Confronting Iran: Warmongering in the Middle East

The dangerous talk of war with Iran accompanied by deployments should awaken public opinion to the unacceptability of leaving regional and global security subject to geopolitical management. It is time for a bottom-up, people-oriented approach that emphasises the imperatives of human security, says Richard Falk.

THE public discussion in the West addressing Iran's nuclear programme has mainly relied on threat diplomacy, articulated most clearly by Israeli officials, but enjoying the strong direct and indirect backing of Washington and leading Gulf states.  Israel has also been engaging in low-intensity warfare against Iran for several years, apparently supported by the United States, that has been inflicting violent deaths on civilians and disrupting political order in Iran.

Many members of the UN Security Council, along with the membership of the European Union, support escalating sanctions against Iran, and have not demurred when Tel Aviv and Washington talk menacingly about leaving all options on the table, which is 'diplospeak' for their readiness to launch a military attack. At last, however, some signs of sanity are beginning to emerge to slow the march over the cliff. For instance, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, commented harshly on this militarist approach: 'I have no doubt that it would pour fuel on a fire which is already smouldering, the hidden smouldering fire of Sunni-Shia confrontation, and beyond that [it would cause] a chain reaction. I don't know where it would stop.' And recently even the normally hawkish Israeli Minister of Defence, Ehud Barak, evidently fearful of encouraging international panic and perhaps worrying about a preemptive response by Tehran, declared that any decision to launch a military attack by Israel is 'very far off', words that can be read in a variety of ways, mostly not reassuring.

It is not only an American insistence, despite purporting from time to time to prefer a diplomatic solution, that only threats and force are relevant to resolve this long-incubating political dispute with Iran, but more tellingly, it is the underlying stubborn refusal by Washington for more than three decades to normalise relations with Iran along with its failure to disclaim support for beating the Israeli war drums. If the United States is to be credible about its preference for a diplomatic solution, it must move at long last to accept the verdict of history in Iran that the revolution was a setback for Western strategic ambitions in the country and the region but not an occasion for permanent estrangement.

So far, the United States has shown no willingness despite the passage of more than 30 years to accept the outcome of Iran's popular revolution of 1978-79 that non-violently overthrew the oppressive regime of the Shah, and this must change if there is to be any hope for peaceful conflict resolution. We need also to remember, as certainly the Iranians do, that the Shah was returned to power in 1953 thanks to the CIA in a coup against the constitutional and democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq, whose main 'crime' in Washington's eyes was to nationalise the Iranian oil industry. This intervention produced intense resentment among many Iranians that reached its climax with the seizure of the American embassy in November of 1979, with its staff including the ambassador held hostage for more than one year, and was renewed by Pentagon encouragement given to Saddam Hussein's aggression against Iran in 1980 that cost both sides in the war an estimated half million lives.

This prolonged American unwillingness to have normal diplomatic contact with Iran has proved to be a perfect recipe for enmity and misunderstanding, especially taking into account the background of American intervention and consistent support given to Iran's regional enemies. Although not often acknowledged, there  is also the thinly disguised American interest in recovering access to Iran's high-quality oil fields for Western oil companies. This reliance by the United States over the decades on a negative hard-power diplomacy in dealing with Iran encapsulates the unlearned lessons of past failures of American foreign policy, dating from at least the Vietnam War.  We need to look no further than Iran to gain an understanding of America's decline as world leader.

This conflict-oriented mentality that has 'occupied' the White House and Pentagon is so strong in relation to Iran that when others try their best to smooth diplomatic waters, as Brazil and Turkey did in May 2010, the United States angrily responds that such countries should stop their meddling. This is an arrogant reprimand, especially when given the fact that Turkey is Iran's next-door neighbour and has the most to lose if a war results from any further bungling of the unresolved dispute involving Iran's contested nuclear programme. It should be recalled that in 2010 Iran formally agreed with leaders from Brazil and Turkey to store half or more of its then stockpile of low enriched uranium in Turkey, materials that would be needed for further enrichment if Iran was ever to become truly determined to possess a nuclear bomb at the earliest possible time. Instead of welcoming this constructive step back from the precipice, Washington castigated the agreement as diversionary, contending that it interfered with the mobilisation of support in the Security Council for ratcheting up sanctions intended to coerce Iran into giving up its right to a complete nuclear fuel cycle. Such criticism of Turkey and Brazil for its engagement with peace diplomacy contrasts with its simultaneous tacit endorsement of the Israeli recourse to terrorist tactics in its efforts to destabilise Iran, or possibly to provoke Iran to the point that it retaliates, giving Tel Aviv the pretext it seems to be waiting for, to begin open warfare and exert pressure on the United States to join in a common effort.

