Communicative Defiance

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad formally inaugurated a heavy-water reactor to be used for peaceful purposes in defiance of the U.N. deadline imposed for Iran to comply or else while declaring it is not a threat to any country, even the “Zionist regime that is the enemy of the countries in the region.” Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005 on a populist economic message, promising a redistribution of the nation’s vast oil revenues and economic and infrastructure improvements. Instead, while the economy remains gridlocked, inflation and unemployment high, Ahmadinejad has converted the nuclear issue to his beliefs. With China and Russia, two of the Security Council members, opposed to sanctions and who support Iran’s call for negotiations with America, as it gets bogged down deeper in Iraq and Afghanistan, is it any wonder that on the heels of the perceived Hezbollah victory over Israel, Iran does not feel threatened by America? Can America afford another war front in the region?

To read about how Bush hardliners are trying to portray Iran’s nuclear program as more advanced than it is and exaggerate Tehran’s role in Hezbollah’s attack on Israel is a bad rerun of what they did months before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Officials at the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department are right in being concerned about questionable information that originated with Iranian exiles. Iraqi exiles said the same and were believed, even though at the time, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed El Baradei, questioned and challenged their allegations. His assessment proved correct then and now with Iran.

Iran is the most important regional power in the Middle East. This was confirmed by the visit to Tehran by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki who went there in September 2006 to seek Iran’s support to quell the sectarian violence America can’t. “Iran will give its assistance to establish complete security in Iraq, because Iraq’s security is Iran’s security,” said Iran’s Ahmadinejad during the al-Maliki’s visit. There is no doubt that some elements in Iran were stoking the violence in Iraq in retaliation for the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Israeli assault in Lebanon.

The emergence of the Shiite crescent that stretches from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon ─ all nations with significant Shiite populations ─ has been getting stronger and wider because of U.S. geopolitical miscalculations. Maliki’s visit to Iran, like that of his predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari in July 2005, was a kind of homecoming. They both spent part of their exile from Saddam’s rule living in Iran. Many Shiite political exiles fled to Iran to escape Saddam’s security forces.

The best channels of communication between America and Iran are in the Shiite crescent, namely Iraq. Iran recognizes America is in decline as a regional superpower and is taking advantage of the situation ─ for a change. Iran can help America for a change in Afghanistan and Shi’ite Iraq. It is a dominant historical economic, political and cultural player, one America should embrace. The Shi’ite crescent wave being ridden by Ahmadinejad is one America better catch. That is what Ahmadinejad is hoping he can achieve sooner than later. Hence his letter to Bush, to “propose new ways” to resolve and end 26 years of acrimony on the eve of the U.S. calling for sanctions, was a political bombshell ─ that was followed by an invitation to a political debate to bring people together, rather than reinforce polarized positions.

Iran

Iran’s $100 million Hezbollah proxy has become a state within a state and built a military infrastructure that even Israel’s military might could not dislodge. Iran helped create Hezbollah in the early 1980s. But does that make Hezbollah Iran’s puppet? Hezbollah, to a great extent, makes decisions independently of Iran. It is an indigenous Lebanese armed resistance group that owes its popularity to resistance to Israel, biased American policies and corrupt Lebanese politicians. Does anyone seriously believe that unarmed U.N. soldiers, or armed U.N. soldiers reluctant to challenge Hezbollah, can restore a permanent ceasefire? A determined Hezbollah backed by Iran has created a new political reality that has to be acknowledged and addressed.

Iran has re-emerged as a regional power and will continue down the bloody path it has embarked with Hezbollah if it is not recognized and treated with the respect it deserves. The West has to acknowledge that Iran is a power. It won’t back down, just like it hasn’t over the centuries, dating back to biblical times. Iran has always stood tall.

Iran is saying and doing what a majority of Iranians believe. Stand firm and proud, yet open to peaceful dialogue and diplomatic relations. America’s dismissive cavalier attitude only further endangers its geopolitical credibility in the region. The Islamic Republic knows it is long overdue for a new definition for itself that redefines its relationship with America and the West. America should assist in the spelling of the definition. China can help America and Iran craft the new co-operative arrangement.

Iran is a regional power and has to be recognized and treated as such. It won’t be bullied or relegated to secondary status. Trying to repress Iran, much like trying to repress China, is not only futile, but geopolitically counter productive. Iran is a military, economic and political regional power that has proven its ability and capability through its proxies in Lebanon and Iraq. Nevertheless, Iran knows both the propaganda and military costs are becoming rather annoying to the educated and knowledgable Iranians who are nowhere as near as apathetic as We the Maids are in America. Iran’s foreign military adventures are not popular. The money has better uses at home. Especially after “the underground moullah,” Hezbollah leader Nasrallah said, “We did not think, even 1%, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11…that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not.”

Hezbollah is weakened, and the numerous other pissed off Lebanese factions are strating to squeeze them out in the footsteps of the Syrian soldiers. Even Nazrallah’s major Christian ally, Michael Aoun has called for Hezbollah to disarm. The March 14th democratic alliance movement, named for the date of their huge protest rally after the assassination in 2005 of the former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The rally helped force Syria to end 15 years of domination of Lebanese politics. The movement is dominated by figures from U.S.-backed groups who are back in the driver’s seat, which has marginalized Hezbollah. An opportunity America should not again squander.

