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Analysis
21/03/07 -
On the razor’s
edge: The struggle between Washington and Tehran
- by Dario
Cristiani
The debate in
the United States about "what to do" with Iran remains open.
However, President Bush has not yet taken his decision. During the last
few weeks, Bush and many important members of his Administration, such as
Robert Gates, the new Defense Secretary who replaced Donald Rumsfeald, and
State Secretary Condolezza Rice, accused Tehran of playing a destructive
role in Iraq, in Lebanon and in the whole Middle Eastern region.
The Bush Administration accused Iranian Revolutionary Guards to be
militarily active in Iraq and blamed Iran for supplying the Shi’a
insurgence with lethal weapons, such as the so-called "explosively
formed penetrator", a particularly deadly roadside bomb used by
Shiite groups in their attacks on American troops. At the same time,
however, the United States denied that the preparation of an attack
against Iran is on the move and recently Washington has taken some steps
in the way of dialogue. The most striking has been the announcement of the
American will of talking with Iran and Syria in the context of the
conference on Iraq’s security placed in Baghdad on March 10, 2007.
Sean McCormack, the State Department’s spokesman, announced in a press
conference on March 7, 2007, that "The Administration will take every
possible opportunity that we can take to
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guarantee
that our troops are protected in Iraq. And if that means having a
dialogue with the Iranian delegates in the context of this summit
yeah, we're going to take that chance". Shortly after the end
of the conference, U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad
said that he talked "to the Iranian ambassador across the
table, and also I shook hands with him and talked a few minutes
with him. But most of the exchanges were across the table, dealing
with Iraq issues".
These words could be read as an opening for future talks with
Tehran, but they could also have other meanings. Such words could
mean that the United States has not yet chosen the military option
and is attempting to establish a political and diplomatic dialogue
with Iran to resolve the Iraqi quagmire and other regional
questions. However, this strategy implies that if such a dialogue
will not take place or will fail, Bush could blame Iran,
supporting the idea that this dialogue has failed for the Iranian
intransigence and not the American willing.
U.S.
moves and the war dilemma
On
January 10, 2007, President Bush, talking about Iran, said that
the U.S. will work with other powers in order "to prevent
Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region".
The United States needs to regain leverage toward Iran, with the
aim of discouraging Tehran to pursue its suspect nuclear weapons
programme and abandoning its ambitions for regional expansion and
domination. The U.S. is taking several measures for reaching such
goals, but these moves could mean also that an attack against Iran
and its nuclear facilities is approaching, which several analysts
foresee for the next spring.
Many signs suggest that the context is evolving toward a military
attack. At the end of October, U.S. lead a war games in the waters
of the Persian Gulf the in the framework of the Proliferation
Security Initiative (P.S.I.), launched in 2003. This operation
consisted of the interception of a ship carrying nuclear material
for a state that wanted to fabricate a nuclear capability and the
allusion to Iran was evident. More recently, U.S. reinforced its
military presence in the Gulf region. There are many examples of
this American posture, such as the sending of many Extra US
Patriot missiles, the move of the U.S.S. John C. Stennis aircraft
carrier fleet into the Persian Gulf in support of the U.S.S.
Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier group and the arrival of several F16
in a military base in Turkey.
Such a military build-up may signify that the U.S. is trying to
deter Tehran – but it could also mean the preparation of
military operations.
Moreover, because it’s almost certain that an attack against
Iran will worsen the instability in the Persian Gulf region,
President Bush ordered that oil reserves must be stockpiled. The
region is the "energy lung" of the world economy, and a
U.S. attack against Iran will probably have a devastating impact
over the oil global market. The "Gulf Cooperation
Council-Plus-Two Ministerial Joint Statement", released on
January 16, 2007, after a meeting of the foreign ministers of the
six countries of the GCC, Jordan, Egypt and U.S. tells it
unambiguously: "Agreeing that the peace and security of the
Middle East, including the Gulf region, are critical to the health
of the global economy and international stability, and its
destabilization would threaten the vital national interests of
all, the participants resolve to continue their long-standing
cooperation against such threats".
