Is Bush Really Planning War against Iran?

by Patrick Seale



Few observers of the international scene believe that the United States is preparing to go to war against Iran. The stakes are too high, the backlash too frightening, the consequences too unpredictable. The U.S. Congress, in its present mood, would not allow it, and no foreign government would support it, such is the international hostility to President George W. Bush.

Rather, the consensus is that the United States is attempting to stop Iran from enriching uranium by using every other weapon in its armoury, short of war -- by isolating Iran, subjecting it to diplomatic pressure, punishing it with sanctions, depriving it of finance to stifle its economy, starving its oil industry of investment and high tech equipment, and of course by a military build-up which is intended to /intimidate/, but not to be used.

That, at least, is the theory. The danger, however, lies in an unplanned incident, an accident, perhaps a small-scale exchange of fire somewhere on the periphery of the U.S.-Iranian confrontation, which could escalate into a full-blown conflict. It is this inherently unstable situation which has seriously alarmed the international community.

The reasons for acute tension remain unchanged. Iran insists on upholding its fundamental right to civilian nuclear technology under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Accordingly, it has ignored the deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment activities by 21 February 2007, as demanded by UN Security Council Resolution 1737 of 23 December 2006 -- a document President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has described as a "torn piece of paper."

Iran has, however, repeated time and time again that it has no intention of building atomic weapons. Indeed, it has offered to give guarantees that it will not seek military applications of nuclear technology, and has declared its readiness to enter into negotiations on this basis with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and international partners.

The United States, Israel and a number of other countries do not believe it. They suspect that Iran wants to become, if not an immediate nuclear-armed state, then a /nuclear threshold power/. That is to say, it is believed to want to master enough technology to allow it, in an emergency, to acquire nuclear weapons at short notice -- like, say, Japan.

Israel, in particular, has mounted a world-wide propaganda campaign against Iran, claiming its leader is a new Hitler and that Jews are threatened with another Holocaust. A more accurate reading of the situation might be to say that Israel is determined to protect the monopoly of nuclear weapons, which it has enjoyed in the Middle East for more than forty years. Its overall military superiority -- in conventional and unconventional weapons -- has given it great freedom of action against its neighbours. It does not want this freedom to be circumscribed by a balance of power which Iran’s rise to nuclear status would create.

All these alarms -- fear of an incident which might trigger a clash; concern that Israel and its friends might push the United States into war, as they did against Iraq; widespread anxiety among Arab states of the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran; anger at President Ahmadinejad’s verbal provocations -- have caused the international community to wake up, take notice, and start considering corrective action.

Several weeks ago, President Jacques Chirac of France suggested sending a high-level emissary to Tehran to calm the situation and probe Iranian intentions. The initiative was much criticised and nothing came of it. But something like it is now being revived.

Diplomatic sources report that, with French encouragement, the European Union is considering starting direct talks with Iran in the hope of defusing the situation and breaking the dangerous U.S.-Iran deadlock. Russia, now building Iran’s first nuclear power station at Bushehr, and on reasonably good terms with Tehran, might join the talks in due course.

Iran, in turn, is reaching out in its own way to the international community. First, it is reminding the world that President Ahmadinejad is not all powerful. Command of Iran’s armed forces and the final decision on matters of war and peace lie, not with the President, but with the Supreme Guide of the Islamic Republic, Seyyed Ali Hussayni Khamenei.

The latest reminder of this well-known, but sometimes forgotten fact, came from none other than Ali Akbat Velayati, Khomenei’s diplomatic adviser for the past decade and Iran’s foreign minister for 17 years.

Second, Velayati has stressed that the Iranian official directly in charge of Iran’s nuclear file is not the President but Ali Larajani, head of Iran’s National Security Council.

Third, to allay the world’s fears about Iran’s nuclear intentions, Velayati has suggested that France should take the lead in setting up on Iranian territory an international consortium to enrich uranium, managed by the Europeans under full IAEA guarantees (in an interview in the French daily /Le Monde/ on 22 February 2007).

It is also significant that Saudi Arabia and its partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council are entering the scene. Anxious about a possible overspill of Iraq’s Sunni-Shi‘i conflict into the Gulf, they have also begun a tentative dialogue with Iran.

It remains to be seen whether these measures will allow good sense and calm to prevail. Only when the interests and anxieties of Iran, the Arab states, Israel, America and the rest of the world are addressed can an acceptable settlement be reached. The immediate objective should be to reduce tension and back off from the military confrontation.


Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.