Early warning signs of another war?

by Hasan Abu Nimah

When the United States decided to attack Iraq, there were hints that Iraq was not the final target; Syria and Iran were to be next. The miscalculations the US made in Iraq and the ongoing war have done nothing to dampen fears that the US may still have new adventures in store.

There is no shortage of enthusiasm for taking on Iran and Syria from neoconservatives and others who espouse President George W. Bush's vision of redrawing the map of the region. Whatever the ultimate scope of US ambitions in the region, Iraq was an obvious place to start because the Saddam regime was isolated internationally, vulnerable and militarily almost defenceless.

The United States used the widespread support for its post-Sept. 11 overthrow of the Taleban regime in Afghanistan to try to provide a precedent and legitimacy for its attack on Iraq. Easy victory in Iraq was then supposed to set aside doubts about a general policy of preemptive war and regime change and possibly set the stage for action against Syria and Iran.

While there might be many motivations for the US policy, the one that has been most consistently and forcefully articulated is that reshaping the Middle East, to rid it of pan-Arabist regimes and the mullahs in Tehran, will serve Israeli interests. David Wurmser, for example, a neoconservative activist and currently a senior adviser to US Vice President Dick Cheney, has been prominent in pushing this vision, first by contributing to a 1996 report prepared for then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ("A Clean Break: A New Strategy For Securing The Realm"), and then in his 1999 book, an elaboration of the 1996 report, published by The Enterprise Institute ("Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein").

The fact that the United States military is bogged down in Iraq and is facing mounting losses in lives and money against a growing insurgency ought to provide some assurance that any new adventure is not imminent. But the United States has continued to intensify its diplomatic and political campaign against Damascus and Tehran, accusing both of sponsoring terror in Iraq and against Israel through their support of Hizbollah in southern Lebanon. The US is also increasing its accusations that Iran is trying to acquire nuclear weapons and has demanded that Iran abandon its entire nuclear programme, even those elements which it is explicitly entitled to carry out for peaceful purposes under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The European Union has tried to act as an intermediary by entering into a "dialogue" with Iran during which Iran agreed to suspend controversial parts of its programme. Recently, however, Iran has become suspicious that the Europeans are dragging the dialogue out in order to defer the issue and avoid the need for confrontation with the US, and that the general tenor of EU policy is drifting more and more towards the Bush administration. In light of the EU's capitulation to the skewed American conception of the Palestine-Israel conflict, in which all responsibility for peace falls on the shoulders of the occupied Palestinians, Tehran's fears are far from unreasonable. The US, meanwhile, has expressed support for the Iran-EU dialogue, while at the same time stating that it expects failure, and continues to rattle its sabres.

The main unaddressed problem is that Iran has very legitimate security concerns. It is flanked by Iraq and Afghanistan, both occupied by the United States, and is under constant threat from a nuclear-armed Israel. Under such circumstances, it would be indeed surprising if Iranian leaders did not see a clear, rational motive to develop a nuclear deterrent.

The EU, by continuing to deliver American demands to the Iranians, and by remaining silent about Israel's nuclear weapons, is only postponing confrontation while feeding a growing sense in the region that Muslim nations are held to a double standard and are being stripped of any means or right to defend themselves.

Against this background, Bush delivered new attacks and accusations against Iran in his State of the Union address. A few weeks earlier, Cheney declared that he wouldn't be surprised if Israel launched a preemptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran has promised that it can and will retaliate in case of any such attack, and that if attacked, it will only accelerate its nuclear programme.

This rhetoric is renewing fears that so much beating of the drums of war may lead to a situation which makes it difficult for the president to retreat without losing face. It is a situation reminiscent of the buildup to the Iraq war, when the fantastic claims about the capabilities of Iraqi weapons forced the war party in Washington and London to move forward even when their case for war was collapsing and global opposition mounting. Washington and London went to war against Iraq without legal international cover, in flagrant contravention of international law and in open defiance of enraged public opinion in and outside the very countries which insisted on the military invasion.

In a better - though by no means perfect world - the correct forum to deal with any complaints against Syria or Iran would be the United Nations Security Council. But so much UN credibility and authority has been squandered, both by the cynical behaviour of member states and by the unprincipled leadership of the UN itself, that neither Syria nor Iran could feel certain that they would get a fair hearing. Nevertheless, restoring the UN to its proper role ought to be the main way to head off this looming crisis.

The ongoing and unjustified euphoria about the Arab-Israeli "peace process" and the Iraqi election seems to have obscured for the Americans the true extent of the negative effects of recent policy.

People in the region are fully convinced that any new adventure will be intended to serve first and foremost Israeli interests. They do not rule out the possibility that Israel may even be the attacker, with US endorsement and support. The people of the region feel the deep pain of duplicity and the scandalous application of double standards to Syria, an Arab country whose land has been occupied and colonised by Israel since 1967. Syria is targeted for wrath and possible military punishment, not for taking any action against its occupiers, but for not being friendly and accommodating to them.

And the people of the region would like to see evidence that any hostile campaign against Iran is supported by convincing justification. Their memory is still fresh about the fabrications, the bare lies and the tactics of deception against Iraq.

People in the region want to know why Iran may be punished for contemplating a nuclear programme while they do not hear a word against Israel which was the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the region and now possesses a substantial nuclear arsenal. Why is Iran, which threatens no one and occupies the land of no one, under threat, while Israel, which occupies the land of several countries, is coddled and rewarded? People raise these questions every day, and have yet to hear convincing answers.

No worse disaster could befall this region than yet another war, and nothing could be more detrimental to relations between Americans, Arabs and Muslims. We need to heed the early warning signs and do all we can to prevent another disaster.

This article was published in the Wednesday, February 9, 2005 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.