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Oil, Israel, and America: The Root Cause of the Crisis
By Scott Ritter
10/09/07 "Common
Dreams" -- -- 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 America’s staunch ally,
Reza Shah Pahlevi, the period of reactionary exportation 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 proxy’s to
confront American military involvement in Lebanon, inclusive of
the bombing of the Marine barracks and US Embassy compounds,
America’s support of Saddam Hussein during the 8-year war
between Iran and Iraq, the ‘hot’ conflict between Iran and the
United States in the late 1980’s, or Iran’s ongoing support 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 relationship 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 support 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 support for Saddam Hussein during the
bloody 8-year war between Iran and Iraq. This support, which
manifested itself by actually drawing the US military into a
shooting war with elements of Iran’s military during the
re-flagging of Kuwaiti oil tankers in the late 1980’s, 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.
Iran’s 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 Hussein’s Iraq during the 1990’s up
to 2003 precluded such a shift 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-à-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 Iran’s nuclear program, and
America’s unquestioning support 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 Iran’s
nuclear ambitions. Hezbollah has further complicated the issue
given the fact that it a) receives considerable support,
financial and material, from Iran, and b) it has demonstrated an
ability to embarrass Israel’s vaunted military machine on the
field of battle. National hubris, more than legitimate national
security concerns, drives Israel’s 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 Iran’s 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 Iran’s status as one of the world’s 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. America’s interest in dominating the
Middle Eastern region is driven almost exclusively by the energy
resources of that region. Iran’s situation is further
exacerbated by the reality that Iranian oil and gas represent a
critical part of the future economic growth of the world’s 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: Israel’s
current level of unflinching hostility towards Iran, and
America’s 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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