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http://revolutionaryflowerpot.blogspot.com/2012/01/reflections-on-iran-us-cold-war.html
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Reflections on the Iran-US Cold War
Thanks for this, we agree with the points made here, some of which have
been made before, not just by this blog but also by writers, activists
and analysts on leftist Persian language sites.
Some Reflections on the Iran-US Cold War
By: Rostam Rakhshani / Jan. 19, 2012
A lot of people in the western left continue to misread the situation in
Iran and the western powers' posturing toward Iran.
We have seen cycles of intensified rhetoric on a regular basis for at
least six to seven years now. Every time the rhetoric heats up, the
armies of commentators on all sides get into their now familiar
routines. The western powers and their allies insist on the usual
demands for accountability from the Iranian regime regarding its nuclear
program, while the Islamic Republic regime insists on its inalienable
right to pursue nuclear energy, and the various west-residing lobbyists
for the Iranian regime start their frenzied petition gatherings,
letter/commment writing, and warn everybody of the disaster a war would
create for the people, and so they call for open, unconditional
negotiations (implicitly asking the western powers to recognize the
Islamic regime as a legitimate entity representing the people). And of
course, the western left continues to see things only in a black and
white picture, in which the U.S. and its western allies are the baddies
and the Iranian regime is a poor, overly oppressed entity; in the
process conveniently forgetting all the terror this regime unleashes on
the Iranian people on a daily basis.
Just about everybody forgets the people of Iran, who continue to be held
hostage by a mad policy of nuclear adventurism, just so the Iranian
regime can gain some bullying rights in the region.
The western powers, however, do not seem to want an open war with Iran.
Sabotage, yes. Diplomatic and economic pressures, of course. But, no
open war.
To this end, in the past week we have seen the U.S. putting pressure on
Israel to tone down its war rhetoric against Iran, and now president
Sarkozy is warning the world about the dire consequences of a military
attack on Iran.
Here are some points to consider:
1) It should be noted that any open war with Iran would actually help
the trend to solidify the regime, not change it. Any military moves,
much like the current sanctions and sabotage campaign, would be intended
as an act to induce change of behavior without fundamentally changing
the regime.
This is exactly why the militant faction inside the Islamic Republic
regime would actually welcome a limited military confrontation.
The people of Iran will be the only losers, as they are the only losers
now. They and only they, as they do now, will bear the cost in life,
health, in economic deprivation, in increased social misery, in more
violence and terror hanging over their heads, and of course it is the
people who will suffer from further militarization of their society, and
the dominance of various mafias, including the state-controlled and
related ones.
The further misery for the people is exactly what the imperialists want.
One major point here missed by a lot of western left is that, by
equating the people of Iran with the state, they actually forget that
for the Iranian state too, the people are dispensable. The mullahs'
regime has a historical record to prove this disregard for people's lives.
During the Iran-Iraq war, by 1982 Iranian forces had repelled the Iraqi
forces from all Iranian territory that had been invaded. At this point,
the war could have ended, but the war had proven invaluable in the
consolidation of the clerical regime, so they continued it for another
SIX years; in the process, sending hundreds of thousands of people (on
both sides) to their deaths under the slogan, 'The road to Jerusalem
runs through Baghdad'.
An open fight with the Great Satan can definitely be put to the same
use; especially, considering how hated the regime is by the majority of
the Iranian people right now. Such open confrontation can be used most
efficiently to more effectively suppress any form of dissent.
2) I really don't think the U.S. wants an open war. They are fully aware
of the fact that Iran has TWO SETS of militaries (three, if you include
the millions-strong - according to the state itself - Basij forces).
This military force, unlike what happened to Iraq before being invaded,
has NOT been bombarded for a whole decade and some, and its
infrastructure has not been completely destroyed. The Iranian regime has
vast capabilities, totally intact, including their own military
industries, developed during the Iran-Iraq war and well financed ever
since. They have their hands in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and can
make those places put some real heat on the Americans. So, if or when
push comes to shove, the Iranian side is well capable of shoving back.
The blustering by the Americans may be loud, but everybody with eyes can
see that this great imperial power is incapable of pacifying even
Afghanistan.
3) The most reasonable explanation I've come across is that the present
rise in rhetoric and covert actions could indeed be hot air and
maneuvering before the sides sit down to negotiate, so the Iranian state
has chosen to go on the offensive of its own (in response to the
offensive by the west, and instead of backing down) with the aim of
raising the ante and maneuvering for a negotiating position to its benefit.
4) I think the path of economic sanctions is the Americans' preferred
path to achieve change of behavior by the Iranian regime. The Americans
know that the Iranian regime is illegitimate, which is exactly why they
want it in place (even if some of the faces have to be changed). The
Americans therefore know well how mafia-infested the Iranian state
apparatuses are. And because they know this, they also know that the
regime needs cash to buy its foot soldiers. So, if they can cut the flow
of cash, the foot soldiers can then be bought by the rivals and certain
modification can be achieved without a hugely costly war, which if it
really breaks out in the open, could truly and seriously be too costly
for the Americans, and the end-result of it is truly unknown.
5) On the key question being used as an excuse to put pressure on Iran,
the nuclear issue, the argument has long been lost. Neither the Iranian
opposition (the people, that is, not the reformists), nor anybody else
is calling for a complete and total stoppage of all nuclear activity
based on environmental and safety grounds. Even after the horrible and
ongoing disaster in Japan, a country that compared to Iran is far more
technologically advanced and far more thorough-going as far as safety is
concerned, even after it has been established that the nuclear plant in
Bushehr is sitting on top of an active tectonic plate, even after is has
been established for thirty-three years that the Iranian government is
not responsive, accountable or responsible toward the Iranian people and
in fact considers them as cannon fodder for its bankrupt and
expansionist ideology; even after all these factors have become
self-evident, still nobody is talking about the most rational and most
people-oriented solution: stoppage of all nuclear activity in Iran.
As a result, the skirmishes between the western powers and Iran over its
nuclear program have become, and will continue to be, the convenient
bone of contention to be picked with the Iranian regime.
Gone is any global attention to the atrocious human rights conditions in
Iran, gone are the workers' rights, women's rights, freedom of speech,
freedom of assembly, freedom of press, gone is attention to the
extremely dire situation of the political prisoners. Gone is any form of
love for and solidarity with the people of Iran.
For the state powers involved, as well as for a good portion of the
western left, the Iranian people have been collapsed into the Iranian
regime, and whatever the Iranian regime or the western powers say
becomes the criteria for the discussions. And, unfortunately, the
western left continues to reproduce this same rhetorical line. We see
leftist publications that point to all the horrors and the implications
of the Japanese nuclear disaster for the nuclear industry in the U.S.,
yet the same publications are rabidly jingoistic in supporting even a
military nuclear project carried out by a theocracy, under which not a
single one of those western leftists would be willing to live, not even
for one day.
The Iranian people alone (and in their utter loneliness) remain the only
factor capable of enacting true liberation from this madness. Unless the
Iranian people take to the streets and intervene with the demand for
BOTH no military attacks or economic sanctions AND against the Islamic
regime, i.e., unless the Iranian people once again take their collective
fate into their own hands, their future will remain one of despair and
helplessness, and they will remain the hapless pawns in the power games
of the western powers and the Islamic regime.
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