More on Iran, a response to the Agonist

Blogger Sean-Paul Kelley has written that my characterization of the Iran-Iraq war in a recent post was inaccurate, and has also taken exception to several of my conclusions about what is happening in the Middle East today.  I will not respond to all his points here today, as many of them are addressed in other recent posts about the worsening situation in the Middle East.  I will however address one very spot-on criticism directly, my characterization of the Iran-Iraq war. 

Looking at it now, it was not the most artfully written part of the post, so let me restate what I was trying to say.   Iraq invaded Iran in 1980.  Iran defended herself, and the two countries went to war.  One of the main reason Saddam attacked Iran was to slow the march of Shia Islam, newly emboldened with the success of the Iranian Revolution in 1979.  Many of the leaders of the Iranian revolution trained at the Shiite religious center of Najaf, in southern Iraq.  Saddam was worried that the the revolution could spread to Iraq, and eventually topple his Sunni-led government.  So while there were many reasons for this conflict, one of the main reasons the war broke out and lasted so long was the Sunni-Shiite tension beneath it all. 

The United States backed Saddam Hussein in this eight year-long war.  Even though Iraqi Shiites fought against Iranian Shiites for eight bloody years, and the Iraqi identity trumped the Shiite one, there can be no question that we sided with the region’s Sunni Arabs in a war against the revolutionary Shiite in Iran.  We too wanted to slow the momentum of the Iranian revolution, one that was virulently anti-American. 

In the Middle East today we are trying to prevent Iraq from becoming a proxy war between the Sunni Arabs and the Persian Shiites and their allies.   Iran has regional hegemonic ambitions.  With the coming to power of Shiites in Iraq, the first Shiite-led Arab government in Islam's history, Iran was given an historic opportunity to weaken the Sunni political hold over the lands where the Shiites live, and where they have been oppressed for more than a thousand years.  In Lebanon, for example, the current efforts of Iran's proxy and ally, Hezbollah, to topple the pro-Western Lebanese government, if successful will strengthen the hand of the pro-Iranian Shiite Hezbollah at the expense of the Sunni-backed government, and further tip the balance of power towards the Shiites in the region.  Sunni Saudi Arabia has become so alarmed at all this that they have made it clear that unless America contains the Shiites there could be a regional Sunni-Shiite war. 

Finally, the stories this week about the Iranian-backed Holocaust denier conference in Tehran is a must-read for anyone trying to make sense of all this.  Calling from the eradication of Israel and holding a conference for those who believe the Holocaust never happened confirms that the current Iranian government is a dangerous, destabilizing and belligerent political force in the Middle East.  It is no wonder the Israels are terribly worried about Iran developing nuclear weapons, and imagine the international reaction if an Israeli leader called for the elimination of an Arab state like Syria.  The Iranians need to be held to the same standard in a fragile and explosive part of the world. 

The Iranian political leadership has repeatedly called for the elimination of Israel.  It is funding and training the most radical Shiite militias in Iraq, who are a critical part of the Shiite-led Iraqi government.  It has funded and built Hezbollah into a regional force which is now trying to topple a democratically-elected government in Lebanon, and provoked a military confrontation with Israel (remember that the Sunni Arab nations of the Middle East backed Israel’s effort to weaken the Shiite Hezbollah, the first time Arab nations has backed an Israeli military action in history).  It funds Hamas, another regional force bent on the destruction of Israel and now currently fighting the more moderate and pro-Western Fatah faction in Palestine.  It has blown off the international community’s efforts to stop their illegal nuclear program.  Its greatest source of income is from oil, and thus has a financial incentive to foster instability in the Middle East to help keep oil prices high. The well-respected Freedom House rates Iran as one of the least free nations in the world today. 

While Iran may not control Sadr, Hamas and Hezbollah, they are political allies, and are working together for a common cause: the weakening of those who have power today in the Middle East – the Sunnis, the Americans and America’s ally, Israel. 

As progressives look to correct the great foreign policy failures of the Bush era, and I for one believe that we must foster some sort of regional peace and reconciliation process that includes all the actors in the region, including Iran and Syria, we cannot view Iran through rose-colored glasses.  No matter what happens in the Iranian elections this weekend, Iran is a nation controled by radicals, has aggressive regional ambitions, has called for the elimination of America's greatest ally in the region, and is looking to alter the ancient balance between Sunni and Shiites.  Iran will be a difficult and destablizing force in the Middle East for some time to come and cannot be treated with kid gloves.