Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March/April 2019, pp. 12-14

Two Views

Don’t Rule Out the Possibility of War With Iran

By Shireen T. Hunter

ACCORDING TO PRESS REPORTS, Iran has all but despaired of the European Union’s ability—or, perhaps more accurately, willingness—to work out a system of financial transactions that could facilitate Tehran’s trade with Europe. Not only that, largely under pressure from Denmark and Holland, the EU imposed sanctions on Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and two individuals on charges of plotting to kill leaders of the Ahwaz separatist movement in Europe. This group was involved in the bombings that took place in Ahwaz in September 2018.

These developments seriously undermine the chances that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal with Iran, will survive. Iran will be in an even more difficult situation if it fails to maintain trade relations with countries such as India and China or, more importantly, can’t gain access to the money earned from its exports. Under these conditions, domestic pressures, especially from the Iranian hard-liners who opposed the JCPOA from the beginning, would mount on the government of President Hassan Rouhani to leave the JCPOA and resume its suspended nuclear activities.

In fact, rumors have spread that Iran’s exit from the JCPOA and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s resignation are imminent. The government has since denied these rumors. Because Iran has not received any real benefit from the agreement, the hard-liners’ arguments may be making headway with the Iranian people. The lack of faith shown by the United States and now Europe in carrying out their side of the nuclear bargain would seem to vindicate those Iranians who argue that only nuclear weapons can provide for Iran’s security and shield it from potential attacks by the United States, Israel, or both.

Should the government of President Rouhani succumb to such pressures, Iran hawks in the United States and some Iranian opposition groups—along with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE—would lobby President Trump to take military action against Iran. Such pressures could reach irresistible levels. Within the Trump administration, National Security Adviser John Bolton, in particular, would champion such a move, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is unlikely to put up any opposition. Bolton and other Iran hawks would argue that, as long as Iran is standing, the United States cannot reduce the level of its military engagement in the Middle East and Southwest Asia war zones because Iran would otherwise fill the vacuum. According to this logic, before reducing its overseas military engagements in Syria or Afghanistan, the United States must effectively disable Iran economically and militarily.

The United States might feel pressured to attack Iran for other reasons. Iran is the last country on the list of regime change in the post-9/11 period that has thus far escaped American military intervention, directly or through proxies. Iraq was invaded in 2003, Libya was attacked in 2010, and Syria has been devastated by civil war. For the foreseeable future, none of these states will be able to influence Middle East dynamics significantly, nor do they pose any military threat to America’s regional allies, notably Israel. In short, Iran is the last remaining link in this chain of dismantling state systems in the region. Moreover, at the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, some in the United States and in the region would have preferred that America attacked Iran first and then Iraq. These people will not feel safe until Iran is attacked.

A main goal of security hawks in the United States, as described in the 1992 U.S. Defense Planning Guidance (which has never been superseded), has been “to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.” The document lists Southwest Asia as one such region. In this region, Iran is the country best suited to become the hub of regional power. This concern about Iran’s potential did not start with the Islamic revolution. America’s change of heart regarding the shah was partly because of his ambitions to turn Iran into a viable economic and military power. Any other viable regime in post-Islamist Iran, including a nationalist regime, would also want to develop the country’s resources. This might be one reason why the current American administration favors the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), rather than any other opposition group, as the successor to the Islamist government. Reports are circulating that the United States has moved back some MEK fighters to Iraq, perhaps in anticipation of moving them into Iran. The MEK was willing to support Saddam Hussain and cede Iran’s Khuzestan province to Iraq. There is no reason to think that it won’t similarly follow U.S. bidding.

The hawks’ ideal scenario involves Iran’s disintegration along ethnic and linguistic lines, or at least its transformation into a loose federation with a weak central power. Such goals, which can’t be achieved through sanctions and destabilization efforts, would require military operations, though short of a full-scale land invasion. A massive air strike targeting Iran’s vital infrastructure would suffice. For some years now, many analysts have recommended such an option. Amitai Etzioni, for instance, once said that the United States should confront Iran by bombing its civilian infrastructure or risk losing the Middle East. Key U.S. policymakers in the Trump administration share such views, as do key U.S. regional allies.

There is one last reason why the U.S. might attack Iran. Many in America have not forgiven Iran for its 1979 revolution, the hostage crisis, and the defiant behavior it adopted. They believe that allowing Iran to get away with this behavior sends the wrong message to other potential challengers. In short, Iran is a rebellious satrapy that must be subdued.

Of course, the current Iranian regime could self-dissolve and accept all the 12 conditions laid out by Secretary of State Pompeo. But Iran is unlikely to do so. Instead, Tehran would try to make potential military operations as costly as possible for the United States.

