Posted on 05/20/2007 9:08:09 AM PDT by TaxPayer2000
By the end of this month, a rare meeting between American and Iranian officials will take place in Baghdad. Both sides stressed that the unprecedented talks would only focus on war-torn Iraq.
The meeting raises hopes that it could open a new chapter in U.S.-Iran relations. But now, nothing suggests that this is likely, as both countries are stepping up rhetoric against each other and are struggling to win the support of Middle East leaders.
The U.S. Vice-President, Dick Cheney, who has been touring the Arab world, warned Iran aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Gulf that Washington is ready to use its naval power to curb Tehran’s nuclear plans.
A few days later, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in the Middle East and responded to Cheney’s warning by threatening to retaliate severely to any possible U.S. attack. "The U.S. cannot strike Iran. The Iranian people can protect themselves and retaliate,” he said.
Although the Bush administration claims that its current priority is Iraq, it hasn’t given up on Iran. Silently, the war on the Islamic Republic has begun, according to an article on the Guardian Unlimited. Many other reports confirm that Washington increased its aid to arm opposition groups among Iran’s ethnic minorities that make up about 40% of the country’s population. Last month, ABC News reported that the U.S. had secretly assisted the Baluchi group Jund al-Islam, which claimed responsibility for an attack that killed 20 Revolutionary Guards. A U.S. Foundation report also stated that U.S. commandos have operated inside Iran since 2004.
Over the past years, the U.S. has been paving the way for an attack against Iran. In 2002, President Bush categorized Iran as part of the "axis of evil". The following year, he said the U.S. "would not tolerate" an Iranian nuclear weapon. The Bush administration continues to issue such warnings against Tehran, but the circumstances surrounding these two threats are exceptional. Iran had actively helped Washington in its fight against the Taliban when U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in late 2001. Two years later, Iranian officials met Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan at the time, in Geneva and proposed opening talks on weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and security, as well as economic cooperation. Tehran also expressed its readiness to back the Arab peace initiative, originally launched in 2002, and help transform Lebanon’s Hezbollah into a political party. Also in 2003, Iran became one of the few countries to sign the additional protocol to the non-proliferation treaty, which boosts the International Atomic Energy Agency's supervisory powers.
But Washington turned a blind eye to all these overtures since its only goal is toppling the Iranian government. To pave the way for military intervention, the U.S. constantly uses Iran’s alleged “nuclear threat". In 1995, the director of the U.S. arms control and disarmament agency alleged that the Islamic Republic could have an atomic bomb by 2003. Bill Clinton's defense secretary William Perry predicted 2000, a forecast repeated by Israel's Shimon Peres. Yet last month, the IAEA said it would be four to six years before Iran had the capability to produce the bomb. At the same time, UN sanctions failed to intimidate Iran, which stresses that it wants to develop nuclear power to meet its energy needs in the post-oil era.
Many analysts warn that any attack against Iran could be disastrous as it could backfire and push Tehran closer to acquiring nuclear weapons, a move that would start a new arms race in an already unstable region and deal a major blow to the non-proliferation treaty. So how can the West curb Iran’s nuclear plans?
Contrary to public belief, the main obstacle isn’t Iran’s uranium enrichment activities. In fact, Tehran, as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty, has a right to enrich uranium. It has expressed its willingness to impose voluntary restrictions on this right and accept increased IAEA inspections in exchange for some benefits. To illustrate this, consider an agreement Iran signed in 2004 with Britain, France and Germany in which Tehran agreed to halt uranium enrichment on the ground that a long-term agreement would "provide firm commitments on security issues". The United States refused to guarantee endorse these commitments, so Tehran resumed its nuclear program.
The EU later chose to follow the U.S. In 2006, the proposals of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany mentioned no guarantee of non-intervention in Iranian affairs. In response, Tehran suggested "that the Western parties who want to participate in the negotiation team announce on behalf of their own and other European countries, to set aside the policy of intimidation, pressure and sanctions".
Without such assurances escalation over the nuclear stand-off is inevitable.
Despite the chaos in Iraq, there is no indication that Bush has ruled out the use of force against Iran. It seems that the American president is determined to tighten the noose around Tehran. Last week, he said Washington and London would push for new UN sanctions against Iran if it refused to suspend its nuclear program. His comments came as the U.S. House of Representative rejected two measures that would have banned the Bush administration from attacking Iran without congressional approval. "The president's saber rattling against Iran is only increasing and is eerily similar to the march to war with Iraq. We must act to prevent another war of pre-emption,'' Rep. Barbara Lee, who backed both measures, told the House on Wednesday.
Holding talks with Iran on one hand, while brandishing threats on the other is raising fears that the Bush administration is planning another military venture whether Tehran helped it stabilize Iraq or not, despite repeated warnings by military experts and international think tanks that any attack against the Islamic Republic would be disastrous, not just for Iran and the Middle East, but for the whole world.
If Tehran were to tell us to surrender or die. This author would consider the 'surrender' part to be an overture and the 'die' part to be an invitation.
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