Our coming showdown with Iran

In the fall of 2002, while Americans wrangled over whether or not we should forcibly end Saddam’s dictatorship, one very good argument was often employed. Which was, that instead of marching on Baghdad, we should be gearing up to go after Tehran. Those who usually put this forward, however, weren’t actually serious about it and that remains so. Whenever you hear someone argue against the war in Iraq by asking “Well, why didn’t we invade Iran?” you can be reasonably sure that person doesn’t really think we ought to invade Iran (unless he happens to be sporting close-cropped hair and a USMC T-shirt).

But those responsible for thinking seriously about U.S. foreign and defense policy are indeed looking very hard at Iran these days. Last week Iran defied the U.N. by declaring it will resume producing centrifuges and restart its uranium enrichment program (a key step towards building nuclear weapons). The question of what to do about Iran is looming larger and larger. Let’s go down a little checklist, shall we?

• Weapons of Mass Destruction. The WMD checkmark for Iran is much heavier and blacker than it ever was for Iraq. The experts say Iran could have dozens of nukes in 3 or 4 years.

• Terrorist ties. Multiple, emphatic check marks here! Iran is the epicenter of Islamic terrorism, sponsoring almost every brand of holy warrior you can think of. In today’s world, whenever the phrase “state-sponsored terrorism” is mentioned, it refers explicitly to Iran.

• Al-Qaida connections. Another big, fat checkmark. And there’s no raging debate on it, as with pre-war Iraq-al-Qaida links. All agree that Iran has provided transit and safe haven for al-Qaida fighters, including helping some of the 9/11 hijackers get from Afghanistan to the U.S. (though Tehran probably didn’t know what they were up to).

• Destabilizing force. Iran is a full-fledged regional power. It sits astride the Strait of Hormuz, where a huge portion of the world’s oil supply flows, and shares borders with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, several countries in Central Asia, and of course Iraq. One of Tehran’s main policy objectives is to spread the Khomeinist brand of Islamo-fascism to its neighbors and throughout the Islamic world.

• Threat to Iraq. As I write, U.S. troops are battling the Iranian-funded and armed Shiite militiamen of Moqtada al-Sadr. There are also reports that many of Sadr’s fighters have come from Iran. Under current management, Iran will be a permanent, fanatical enemy of peace and democracy in Iraq.

But what to do? The Khomeinist regime in Iran is not the brittle, rotten jar of clay that Iraq’s dictatorship turned out to be. There is a real military in Iran, with real combat power and rugged, mountainous terrain that favors the defense and precludes a quick, armored dash to Tehran. Iran is also a much larger country, about four times Iraq’s size, with 70 million people as opposed to Iraq’s 25 million. Getting into a conventional ground war with Iran would be a tough, hard slog, more like the Korean War than the race to Baghdad.

There is a ray of hope, though, that shines from the Iranian people themselves. There is widespread pro-democracy (even pro-American) sentiment among most Iranians. Seventy percent of Iranians are under 30, and neither remember nor respect the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In almost every segment of society, there is deep-seated resentment against the heavy-handed rule of Iran’s mullahs. Instead there is a yearning to break free of the tyrannical, avaricious and often brutal rule of the Khomeinists, and to rejoin the world community.

The Iranian people can also see the first glimmers of participatory self-government in Iraq, now that the Saddamites have been removed from power. Iranian Shiites (the vast majority of the population) are also witnessing a rebirth of their traditional faith and culture in the Iraqi holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, and many have made pilgrimages to the shrines there.

Given time, international support and an example of functioning, sovereign and representative government in Iraq, there would be a good chance that the Iranian people would find a way to throw off the twisted tenets of Khomeinism and throw the mullahs out of power. But with Tehran’s Islamo-fascists pushing hell-bent towards the A-bomb, fostering terrorism worldwide, supporting insurgency in Iraq, and cracking down on reformers at home, it appears there is not enough time to let internal dynamics run their course in Iran.

Until recently, the Bush administration has been schizophrenic on its Iran policy. Some officials have advocated a Clintonian “engagement” strategy. Others have been advocating confrontation aimed at eventual regime change. On Sunday the Bush team seemed to take a decided step towards the latter. Condoleezza Rice stated flatly that the U.S. and its allies "cannot allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon" and warned that President Bush would "look at all the tools that are available to him" to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program. Sound familiar?

T.T.

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