Friday, February 19, 2010

The limits of American engagement with Iran.

 

by Elie Fawaz

There is nothing solid to the eloquent words US President Barack Obama uses to address the many crises his country is experiencing, especially in the Middle East. By now it has become obvious for enemies and allies of the United States alike that this American administration has no foreign policy at all, and this is a luxury that the United States cannot afford, especially when it comes to the Middle East – the home of 70% of the oil reserves in the world – unless it has decided to cease being the world super power and is instead gunning for the Miss Congeniality title.

Obviously the myriad envoys coming to the region with the mantra of engagement without coercion has sent the wrong message and has so far led the region to the edge of a destructive war. This became clear during the American presidential campaign, when America's enemies and allies understood that an Obama victory would mean the undoing of everything George W. Bush did for the past eight years, regardless of the consequences.

The enemies of the United States had to be a little patient, the allies weary. Undoing Bush's policies in the Middle East meant giving the region up to the next strongest power. It happened in the 1980s, when Iran and its allies decided to push America out of the region successfully, but with the small difference that at the time America's allies were by far stronger, and Iran wasn't going nuclear.

 When a bunch of angry students stormed the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held American staff members hostage for hundreds of days, the Iranian revolutionaries were determined but not in total control, Khomeini hadn't yet started the purge that bloodied his country for two years in order to cement his theocracy, and he feared the American reaction, which he thought could be fatal for his revolution. The US reaction soon came in an ill-fated secret rescue mission, Operation Eagle Claw, followed by a letter from then-President Jimmy Carter to the "man of God" – Khomeini. Iran knew then that the Americans were unwilling to act and decided death should be the fate of America.

And death fell on the Americans and their allies starting from that moment, everywhere Iran could reach: from the killing of Dean of the American University of Beirut Malcolm Kerr and the murder and kidnappings of other Westerners by Iranian proxies in Beirut, to the 1983 bombing of the marine barracks in Lebanon, the 1996 Khobar bombings in Saudi Arabia, and the many attacks targeting American soldiers today in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But back then the Americans were able to retreat from the region, secure in that Saddam Hussein of Iraq was heavily armed and able to contain Iran's outreach, Turkey was an ally and able to contain and pressure Syria if needed (mostly through water access), Israel was in control of South Lebanon and Hamas was still an embryo.

Today, after ousting Saddam from power, the US helped unleash the Iranian dream of spreading the Islamic Revolution throughout the Middle East. Tehran, with its nuclear ambition, is now trying to reshape the region in its own image, with the help of its powerful proxies in Hezbollah and Hamas. America's traditional allies are either weak or incapable militarily.

For Iran and its allies, it seems the destructive policies they have followed finally paid off. They destabilized Iraq, they provoked Israel into entering wars in South Lebanon and Gaza, they armed the Houthi rebels in Yemen and sent them into war against Saudi Arabia, their proxies in Lebanon took over Beirut in May 2008, and their partners in Egypt, the Gulf, the Occupied Territories and Lebanon infiltrated the ranks of power and destabilized the countries. Today these forces are waiting for Obama to withdraw from the region in order to make a complete takeover and force the world to accept a nuclear Iran in control.

You can't blame Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for doing what he is doing. Obama saw the Iranian Revolutionary Guards killing innocent protesters on the street and savagely crushing their peaceful Green Revolution but decided to turn a blind eye. Worse, Obama decided to send two letters to the supreme leader of Iran saying that "If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us." But he failed to say what would happen if the fist remained clenched.

China might veto paralyzing sanctions on Iran, Russia is actively helping it develop a nuclear weapon. All this inaction on America's part is only leading to one path, a war that will erode US influence. Even Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who works to undermine American influence in the Middle East, said this about American power to journalist Seymour Hersh recently: "Now the problem is that the United States is weaker, and the whole influential world is weak as well…. You always need power to do politics. Now nobody is doing politics…. So what you need is strong United States with good politics, not weaker United States. If you have weaker United States, it is not good for the balance of the world."

In the end it seems that even a bad policy is better than no policy at all.

Elie Fawaz

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

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