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ISR Issue 52, March–April 2007


R E P O R T S

The pressure is on

The U.S. is gearing up for a fight with Iran

By SAMAN SEPEHRI

The Bush administration has ratcheted up the pressure on Iran significantly since the announcement of the new troop surge and the unveiling of their strategy “Planning for Victory” in January. Most recently, the Bush Administration has accused Iranian operatives of providing “Iraq’s deadliest bombs” and other arms to the Shiite militias. These claims are all too reminiscent of the lies told to justify attacking Iraq. While the U.S. has been applying pressure on Iran through the UN based on accusations that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, this new line of propaganda clearly represents a heating up of anti-Iranian rhetoric, laying the groundwork for possible military action.

The noose is being tightened on Iran on several fronts, to soften it and prepare for a possible attack.
The United Nations Security Council was finally persuaded to slap some nominal sanctions on Iran. But the acquiescence of Russia and China in the vote did signal the willingness of these two countries to cut a deal with the United States, and created an opening for the U.S. to increase pressure.

On the military front, the United States has sent two full carrier groups (the Eisenhower and the Stennis groups) into the Persian Gulf, which reportedly gives the United States the firepower to sustain a 24-hour bombing campaign against Iran for a full month. This supplements the already massive naval presence of the U.S. and Britain in the Gulf. The U.S. is also supplying the Arab Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, etc.) with full batteries of Patriot missiles to protect against a possible Iranian retaliation.

On the economic front, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have agreed to higher oil production levels, lowering the price of oil from about $80 per barrel a few months ago, to about $55 per barrel today. This has reduced the foreign income of Iran through its most important export, oil. This drop in income, coupled with mismanagement of funds by the current administration of Mahmood Ahmadinejad has effectively bankrupted the country’s oil export foreign currency savings accounts, according to the Iranian legislature.

In addition, using the fig leaf of UN sanctions, the U.S. is putting a financial squeeze on Iran by pressuring European and other international banks to refuse to perform transfers with Iran or Iranian banks, citing Iran’s “support for terror” and “non-cooperation” with the United Nations Security Council on the nuclear front.

This has seriously hampered transfer of funds, and hence any commercial transactions, imports, exports, or investment, creating economic problems inside Iran. The value of Iran’s currency has dropped recently and inflation has gone up by 50 percent in the past few months. But more importantly, these financial pressures and heightened tensions have dried up investments in Iran’s aging oil sector, seriously jeopardizing its oil production capacity.

And finally on the Iraqi front, the United States is giving political forces and players in Iraq—from Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki to Iran’s allies such as Mahdi army leader Mutqtada Al-Sadr—the choice to join up, get out of the way by melting into the background, or risk being caught in the coming firefight with Iran.

This is quite an ambitious turnaround for the Bush administration which only three months ago was evoking the analogy of the Tet offensive, and the possibility of a U.S. defeat. So what has changed?
Arithmetic of power

(GCC+2) + U.S/Israel

The January 15 meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council, with Egypt and Jordan attending as guests (GCC+2), was a turning point for the United States in its effort to encircle and prepare for an attack on Iran. It marked the consolidation of forces necessary to form an anti-Iranian block, allowing the United States to attempt to move beyond the quagmire of Iraq to the second phase of its war in the Mideast—opening a front against Iran—which has always been its main target and the centerpiece of its plans to remake a “new” Middle East.

For several months, there has been growing concern among the pro-American conservative regimes (such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan) about the alarming increase of the regional influence of Iran as the one country that had stood up to American and Israeli hegemony. There have also been growing concerns about Iran’s increasing influence among forces hostile to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. But there had not been unity or a cohesive plan to deal with this perceived Iranian threat.

The meeting of GCC+2 sealed the agreement of the U.S.’s Arab allies with the new plan to move aggressively against Iran in the Persian Gulf and in Iraq. It put the necessary players and pieces in place, setting the stage for the economic squeeze and military operations to commence against Iran.
The GCC+2 meeting was the culmination of a process to find a way to counteract Iran’s influence, which started last August with the successful resistance of Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Israeli invasion. This resistance created grave concern within the ruling Arab regimes (including that of Syria) about what such a successful resistance to the U.S. and Israel (by an Iranian ally) would do to discredit the legitimacy of these regimes, and bolster Iran among the population of the Middle East. U.S. threats and Israeli overtures have already made Syria think twice about its alliance with Iran; Syrian President Bashar Assad refused to attend a summit organized by Iran with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, and Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

Resistance is not futile

With the collapse or demise of left-wing nationalist and secular forces in the Middle East, which were the traditional conduits for fighting imperialism (some of whom, like Fatah in Palestine, Iraqi Communist Party, or the Druze Socialist Party in Lebanon have actually signed on with the Americans), Islamic forces like Hezbollah and Hamas have become the avenue to express and organize anti-imperialist sentiments in the Mideast.

