Analyzing The Situation With Iran

 Iran, a threat?

By Noam Chomsky

 

The Iranian threat is not military aggression but that doesn't mean it might be tolerable to Washington. Iranian deterrent capacity is considered an illegitimate exercise of sovereignty that interferes with U.S. global designs. Specifically, it threatens U.S. control of Middle East energy resources.

The dire threat of Iran is widely recognized to be the most serious foreign policy crisis facing the Obama administration.

General Petraeus informed the Senate Committee on Armed Services in March 2010 that "the Iranian regime is the primary state-level threat to stability" in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, the Middle East and Central Asia, the primary region of U.S. global concerns.

The term "stability" here has its usual technical meaning: firmly under U.S. control. In June 2010 Congress strengthened the sanctions against Iran, with even more severe penalties against foreign companies.

The Obama administration has been rapidly expanding U.S. offensive capacity in the African island of Diego Garcia, claimed by Britain, which had expelled the population so that the U.S. could build the massive base it uses for attacks in the Central Command area.

The Navy reports sending a submarine tender to the island to service nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines with Tomahawk missiles, which can carry nuclear warheads. Each submarine is reported to have the striking power of a typical carrier battle group.

According to a U.S. Navy cargo manifest obtained by the Sunday Herald (Glasgow), the substantial military equipment Obama has dispatched includes 387 "bunker busters" used for blasting hardened underground structures.

Planning for these "massive ordnance penetrators," the most powerful bombs in the arsenal short of nuclear weapons, was initiated in the Bush administration, but languished.

On taking office, Obama immediately accelerated the plans and they are to be deployed several years ahead of schedule, aiming specifically at Iran.

"They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran," according to Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London.

"US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours," he said. "The firepower of US forces has quadrupled since 2003," accelerating under Obama.

The Arab press reports that an American fleet (with an Israeli vessel) passed through the Suez Canal on the way to the Persian Gulf, where its task is "to implement the sanctions against Iran and supervise the ships going to and from Iran."

British and Israeli media report that Saudi Arabia is providing a corridor for Israeli bombing of Iran (denied by Saudi Arabia).

On his return from Afghanistan to reassure NATO allies that the U.S. will stay the course Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen visited Israel to meet IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and senior military staff.

He also had meetings with intelligence and planning units, continuing the annual strategic dialogue between Israel and the U.S.

The meetings focused "on the preparation by both Israel and the U.S. for the possibility of a nuclear capable Iran," according to Haaretz, which reports further that Mullen emphasized that, "I always try to see challenges from Israeli perspective." Mullen and Ashkenazi are in regular contact on a secure line.

The increasing threats of military action against Iran are, of course, in violation of the UN Charter and in specific violation of Security Council resolution 1887 of September 2009 which reaffirmed the call to all states to resolve disputes related to nuclear issues peacefully, in accordance with the Charter, which bans the use or threat of force.

Some analysts, who seem to be taken seriously, describe the Iranian threat in apocalyptic terms. Amitai Etzioni warns that, "The U.S. will have to confront Iran or give up the Middle East," no less.

If Iran's nuclear program proceeds, he asserts, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other states will "move toward" the new Iranian "superpower."

To rephrase in less fevered rhetoric, a regional alliance might take shape independent of the U.S. In the U.S. army journal Military Review, Etzioni urges a U.S. attack that targets not only Iran's nuclear facilities, but also its non-nuclear military assets, including infrastructure—meaning, the civilian society.

This kind of military action is akin to sanctions—causing 'pain' in order to change behaviour, albeit by much more powerful means."

What is the Threat, Exactly?


Such inflammatory pronouncements aside, what exactly is the Iranian threat? The military and intelligence assessments are concerned with the threat Iran poses to the region and the world.

The reports make it clear that the Iranian threat is not military. Iran's military spending is "relatively low compared to the rest of the region," and minuscule as compared to the U.S. Iranian military doctrine is strictly "defensive - designed to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities."

Iran has only "a limited capability to project force beyond its borders." With regard to the nuclear option, "Iran's nuclear program and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy."

Though the Iranian threat is not military aggression, that does not mean that it might be tolerable to Washington. Iranian deterrent capacity is considered an illegitimate exercise of sovereignty that interferes with U.S. global designs.

Specifically, it threatens U.S. control of Middle East energy resources, a high priority of planners since World War II. As one influential figure advised, expressing a common understanding, control of these resources yields "substantial control of the world".

But Iran's threat goes beyond deterrence. It is also seeking to expand its influence.

Iran's "current five-year plan seeks to expand bilateral, regional, and international relations, strengthen Iran's ties with friendly states, and enhance its defense and deterrent capabilities.

Commensurate with that plan, Iran is seeking to increase its stature by countering U.S. influence and expanding ties with regional actors while advocating Islamic solidarity."

In short, Iran is seeking to "destabilize" the region, in the technical sense of the term used by General Petraeus. U.S. invasion and military occupation of Iran's neighbors is "stabilization."

Iran's efforts to extend its influence in neighboring countries is "destabilization," hence plainly illegitimate. It should be noted that such revealing usage is routine.

Thus, the prominent foreign policy analyst James Chace, former editor of the main establishment journal Foreign Affairs, was properly using the term "stability" in its technical sense when he explained that in order to achieve "stability" in Chile it was necessary to "destabilize" the country (by overthrowing the elected Allende government and installing the Pinochet dictatorship).

Beyond these crimes, Iran is also carrying out and supporting terrorism, the reports continue.

Its Revolutionary Guards "are behind some of the deadliest terrorist attacks of the past three decades,"including attacks on U.S. military facilities in the region and "many of the insurgent attacks on Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces in Iraq since 2003."

Furthermore, Iran backs Hezbollah and Hamas, the major political forces in Lebanon and in Palestine—if elections matter.

The Hezbollah-based coalition handily won the popular vote in Lebanon's latest (2009) election.

Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian election, compelling the U.S. and Israel to institute the harsh and brutal siege of Gaza to punish the miscreants for voting the wrong way in a free election.

These have been the only relatively free elections in the Arab world. It is normal for elite opinion to fear the threat of democracy and to act to deter it, but this is a rather striking case.

Particularly, alongside of strong U.S. support for the regional dictatorships, emphasized by Obama with his strong praise for the brutal Egyptian dictator Mubarak on the way to his famous address to the Muslim world in Cairo.