Washington wants to stop the Iranian rush to nuclear capability.
However, U.S. goals to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear power
are probably inspired by much more than the mere concern of
nuclear weapons proliferation. Bush knows that an Iranian civil-oriented
nuclear programme will also be an instrument to gain power.
Currently, Iran is also pursuing the goal of modernizing its
economy. The reason is that Iran, in spite of its larger oil
reserves, imports about 40% of its refined oil for its domestic
energy need. Tehran’s nuclear capability would free oil
resources for export and economic development, as Iran struggles
to reduce the level of poverty. Successful economic developments
could ease ongoing domestic tensions that will likely weaken the
regime and its power projection in the mid-term.
Iran is replying harshly against these U.S. moves. The official
Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported the words of
Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, pronounced in a meeting with the
commanders of Iranian Air Force on February 8, 2007. Khamenei said
that "Iran will give a crushing response to the U.S., if
Washington attacks Iran". Moreover, the same day, the "elite
Revolutionary Guards" had successfully test-fired a
land-to-sea missile with a range of about 350 kilometers (210
miles) during a series of war exercises organized by the Guards'
air force and naval divisions. Such developments show how tension
is mounting in the whole Gulf region.
The U.S. is trying to place more pressure on Tehran, because
President Bush cannot leave the White House with Iran’s
influence growing in the Middle East. Such a scenario represents a
sort of "nemesis" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The U.S.
aim in 2003 was to stabilize the Middle East through the
"re-building" of the Middle Eastern societies, starting
from Iraq. In the plans of U.S. strategists, the effort of
eradicating the roots of terrorism and anti-Americanism would have
helped the democratization of the regimes of the area. However,
the events of the last three years seem to go in a different
direction, as Iran seems to be the main beneficiary of such
developments.
A
regional shift with global implications
Middle
East geopolitical balances are being stressed by the emergence of
this harsh confrontation within the region between U.S. and Iran
and this is a struggle that will have key implications for the
world geopolitical system.
The U.S., in spite of its troubled Iraqi campaign, is still the
hegemonic external power in the Middle East region, even though it
appears weaker than a few years ago. Iran, instead, is emerging as
the new rising regional power that will challenge the role of the
U.S. in the Broader Middle East. Clearly, Tehran cannot have the
ambition to dominate the whole international system but its
self-representation as "superpower", rooted in its
imperial history and in its strong national identity, pushes Iran
to search for a major role in the Middle East and in Islam’s
political geography.
This struggle between Washington and Tehran has very important
implications both for the Middle East political equilibrium and
for global balances. In the region, the two actors are the
expression of two opposite fields. In the Middle East, a hard
confrontation is emerging between Sunni powers, such as Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and Jordan and their political allies like P.N.A.
President Abu Mazen or Lebanese P.M. Fuad Siniora, and the Shi’a
crescent. The first bloc is lead by the U.S., the second by Iran.
Tehran’s main allies are Syria and a fundamental "non-state
actor" like Hezbollah in Lebanon. Other Iran’s allies are
Hamas in Palestine and factions of the Iraqi Shiites, such as
S.C.I.R.I. and Moqtada al-Sadr's group.
However, such confrontation is not merely an intra-religious clash
but it represents a wider geopolitical conflict. Iran leads an
alliance of those actors who are unsatisfied with the current
regional balance of power. The quest for more power and the
pursuing of State’s national interests are the key of this
alliance, much more than confessional identity or ideology.
This explains why non-Shi’a actors, such as Hamas or Syria (where
the majority of population is Sunni although the leadership is
formed by the Alawite minority), share common interests with
Tehran. But their alliance with Iran is tactical, not strategic.
The powers which oppose the "revisionist" coalition are
those that want keep the status-quo unchanged, and Washington is
strongly supporting them.