As Islamic groups have become the political voice of opposition to U.S. and Israeli hegemony, Iran has increasingly led this opposition, and those challenging the U.S. and Israeli domination have gravitated to this pole of attraction.

The war in Lebanon this past summer was the high point, illustrating both the possibility of resistance (to Israel), and showing the bankruptcy of Arab regimes (including Syria) to the Arab masses. The successful resistance of Hezbollah to the Israeli war machine transformed Hezbollah—albeit briefly—from a sectarian party to a national liberating force; capturing the imagination of Arab masses in the region. This led to demonstrations even by forces not at all friendly to Iran, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, in support of Hezbollah (a Shiite party).

Fear of the Party of God

The solidarity felt for Hezbollah put serious fear into the ruling Arab regimes (and even some of the so called opposition like the Brotherhood) of loosing their grip on the on their own populations to Iran. The possibility of a political Shiite/Sunni alliance against U.S. hegemony, which at this time was being built under a Shiite/Iran/Hezbollah axis, had to be stopped. On this point the United States, Israel, and the Arab regimes were united.

Ironically, the success of Hezbollah in its resistance to Israel gave the impetus for the Arab regimes to form a “Sunni-Arab” front, not against Israel, but in alliance with Israel against Iran and its regional “Shiite” allies.

What made the concern over the ascendancy of Iran in the region (termed “the rising Shiite crescent” by Jordon’s King Abdullah) turn into a plan for action was the explicit Israeli offer to join an alliance with the Sunni Arab states as their defender against the Iranian/Shiite menace (see Shimon Peres’ speech at the Council on Foreign relations on July 31, 2006).1

And the situation in Iraq has made things worse for the United States. The occupation of Iraq, which was to serve as a showcase for U.S. power and a stepping-stone toward strengthening the United States in the region, has had the opposite effect. The spiraling violence and the insurgency have led to the weakening of the U.S. position both inside Iraq and in the region. The U.S. is stuck in a military quagmire and is losing political credibility.

These reverses for the U.S. occupying forces have led to a relative strengthening of forces opposed to or competing with the U.S. for power, principally that of the Mehdi army of Muqtada Al-Sadr in Iraq and of Iran in the region. Reports that The Mahdi Army was being reshaped from looser and decentralized units into a more structured force like Hezbollah in Lebanon have raised more concerns for the U.S. and have made it imperative that any “Iranian operatives” that can facilitate this be eliminated. This has made dealing with the danger of Iran’s ascendance even more urgent for Israel and the Arab regimes.
The failure of the United States’ strategy in Iraq has led Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia to fund Sunni forces in Iraq as a counterbalance to the relative strengthening of Iran’s power, exasperating sectarian divisions and violence. And Saddam Hussein’s execution was only more fuel for this sectarian fire.

The unfolding disaster of the U.S. occupation of Iraq has added to the dynamic of weakening the United States and strengthening Iran’s hand in the region. But ironically it has also provided the means for the United States, Israel, and the Arab regimes to combat Iran’s political influence through Sunni/Shiite divisions and sectarianism. While the sectarian violence in Iraq has undermined the U.S. ability to bring security, or claim any control over the situation in Iraq, it has also provided the tool to break apart any united political opposition to the U.S. (and Israel). Sectarian divisions are being exploited to isolate Iran from the Sunni and Arab population of the region by fomenting Sunni/Shiite or Arab/Persian divisions. Sectarianism has become the tool to break up the political opposition to the U.S. in the region developing around the Iran axis. It is the wedge to break up the anti-imperialist sentiment that Hezbollah’s resistance to Israel unified in August throughout the region.

Gameboard set

In the eyes of U.S. planners, Iran’s ability to strike back against U.S. forces in Iraq still needs to be curtailed before any attack is launched into Iran; the Iraqi front of the war with Iran needs to be secured. Although the surge in U.S. troops will do little to really secure Iraq (an idea which has been ridiculed even by the administration’s supporters), it is designed to pressure, fragment, and break away parts of the forces allied with Iran, pulling away forces which can be acquiesced through military pressure, while isolating and destroying those that will not submit. The aim of this is to remove many of Iran’s options to respond to an attack including retaliation against the U.S. forces in Iraq.

