Lay-Off Iran
In the United States, no one questions our right to prevent
Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. At
the same time, everyone agrees that a nuclear Iran does not present a direct threat
to the United States. With all our budgetary problems and mounting debts, it is
incomprehensible that we are even threatening war. We seem to have assigned
ourselves a role that should be of little or no interest to us. Why is this our
problem anyway?
Iran has been a great empire long before the United States came
into being. It ruled the Middle East at
the time when the Indians were roaming the American plains painting their
bodies and carrying bows and arrows. Iran was a major civilization before the
Europeans ever had what could be called toilets. For us, or for any country in
fact, to presume to tell Iran what it should or should not have represents the
height of arrogance and ignorance. Any attack on Iran, apart from the thousands
of people that would be killed, will surely accelerate America's demise and its
economic decline.
While small and belligerent countries like North Korea and Israel
already possess nuclear weapons, we are determined not to let Iran have them
even though Iran is a large country and it does not have a history of
belligerence or war. Israel is the only country in the Middle East with nuclear
weapons and its belligerence is well known. If it is peace we are interested
in, perhaps, we should concentrate on removing Israel's nuclear stockpile and
create a nuclear-free Middle East. This would remove Iran's primary motivation
to have nuclear weapons in the first place.
Let us look at the other side of the equation. If Iran
builds a nuclear weapon, it would
contribute to regional stability. That would serve the interests of the
United States better. In such
a case, Israel and Iran will understand that the use of these weapons will
bring about their "mutually assured destruction'. That term should easily remind
the Americans of the standoff with the Soviet Union in the 1980's.
It is Israel, not
Iran that poses a nuclear threat to the Middle East. If
Iran goes nuclear, it would provide parity to Israel as Pakistan's nuclear
abilities balanced India's. It is instructive to note that in 1991, the
historical rivals India and Pakistan signed a treaty agreeing not to target
each other's nuclear facilities. Since then, even in the face of high tensions
and risky provocations, the two countries have kept the peace. Leading thinkers
in the United States such as Brzezinski, Keller, and Slavin are advancing similar
arguments.
Economic sanctions, no matter how severe, are not going to dissuade
a self-respecting and historic Iran, from doing what is in its national
interest. The economic difficulties being imposed on Iran are only hurting
ordinary Iranians, not their government. The sanctions will have little or no
effect on Iran's policies. It only proves that the United States and the West do not care
about the Iranians; they care only about Israel. In addition, the sanctions are
having a negative effect on energy prices and oil
company profits here in the United States. The support of the
Arab "kingdoms' for our stance against Iran is motivated by their need for
American support. The attempts to exploit the Moslem Shiite/Sunni differences
to force a regime change in Iran are only illusionary.
Our history with Iran also needs re-examination. At discussed
briefly in the movie "Argo', we engineered a coup in Iran and replaced their democratically
elected government with a despot of our choosing in order to get at their oil.
The Iranian people soon replaced our hand-selected Shah with a religious nationalistic
regime that we could not live with. Our relations with Iran never recovered.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
