[lbo-talk] FW from the NLG: Bush Plans War on Iran

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sun Sep 2 17:27:19 PDT 2007


On Sun, 2 Sep 2007, andie nachgeborenen wrote:


> It' somewhat difficult to believe that with one major military disaster
> on his hands in Iraq, Bush would intentionally create a second,
> potentially worse on in Iran, with the potential to exacerbate the first
> disaster in Iraq -- but then realism, common sense, and good judgment
> even from the point of view that Bush represents has never been a
> hallmark of this administration. This may just be another false alarm,
> let's hope so, but I thought I'd pass this along FWIW

Also in the FWIW category, there was an interesting point made by Farideh Farhi, the Iranian authority at the four-person group-blog version of Juan Cole's Informed Comment, "Informed Comment Global Edition." She says that "imminent war with Iran" rumors are periodically lofted every time the US wants to tighten up sanctions in some way. The basic mechanism is that everyone is unanimously horrified by the idea of war and that these crazy people could even think of it -- and thus sanctions that would normally strike them as stupid, counterproductive or overweeming seem like sweet reason in comparison.

One of the ways sanctions would be racheted up this time would include the designation of the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group, and Farideh has several interesting things to say about that too -- she provides a detailed model of some of the ways sanctions like this drive Iran to the right (in this case by forcing the left to pledge allegiance to the institution under attack). I've attached her post below.

Michael

========

http://icga.blogspot.com/2007/08/potential-designation-of-sepah-e.html

Informed Comment Global Affairs

Group blog on Current Events

Monday, August 27, 2007

Potential Designation of Sepah-e Pasdaran as a Terrorist Organization: Reactions from Tehran

I did not comment earlier about the reported designation of Sepah-e

Pasdaran-e Enqelab-e Eslami (translated as the Islamic Revolution's

Guard Corps or sometimes even more carelessly as Revolutionary Guard

Corps while the word sepah means army and the correct translation is

the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution) mostly because

over the past five years of closely monitoring the fate of Iran's

nuclear dossier, I have become skeptical of newspaper leaks, plants or

commentary that hint at the possibility of eventual military action

(either by the United States or Israel) against Iran right around the

time or in the midst of negotiations among permanent Security Council

members and Germany (P5+1) about the extension of sanctions against

Iran.

This time around the story made headlines in both the New York Times

and Washington Post as Iran was about to begin the third round of

negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over an

"action plan" and timetable for Iran to address the remaining

"unresolved questions" over its nuclear program (that agreement, the

text of which was revealed today and can be found here, has already

been announced as inadequate by the US even before its content was

known).

The United States is also pushing for a third set of economic sanctions

through the UN Security Council and as far as I can tell even the

smallest hint of US military action (and the potential terrorist

designation of the national army of another country is certainly a

hint) has become a very useful tool not only in the process of

persuading countries freaked out about yet another Middle East war that

sanctions are the way to go but also in framing the Iran policy

discussions domestically in the US.

Once military action becomes a possibility, then most of the energy is

spent discussing why this is a terrible option while the issue at hand,

which is really whether or not sanctions are good policy options, are

not adequately reflected upon. In an either/or frame, sanctions or what

is sometimes, I guess, euphemistically called "coercive diplomacy" in

fact become the "good option" upon which a consensus can be reached.

Ultimately the fundamental premise of the Bush Administration that

Tehran needs to be dealt with through coercion, unless Iran agrees to

US pre-conditions, and the implications of the sanctions policy for

Iranian politics and Iranian people and whether sanctions will fulfill

the stated objectives are rarely discussed.

The US has been sanctioning Iran in significant ways since the first

term of the Clinton Administration and hopefully in a later post I will

talk about how sanctions have strengthened non-transparent networks of

economic middlemen in Iran whose lucrative activities during the Saddam

era sanctions against Iraq (yes Iraq) as well as close ties to various

state institutions have enriched them enough to influence Iranian

politics in significant ways, particularly since Iran's borders with

neighboring countries (now all American allies) are so porous.