Iran’s allies and their militias are being given a choice—sit it out, or, if you act as a shield for Iran, be destroyed. This will likely divide and split the Iraqi forces close to Iran. After all, these forces—whether Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army or SCIRI’s Badr brigade—are not mere puppets of Iran and have their own interests in Iraq. They are not about to risk all by placing themselves in the line of fire just to protect Iranian interests.

Already pieces are falling into place, the loose elements breaking rank with Iran after only the first round of threats by the United States. Only days after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that if Iraqi militias are not brought under control, Al-Maliki’s days may be numbered, Al-Maliki was pleading for his political life, pointing the finger at Iranians. When asked in a January 30 interview with CNN about Iranian involvement in Iraq, he said he was sure that Iranian influence was behind attacks on U.S. forces. “It exists, and I assure you it exists.”

Furthermore, it was Al-maliki’s government (jumping the gun in his new-found enthusiasm for the U.S.) that suggested that the U.S. should investigate the possible role of Iran in the kidnapping and murder of five U.S. soldiers in Karbala—a charge that the Pentagon had to back away from. Finally, Muqtada Al-Sadr has given his militia orders not to engage American troops in the security sweeps that are accompanying “the surge.” He has decided to preserve his troops by having them melt away in the face of American troop surge.

Iran cannot count on international backing from United States’ rivals either. The governments of China and Russia have already given in to the first round of sanctions hoping that they could become the conduit for a deal with Iran, deflecting the United States and bringing Iran closer into their own orbit. But their minor imperialistic maneuverings will cease if an attack on Iran becomes imminent. They too will not be caught in the crossfire, or challenge the United States. They will only try to increase their percentage if things go badly for the U.S.

But Iraq is a glaring example for the U.S. (as Hezbollah was for Israel) that superior firepower and the best laid plans are no guarantee. The U.S. is still faced with problems, not the least of which is a stretched, weary, and increasingly restive armed forces. It is not the planners that fight the war and risk life and limb, but working-class men and women who are increasingly skeptical of the American ruling class’s imperialistic adventures.

The American ruling class is also still clearly divided about the wisdom of an attack right now, given the risks involved and the state of the military. After all, the reports of Iran supplying roadside projectiles to Iraqi insurgents one day are contradicted by none other than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the next.

There are also divisions within the Iranian ruling class, some of whom are trying desperately to cut some sort of a deal and head off an attack. But if the U.S. rulers are divided on the timing of launching into another war, there is unity over the necessity of confronting Iran. The U.S. cannot leave a regime which has challenged its power in the area intact.

The stage has been set and pieces are in place for a confrontation with Iran. The only question is when it would be most advantageous for the U.S. to launch an attack—and what antiwar forces are prepared to do to mobilize against it.


Saman Sepehri is author of “The Geopolitics of Oil” (ISR 26, November–December 2002) and “Targeting Iran” (ISR 50, November–December 2006). He can be reached at [email protected].

1 Speaking during the war on Lebanon to the Council on Foreign Relations, Shimon Perez, Labor Party partner in Israel’s “Unity government” spelled this out:

There are clearly two trends, one run by Iranians to introduce a Muslim hegemony of their taste, a Shi’ite one; and the Arab countries, who wants to remain in charge of the Middle East. They think it’s their region; it’s not a Persian region, it’s an Arab region. And they think this may put an end to their character, to their destiny.

…Iran wants also to change the character of Syria even to the point of they want to convert the Syrians from being Sunnites to become Shi’ites, and clearly, they have an eye on Iraq as well. If they will win, it will be catastrophic all over the world… Probably then, you have many of the Arab countries for the first time that are supporting an Arab struggle or a Lebanese struggle. Among them is Saudi Arabia, which feels that if Iran will win, they will lose.

The lines drawn by Perez are clear: Israel has common interest with, and is a defender of, Arab countries against the Persian (Iranian) menace and a defender of Sunni Arabs, against Shiites.
Moreover as the Wall Street Journal reported (October 3, 2006) “Israel’s outreach to moderate Arab states gained momentum last month when during the United Nations meeting in New York Israeli officials held private meetings with officials from Persian Gulf countries regarding Iran” though Israel refused to name the states since it has no official relations with most Arab countries.
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