Iran is being accused of moving toward a 'breakout' capability in relation to nuclear weapons, that is, possessing a combination of knowhow and enough properly enriched uranium to produce nuclear bombs within a matter of weeks, or at most months. Tehran has repeatedly denied any intention to become a nuclear weapons state, but has insisted all along that it has the same legal rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 as such other non-nuclear states as Germany and Japan, and this includes the right to have a complete nuclear fuel cycle, which entails enrichment capabilities and does imply a breakout capability. In the background, it should be realised that even the NPT contains a provision that allows a party to withdraw from the obligations under the treaty if it gives three months' notice and 'decides that extraordinary events... have jeopardised [its] supreme interests' (Article X).  Such a provision, in effect, acknowledges the legal right of a country to determine its own security requirements in relation to nuclear weapons, a self-help right that the United States has exercised for decades with stunning irresponsibility that includes secrecy, a failure to pursue nuclear disarmament as it is obligated to do under the treaty, and a denial of all forms of international accountability. Israel, while not a party to the NPT, pursues a parallel path based purely on its belief that nuclear weapons contribute to its national security.

The real 'threat' posed by a hypothetical Iranian bomb is to Israel's regional monopoly over nuclear weapons, which means that there is no deterrent available in relation to Israel's projections of force beyond its borders. As three former Mossad directors have stated, even if Iran were to acquire a few nuclear bombs, Israel would still face no significant additional threat to its security or existence, as any attack or even threat by Iran would be manifestly suicidal, and Tehran, despite some abysmal behaviour at home, has shown no such disposition toward recklessness in its foreign policy.

To be dispassionate commentators we need to ask ourselves whether Iran's posture toward its nuclear programme is unreasonable given this mix of circumstances. Is not Iran a sovereign state with the same right as other states to uphold its security and political independence when facing threats from its enemies who happen to be themselves armed with nuclear weapons? When was the last time that Iran resorted to force against a hostile neighbour? The surprising answer is, over 200 years ago! Can either of Iran's main antagonists claim a comparable record of living within their borders? Why does Iran not have the same right as other states to take full advantage of nuclear technology? And given Israeli hostility, terrorist assaults, and military capabilities that include a stockpile of sophisticated nuclear warheads, delivery style, and a record of preemptive war-making, would it not be reasonable for Iran to seek, and even obtain, a nuclear deterrent? True, the regime in Iran has been oppressive toward its domestic opposition and its president has expressed anti-Israeli views in inflammatory language (although exaggerated in the West), but, unlike Israel, without ever threatening or resorting to military action.

It should also be appreciated that Iran has consistently denied an intention to develop nuclear weaponry, and claims only an interest in using enriched uranium for medical research and nuclear energy. Even if there are grounds to be somewhat sceptical about these Iranian reassurances, given the grounds for suspicion that have been ambiguously and controversially validated by reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency, this still does not justify a campaign of punitive sanctions, much less threats backed up by deployments, war games, projected attack scenarios, and low-intensity warfare.

So far no prominent advocates of confrontation with Iran have been willing to take into account the obvious relevance of Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal. Is not this actuality of unacknowledged nuclear weaponry possessed by Israel (200-300 warheads), which is being continuously upgraded  and is coupled with the latest long-distance delivery capabilities, the most troublesome threat to regional stability and peace? At minimum, are not Israel's nuclear weapons highly relevant both for an appraisal of Iran's behaviour and for the wider agenda of regional stability? The United States and Israel behave in the Middle East as if the golden rule of international politics is totally inapplicable: in effect, that you can demand from others what you are unwilling to do yourself!

Consulting the recent history bearing on the counter-proliferation tactics relied upon in recent years by the United States gives rise to additional concerns. Iraq was attacked in 2003 partly because it did not have any nuclear weapons, while North Korea has been spared such a comparably horrific fate because it possesses a retaliatory capability that if used would inflict severe harm on neighbouring countries. If this experience relating to nuclear weapons is reasonably interpreted, it could dispose governments that have hostile relations with the West to opt for a nuclear weapons option as a prudent move so as to discourage attacks and interventions. Surely putting such reasoning into practice would not be good for the region, possibly igniting a devastating war, and almost certainly leading to the spread of nuclear weapons to other Middle Eastern countries.

