Better to fight and die than compromise with America

[Castro]

To judge by everything they say and do, Iran's leaders are determined to acquire nuclear technology. They want it not just so they can generate electricity - they also want the option of being able to build nuclear bombs. They already have the Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, which can carry nuclear warheads and have a range of around 1,250 miles. That distance enables them to strike at Israel. Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, likes to quote the late Ayatollah Khomeini's saying that he wanted to see Israel "wiped off the map".

 

Deterrence has so far kept nuclear powers from attacking each other. The problem with nuclear technology in the hands of Iran's leaders is their belief in martyrdom: they are prepared to die to assert what they consider to be their moral and legal right. The worrying prospect is that so many of their countrymen feel the same way.

 

Death in the form of martyrdom is central to the Shia sect of Islam that dominates Iran and it runs deep in the country's collective psyche. The founder of the Shia was Imam Ali, a son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed. Imam Ali was assassinated. But it is Ali's son, Imam Hussein, who is "the Great Martyr".

 

Hussein regarded himself as the legitimate heir to the Caliphate. But when he tried to take control of it, he found himself facing his rival, Yazid. Hussein had just 72 followers. Yazid led a force of 4,000 crack troops. Yazid offered Hussein the option of surrender. Hussein contemptuously rejected it. He resolved to fight and die rather than capitulate or retreat: he and all his followers were massacred.

 

Hussein's death is commemorated in the most important ritual of the Shia year, the Ashura. The message of Hussein's martyrdom, that it is better to die than to compromise on something which is regarded as a moral right, is ingrained in the very fibre of ordinary Iranians.

 

"Ashura is the central tenet of Shia Islam," a stout, pale-faced textile merchant told me in the Grand Bazaar of Teheran. "The life and death of Imam Hussein tells us that when moral and legal right is on your side, you must not surrender it but fight for it and die in the process if need be." He added ominously: "This is now the case with Iran's right to enrich uranium."

 

President Ahmadinejad has insisted that "Iranians, young or old, city dweller or villager, farmer or factory worker, are all saying one thing: nuclear energy is our undeniable right". The troubling thing is - he is probably right: the country is behind him.

 

In his election campaign last June, he particularly targeted the poor, promising them a fairer distribution of the country's oil wealth and better benefits for women. As a result, he has rock-solid support among the 19 million Iranians who live below the poverty line. The rest of the country has united in the face of the condemnation from the West. Western pressure has had the opposite effect to the one intended: it has strengthened Ahmadinejad and weakened his reformist critics inside Iran.

 

So what can the United States do to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons? The short answer is: not very much. The Bush administration insists that "military intervention is not ruled out" - John Bolton, Bush's ambassador to the UN, repeated that message last week - but in reality it is ruled out. America will not invade Iran, at least not while it is still embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan. Simple logistics eliminate that option: the US does not have enough soldiers to launch a successful invasion of Iran.

 

There are, of course, military options other than full-scale invasion. The Americans are known to have drawn up a list of 40 targets that they would need to destroy if Iran's nuclear programme were to be disabled, or at least delayed, and its conventional military power crippled. The idea is for "surgical" air strikes to destroy key sites in the nuclear production chain and military industry.

 

But air strikes are never surgical, especially when the targets are in or near cities, as 10 of the American 40 are thought to be. The Iranian reaction when one of America's bombs hits a hospital, a school or a factory and kills scores of civilians is not difficult to imagine. Iranians would demand revenge. And their leaders would find a way to ensure that they got it.

 

They could do immense damage to America. The US and British troops in next door Iraq would be an easy target. Iraq's Sunnis make up about one fifth of the population and have caused mayhem in the country: Shias, though, make up three-fifths of Iraq's population. Most of them feel a greater loyalty to their sect than to any administration in Iraq installed under America's protection. One shudders to think what they would do if they felt that because America was at war with Iran, they should go to war with America.

 

What of the non-military options for coercing Iran out of developing nuclear weapons? The only practical possibility is sanctions. Both the US and the European nations seem to be heading to the conclusion that sanctions would be the most effective next step. The only sanctions that would hurt Iran would be prohibiting the export of oil and gas.

 

But enforcing such a prohibition would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. Iran has several hundred miles of coastline and land borders with seven different countries: policing every porous inch is not a practical possibility.

 

Furthermore, the sanctions would hurt the rest of the world more than Iran. The leadership in Teheran has been stockpiling supplies of food and medicine: they reportedly have about three years' worth in store. And the rest of the world badly needs Iran's crude: it is the second largest exporter of oil in Opec, and it has the second largest reserves of both oil and natural gas.

 

If Iran's oil were shut off, the price in the world markets would rocket. The effect on the economies of Europe and America - and now also China and India - could be devastating - which is one reason why America is unlikely to get the approval of the UN Security Council for sanctions.

 

President Ahmadinejad insists that "the world needs the Iranian nation much more than the Iranian nation needs the world". It sounds like a threat, a proclamation of his country's readiness to martyr itself for a cause it thinks is right.

 

Diplomacy has so far not proved an effective means of persuading the Iranians out of the idea that they have a moral right to nuclear weapons - but it is the only means we have got.

 

By Dilip Hiro, the author of "Iran Today," to be published by Politico's Publishing on March 20.

 

Source

[codetalker]

Good read! What's there to "compromise"? The Americans want a regime change - how is the Iranian leadership supposed to "compromise" on their status as leaders?

 

If Tehran continues to call on Washington's bluffs, it might achieve the martyrdom the Iranians are so fond of.

 

Have you seen the new PINR report on U.S.-China relations?

 

A similar deepening of relations can be seen in the case of Sino-Iranian relations. While

China abstained in the vote to refer Iran's nuclear ambitions

to the United Nations Security Council at the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) in January 2006, it still maintains strong relations with Iran. When the Iran issue will be discussed at the U.N. Security Council, China could employ a similar tactic to what it employed over the issue of Sudan, which is also a significant oil supplier to China; in 2004, the U.N. Security Council was forced to water down a resolution condemning atrocities in the Darfur region to avoid a Chinese veto.

- Power and Interest News Report (PINR)

 

^ This is another reason economic sanctions on Iran might not even be passed in the UN Security Council.

[Castro]

^ I just read it and it essentially says messing with Iran is messing with China. Once neocons are out of office, however, the US may change its strategy altogether to one that is more conciliatory and diplomatic. If not, the consequences are indeed dire for everyone. Can the empire survive the humiliation of backing down from Iran? A rock and a hard place, anyone?