Therefore, those in the United States—as well as in Europe and elsewhere—who do not want another devastating war in the Middle East should do all they can to end the current U.S.-Iran standoff. One possible way of avoiding disaster would be for the United States to suspend sanctions on Iran for a year in exchange for Iran agreeing to new and wide-ranging talks on all outstanding issues between the two states. Key European states could try to broker such a deal. Of course, for this suggestion even to be considered, Iran must indicate willingness to engage in broad and comprehensive talks with the United States, and be prepared to reconsider the most controversial aspects of its foreign policy.

Shireen T. Hunter is a Research Professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Her latest book is Iran's Relations with Arab States: Dynamics of Conflict and Accommodation (Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming May 2019). Published on Lobe Log Jan. 1, 2019

Is Bolton Steering Trump Into War With Iran?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

"STOP THE ENDLESS WARS!" implored President Donald Trump in a Jan. 13 Sunday night tweet.

Well, if he is serious, Trump had best keep an eye on his national security adviser, for a U.S. war on Iran would be a dream come true for John Bolton.

Last September, when Shi’i militants launched three mortar shells into the Green Zone in Baghdad, which exploded harmlessly in a vacant lot, Bolton called a series of emergency meetings and directed the Pentagon to prepare a menu of targets, inside Iran, for U.S. air and missile strikes in retaliation.

The Wall Street Journal quoted one U.S. official as saying Bolton’s behavior "rattled people....People were shocked. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about hitting Iran."

Bolton’s former deputy, Mira Ricardel, reportedly told a gathering the shelling into the Green Zone was "an act of war" to which the U.S. must respond decisively.

Bolton has long believed a U.S. confrontation with Iran is both inevitable and desirable. In 2015, he authored a New York Times op-ed whose title, "To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran," said it all. He has urged that "regime change" in Iran be made a declared goal of U.S. foreign policy.

When Trump announced his decision to withdraw the 2,000 U.S. troops now in Syria, Bolton swiftly imposed conditions: ISIS must first be eliminated, Iranian forces and allied militias must leave, and the Kurds must be protected.

Yet enforcing such red lines would require a permanent presence of American troops. For how, without war, would we effect the removal of Bashar Assad’s Iranian allies, if he declines to expel them and the Iranians refuse to go?

Bolton has an ally in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In Cairo in early January, Pompeo declared it U.S. policy "to expel every last Iranian boot" from Syria.

And though Hezbollah has been a "major presence" in Lebanon for several decades, "we won’t accept this as the status quo," said Pompeo, for Hezbollah is a "wholly owned subsidiary of the Iranian regime."

But how does the secretary of state propose to push Hezbollah out of Lebanon peacefully when the Israelis could not do it in a month-long war in 2006?

Pompeo’s purpose during his tour of the Middle East? Build a new Middle East Strategic Alliance, a MESA, an Arab NATO, whose members are to be Egypt, Jordan and the nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

There are other signs a confrontation is coming soon. The U.S. has objected to Iran’s pending launch of two space satellites, saying these look like tests of missiles designed to deliver nuclear warheads. Yet Iran has never produced weapons-grade uranium or plutonium and never tested an ICBM.

Over the Jan. 12-13 weekend, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu boasted of Israel’s latest strike in Syria: "Just in the last 36 hours, the air force attacked Iranian warehouses with Iranian weapons at the international airport in Damascus. The accumulation of recent attacks proves that we are determined more than ever to take action against Iran in Syria, just as we promised."

Israel brags that it has hit 200 targets inside Syria in recent years. The boasting may be connected to Bibi’s desire to strengthen his credentials as a security hawk for the coming Israeli election. But it is also a provocation to the Iranians and Syrians to retaliate, which could ignite a wider war between Israel and Syrian and Iranian forces.

What does the U.S. think of the Israeli strikes? Said Pompeo: "We strongly support Israel’s efforts to stop Iran from turning Syria into the next Lebanon."

In short, forces are moving in this country and in Israel to bring about a U.S. confrontation with Iran—before our troops leave Syria.

But the real questions here are not about Bolton or Pompeo.

They are about Trump. Was he aware of Bolton’s request for a menu of targets in Iran for potential U.S. strikes? Did he authorize it? Has he authorized his national security adviser and secretary of state to engage in these hostile actions and bellicose rhetoric aimed at Iran? And if so, why?

While Trump has urged that the U.S. pull out of these Mideast wars, Pompeo has corrected him, "When America retreats, chaos often follows."

Is Trump looking for a showdown with Iran, which could result in a war that might vault his approval rating, but be a disaster for the Middle East and world economy and do for him what Operation Iraqi Freedom did for George W. Bush?

One thing may confidently be said of the rhetoric and actions of Bolton and Pompeo: This is not what brought out the new populists who made Donald Trump president, the people who still share his desire to "stop the endless wars."

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. Reprinted by permission of Patrick J. Buchanan and Creator’s Syndicate, Inc.