For the Past 35 Years, Iran Has Been the World's Major Problem

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

As the year draws to a close, the greater Middle East, that immense region from Morocco in the west to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the east, remains to most volatile part of the world. And American presidents have for the past 35 years seemingly been clueless about the region.

In 1979, Jimmy Carter, inept and indecisive, abandoned the Shah of Iran and allowed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to outfox and run circles around him. His botched attempt to rescue the American embassy hostages only magnified his failures. Those who want to get a fuller account of how this transpired should watch the first installment of an excellent three part BBC documentary on Iran and the West, “The Man Who Changed the World,” available on You Tube.

This regime change ushered in a new zeitgeist in the world, and especially in the Middle East. By 1982 the Islamic Republic was sowing terror around the region and elsewhere, including the killing of 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut by its protégé Hezbollah in 1983. It has gone from strength to strength.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan supported the mujahideen in Afghanistan against the decaying Soviet empire, because in his tunnel vision “religion” was “good,” Communism “bad.” Of course the Islamist fighters later morphed into the Taliban and America is still paying the price.

Bill Clinton was, let us say, “busy” as al-Qaeda bombed two American embassies in east Africa in 1998, killed 19 U.S. servicemen in Khobar, Saudi Arabia in 1996, and destroyed the USS Cole in Aden in 2000. By the time he left office, al-Qaeda was no doubt planning the attacks of 9/11.

George Bush fought the Taliban in Afghanistan and Baathist Iraq “on the cheap,” and knowing nothing about the culture of either country, declared them both safe for democracy after American forces “beat” Saddam and Mullah Omar.

Actually, both wars had barely begun. The real victor in the Iraq war when the Americans finally left  was actually Iran, as the Baghdad Shi’a regime of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki now is little more than an Iranian vassal.

As for Afghanistan, the Pashtun Khan Hamid Harzai, chief of the Popalzai tribe – known to us as the “president of Afghanistan” -- is negotiating with fellow Pashtuns in the Taliban, who are mostly from the rival Ghilzai tribe, in order to save his own neck once western forces depart the country. Already there are sources claiming that he will reintroduce stoning as a punishment for adultery in the country’s penal code. How long before the Taliban regains control over large parts of the country?

Barack Obama has been giving away the store entirely. He looked away when Iranians protested in 2009 against a fixed election; only reluctantly got involved in the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi in Libya in 2011, and did nothing when Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons in Syria earlier this year.

Obama has now declared a great diplomatic victory in the attempt to prevent the Iranians from developing a nuclear bomb. The “Plan of Action” signed by Iran, the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union declares that Tehran can no longer enrich uranium to 20 per cent and must neutralize its existing stockpiles of 20 per cent enriched uranium. It also cannot increase its stockpiles of 3.5 per cent enriched uranium.

The sanctions relief, some $7 billion, is relatively limited and theoretically reversible if the Iranians break their promises. All the main sanctions will stay in place until a final agreement has been signed -- if it will be -- six months from now.

But can Iran be trusted? Its record is far from reassuring. Its leadership has not given up on wanting to wipe out what its leaders have called the “cancerous Zionist entity,” Israel. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini recently remarked that “Zionist officials cannot be called humans, they are like animals, some of them.” The Israeli regime “is doomed to failure and annihilation,” he added.

In any case, hard-liners in Iran think Tehran has already made too many concessions and think all sanctions should be lifted. And Khameini is himself leaving his options open and can always ask them to step in if he doesn’t like the way the talks develop.

We seem to have come full circle from 1979– once again Iran is the major problem, as it has been for the last six U.S. presidents.