The powerless menace

The situation regarding Iran’s nuclear program is the latest thing the Bush administration has decided to make into a crisis. The administration has such little credibility and trust that no one’s sure to what degree this is a real crisis and to what degree it’s a diversion. This is the real tragedy of the administration’s obfuscations and deceptions: if there really were a potential national security emergency, who’d believe them?

In fairness, it must be added that Europe, with whom the US government has had strained relations, also fears Iran’s real goal is to develop nuclear weapons. It’s kind of sad that for many Americans, foreign governments are more credible than their own.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative populist, sent a letter earlier this week to Bush.

It was a long rambling tract (I read the transcript earlier but I can’t seem to find the link now). He criticized US foreign policy, support for Israel and made an appeal to Bush as a self-professed religious man to start acting like it.

Iran’s head of state could certainly take his own advice. He infamously called for Israel to be wiped off the face of the map. And his other belligerent rhetoric has unnerved a lot of people. Not enough to make him ‘the Iranian Hitler’ as some nutjobs but it’s certainly disturbing.

Equally disturbing is the fact that there is open talk in some US right-wing circles of military action against Iran. Apparently, they think Iraq is going so swimmingly that we can afford another intervention based on spurrious grounds.

In fact, some suspect that Bush pressured British prime Tony Blair to sack his foreign secretary Jack Straw because Straw dismissed the idea of military action against Iran as ‘inconceivable’ and nuclear strikes as ‘nuts.’ Blair reportedly phoned the Foreign Office several times to suggest Mr Straw stop going on the BBC Today programme and ruling it out so categorically. Whether Blair was pressured to sack Straw or whether there’s an implicit understanding between him and Bush, it’s clear that something’s going on behind the scenes. It’s clear that the American and British publics are being softened up for the eventuality of military intervention against Iran.

Rational and humane people should make a sober analysis before being seduced by the latest drumbeat of war. And here’s that analysis.

Westerners, particularly Americans, are focused on Ahmadinejad’s comments about Israel. For one thing, Israel is capable of taking care of itself. It has nukes too. As Vice Premier Shimon Peres, the country’s most noted dove, pointed out, "Iran, too, can be destroyed.”

The focus on Ahmadinejad’s nuttiness obscures one simple question: how much power does he really have? He’s a loud-mouthed populist but how dangerous is he really?

Iran’s president doesn’t have nearly as much power as his American counterpart. Most of the power is retained by senior clerics.

Not surprisingly, the drumbeat for war hides a glaring inconsistency.

Ahmadinejad’s predecessor as head of state was Mohammed Khatami. Khatami was widely seen as a reformist, someone who wanted to loosen the tight restrictions of Iran’s theocracy.

But his presidency was seen as a disappointment because his reform efforts were constantly undermined by the conservative judiciary and clerics. US neo-cons called for Iran’s continued isolation arguing that as well intentioned as Khatami may have been, he didn’t have the power to effectuate any significant change, that the presidency was essentially irrelevant in the Iranian system.

So if the Iranian presidency was irrelevant under the reformist Khatami, how come the right is so afraid of Ahmadinejad’s presidency that there’s open talk of yet another war?

Is it a coincidence that the neo-con assessment of the Iranian presidency went from powerless to petrifying without any structural change? Is it a coincidence that the neo-cons flip flopped based on whichever argument would better serve a hostile course of action against Iran? Coincidence or self-serving intellectual dishonesty?