A History Lesson and A Look At Next Year

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Interesting read, do any of you history guru's know if it is accurate?

Iran Will Be the No. 1 Foreign Policy Issue Next Year

. . . AND ITS WAR WITH THE U.S.

By AMIR TAHERI

August 23, 2004 -- SOMETIME next month, three European foreign ministers are expected to fly to Tehran for what is tipped in diplomatic circles as a "last chance" attempt at persuading the Islamic Republic to stop its quest for nuclear weapons.

This will be the second time in 10 months that the three "wise men of the West" will be traveling east to "save the future peace of the Middle East," as British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who is of the party, likes to put it.

What Straw and his German and French colleagues are trying to do is not new. A similar move was made almost 25 years ago when Germany's then-Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher persuaded his European colleagues to adopt a policy of "critical dialogue" with the Khomeinist regime in Tehran.

In time, Genscher's policy proved to be a total failure. And many now believe that Straw's version of it will also end in disaster.

The reason for those failures is simple: The Khomeinist revolutionary clique that has seized control of the Iranian state is determined to use its power to reshape the Middle East in accordance with its own radical strategy. The rest of the world, including the Europeans, has the choice of either accepting Tehran's agenda or resisting it by all means, including force if and when necessary.

The reason why a nuclear-armed Iran is a threat to the Western democracies and their regional allies is that the Khomeinist revolution defines itself in opposition to a vision of the world that it regards as an American imposition. If Iran had no quarrel with that vision, its acquiring nuclear weapons would not have been of greater concern than India and Pakistan "going nuclear."

With or without nuclear weapons, the Islamic Republic, in its present shape, represents a clear and present threat to the kind of Middle East that President Bush says he wants to shape.

At a meeting in Tehran this month, the Islamic Republic's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei took questions from some 150 "Islamic guidance" officials operating around the world.

According to those present, the ayatollah responded with well-rehearsed answers, often consisting of one-line slogans.

One question made him hesitate: Is the Islamic Republic at war against the United States? According to leaks, the ayatollah tried to get around the question by claiming that it was the United States that was at war against "our Islamic Revolution."

Leaving aside semantic subtleties, it is fair to say that the U.S. has been at war with the Khomeinist regime ever since the mullahs seized power in 1979.

Much of this war has been of the cold type. But its history also includes lukewarm and hot episodes.

The opening shots were fired in February 1979 when Khomeinist gunmen invaded 27 "listening posts" set up by the United States in Iran to monitor Soviet missile tests in accordance with the SALT II accords. The posts had been created with the consent of the USSR and as Iran's contribution to global arms reduction programs. Within weeks, all 27 posts were closed and their American personnel, briefly held hostage, expelled from the newly created Islamic Republic.

In October 1979, the Khomeinist regime and the United States appeared to be heading for an understanding when Mehdi Bazargan, the ayatollah's first prime minister, met President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Bzrezinski, in Rabat. Carter had addressed a flattering letter to Khomeini, praising the ayatollah as "a man of God." In a show of good will, Carter lifted the ban he had imposed during the revolutionary turmoil on arms exports to Iran.

A few days after the Bazargan-Bzrezinski meeting, however, Khomeinist militants raided the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took its diplomats hostage. The drama lasted 444 days. In April 1980, Carter ordered a military operation to free the hostages.

This was the first time since 1941 that U.S. forces were involved in hostile action in Iran. The operation ended in disaster, leaving behind the charred bodies of eight U.S. troops in the Iranian desert.

The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Over the years, the mullahs developed a sophisticated strategy for waging low-intensity war against the United States.

The Hezbollah movement was created to make life difficult for U.S. allies in the region, notably Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

For its part, the United States played a key role in encouraging Saddam Hussein to attack Iran in September 1980. Washington's financial and intelligence support also contributed to Saddam's ability to fight for eight years. Washington also waged economic war against Tehran by freezing some $24 billion in Iranian assets and denying the Islamic Republic access to global capital markets, World Bank loans and new technology.

By 1987, the Islamic Republic had organized the killing of hundreds of Americans, including 241 Marines in Beirut, while Iranian agents seized 27 American hostages in Lebanon at different times. They also kidnapped and hanged an American colonel working for the United Nations in Lebanon. Also kidnapped and murdered in Tehran was the head of the CIA in Beirut.

In 1987, the Islamic Republic and the United States fought a hot episode of their war in the Persian Gulf. A U.S. task force, sent to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers against Iranian attacks, engaged the Iranian navy in the biggest battle it had seen since 1941. The battle ended after more than half of the Iranian navy had been reduced to fuming flotsam.

The war between the United States and the Islamic Republic was then fought in other theaters, including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. But the biggest proxy battles were fought between the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah and Israel. The mullahs believe that they won because they forced Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon.

Other places where the United States and the mullahs have fought on opposite sides include Trans-Caucasus and Tajikistan.

For 25 years, the Islamic Republic has helped prop up various anti-American regimes, including North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Cuba, with cheap oil, cash gifts and general political and economic support.

Today, this strange war is being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In Afghanistan, Tehran is supporting Ismail Khan, the "emir" of Herat, while the United States has put its chips on President Hamid Karzai. In recent months, the mullahs have helped the Hazara Shiites create a 10,000-man army within a day's march to Kabul.

To make life more difficult for the U.S.-led coalition, Tehran is also helping the Pushtun fundamentalist leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has just concluded an alliance with the remnants of the Taliban.

In Iraq, the mullahs have a string of client groups not only among the Shiites but also in the Kurdish areas. And last month, they forged a tactical alliance with the main Arab Sunni insurgent group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

With the mullahs determined to develop and deploy nuclear weapons, the stakes in this 25-year war are certain to rise. Regardless of who wins the U.S. presidential election, Iran is likely to emerge as the No. 1 foreign policy preoccupation in Washington next year.

E-mail: Amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/29259.htm