A war with Tehran would be a catastrophe, most
importantly for the people of Iran.
Are we
really here again? Is the US actually contemplating another military,
nation-shaping intervention, this time in Iran?
President
Trump shouldn’t have to look far to see grim testaments to the folly of such a
move. He could look at the ongoing conflict in Syria, fuelled, fatally, by
America’s decision in 2011 to back the ‘rebels’ against the government of
Bashar al-Assad. Or he could look to Libya, a ruined, war-torn nation – a
nation in name only, now – following the US-backed overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi
in 2011. Or, of course, he could look to Iraq, the ne plus ultra of
the interventionist creed, a territory ripped apart and plunged into chaos,
disorder and Islamist terror after the Bush- and Blair-led invasion of 2003.
They all
show the grotesque reality of the dream of ‘regime change’ — that you cannot
emancipate a people on their behalf; that you cannot impose democracy from
without; that you cannot bomb your way to a brave new world order.
And yet
despite the horrific damage these interventions have wrought – the death and
displacement of people, the destabilisation and disorder, the terrorism and the
sheer suffering – it really does look as if there is a concerted effort being
made by a coterie of politicians, think-tankers and pundits to go again; to
blunder headlong into another conflict with another unpleasant regime.
Trump may
have wavered, aborting a ‘cocked and loaded’ military strike at the last
minute, and opting to celebrate a cyber-attack instead. But the threat of a war
persists, because the will to a war persists. The US secretary of state Mike
Pompeo is still there, making the case for
military action against Tehran. As is US national security adviser John Bolton,
who continues to push, as he has done since the 1980s, for the ‘overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in
Tehran’. And, around them the hawkish advisers and think-tanks
continue to circle, dropping their reports and research into willing laps just
looking for the slightest justification for war.
Because make
no mistake — just as the advocates of invading Iraq in 2003 desperately went
looking for a reason for doing so, seeing weapons of mass destruction where
even UN inspector Hans Blix could see none, so the hawkish wing of the Trump
administration is working overtime to invent a justification for striking at
Tehran. And inventing they are, if reports are to be
believed that the real reason Trump pulled back from the brink last week was
because the downed US drone, or at least the one following it, had, contrary to
America’s initial assertions, illegally entered Iranian territory. Iran was therefore
entirely within its rights to shoot at it.
Not that
anyone should be surprised at a botched attempt to manufacture a justification
for getting stuck into Iran. Team Trump pursued precisely that course when
attempting to justify pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, even urging intelligence
agencies to find some evidence of Iran violating the deal’s terms – they found
none. And Trump and his team have continued to do so after reneging on the
deal, seeking to blame Iran, in advance of evidence, for any malign activity in
the Middle East, from attacks on oil tankers to the sabotage of Saudi oil
pipelines.
But then,
that is what is so absurd and dangerous about this plunge towards conflict with
Iran. It is driven not by any strategic or material objectives, but by an
all-consuming animus. This hatred, this desire to ‘obliterate’ Iran’s ruling
caste, precedes any good reason for doing so. Indeed, it desperately, cynically
generates reasons for doing so, from preventing nuclear proliferation to
freeing the Iranian people and Making Iran Great Again.
One can
speculate as to the origins of the animus, its roots in the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-81, when US
diplomats were held captive for over 400 days while huge crowds shouted ‘death
to America’. But it is the effect of the animus that is important. It has made
too many blind. Blind to the hypocrisy of condemning the intolerant, nepotistic
theocracy of Iran while cosying up to the intolerant, nepotistic theocracy of
Saudi Arabia; blind to the role of other forces and interests, including those
of Western states themselves, in the instability and conflict that continues to
plague the Middle East; and blind, above all, to the utter human catastrophe
that any war with Iran would bring.
Because that
is what it would be: a catastrophe. Many critics of the anti-Iran sentiments
gripping Beltway minds rightly invoke the Iraq War as a warning to Trump. But
Iran is not Iraq. It is far bigger geographically, and far stronger militarily,
with cruise and ballistic missile capability, a conventional army of about
350,000 soldiers, and the specialised Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,
comprising another 125,000 troops. So a war with the Ayatollah’s Iran would not
be like a war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It would be far, far worse, with
horrific ramifications for the whole region and beyond.
But above
all, any move against Tehran would be a disaster for the Iranian people
themselves. Not because there is widespread support for the Ayatollah, the
government, or the Revolutionary Guards. The Iranian people know exactly what
kind of regime they live under. They are becoming increasingly tired of the
economic hardship, the Islamist intolerance, and the absence of civil and
democratic freedoms. And it is no longer just the middle classes who feel this
way, as it was during the Green movement of 2009. Increasingly, protests have
emerged from within major northeastern cities, and in the provinces, and have
involved Iran’s working class, long viewed as the cornerstone of the regime’s
popular base. If anyone can and ought to carry out a bit of regime change, it
must be these people — the people living under and struggling against the regime,
the people who know best how it is they would like to live. Intervention will
only derail and stymie their struggle, turning their future into something to
be imposed upon them by ‘caring’ outsiders.
So hands off
Iran. For the sake of the Iranian people.
Tim Black is
a spiked columnist.
Picture by:
xiquinhosilva, published under a creative commons license.
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