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Oil, Israel, America: The Root Cause of the Crisis
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Common Dreams - Oct 9, 2007
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/09/4431/
Oil, Israel, and America: The Root Cause of the Crisis
by Scott Ritter
There is no shortage of examples of historical points of friction
between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States to draw upon
in order to illustrate the genesis of the current level of tension. One
can point to the Islamic revolution that cast aside Americas staunch
ally, Reza Shah Pahlevi, the period of reactionary ex****tation of
Islamic revolution that followed, the take over of the US Embassy and
subsequent holding of Americans hostage (replete with a failed rescue
mission), the Iranian use of proxies to confront American military
involvement in Lebanon, inclusive of the bombing of the Marine barracks
and US Embassy compounds, Americas sup****t of Saddam Hussein during
the 8-year war between Iran and Iraq, the ~hot conflict between Iran
and the United States in the late 1980s, or Irans ongoing sup****t of
the Hezbollah Party in Lebanon. The list could continue.
With the exception of the current situation in Lebanon, most of these
friction points are dated, going back nearly three decades past. And
when one examines the ~root causes of these past points of friction,
we find that there is no simple ~black and white causal relation****p
which places Iran firmly in the wrong. Much of the early animosity
between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States was derived
from the resentment most Iranians felt over American sup****t for a
brutal, repressive regime. This resentment, coupled with an
uncompromising approach taken by the United States towards maintaining
cordial relations with a post-Shah Iran, manifested itself in the
furtherance of anti-American activity in Iran, which in turn hardened
the posture of the US government against Iran, leading to a cycle of
devolution that ultimately resulted in the severance of all ties
between the two nations.
The animosity between the United States and Iran was further
exacerbated by the US sup****t for Saddam Hussein during the bloody
8-year war between Iran and Iraq. This sup****t, which manifested itself
by actually drawing the US military into a shooting war with elements
of Irans military during the re-flagging of Kuwaiti oil tankers in the
late 1980s, in turn created the conditions which led to the policy of
dual containment of both Iran and Iraq from 1991, in the aftermath of
the first Gulf War. Dual Containment was more a product of the lack
of policy between the United States and Iran than it was representative
of a singular policy direction. The end result, namely a failure to
achieve any discernable results, created the conditions for policy
drift, which by 1998 led to the adoption of a policy of regime change
in Iraq, and the embrace of ideologically-driven national security
strategies which expanded regime change to be inclusive of the Islamic
Republic of Iran. These policy directions on the part of the United
States took place in a virtual reality-deprived atmosphere, being
driven more from the perspective of a domestic American perspective
based on inaccuracies and misperceptions of Iran than they were from
any hard, factual analysis of the genuine state of affairs inside Iran.
It is largely because of this systemic lack of intellectual curiosity
regarding Iran that many in America, including the main stream media,
find themselves divining models of national behavior derived from
actions and events more than 20 years past.
Irans nuclear program, far from being the root cause of
Iranian-American animosity, is simply a facilitator for those who are
predisposed to accept at face value anything that paints Iran in a
negative light. The same can be said of almost every effort undertaken
by the US government, post-1998, regarding Iran. A major impetus behind
this trend towards rhetorically-based negativism regarding Iran is the
influence exerted on the US national security decision making process
by the government of Israel, and those elements within the United
States, both governmental and non-governmental, which lobby on behalf
of Israel. Israel has, for over a decade, listed Iran as its most
serious national security threat, and has lobbied extensively to get
the United States to embrace a similar policy direction.
A pre-occupation with Saddam Husseins Iraq during the 1990s up to 2003
precluded such a ****ft in policy. However, while the deteriorating
situation in Iraq since the march 2003 invasion and occupation by the
United States has dominated the US national security decision making
hierarchy, the elimination of Saddam Hussein, coupled with a less than
satisfactory outcome regarding holding to account the perpetrators of
the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the united States, created an
ideologically-driven gap in the threat models pushed by those making
policy in the United States, and since 2004 Israel has been successful
in pressuring American policy positions vis--vis Iran to more closely
model the positions taken by Israel, up to and including a
characterization of Iran as a nation pursuing nuclear weapons
ambitions, operating as a state sponsor of terror, and possessing a
government which is fundamentally incompatible with regional and global
peace and security.
The Israeli perspective on Iran is driven by two primary factors: a
zero tolerance for the acquisition of nuclear weapons by any nation
deemed a threat, either real or potential, that is so strict even
nuclear energy-related programs permitted under the Non-Proliferation
Treaty (which Iran contends, and the IAEA concurs, is the case
regarding its nuclear activities) are deemed unacceptable, and an
inability to diplomatically resolve the reality of the Lebanese
Hezbollah Party on its northern borders.
The Israeli posturing regarding Irans nuclear program, and Americas
unquestioning sup****t of the Israeli position, has nullified any chance
of meaningful diplomacy in this regard, since diplomacy is at least
nominally based upon the rule of law as set forth under relevant
treaties and agreements, a reality Israel refuses to acknowledge as
legitimate concerning Irans nuclear ambitions. Hezbollah has further
complicated the issue given the fact that it a) receives considerable
sup****t, financial and material, from Iran, and b) it has demonstrated
an ability to embarrass Israels vaunted military machine on the field
of battle. National hubris, more than legitimate national security
concerns, drives Israels unyielding stance concerning Hezbollah, which
in turn colors American policy pronouncements which list Iran as a
state sponsor of terror, even though there is little in the way of
concrete evidence to back up such claims other than Irans ongoing
status as a major benefactor of Hezbollah.
But the key factor in the calculus of what serves as the root cause of
conflict between Iran and the United States is energy, namely Irans
status as one of the worlds leading producers of oil and natural gas.
The United States has, for some time now, placed a high emphasis on
Middle Eastern and Central Asian oil and gas when it comes to
determining future economic development trends. In a fossil-fuel driven
global economy, energy resources have become one of the major factors
in determining which nation or group of nations will be able to
dominate not only economically, but also militarily and politically.
In the Power Equation that gets factored into national security
decision making here in the United States, fossil fuels play a dominant
role. Americas interest in dominating the Middle Eastern region is
driven almost exclusively by the energy resources of that region.
Irans situation is further exacerbated by the reality that Iranian oil
and gas represent a critical part of the future economic growth of the
worlds two largest expanding economies, namely China and India. By
leveraging its control over Iranian energy production, as well as the
other major centers of fossil fuel production in the Middle east and
Central Asia, the United States is positioning itself to be able to
control the pace of economic expansion in China and India, a capability
deemed vital when it comes to the national security posture of the
United States in relation to these two nations and the rest of the
world.
In short, there are many factors involved in what one might term the
root cause of Iranian-US animosity. But the reality is all of the
points of friction between Iran and the US could be readily resolved
with viable diplomacy save two: Israels current level of unflinching
hostility towards Iran, and Americas addiction to global energy
resources. These two factors guarantee that there will be tension
between Iran and the United States for some time to come, and place
blame for the continuation of tension firmly on the side of the United
States.
[Scott Ritter was a Marine Corps intelligence officer from 1984 to 1991
and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He is
the author of numerous books, including Iraq Confidential (Nation
Books, 2005) , Target Iran (Nation Books, 2006) and his latest,
Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement (Nation Books,
April 2007).
*
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