But here I want to talk specifically about the impact of the recent

news about the placing of Sepah on the terrorist list on Iranian

politics. In the words of David Ignatius of Washington Post, through

this designation, which he suggests is part of a new post-Iraq

strategy, the Bush administration hopes to "squeeze the guard and all

of the businesses it owns -- banks, trading companies, tech companies

that are part of the nuclear program -- and seek to divide President

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, himself a product of the guard, from Iran's less

fanatical majority."

A close look at the reaction from Tehran, however, clearly encapsulates

how such moves push the whole array of political forces to the right of

the political spectrum and in fact strengthen precisely the same forces

that the publicized policy presumably intends to weaken. This, I think,

is the story of American foreign policy vis-à-vis Tehran; a story that

very few people in the Bush Administration or the US Congress (which

since 1990s has done everything possible to outdo the executive branch

in this sanctions game) are willing to confront.

Now let's see what happened in Tehran once the news hit the headlines.

The government did not respond officially. In fact, only a Foreign

Ministry official who wished to remain anonymous (yes the Iran has them

too!), characterized the publicity as part and parcel of the

"psychological war" in which the US has engaged in the past couple of

years in order to intimidate Iran.

The conservative organizations and newspapers did respond but they did

so with either a yawn or their usual bombast and ridicule about

American failures in Iraq and how these failures leave the US no other

options but to find scapegoats. In an August 23rd editorial entitled

"Paper Presence," this is how Kayhan, Tehran's most important hard-line

daily reacted to the news:

<snip mocking quote>

But ridiculing the significance of the US decision, if it happens, does

not prevent hard-line or conservative forces from using the proposed

terrorist designation in their attacks against domestic opponents.

Suggesting that the idea of placing Sepah on the terrorist list can be

associated with a few members of the Iranian exile community in the

United States with past links to the reformists, Baztab, a website

associated with Mohsen Rezaie, the former commander of Sepah, in an

August 21st piece subtitled "A Test for the Patriotism of the

Reformists demands:

Now that the hard-line American circles are pretending that in

confronting Sepah-e Pasdaran they have the reformists on their side,

time has arrived for well-known leaders of that array of groups to

defeat this plan through a clear statement of their position... Time

has arrived for organizations such as Association of Combatant Clerics,

The National Confidence Party, Servants of Construction, Mojahedin of

Islamic Revolution and Participation Front and figures such as Khatami,

Karrubi, Mir Hossein Mussavi, Mohtashamipour, Karbashchi and others,

who despite critical positions regarding certain issues have also shown

their support for their territorial integrity of the country to enter

the fray and prevent any kind of western pretensions on behalf of the

reformists.

And the call has not gone unheeded. Almost every reformist organization

has since come out with a written statement in support of Sepah,

echoing what Mohammad Khatami, Iran's former reformist president, said

in an interview with ISNA (Iranian Students News Agency) against the

potential move:

<begin Khatami quote>

If the hard-line war mongers in the United States do not know, I am

sure the wise and just of that country know that Sepah has risen from

the main beliefs and longings of a nation, is one of the main pillars

of national authority and security, is the protector of the nation's

rights, values of the revolution, and territorial integrity, and form

the spiritual point of view has a special place among the people of

Iran. No nation can accept being subjected to aggression or even insult

against the backbone of its authority and security and guardian of its

territorial integrity, honor, and independence.

<end Khatami quote>

Khatami goes to hope that "illogical extremists" will be prevented from

steering American foreign policy and calls on the "wise" in both

countries to prevent another crisis, while posing a question about

which people will benefit from the leakage of such a news in the midst

of US-Iran discussions of and Iran's attempts to respond to the

unresolved technical questions regarding its nuclear program.

To be sure, Khatami's interview along with written statements issued by

political groups such as the National Confidence Party, Mojahedin of

Islamic Revolution and Participation Front all include an implicit and

at times even explicit criticism of hard-line posturing against the

United States and lack of prudence on the part of the Iranian

government in its dealings with the United States. But make no mistake,

the mere reporting on the possibility of terrorism designation of Sepah

has had a rallying effect on the significant players of the Islamic

republic and once again has made it easier for had-line forces in Iran

to make the case that conciliatory moves towards the United States

(either in relation to Iraq or more significantly in relation to Iran's

nuclear file) are of no use since US policy objectives in Iran are not

behavior change but regime change.

Posted by Farideh Farhi at 6:24 PM



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