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Iran and its multiple diversions

By Abolghasem Bayyenat - posted Tuesday, 7 February 2012


It is indeed one of the greatest ironies of today’s world politics that a large arsenal of nuclear weapons in the hands of Israel, a country with an obvious record of military aggressions against several of its neighbors and its refusal to subject its nuclear facilities to international monitoring and to join the NPT, has fallen into total oblivion while the threat of a non-existent nuclear weapons program by Iran has been blown out of proportions.

Iran’s nascent peaceful nuclear program, which is under regular surveillance by the IAEA, has been portrayed as an imminent threat to world peace and security while nuclear weapons in the hands of Israel, a regime which has proven to be wiling to unleash its entire military force to pound the entire civilian infrastructure of a neighboring country, murdering thousands of its people because of the capture of one or two of its border guards; a regime that has driven millions of Palestinians out of their homes, occupying their lands for more than half a century and virtually incarcerating in open-air prisons those who have dared to stay, is portrayed as posing no threat to regional peace and stability.

Presenting the threat of Israeli military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities as real and genuine in the event Western powers fail to apply effective pressure on Iran, has also helped Western politicians justify and gain political support for imposing further crippling economic sanctions on Iran. Crippling economic sanctions are publicly advertised by Western political leaders as an alternative to a military confrontation with Iran.

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But these representations fail to hide the fact that crippling economic sanctions are themselves a declaration of war on Iran. Let there be no doubt that imposing crippling economic sanctions on Iran and threatening to cut off its economic lifeline is the gateway to and a recipe for an ultimate military confrontation in the strategic region of the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East and beyond.

The logic of crippling economic sanctions is also as morally bankrupt as the logic of al-Qaeda and its like.

According to U.N. agencies, the crippling economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. on Iraq in the 1990s sent an estimated half a million Iraqi children to their graves. Imposing expanded crippling economic sanctions on Iran is expected to claim far more civilian tolls, if sustained over a long period. Inflicting economic hardships on civilians, including women and children, with the aim of changing the behavior of the Iranian government will have adverse effects by feeding into the official anti-imperialist discourse in Iran. It will also feed into more extremist ideologies in the region, legitimize terrorism against Western countries and fuel further anti-American sentiments in the Muslim world, thus creating more security challenges for the U.S. and other Western powers in the longer run.

Whatever the costs for U.S. national interests, American political leaders seem determined to outbid each other in projecting themselves as more loyal protectors of Israeli vested interests.

It was in line with this fact that President Obama, in his recent State of the Union address, reiterated his ‘iron-clad commitment’ to the security of Israel, without even bothering to acknowledge the natural rights of Palestinians to dignity and free life. Obama’s current strategy towards Iran contradicts his calls for change and his cautions against exaggerating the military threat of Iran in his 2008 presidential campaign as well as in the first year of his presidency.

But it shows his capacity to quickly internalize one of the key laws of survival in the American political system by presenting himself as the most steadfast champion of Israeli interests.

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About the Author

Abolghasem Bayyenat is an independent political analyst and is currently completing his Ph.D studies in political science at Syracuse University. His articles and commentaries have appeared in a dozen of newspapers and online journals. He has also recently launched his weblog Iran Diplomacy Watch, where he will be covering Iran’s foreign policy developments on a regular basis.

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