Iran strike ‘would be disastrous’
February 5th, 2007 by Stephen
A coalition of charities, faith groups and unions has warned Tony Blair that any military action against Iran would have “unthinkable” consequences.
The organisations are urging the prime minister to put pressure on the US to enter talks with Tehran.
The US has refused to rule out military action if Iran does not halt its nuclear activities.
Here we go again. As we are warned of the very real dangers of nuclear proliferation in the repressive state of Iran (which does terrible things, such as hanging 16 year old boys for homosexuality, and women for killing in self defence people who are raping them), we are enjoined to demonise that state so that we can then invade it with impunity.
Iran’s culture is foreign to us, and the people there cannot be said to be free in the way that we might say that Canadians or Norwegians are free. There is much wrong with the state, and much we can criticise.
But on the other hand, it is a state that is now surrounded by an aggressive United States military, which has a reputation of acting violently and aggressively against those who do not fall in line with it. From the Iranian point of view, there is much to fear from the US, and there would be good reasons of self preservation in seeking to create a nuclear weapon. That is what currently safeguards North Korea, after all.
Look at this map of Iran. Notice that to the east it has a long land border with US occupied Iraq. To its south are arab states friendly to the US, where there are many thousands of US combat soldiers stationed. To its west are US friendly Pakistan and American occupied Afghanistan. To the north east is Turkey, a Nato country, and the only relief is to the North where former soviet states border Iran. It is not surprising they feel surrounded.
But what if Iran were given security guarantees?
In 2004, as Noam Chomsky reports, the European Union and Iran struck a bargain: Iran would temporarily suspend uranium enrichment, and in return Europe would provide assurances that the United States and Israel would not attack Iran. Under US pressure, Europe backed off, and Iran renewed its enrichment processes.
So are the political options exhausted? Certainly not. The US is precipitating this crisis, and the disasterous results of an illegal invasion of yet another sovereign state will be more death, misery and a huge store of ill feeling that can only be expressed in further terrorism, murder and violence, lasting for generations.
