Iran:
The Next Target?
by William Rivers
Pitt
The Bush administration is on the cusp of beginning a program to destabilize
and overthrow the ruling government in Iran. "There's no question
but that there have been and are today senior al Qaeda leaders in Iran,
and they are busy," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently
proclaimed. This is the same rhetoric he used successfully to rally
support for war in Iraq. The American government suspended all contact
with the Iranian government in the aftermath of several terrorist bombings
in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, after intelligence services intercepted transmissions
which reportedly indicate a connection between those bombings and terrorists
operating in Iran.
Accusations have been raised that fewer than a dozen al Qaeda terrorists
are operating in northeastern Iran. The region of Iran reportedly used
by these terrorists shares a border with Afghanistan. Today, that area
is a lawless no-man's land dominated by drug runners and resurgent Afghanistan-based
Taliban members.
If there are terrorists in northeastern Iran, they are there because
the Bush administration failed to finish what it started in Afghanistan.
Iran's government has no more control over that region than we do, but
the alleged terrorists there will be one premise for the next conflict.
Given the Bush administration's penchant for manufacturing facts to
suit a desire for war, it would surprise few to discover that the alleged
connections between Iran and the Riyadh bombings were made of smoke.
What is not made of smoke, however, is Iran's nuclear weapons program.
This program is supported by both conservative Iranian clerics and by
democratically elected reformers like Iranian President Mohammad Khatami
for one reason only. Both groups saw what happened to Iraq, a nation
that had no such powerful weapons to defend itself against American
invasion. Like North Korea, 'axis of evil' member Iran has seen what
being defenseless means. Thus, we see how much safer Bush's war in Iraq
has made the planet.
Iran is a democracy on many levels. It has elections and elected officials,
many of whom are allied with President Mohammad Khatami's desire to
wrest Iran away from the fundamentalist mullahs and transform it into
a more secular state. A vast majority of Iranians favor this reform,
but have come to detest the United States' hyperactive military policy.
Flynt Leverett, who recently left the Bush administration, said, "It
is imprudent to assume that the Islamic Republic will collapse like
a house of cards. What it means is we will end up with an Iran that
has nuclear weapons and no dialogue with the United States with regard
to our terrorist concerns." In other words, we will have a nuclear
nation whose road to reform was torn apart by an American administration
interested in starting a third war.
More ironic is the manner in which the Bush administration may come
to force the issue of destabilization. In a meeting between Washington
and Tehran in early January, the administration told Iran that it would
attack camps of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, a major group opposing
the Iranian government that was operating in Iraq, and is cited as a
terrorist group by the State Department. During the war, MEK camps were
bombed. To the fury of the Iranians, a cease-fire between the MEK and
the US was negotiated. It seems the Bush administration was impressed
by the military discipline and armament of the MEK, and has come to
see them as a potential military force to be used against the Iranian
government.
The Bush administration has opened, but not concluded, two wars and
appears ready to begin a third with the help of known terrorists, while
suppressing the truth behind the 9/11 attacks, and manufacturing evidence
to justify their actions. The aftereffects of these actions will be
a dynamic increase in terrorist attacks and recruitment, chaos in Iraq,
chaos in Afghanistan, and an America that is more wide open than ever
to assault.
Back to Peace Talk Index,
Summer, 2003