Everyone, who looks through the newspaper headlines every now and then, is certainly aware that today the world stands at the threshold of new major armed conflict that is about to grow into a full-scale war featuring nuclear states. Centre of the conflict lies at the heart of Middle and Near East, covering a part of Central Asia, too. Why the scent of war is so strong in the air of that region?
The war has already been declared. The aggressors are well-known and such is the country that would befall victim to theirs aggression. Israeli and American politicians make one threatening statement after another, the USA and Great Britain have gathered a large naval alignment in the Persian Gulf; details of military logistics are discussed openly and even the name of the future military operation — Austere Challenge — has been announced. Now only setting the schedule holds the further matters. The entire propagandistic and military machine is aimed at Iran. Cold War between Iran, the USA and Israel did not start yesterday. We may say that the current U.S. President Barack Obama inherited it from his predecessor George W. Bush. In the dawn of his presidential campaign he has repeatedly stated that he was about to break up with Manichean foreign policy of previous administration. Running for presidency Obama claimed that Bush-style hardball policy towards Iran, confined with an increasing pressure upon the country, was simply not working and that he was ready to start negotiations with the state leaders and look for a way to ease the tensions down. So far, good intentions of Nobel Peace Prize winner still remain such. Throughout three years of his White House occupancy Barack Obama has consistently demonstrated the Bush-like approach to Iranian issue. Fareed Zakaria, one of the major American foreign-policy analysts, has concluded that such policy is flimsy. Having visited Iran, he received evidence that the economic sanctions merely set the country population against the West rather than their own government — despite the announced goal of those sanctions. We may ventilate the issue of danger that Iranian nuclear program poses to Israel and the international community as much as we want, but the former AEIA Director Mohammed ElBaradei told New-Yorker that he has “never seen any evidence of military character of Iranian nuclear program”.
In fact, no one has ever seen such evidence, albeit it’s not particularly clear why Pakistan, for example, which is on the verge of civil war at the moment or India with its “suspended” conflict against Pakistan, DPRK or the much-talked-about Israel — all possessing nuclear weapons in spite of the NPT — pose no threat to the West. And why is Iran so dangerous for the USA, Israel and Great Britain.
Iran hasn’t undertaken a single hostile act towards any foreign state since the end of Iraqi-Iranian war in 1988. There’s nothing to charge the Islamic Republic with but the rhetoric of its statesmen. We may interpret statements of Iranian President regarding Israel, his denial of Holocaust and hosting anti-Zionist conferences in Tehran differently but those are merely words. Not a single act followed, while the West has never confined itself to words. As of now, it is only economic sanctions we’re talking about, but even they damage Iranian economics severely. For some reason the European Union decree to impose embargo for Iranian oil supplies starting from this summer is considered legitimate, while Iranian protest against it, expressed by its decision to stop the supplies right now caused terrible fuss in European capitals. Moreover, anti-Israeli rhetoric of Iran is ultimately designed for foreign consumption. Upon a most thorough consideration it is clear that domestic Iranian policy bears no traces of anti-Semitism whatsoever.
Jewish population of Iran — approximately 30.000 people — is the largest Jewish community of all Middle-Eastern countries (excluding Israel itself, of course). Jews have been populating Iran for more than three thousand years, since the era of Cyrus the Great, who allowed them to return from the “Babylonian captivity” to ancient Persia and rebuilt Jerusalem. Apart from the Jewish minority, Iran is populated by Bahá'í Faith followers, Christians and Sunni. International organizations, monitoring the observation of national and religious minority rights point out that the Jewish minority of Iran has significantly more rights and freedoms than their brothers in other Middle-Eastern countries. According to article 13 of Iranian Constitution, “Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian Iranians are the only recognized religious minorities, who, within the limits of the law, are free to perform their religious rites and ceremonies, and to act according to their own canon in matters of personal affairs and religious education”. Article 64 of the Basic Law of Iran allots Iranian citizens of Jewish origin the right to elect one MP to Majlis (Iranian single-chamber parliament). Synagogues, Jewish libraries and restaurants function in Tehran. There’s a Jewish hospital that is funded by Israeli Jews and the administration of President Ahmadinejad. Make no mistake, there are certain, and quite significant, peculiarities of Iranian legislation that are less than democratic towards Jews. So, if a single member of Judaic family adopts Islam, he will inherit the entire family property. Jews cannot become officers of Iranian army and, despite the absence of respective legislative norm, all directors of Jewish schools are actually Muslim.
I have strong doubts that Israeli or the U.S. leaders are unaware of the abovementioned facts. So what do they want to achieve with the attack against Iran? Israeli stance is more or less clear. Hidden threat of Iran, which supports anti-Israeli Palestinian and Lebanese Hamas and Hezbollah along with Bashar Asad’s government, troubles Israelites, but (alas!) this anxiety blinds Israeli government, preventing it from looking several steps ahead. Everyone knows how useful it is to look into future, yet no one can look further than his sight allows him. Attack against Iran will undoubtedly trigger its response and mass discontent of the Arab world. With the collapse of Mubarak’s regime Israel has lost its last Islamic ally. Even Turkey, which was traditionally considered the closest Israeli partner among Muslim countries, has been waging an ostentatiously anti-Israeli policy of late. Despite the mightiest army in the region, Israel would face a hard time, trying to secure its safety, once its relationships with the neighbors deteriorate completely. Barack Obama is to reap all the more bugbears in case if the war bursts out. Certainly, neither Iran, nor any other Middle-Eastern state may pose a threat to America, but the war in the Middle East may come as an unpleasant surprise, having started on the eve of November elections. Obama is already viewed as the most anti-Israeli U.S. President of contemporary history so he simply cannot ignore the existing American sympathies towards Israel or an influential pro-Israeli lobby, but having scored some political points at home by withdrawing troops from Iraq and announcing the withdrawal from Afghanistan he has merely “cleared off” the Republican political legacy. Whether a “small war” of his own would be of any use in the matter of winning elections is a doubtful matter.
Fareed Zakaria’s article at Washington Post that I quoted above is called “To deal with Iran’s nuclear future, go back to 2008” and it sends us back to pre-election promises of Barack Obama. He advises the incumbent President and the running candidate for the second term to “return to his original approach and test the Iranians to see if there’s any room for dialogue and agreement”. According to Zakaria, collaboration with Iran may be of use for America at the Afghani direction (and I’d like to add that it would produce certain benefits in Iraq as well).
Iran has its own deeply rooted discords with the West and it cannot fail to sense the threat coming from the USA and its allies. That is exactly the reason why American administration must keep looking for ways of mutual cooperation. Fareed Zakaria completes his article with a following passage:
“Strategic engagement with an adversary can go hand in hand with a policy that encourages change in that country. That’s how Washington dealt with the Soviet Union and China in the 1970s and 1980s. Iran is a country of 80 million people, educated and dynamic. It sits astride a crucial part of the world. It cannot be sanctioned and pressed down forever. It is the last great civilization to sit outside the global order. We need a strategy that combines pressure with a path to bring Iran in from the cold.”
Might it be the time for Barack Obama to listen to one of the most influential political analysts of America, who actively supported him in 2008?
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