StandUp on Iran

Casus Bell: U.S.-Iranian Relations

By Devin Smith

Who among us goes to the movie theater to pay an outrageous amount of money to see the sequel of an awful film? I like to think the answer is none. However, if that is the case, then why are there so many in Congress reserving tickets for “Iraq II: The Iran Acquisition?” While that’s not the title of a newly released film, there is actually legislation in both houses of Congress that, if passed, can only result in war with Iran.

On May 22, 2008, Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-NY, introduced House Concurrent Resolution 362 which calls for the president of the United States to lead an international effort to increase economic, political and diplomatic pressure on Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment activities. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-IN, introduced the sister legislation, Senate Resolution 580, on June 2, 2008 which also calls for the president to lead an effort to “immediately and dramatically increase” pressure on Iran to suspend all nuclear enrichment activities. Both resolutions urge the president to impose sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran and other Iranian banks that are suspected of funding proliferation efforts and any international banks that conduct business with them. The sanctions extend to energy companies who have invested $20 million or more in any given year to the energy sector in Iran since the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 and companies that do business with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran. Both bills call for a ban on any importation of refined petroleum into Iran. The House version goes further by “imposing stringent inspection requirements” on anything and everyone moving across the Iranian border and by forbidding Iranian officials from leaving Iran unless they are negotiating the suspension of their country’s nuclear program. Neither Rep. Ackerman nor Sen. Bayh responded to requests for comment.

Fortunately, both resolutions claim that nothing in them can be employed to authorize the use of force against Iran, but the effects of these resolutions guarantee otherwise. Although not explicitly listed, it is clear how one country would prevent people and goods from crossing the boundaries of another. It would be necessary to enforce a naval blockade to prevent shipments of oil from entering and to prevent diplomats from leaving Iran as well as inspecting everything that comes from and goes into the country. And unfortunately for everyone, a naval blockade is considered an act of war. The U.S. cannot afford another war. So far, according to a Congressional Research Service report from October 2008, the Iraq War has cost the U.S. over $650 billion. Additionally, the war in Afghanistan has cost more than $170 billion.

It is no surprise that the U.S. economy isn’t doing so well. The economic state of this country is further destabilized by our recent banking crisis. No one can boast that our country has the money to fund another war at the moment. The toll on human life that these wars have wrought is unbelievable. Just Foreign Policy, an independent non-partisan organization, estimates that approximately 1.3 million Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion. Approximately 6,000 Americans have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the war on terror began, according to the Randolph Bourne Institute. We cannot keep using violence as a means to an end. It is necessary for legislators to realize that Iran is a larger and stronger military force than Iraq was before the U.S. invaded; the death toll and financial burden will both be tremendously larger if we embark on war.

Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and as such has the right to “develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met with representatives from the U.S. peace movement in late September. “The time for nuclear weapons has come to an end,” he said. “Those who want to build a new generation of nuclear bombs are politically backward, period!” That statement combined with the fatwa placed on nuclear weapons by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, indicates that Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons. It is not in Iran’s best interest to pursue nuclear weapons, as it would drive countries in the region, in which Iran would otherwise have clout, toward supporting the United States. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations group concerned with nuclear energy, released a report in May 2008 that stated the “agency has not detected the actual use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged” military studies. Furthermore, in late 2007 a consensus of the 16 US intelligence agencies issued a National Intelligence Estimate stating that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and it has remained frozen. It is important that the U.S. support diplomatic means of investigation such as going through the IAEA. We must, however, make sure that we do not impede on Iran’s rights as a signatory to the NPT while doing it.

Many in the U.S. have expressed concern over Iranian weapons testing. It is necessary to look at it in context with the language used by our elected officials. Iran was placed on a list with Iraq and north Korea listing them as potential enemies months before we invaded and overthrew the government in Iraq. While it’s not acceptable to flaunt military abilities, it is at least understandable. Their missile testing is an attempt at deterring nations that otherwise might attack or intimidate them. Further reason Iran may feel threatened is that the U.S. enlisted the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group in the U.S. 5th Fleet, which is responsible for patrolling areas including the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, in late 2006. The U.S. should tone down the rhetoric and stop using vulgar displays of power to intimidate other nations.

