Iran-US relations: Conclusion
Escalating tensions between the United States and Iran can be attributed to the evolving state of energy geopolitics, and the future of energy security of the Western world. This includes ultimate control over the Strait of Hormuz, through which tankers ferry about 40% of the world's daily oil needs. In the USA, both the Republican and Democratic Parties share the same view as regards the Middle-Eastern oil producing nations. Any oil-rich country in the Middle East that refuses to sufficiently cooperate with US economic and strategic designs in the Middle East will face punishment in the form of isolation and militarily threat. An armed confrontation between the United States and Iran, and an Israeli entry into the conflict, may embroil the entire region in a state of war. Consequences of such a war will be catastrophic.
Relations between the two countries have also been influenced by internal dynamics of their respective countries. Within the United States, the now-unpopular war in Iraq has taken a toll on the willingness of the American public to accept another war. Some groups have begun organizing sentiment in opposition to an attack on Iran. This pressure to rule out a military attack on Iran may have an impact on the actions that the United States government will be willing to take on Iran. Within Iran also, the conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to maitain his cordial relationship with the spritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini.
After the destruction of Iraq, Iran is the only country to the west of India that stands in the way of complete US domination of the region from South Asia to the Mediterranean. It bears reflection that Iran was included in Bush's 'axis of evil' because it is a fiercely proud and independent country. The United States confrontation with Iran is no longer confined to the Iranian nuclear weapons program. The United States focus has transcended and enlarged into a wider strategic design of pre-empting the emergence of Iran as the major regional power in the Middle East.
President Bush in his speeches in January and February 2007 reiterated his previous stance that Iran must face consequences for alleged nuclear weapons programme. It has become evident that Bush has developed casus belli in order to prepare public opinion for an attack. He has focused on three reasons: (1) Iran supports attack on US troops in Iraq, (2) Iran has a nuclear weapons programme, and (3) Iran could become a dominant power in the region and destabilize pro-US governments there. Terming of Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization gives leeway to Bush for an air strike in Iran. Although recently 30 Senators including the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has issued a warning to President Bush that terming of Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization does not allow him to launch an air strike in Iran. Only time will tell whether this warning will have any effect on Bush.
In an article published in March 2006, Joseph Cirincione, director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warned, "a military strike would be disastrous for the United States. It would rally the Iranian public around an otherwise unpopular regime, inflame anti-American anger around Muslim world, and jeopardize the already fragile US position in Iraq. And it would accelerate, not delay, the Iranian nuclear programme. Hard-liner in Tehran would be proven right in their claim the only thing that can deter the United States is a nuclear bomb. Iranian leaders could respond with a crash nuclear programme that could produce a bomb in a few years."
President Putin's visit to Iran last month has taken place at a strategically significant juncture for Iran. This visit has taken place at a moment when the confrontational rhetoric between the United States and Iran has become shriller and the Western countries seem to be lining up behind the United States. President Putin's visit to Iran has thrown a virtual lifeline to Iran in its brinkmanship with the United States. It is also significant that this is the first visit by a Russian President to Iran since 1943 and also that President Putin made the visit in defiance of reports of assassination threats while visiting Iran.
I will sum up this series of articles by giving exceprts from an interview of veteran journalist Selig Harrison, currently Director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, who visitd Iran after a gap of 40 years. He gave this interview to Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria.
"It's just incredible economic growth. It's a real economic powerhouse and also but what I really--just huge expansion--I mean Tehran was nothing as a city when I was last there in 1979. But now it's just--just spreads out and it's--it's big stuff, all kinds of business going on, all kinds of trade with the Gulf, with Dubai, with the whole--all the wealth of the--the whole Gulf and Middle East area. It feels very prosperous….you get a feeling of economic vibrancy of a country rising up, a great spirit on the people and one thing that hasn't changed see in those 40 years is that this is the one--one of the places in that part of the world where you feel a natural friendship for Americans.
None of the xenophobic undercurrents and attitudes towards Americans that you feel in many countries like next door in Pakistan, in parts of the Arab world--this is a place where the United States has lots of goodwill and if we could change our--turn our policy around and--and try to make this country a working partner we could have very good relations with it."
"Their argument is that there's an atmosphere Iran feels surrounded by hostile US power. US presence in the Persian Gulf--air craft carriers coming into the Persian Gulf equipped with tactical nuclear weapons at a time when we're telling the Iranians not to develop even a peaceful nuclear capability of their own with the potential for becoming nuclear and nuclear weapons capability. A feeling that--and you know covert action; this--this is a part of the story that we don't often hear. The United States has a very ambitious covert action--covert operations destabilization program going against Iran. We're sending weapons and money to ethnic minorities who are unhappy with this Persian dominated regime."
"We are funding-the CIA and the Special Ops of the--of the Pentagon are carrying on programs to give these people money and weapons to make it hot for the--for the regime. And we're--we have financial sanctions against the regime; --but to the Iranians it looks like encirclement military bases in Iraq that we're going to keep forever that are not--there's no sign we're going to give them up--even if combat forces are withdrawn, military bases in Afghanistan and Central Asia--they consider themselves to US military action against the--against Iran and particularly in the context of this nuclear issue where they feel very self-righteous. Whatever our views may be they say look; Article IV of the NPT--we're entitled to do this and your guys are sitting there with 10,000 nuclear weapons telling us we can't even have the peaceful nuclear capability under Article IV because it gives us the--the hypothetical capability of making nuclear weapons… President Bush says he's allocating $75 million to promote democracy in Iran….."
"There is definitely a chance for a very different path because you have a basic fundamental goodwill on the part of the Iranian people who have had a lot of contact with the United States over the years. They like the United States. So I think if we could tone down the nuclear issue, if we could--if we ended regime change and didn't give these hardliners in the government the ammunition that they have for cracking down on everything in the name of the threat from America--that we could have a much better relationship that would gradually quiet down; I think we could even keep a military presence in the Persian Gulf without a great deal of flack from Iran if we got into a friendlier relationship."
The author is a freelancer.
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