The
Iranian window of opportunity
In
the 1993, the Whitehall Paper on Gulf Security printed by the
"Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies"
claimed that "Gulf security is hostage to the nature of the (regional)
governments involved….None of the parties involved is satisfied
with this state of affairs, but none has the combination of will,
muscle and breadth of ideological support to prevail". 14
years after, the situation has changed. For the first time, a
regional power seems to have as much power and influence as
necessary for trying to impose its political will in the wider
region. This power is Iran. The turning point has been the launch
of the American "global war against terror" and the
following invasion of Iraq in 2003.
On one hand, the Afghan war and Iraqi freedom caused Tehran having
the American troops near its borders, both in Afghanistan and
Iraq. For several reasons, though, such events opened important
geopolitical windows of opportunity for Tehran. The fall of Saddam
Hussein, who harshly repressed the Iraqi Shiites during its regime,
opened the way to a Shi’a return to power in Iraq. As a
consequence, is acting to ensure one of its main geopolitical
interests, that is, the rise of a friendly government in.
Nevertheless, there are other important regional and global
developments playing in favour of Tehran. Iran is moving to fill a
regional geopolitical vacuum. Regional powers, both in the Gulf
area both in the wider Middle East, are in trouble. In the Gulf
region, Iraq has been neutralized and, currently, it doesn’t
have any weight in the regional balance of power while Saudi
Arabia has been weakened by the concomitance of many factors, such
as the threat posed to the regnant family by domestic terrorism,
the internal struggle for succession and the slackening in the
relationship with U.S. after the 11/9, even though currently both
actors are searching for a renewed alliance against the Persian
threat.
In the Broader Middle East, Egypt is facing a crisis of its
regional power status. This clearly appears in its loss of
influence over the Palestinian issue, while Israel is in a
difficult internal situation because the Olmert government lacks
consensus. Furthermore, the rise of Iran as a main regional power
is also supported by those external actors that want to play a
more relevant role in the Middle East and therefore need to weaken
the U.S. position both in this area and in the international
system. China and Russia, even though cautiously, are supporting
the rise of Iran. In addition, the crisis of the global
non-conventional proliferation regime, embodied by the Non
Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is yet another element in favour of
Tehran’s political and diplomatic attitude.
In this scenario, Tehran is using its allies in a sort of "proxy
low-intensity war", with the aim of placing more pressure on
the U.S. and its allies. In the three main current point of crisis
within the Middle East, there are clear signs of this strategy. In
Iraq, Iran is giving military, financial and logistic support to
the Shiite groups. In Lebanon, Iran is supporting Hezbollah
against the pro-western government lead by Fuad Siniora. Moreover,
Hezbollah is Iran’s leverage against Israel, as the "Party
of God’s" military capabilities are, in large part,
supplied by Iran. Finally, in the Palestinian territories, Iran
supports Hamas against Abu Mazen, in order to gain a more
effective role in the Israeli-Palestinian issue at the expenses of
Arab countries that historically have played a primary role in
this question, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Conclusion
The
tension between U.S. and Iran is rapidly mounting. Likely, such
tension will keep on rising in the next few months. A U.S. air
attack against Iran seems to be more likely than the past few
months, since Washington needs to stop Iran’s regional rise, as
the latter is a direct menace for U.S. and its regional allies.
The manoeuvres in the Gulf area are officially aimed to persuade
Tehran that it must stop its nuclear programme and its role in
destabilizing Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. However, Washington’s
moves seem to be preparing an attack against Iran by the end of
Bush presidency.
A "proxy war" in the Middle East has already started.
Last summer’s crisis in Lebanon has been the clearest example of
this. However, if an air attack against Iranian nuclear facilities
will take place, it will be just the first step of a longer
confrontation among the United States and Iran. It will only serve
to slacken Iran’s nuclear developments and to weaken its
regional rise. It is likely that such an attack will be the first
step of a wider conflict that Bush’s successor will bring on.
2.294 mots
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