Sadly, S. Res. 580 and H. Con. Res. 362 have 51 and 285 co-sponsors, respectively, meaning that more than half of Congress support these pieces of legislation enough to put their names on it. This is not the number of elected officials that support this legislation, but the number who want to be able to brag about sponsoring it. With this kind of support in both houses of Congress, the legislative pieces will most likely come out of committee and be voted through with very little opposition. We have to stop it because the alternative is unbearable.

Do not sit idly by and watch our country pursue another war that will ultimately end in more death and further destabilization of the Middle East. There are many things that the average person can do to help get this country back on track. You can contact your representatives and senators to make sure they remove their names from co-sponsorship and vote this bill down. One can do this by calling the capitol switchboard at (202)-224-3121 and requesting to be transferred to his or her respective elected officials, or one can contact his or her elected officials by sending an e-mail through the House of Representatives and the Senate websites. If the bills do make it to the president’s desk, you have the ability to write to him and encourage him to veto them. Elected officials do care what their constituents have to say; it’s just a matter of us telling them what we want. All day long, legislators hear from private lobbyists who have their own agenda in mind. It’s time that we take back our democracy by speaking up and having our voices heard. Also try to write or call your local newspapers to inform them of the impending tragedy that is to befall this country. We cannot let the opportunity to stop destruction and devastation slip through our hands again.

A More Logical Approach to Iran

By Jeff Gore

Over the past couple years the American political leadership has declared that it intends to deal with the “Iranian threat” using diplomacy, sanctions and, if the first two options fail, war. Sadly, all three of these options are destined to fail. Current diplomatic efforts are just as tainted by American stubbornness as they are by Iranian stubbornness. Sanctions have proven to be more effective in starving an innocent population rather than facilitating regime change. Finally, even neoconservative hawks admit that a war on Iran would have disastrous and far-reaching consequences.

Yet this paltry array of options has been embraced so fully by all stripes of the American political spectrum that any other considerations have been muffled, or worse, not even thought of. The main problem with these other considerations is that they point the finger the other way as well. Iran may be a problem, but America is a bigger problem. This is, of course, not a politically viable statement. But let’s swallow our pride, pretend that influential people are reading this with an open mind and take a look at a few rational, peaceful ways of dealing with a rising Iran (and helping ourselves in the process):

End (or at least curtail) the nuclear hypocrisy. Let’s get this straight. Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and does not possess any nuclear weapons. The United States, in possession of an estimated 5,400 nuclear weapons and instigator of two disastrous wars in the past seven years, is calling Iran’s uranium enrichment – mind you, not weapons production – unacceptable. According to the terms of the NPT, its signatories must put forth an effort to draw down their nuclear arsenals. The U.S., a signatory, has not even come close to doing that in the past 15 years. Meanwhile, the U.S. has allied itself with three nuclear-armed powers that have refused to sign the NPT: Israel, India and Pakistan. Car bombings still occur in all three of these countries; Israelis never hesitate to tell the world that they live in a state of siege. So isn’t our worry a little misdirected? Condoleeza Rice lamented that the Iranians were not “serious” enough about the negotiations. How is she surprised? The process is so rife with hypocrisies and double standards that it should be seen as nothing more than a joke.

The American president should downgrade our relations with the non-signatories of the NPT, and publicly announce that he would begin the gradual process of drawing down America’s mammoth stockpile of nukes. They need not worry about feeling impotent, as even a 90 percent reduction of their arsenal would still allow enough firepower to obliterate every major metropolis in the world. The gesture is what counts.

Leave Iraq. At this point, an apt analogy for the U.S.-Iraq relationship is that of a jealous and controlling man refusing to see that his partner does not want him in her life anymore; in fact, she may be in love with the man that lives next door. This was demonstrated by a brilliant juxtaposition of clips by “The Daily Show”: President Bush arriving hurriedly under the cover of night at a military base in Iraq, then a red-carpet reception of the Iranian president at the Baghdad airport in broad daylight, including an effusive exchange of hugs and kisses.

