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Iran: The Ongoing Threat

August 12, 2003
Asia Times
Stephen Blank

When President George W Bush labeled Iran part of the "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea, this dismayed many observers for several reasons. Not the least of them was that it is, or was nearly impossible, to discern any collaboration between Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Indeed, not only did these two countries fight a bloody and inconclusive war from 1980 to 88, Iran was one of the Iraqi tyrant's targets for the use of chemical weapons.

This Iraqi attack, which went unanswered by the rest of the world, must be reckoned as one of the principal reasons for Iran's continuing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. But even though there has been no conceivable Iraqi threat since 1991, these programs continue. And since the termination of Saddam's regime by the United States, all signs are that Iran's nuclear program is accelerating at speed.

Worse yet, Iran's partnership with North Korea unfortunately lends credence to Bush's "axis" remarks and Tehran's continuing support for terrorism to derail the Middle Eastern peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority does so as well.

The other two principal justifications that are often advanced to defend Iran's nuclearization are that it is responding to the threat of Israel, which has nuclear weapons, and the US threat. However, both of these are smokescreens. Allegedly Iran fears that Israel will do to it what it did to Iraq in 1981, namely bomb its nuclear weapons program. Therefore, much of that program is dispersed and underground.

Yet if Iran was not the principal state sponsor of global terrorism, according to the State Department, and terrorism that is directed on a global basis against Jews, not just Israelis, not to mention a state where domestic anti-Semitism is a state sanctioned policy, Israel would not even think of threatening Iran.

Indeed, under the US-backed Shah up to his ouster in the Islamic revolution of 1979, Israel and Iran had exemplary, almost alliance-like relations for sound geopolitical reasons. And Tehran's policies are no longer driven by the same kind of crusading religious zeal that was the case under Ayatollah Khomeini in the post-revolution era. Although Iranian-backed groups apparently function in Azerbaijan, Iran has virtually given up that kind of overt agitation in the Persian Gulf. Yet it clearly supports terrorism, as most assessments of the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers US barracks in Saudi Arabia suggest, for reasons of national interest, not Islamic ideology as such.

Likewise, Iran's animosity to America is not only founded on Islamism or whatever sins Washington may have committed toward Iran under the Shah, but on the quite rational basis that its consistent anti-American policies, support of terrorism and alleged proliferation of weapons of mass destruction directly counter vital American interests throughout the Middle East and the former Soviet Union.

If Iran was to cease support of terrorism and its aggressive policies in those areas, which have yielded little except to maintain a kind of state of siege with the outside world that perpetuates the oppressive Iranian internal regime, it would stand to benefit immensely and in very tangible fashion.

Yet, instead, and despite the war in Iraq it has redoubled its efforts to provoke not only Washington and Jerusalem, but also its neighbors. In 2001 and 2002 it threatened Azerbaijan and Kazakstan over Caspian Sea exploration issues. Since the war in Iraq it has not only accelerated its nuclear program and maintained a truculent attitude of denial towards the International Atomic Energy Agency and all other concerned parties, it apparently has now entered into discussion with North Korea to develop nuclear warheads jointly.

This new alliance would represent an enormous magnification of the nightmare scenario for many Asian governments, not just Israel and America, because it means the full materialization of the worst case scenario of what analysts call secondary proliferation, ie one proliferating state assisting another in its weapons development programs. There is no doubt that this alliance would rattle security agendas from the Gulf to South Korea and pour much oil on already troubled waters. But this is not all.

Despite official optimism in Washington concerning the rejuvenated peace progress between Israel and the Palestinians, in fact since June 29, when some of the Palestinian groups involved, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, announced a truce, there have been 178 terrorist attacks in Israel, including the pre-1967 boundaries, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials, whose intelligence has been exceptional throughout this war, say that Iran and Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization have been behind most of these attacks and that Iran is ordering and financing the attacks carried out by what they call rogue cells of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

Thus Iran is clearly intensifying its efforts to derail both the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, and to obtain nuclear weapons. It obviously is doing this in part to solidify the hold of its clerical elites at home by playing the cards of foreign threats and anti-Semitism to perpetuate the mullahs' despotic power. But it is also no less clear that Iran still aims to be able to destabilize its neighbors and to retain the capacity to intimidate them, and thereby dominate the Persian Gulf.

Ultimately, this course of action is unacceptable as far as the other Gulf states and other Middle Eastern nations are concerned. As long as there is the threat of terrorism or of weapons of mass destruction in the region, real peace and stability are unlikely to occur. Indeed, any effort to bring peace to troubled areas cannot then come about because other states must be able to defend themselves against these threats.

Among other things, this means bringing in the US military to defend Gulf states against threats to their sovereignty, integrity and independence, and to counter the linked threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Thus the consuming ambition of Iran's mullahs to retain power by any means possible and to pursue an expansionist foreign policy entail both the subjugation of Iran's peoples and also consigning all the people within reach of Iran's missiles to varying degrees of insecurity and fear.

As Iran's terrorist reach through groups it sponsors is global, and the expected reach of the missiles it is developing, whatever their warheads will contain - conventional, chemical, biological or nuclear warheads - is growing to include Europe and much of Asia, clearly this is a threat that must be reversed and terminated sooner rather than later.

For the moment, the powers that Iran threatens have resorted to diplomatic and economic pressure, but if the resort to terrorism and nuclear weapons, combined with an alliance with North Korea are true indicators of Iran's trajectory, then that forbearance may not last very long.

Stephen Blank is an analyst of international security affairs residing in Harrisburg, PA.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EH12Ak04.html