US to attack Iran? posted by Richard Seymour

There is such a thing as tempting fate (or 'Kismet', as Tarantino used to like calling it). Robert Fisk, in his excellent latest book The Great War For Civilisation, describes his first meeting with Osama bin Laden in Sudan back in 1997. Part of a brief and terse conversation involves bin Laden insisting that he has nothing against the average American. In fact, he suggests, the US government is against every American. Fisk smells a whopper. Hang on a second, he interjects, surely as America's government is elected, its citizens would say they are responsible for US policy? Bin Laden dismissed the point. Fisk says that in retrospect, he hopes that this was all bin Laden thought of it, since Al Qaeda is given these days to justifying attacks on US citizens by saying that as it is a democracy, even non-combatants bear responsibility for what the government gets up to overseas.

Similarly, Tariq Ali reports in a recent column that:

The Iranian mullahs, meanwhile, are chuckling - literally. Some months ago, when the Iranian vice-president visited the United Arab Emirates for a regional summit, he was asked by the sheikhs whether he feared a US intervention in Iran. The Iranian leader roared with laughter: "Without us, the US could never have occupied Afghanistan or Iraq. They know that and we know that invading Iran would mean they would be driven out of those two countries."

It is true that Iran was a key beneficiary of the war on Iraq, and there is no getting away from its malign influence in the country. But that is precisely because it is acting in ways that assist the occupiers. It has supported the Badr Corps for decades, and continues to do so. The Badr Corps and their political representatives in the SCIRI have not only acquiesced in the occupation, they have actively assisted it by supporting the continued presence of troops and the constitutional process set up by the United States.

The accusation from the British government, however, is that Iranian 'elements' are assisting the Mahdi Army (why has no one taken the time translate 'Mahdi' as 'Messiah', by the way?). Either it is the Iranian government or Hezbollah, the Iran-supported movement that successfully kicked Israel out of Southern Lebanon. Either way, the Sunni-bad, Shi'ite-good, Kurd-excellent trichotomy must be preserved, so there can be no acknowledgment that Shi'ites themselves might be rejecting the occupation and joining the armed wing of the resistance in growing numbers. Never mind that the Jihad Brigades of Imam Ali bin Abi-Taleb (named after a Shi'ite saint) have been operative in a military capacity since October 2003. Any insurgency in areas controlled by the infinitely better colonialists directed from London (these vulgar Americans, you see...) must perforced be down to 'foreign agitators'. It is a mysterious ideological manoeuvre.

If the UK wants to find out who is behind recent explosions, they could do with investigating their own undercover agents. And how come American car-bombs are finding their way into Iraq?

Anyway, according to Scott Ritter this all presages an attack on Iran:

Speaking in a debate at the ICA about the prospects of military action against Iran, Mr Ritter said preparations were already under way. He said the US was backing Khalq insurgents who are carrying out raids in southern Iraq, and air bases were being readied in Central Asia.

It is true that the US has been making use of the Mujahiden e-Khalq, which was an Islamist-Marxist force hoping to prevail during the Iranian revolution. They have been useful enough that some would like them removed from the State Department's list of terrorist organisations (the linked article is somwhat misleading in describing the Iran Policy Committee, also known as the Iran policy group, as an "independent policy group" - see here for some background). It supported the leadership of Khomenei during 1978-9, as did most of the forces of the left, including the secular National Front, which had supplied the governmental leadership during Mossadeq's brief left-nationalist reign. The MEK may have been behind explosions in the south of Iran. The MEK are campaigning hard for Washington's support, vending disinformation that would make Chalabi blush if his facial nerves hadn't given out from previous efforts.

It is also true that states have no permanent allies, only permanent interests. The US sustained a secret alliance with Iran in order to support the contras in Nicaragua, but also supported Iraq in the first Persian Gulf War. Similarly, the US-UK Axis of Evil can rest on Iran's support while it demolishes Sunni enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it has no abiding interest in an alliance with Iran. So, any tacit agreement that the 'West' has with Iran can be dispensed with. Indeed, given the superior fire-power of the US and UK, it can be used to bludgeon Iran into exercising more coercive power on behalf of the occupation. I suspect that this is what is happening here. Neither the US nor the UK can be serious about frustrating a thermonuclear state, since they nurture such an evil entity, as it were, in their own front gardens. They certainly can't be averse to a bit of fundamentalism here and there, given the religious proclivities of both Blair and Bush and the alliances made by both the US and UK in the very recent past (see here, here and here as well).

George W. Bush and his confederacy of dickheads may be ideologically inured to the consequences of their actions, and therefore foolhardy enough to launch an attack on Iran. Even the Blairites could be mad enough to follow suit. However, there are other sources of power both in the US and the UK. These partially reside in the intelligence services and state bureacracies, and they will be competing with the nutters in the attic over how to deal with Iran. They know that a war will be costly. They know that they rely on Iran for so much, and that its present regime still delivers, for all the froth. They certainly could care less about the repression of gays in Iran, although if there were to be a war, that angle would be bigged up among the liberal imperialists. And they know that Iran is not such a pressing problem that it cannot be deferred for another while. It may yet prove useful again.

A war on Iran would be an ideologue's war, even more so than that on Iraq. It would be wading against such a powerful current of antiwar feeling, and it would cost so much taxpayer money - not to mention human life - that I have to record a sense that it isn't about to happen. Then again, Scott Ritter has been right before and he's a man in the know.