John RapleyJohn Rapley
NEARLY THREE years ago, United States President George W. Bush said Iraq, Iran and North Korea made up an axis of evil. The next year, declaring that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and thus posed an imminent threat to world peace, he invaded.
Iraq turned out not to have weapons of mass destruction. And since then, it has grown apparent that Iran does have an active nuclear programme which, many experts now believe, will permit the country to develop nuclear weapons within three years. Since Iran already has the missile technology to deliver bombs as far as Israel, this is a far more real threat than Saddam Hussein could ever have been.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
From the Iranian vantage point, the development of nuclear weapons is a pressing imperative. Having been labelled 'evil' by an administration which has shown its willingness to take out its enemies, whose conventional military capabilities dwarf its enemies', and whose troops are massed next door, Tehran will resort to whatever deterrents it can find.
However, does that mean Iran is next, and that it is just fighting against the ticking clock of an American invasion? That seems far from likely now. After the initial euphoria of its "catastrophic victory," the U.S. invasion has gone from bad to worse. In hindsight, one wonders if the speed of the initial American advance on Bagh-dad did not result from enemy strategy. The enemy disappeared so completely, and reconstituted so quickly, and has become so sophisticated in its tactics, that it sometimes appears the retreat to a guerrilla war was planned from the outset. U.S. soldiers may well have walked into a trap.
Regardless, the fact is that the U.S. military is already over-committed in Iraq. Add in its standing military commitments across the globe, not to mention its Afghan deployment and the U.S. military has little spare capacity for another invasion. Short of reinstituting the draft which would be both politically unpopular and contrary to the doctrine of a more technologically-sophisticated military the U.S. lacks the resources to invade Iran right now. Having gone after a contrived threat, Wash-ington is not now in a position to confront the real one.
Moreover, Iran has some cards it can still play. Should the U.S. begin to threaten them, the Iranians could still complicate American life in Iraq. Close links between Iran's and Iraq's Shi'ite clerics gives Tehran's mullahs some leverage in their neighbours land (a leverage which, ironically, they lacked when Saddam was in power). Nevertheless, if the Americans become belligerent, the relatively peaceful Shi'ite areas of Iraq could turn restive. Therefore, an invasion seems out of the question.
Are there other options? One would be a surgical strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The Israelis did this to the Iraqis back in 1981 when they bombed the Osirak nuclear reactor, thereby setting the Iraqi nuclear programme back by years. Given the Bush administration's stated policy of pre-emptive attacks, and its close ties to the Israeli government, might we see one or both countries try the same tactic again? Probably not. The Iranians learned from the Iraqi experience, and scattered their nuclear programme throughout the country, with some sites believed to be deep underground. It is unlikely that all the nuclear sites would be found, and the Iranian programme might be set back but briefly.
Meanwhile, the international outcry would probably be huge, and Iranians might well rally around the hardliners in their government. From a realistic standpoint, Iraq's regional neighbours like Syria and Iran have an interest in fomenting enough rebellion to keep the Americans tied up in Iraq. And for as long as the U.S. is tied up in Iraq, its regional options including its Iran option will be limited. The White House might yet rue its decision to take out Saddam.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