The dysfunctional relationship between the U.S. and Iraq is hurting both countries. The war is sucking $12 billion a month from our national treasury in the midst of an economic crisis in which real money is scarce. Meanwhile, Iranian influence in Iraq continues to grow, a natural outgrowth of a new map of the Middle East in which two Shiite Muslim-controlled countries are bordering each other. As former CIA agent Robert Baer argues in The Devil We Know, what exactly is the matter with this Iranian “meddling?” It was largely due to Iranian influence that Muqtada al-Sadr’s militias, which were instrumental in the bloodbaths of 2006, have been kept at bay.

Thus, Iran could even be a valuable partner in keeping order in Iraq during and after the necessary American exit. A quick, orderly withdrawal, which may involve taming our national obsession with “victory,” is the most beneficial solution for all three countries.

Reconsider our relationship with Israel. This one is probably the least likely of ever happening, even considering my generosity in writing “reconsider our relationship” rather than “cut ties with.” Israel’s actions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been decried by every reputable human rights agency in the world. Its “separation wall,” which has often been used as a tactic to steal Palestinian land, has been denounced as illegal by a near unanimous vote of the International Court of Justice. Its use of cluster bombs on populated areas in Lebanon in 2006, even after the implementation of the U.n. ceasefire, can be seen as nothing less than barbaric. Defenders of Israel lament that the Jewish state is “surrounded by enemies.” Given Israel’s openly cruel treatment of the Palestinians and aggressive foreign policy, this would come as no surprise in a rational world. Yet through intense lobbying over the past century by the Zionist movement, the American political establishment’s subservience to Israel is greater than at any previous point in history. Its subservience is so obvious that the media was inclined to ask John McCain “Can Israel do wrong?”

True, Iran may have a repressive government, and true, many Jews died and suffered during the Holocaust, but this situation calls for some serious critical thinking instead of prattling about a “second Holocaust.” Who has the history of aggression, Iran or Israel? Is Ahmadinejad really in control of Iran? Does he really have anti-Semitic Hitlerian aims, and furthermore, is it possible that Israel is exploiting the memory of the Holocaust for political gain? These questions must be asked, even considering the avalanche of shrill, defamatory responses guaranteed by an impressive public relations effort on the part of Israel’s supporters.

So in short, America’s stance toward Iran should be redirected toward Israel: show us some better behavior and we can be friends.

These three items are, sadly, mostly pie-in-the-sky scenarios, given the current political climate. Yet we are living in an extraordinary period of global tumult, of American decline, in which ideology may finally have to take a back seat to cold reality. One can only hope that President-elect Obama realizes this before the war drums reassume center stage.

A Timeline of U.S.-Iran Relations

1951: Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq is elected as Prime Minister of Iran, Iran nationalizes its oil

1953: The British and U.S. back an overthrow of Prime Minister Mosaddeq, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi is reinstalled as Shah of Iran

1963: Shah Pahlavi started the White Revolution, a multitude of social and economic reforms

1967: Tehran Nuclear Research Centre (TNRC) opened with a five megawatt light water research reactor supplied by the U.S.

1968: Iran signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

1979: The Iranian Revolution saw the overthrow of the Shah and installation of Ayatollah Khomeini as supreme leader of Iran, a group of Iranian students took U.S. embassy personnel hostage

1980: Iraq invades Iran to begin the Iran-Iraq War

1981: The final hostages were released.

1982: The Reagan Administration removes Iraq from the list of states sponsoring terrorism, the US begins to aid Iraq in the form of money, biological weapons, and technology

1986: The Iran-Contra Affair was discovered

1988: The Iran-Iraq War ends

1990: Gulf War Begins

1991: Gulf War ends

2000: Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq is elected as Secretary of State Madeline Albright said that the U.S. “must bear its fair share of responsibility for the problems that have arisen in U.S.-Iranian relations”

2002: Bush places Iran on the “Axis of Evil”

2003: U.S. invades Iraq