The U.N.’s Last Gasp

The Lebanon crisis is the poker hand that will determine how long the U.N. will remain relevant in the 21st century. Its survival is on the line. How it uses the life jacket it has been given in Lebanon will determine its fate. Resolution 1559 adopted by the U.N. in September 2004, called for the disbanding of the Hezbollah fighting force in Lebanon and the extension of the Lebanese government’s control over the territory controlled by Hezbollah. Because the resolution had no enforcement mechanism it was ignored.

Israel’s 34 day effort to remove Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon was a futile attempt to enforce Resolution 1559. The exercise was a millennium history lesson of the geopolitical realities in the Middle East that we have to recognize and address in the 21st century to avoid Armageddon.

Resolution 1701 that created the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah repeats the goals of 1559, but provides more ─ but not enough ─ enforcement substance, including an armed U.N. force of up to 15,000 soldiers to support the 15,000 Lebanese soldiers re-positioned there. The resolutions failure to allow soldiers to disarm Hezbollah will prevent a negotiated long term peace settlement. It was the first resolution on a Middle East peacekeeping issue ever to get the backing of all five permanent members of the Security Council ─ a rare opportunity for a permanent peace.

Lebanon’s 1.2 million Shi’ites are the country’s largest religious group and they do support Hezbollah. That is why Hezbollah has also become one of Lebanon’s strongest political forces, with two cabinet ministers and 12 lawmakers in parliament. Any wonder the government is helpless? Any attempt by the government’s 70,000 soldiers to disarm Hezbollah, the best guerilla force in the world, will lead to civil war ─ all the more reason to give the U.N. soldiers fighting power. To leave the securing of the border with Syria and disarming the Hezbollah to the government of Lebanon “at its request, to secure its border and entry points, to prevent entry of arms and related material,” is a non starter even though the parliamentary majority is Sunni and Christian.

Hezbollah emerged from the war emboldened with greater influence over government and accuses anyone who wants it to disarm of treason and completing Israel’s job. Hezbollah does not believe Israel has a right to exist as a sovereign state. Hezbollah’s ultimate objective ─ the destruction of the Israeli state ─ can only mean renewed conflict sooner or later. The Middle East will not have durable stability as long as Hezbollah continues its campaign to destroy Israel, refuses to disarm and channel its energies through Lebanon’s democratic political structure.

The U.N. force is supposed to patrol a specific southern demilitarized zone and help the Lebanese government monitor its borders, ensuring that Iran and Syria do not re-supply Hezbollah with rockets, missiles and ammunition. If it fails to do so, how long will Israel stand by this time and watch the rearmament of Hezbollah in violation of the resolution? After all, Hezbollah managed to fire off 200 missiles on the last day before the ceasefire, and its leader Hassan Nasrallah is still standing, proud and tall. Israel’s hyped military invincibility proved to be hollow. It didn’t even get back the two soldiers it went to war over.

So what is the political solution? Not just for Lebanon but Palestine? The most important lesson of Israel’s incursion is that solutions to conflict must be political, not military ─ political dialogue between neighbors. The current military respite offers the ideal opportunity to find a political solution before another unnecessary military conflict erupts in either Lebanon or Gaza. America and China have to take the lead at the U.N. to initiate permanent peace talks between Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Iran to avoid another regional conflagration. Military force merely inflicts misery on all parties involved and drives the political solution further away into the distant horizon where the U.N. death knell can be heard.

Peter G. de Krassel is the author of Custom Maid War and Custom Maid Spin

Freedom of Speech

We must always remember that the reason the extreme Jihadists are in open and democratic societies where they can openly express their views, like America and Britain, is that they fled from the persecution and lack of tolerance of free speech at home ─ from Muslim governments that will jail or kill them because they will not tolerate their views.

For a government to allow preachers to preach and run websites that advocate the violent death of British or U.S. soldiers is unacceptable behavior in a civilized country. The laws drawn up in America after 9/11 and in Britain after the London train bombings of July 7, 2005 designed to end such provocations by extreme Muslim fundamentalists that lead disgruntled young men and women towards violence, must be backed by the judiciary and enforced. Anyone who advocates that it is just for Muslims, in any country, to kill their hosts in the name of Islam should be jailed or deported.

The Bush administration, under laws toughened after 9/11, has prosecuted a number of individuals for encouraging terrorism, but not enough. In one of the more high profile cases, a Muslim scholar in Northern Virginia, Ali al-Timimi, was sentenced to life in prison in 2005 for urging his young Muslim followers to wage war against America. At a dinner meeting on September 16, 2001, Timini told some of the men in the group that it was their Muslim duty to fight for their religion overseas and to defend the Taliban in Afghanistan against U.S. forces, according to testimony at his trial. In an internet message in 2003, he described the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia as a “good omen” for Muslims in an apocalyptic conflict with the West.

We are in the midst of an apocalyptic conflict that unbridled freedom of speech is fueling. Responsible governments have a duty to curtail such destructive self fulfilling prophesies without curtailing or violating the basic civil rights of law abiding citizens.