Diplomacy of de-escalation 

Instead of moving to coerce, punish, and frighten Iran in ways that are almost certain to increase the incentives of Iran and others to possess nuclear weaponry, it would seem prudent and in the mutual interest of all to foster a diplomacy of de-escalation and de-nuclearisation, a path that Iran has always signalled its willingness to pursue. And diplomatic alternatives to confrontation and war do exist, but their plausibility requires a turn of the political imagination that seems totally absent in the capitals of hard-power geopolitics that seem entrapped in their military boxes. 

It should be obvious to all but the most dogmatic warmongers that the path to peace and greater stability in the region depends on taking two steps long overdue, which have not up to this point even been widely debated in the media or in Congress: firstly, establishing a nuclear-free Middle East by a negotiated and monitored agreement that includes all states in the region, including Israel and Iran, and is coupled by a mutual pledge of non-aggression and commitment to collective security in the region; and secondly, an initiative promoted by the United Nations and backed by a consensus of its leading members to outline a just solution for the Israel/Palestine conflict that is consistent with Palestinian rights under international law, including the Palestinian right of self-determination, which if not accepted by Israel (and endorsed by the Palestinian people) within 12 months would result in the imposition of severe sanctions. Not only would such initiatives promote peace and prosperity for the Middle East, but such uses of diplomacy and law would serve the cause of justice by putting an end to both the warmongering of recent years and the totally unacceptable encroachment upon the rights of the Palestinian people, a process that goes back at least to 1947, and has since 1967 been intensified by the oppressive occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza.

These manifestly beneficial alternatives to sanctions and war are neither selected, nor even considered in the most influential corridors of opinion-making. Explaining this core dysfunctionality is simple: world order continues to be largely shaped by the rule of power rather than the rule of law or recourse to the realm of rights, and nowhere more so than in the Middle East, where the majority of the world's oil reserves are located, and where an expansionist Israel rejects a diplomacy of peace while subjugating the Palestinian people to an unendurable ordeal.

Unfortunately, a geopolitical logic prevails in world politics, which means that inequality, hierarchy, and hard power control the thought and action of powerful governments and a compliant media and citizenry whenever strategic interests are at stake. Perhaps a glance at recent history offers the most convincing demonstration of the validity of this assessment: Western military interventions in Iraq and Libya, as well as the intimidating threats of attacks on Iran, the only three states in the region that have extensive oil reserves and regimes unfriendly to the West. Egypt and Tunisia, the first-born children of the Arab Spring, were undoubtedly politically advantaged by not being major oil-producing states, although Egypt is not as lucky as Tunisia because Israel and the United States worry that a more democratic Egyptian government might abandon or modify the 1979 peace treaty with Israel and show greater solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. Such fears, whether well grounded or not, lead external political actors to do what they can to prevent Cairo from moving in such anti-Western directions.

Fortunately, there is a growing, although still marginal, recognition in Washington that despite all the macho diplomacy of recent years, a military option is not really viable and would have disastrous side-effects. It would not likely achieve its objective of destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities, and it would actually push Iran toward removing any doubt about its intention to work toward the acquisition of nuclear weapons as the only way to keep their country from facing future military attacks. Beyond this, attacking Iran would almost certainly unleash immediate retaliatory responses, possibly blocking the Straits of Hormuz, which carry 20% of the world's traded oil, and possibly leading to direct missile strikes directed at Israel and some of the Gulf countries. Given such prospects, there is beginning to be some slight evidence that the West is at long last beginning to think that there might exist better alternatives than launching a hot war with Iran. But thinking outside the military box is still not very influential, and is belied by a new escalation of sanctions that commit the members of the European Union to boycott Iranian oil or face punitive consequences.

