not end the threat. Indeed, a limited strike might simply speed the pace of Iranian nuclear development.

All of which leads to the latest round of punitive sanctions, signed into law by President Barack Obama on New Year's Eve and set to go into effect in six months. These directly target Iran's oil industry, which accounts for 80 per cent of its exports.

Iran's currency, the rial, is in free fall already. Republican presidential aspirant Ron Paul has called the sanctions an "act of war."

In a way, Paul is right: The sanctions are economic warfare. They are also the last, best chance for peace.

The calculation is that harsh economic pressure - combined with the overwhelming air superiority of the U.S. and Israel, likely backed by France and Britain should this degenerate into a shooting war - will persuade the Iranians to reconsider, difficult though that may be for them.

Their simple self-interest dictates that they should, and will, if the sanctions are given time to bite.

Original Article
Source: Ottawa Citizen  

No comments:

Post a Comment