Don't Screw This One Up
Okay, after railing against the parochial left's willful blindness about the struggle for liberal reform and women's rights in Iran, I feel I should admonish my government (that is, the one in the US) a bit...not so much in the interests of political balance, but because I worry that we're sleep-walking into yet another calamitous mistake in Iran.
The fact is, as numerous commentators from Hitchens to Ash to Michael Axworthy in Prospect have pointed out, even most Iranians who despise the beardocratic regime are eager to have nuclear power, and many support the idea of building up some kind of nuclear deterrent. I'm not exactly sanguine at the thought at Iran having a nuclear arsenal, and Johann Hari's recent suggestion that a nuclear Iran would mean "a Cuban Missile Crisis in the Middle East" is disquieting, to say the least. But the ranting, Holocaust-denying, neanderthal president's line about "wiping Israel off the map" is a hollow threat I think, designed to scare the West and rattle Israel further into a siege mentality. It's just posturing; the mullahs are more calculating than apocalyptic, and they know exactly what would happen if they ever tried to destroy Israel.
That said, it is certainly possible that Israel and Iran could find themselves in some kind of nuclear or otherwise military stand-off in the next few years, which would obviously be a calamity...but it seems inevitable that the Iranians will go ahead with their enrichment program, and surely the best way of dealing with this is a disciplined series of diplomatic talks? Boring, unsexy diplomacy might be the only way to slow down or diperse the march towards nuclearization, but that's just a short-term goal.
Like Ash and Hitchens say, we're spending entirely too much energy on the nuclear weapons and not nearly enough on supporting the forces of reform and dissent in Iran. The suggestions made by Ash and Hitchens--resuming full trade and relations with Iran and ushering in a global convivencia and free exchange of Western and Iranian goods and ideas--is the far more compelling and imaginatively bold vision. And what's more: it's totally feasible and would actually succeed in fostering goodwill towards liberal values in the Middle East. A round of air strikes certainly would not. Nor would sanctions. Imposing sanctions on Iran would not only result in stagnation and hunger that could be easily blamed on the United States, it would also turn much of Iranian opinion against the West. And no one wants that.
I'm honestly shocked that the US government is so preoccupied with making belligerent noises of late. Surely there ARE people in the State Department or Pentagon who know what a disaster a military strike on Iran would be. A Kissingerian policy of setting different factions and ethnicities within the country against one another is so morally bankrupt I don't think it needs further comment.
And if you're a member of that small section of the humanist left that still thinks internationalism is important and claims solidarity with the oppressed people of Iran: remember that the anti-regime liberals and feminists are opposed to military action as well.
The fact is, as numerous commentators from Hitchens to Ash to Michael Axworthy in Prospect have pointed out, even most Iranians who despise the beardocratic regime are eager to have nuclear power, and many support the idea of building up some kind of nuclear deterrent. I'm not exactly sanguine at the thought at Iran having a nuclear arsenal, and Johann Hari's recent suggestion that a nuclear Iran would mean "a Cuban Missile Crisis in the Middle East" is disquieting, to say the least. But the ranting, Holocaust-denying, neanderthal president's line about "wiping Israel off the map" is a hollow threat I think, designed to scare the West and rattle Israel further into a siege mentality. It's just posturing; the mullahs are more calculating than apocalyptic, and they know exactly what would happen if they ever tried to destroy Israel.
That said, it is certainly possible that Israel and Iran could find themselves in some kind of nuclear or otherwise military stand-off in the next few years, which would obviously be a calamity...but it seems inevitable that the Iranians will go ahead with their enrichment program, and surely the best way of dealing with this is a disciplined series of diplomatic talks? Boring, unsexy diplomacy might be the only way to slow down or diperse the march towards nuclearization, but that's just a short-term goal.
Like Ash and Hitchens say, we're spending entirely too much energy on the nuclear weapons and not nearly enough on supporting the forces of reform and dissent in Iran. The suggestions made by Ash and Hitchens--resuming full trade and relations with Iran and ushering in a global convivencia and free exchange of Western and Iranian goods and ideas--is the far more compelling and imaginatively bold vision. And what's more: it's totally feasible and would actually succeed in fostering goodwill towards liberal values in the Middle East. A round of air strikes certainly would not. Nor would sanctions. Imposing sanctions on Iran would not only result in stagnation and hunger that could be easily blamed on the United States, it would also turn much of Iranian opinion against the West. And no one wants that.
I'm honestly shocked that the US government is so preoccupied with making belligerent noises of late. Surely there ARE people in the State Department or Pentagon who know what a disaster a military strike on Iran would be. A Kissingerian policy of setting different factions and ethnicities within the country against one another is so morally bankrupt I don't think it needs further comment.
And if you're a member of that small section of the humanist left that still thinks internationalism is important and claims solidarity with the oppressed people of Iran: remember that the anti-regime liberals and feminists are opposed to military action as well.
posted by Greer at 4:21 PM
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