But so far this realisation that war is not the right answer is leading not to the pursuit of peaceful initiatives, but to a reliance on 'war' by other means. The long confrontation with Iran has developed its own momentum that makes any fundamental adjustment seem, to the United States and Israel, politically unacceptable and a show of weakness and geopolitical defeat. And so, as the prospect of a military attack is temporarily deferred for reasons of prudence, as Barak confirmed, in its place is put this intensified and escalating campaign of violent disruption, economic coercion, and outright terrorism. Such an ongoing effort to challenge Iran has produced a series of ugly and dangerous incidents that might at some point in the near future provoke a hostile Iranian reaction, generating a sequence of action and reaction that could plunge the region into a disastrous war that was never really intended but which would lead to a worldwide economic collapse as well as cause much suffering and devastation.

The main features of this disturbing pattern of low-intensity warfare are becoming clear, and are even being endorsed in liberal circles as 'a lesser evil'. This belligerent course of action that operates below the radar of public awareness is seen as less harmful to Western interests than an overt military attack, relying on a faulty Western consensus that there are no better alternatives than confrontation in some form.  Israel, with apparent American collaboration, assassinates Iranian nuclear scientists and infects Iranian nuclear centrifuges used to enrich uranium with a disabling Stuxnet computer worm.  There are documented reports that Mossad agents have even been posing as American covert operatives so as to recruit Iranians to join Jundallah, an anti-regime terrorist organisation in Iran, to commit acts of violence against civilian targets, such as the 2009 attack on the mosque in Zahedan that killed 25 worshippers and wounded many others.

The New York Times in an editorial  (13 January 2012) describes these tactics dispassionately without ever taking note of their objectionable moral or legal character: 'An accelerating covert campaign of assassinations, bombings, cyber attacks and defections - carried out mainly by Israel, according to the Times - is slowing [Iran's nuclear] programme, but whether that is enough is unclear.' The editorial observes that 'a military strike would be a disaster', yet this respected, supposedly moderate, editorial voice only questions whether such a pattern of covert warfare will get the necessary job done of preventing Iran from possessing a nuclear option sometime in the future, and never even alludes to Iran's sovereignty or rights under international law.

It should be obvious that if it was Iran that was engaging in similar tactics to disrupt Israeli military planning or to sabotage Israel's nuclear establishment, liberal opinion makers in the West would be screaming their denunciations of Iran's barbaric lawlessness. Such violations of Israel's sovereignty and international law would be certainly regarded in the West as unacceptable forms of provocation that would fully justify a major Israeli military response, and make the outbreak of war seem inevitable and unavoidable. Without mutuality there is no law, and certainly no justice!

And when Iran did recently understandably react to the drive to impose new international sanctions prohibiting the purchase of Iran's oil with a warning that it might then block passage of international shipping through the Straits of Hormuz, the United States reacted by sending additional naval vessels to the area and informing Tehran that any interference with international shipping would be crossing 'a red line' leading to US military action. It should be the occasion for moral trauma to realise that assassinating nuclear scientists in Iran is okay with the arbiters of international behaviour while interfering with the global oil market crosses a war-provoking red line. Such self-serving distinctions are illustrative of the dirty work of geopolitics in the early 21st century.

To be sure, the situation is so worrisome that there are at last some prominent political figures who are publicly calling for a nuclear-free Middle East and a just settlement of the Israel/Palestine conflict, but even with credentials like long service in the CIA or US State Department, these calls are almost totally ignored by the mainstream discourse that sets rigid boundaries on the scope of policy debate in the United States and Israel. When some peaceful alternatives are set forth, as with the preferred options mentioned here, they are usually hedged by being presented as more feasible and less costly ways of inducing Iran to give up its legal entitlement to develop a complete nuclear fuel cycle. Of course, one welcomes proposals to find a way out of this deepening crisis other than war. Perhaps prudence will yet prevail over bluster and bluff, and the military option will be renounced and war avoided, but even with such a positive outcome, this dangerous war talk accompanied by deployments should awaken public opinion to the unacceptability of leaving regional and global security subject to geopolitical management. It is time for a bottom-up, people-oriented approach that emphasises the imperatives of human security.

I am afraid that this can only happen if and when a yet non-existent Global Occupy Movement is fully mobilised and turns its attention to geopolitics and global democracy. Only then can the peoples of the Middle East begin to have some reason to hope for a peaceful, just, and promising future for their region, and beyond.                                                

Richard Falk is Albert G Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The above is a revised and modified version of anarticle published on the Al Jazeera website on 25 January.  

*Third World Resurgence No. 257/258, January/February 2012, pp 23-26