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EDITORIAL: US blitz against Iran?

A British newspaper has reported that the US may be about to launch a blitz against Iran “as the last resort” to block Tehran’s efforts to nuclearise. It says the preparations in the Pentagon are not just war-games but the plan is to actually make the strike. The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B-2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000 pounds of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices.

If this is being planned, it signals an end to the US-European efforts to persuade Iran through concessions and sanctions to abandon its nuclear programme. Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamenei is defiant. He has his Revolutionary Guards firmly in control of the economy and the population and he is selling oil at buoyant rates. The latest US “preparation” is clearly linked to Israel’s security, which is much shaken by Iran’s assistance to the Shia militia Hezbollah in Lebanon which succeeded in denting the credibility of the Israeli army during the IDF’s 2006 invasion, though at much cost to Lebanon.

America should know that if it embarks upon an adventure in Iran, it will not be supported at the UN. Its efforts to thwart the growing power of Russia in the region close to Iran are also not getting anywhere because the European Union is once again not united behind it. The attack will not denuclearise Iran; it will only delay the production of the final deliverable bomb. Moreover, the US policy of rewarding India with a civilian nuclear deal — which has now got stuck in the negotiations phase with the NSG — while risking war with Iran which is still years away from actually developing nuclear weapons doesn’t make for a saleable argument.

On the other hand, if the latest “preparation” in the Pentagon is just a threat to escalate the pressure being built on Iran, it is not going to work because Iran knows that America is stuck in Iraq and can only extricate from there with Iran’s help which now virtually controls southern Iraq. Neither is America succeeding in Afghanistan where Iran is arming some groups and Russia has begun playing a big hand to get the Americans out of Moscow’s backyard. On the other hand, the sanctions on Iran are working in the sense that the inflation rate there is 37 percent and the people live a quality of life hardly commensurate with an oil-rich nation. Clearly the clerics in Iran are spending heavily on things like the infrastructure of war to get ready for the American invasion. Meanwhile, the people of Iran have forgotten to criticise their own government because of the threat of external aggression.

The Iranians have often told us what they will do, and nothing will stay their hand since Iran is not exactly a state that consults international bodies or friendly states. So Iran will fire missiles not only at Israel but also at US targets in the region as well as those of Gulf monarchies complicit in any attack on Iran. But this is essentially calculated bluster. The fact is that Iran has secured itself by getting Russia and China and India on its side and knows how to play the complex game of balancing. Russia has already given a bloody nose to the US proxy in Georgia and Moscow is in no mood to let America get away with its forays into the region. Also, with the Pentagon maintaining 32 military bases in the area, US forces are vulnerable to hits by Iran’s short-range missiles. This will be followed by asymmetrical warfare, which would destabilise the US-backed governments in Iraq and Afghanistan, endanger output and shipment of oil in the region, and trigger rocket attacks on Israel by Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

If oil supplies are blocked in the Gulf, Iran will benefit from the resulting high prices. Despite high spending on things relating to war, Iran has foreign exchange reserves totalling $60 billion. Sanctions are working and development in Iran is uneven. But what bothers the US is that the sanctions are not deterring the development of the bomb. Pressed for time, the US may just ignore the setbacks its policy in the region would receive if it attacks Iran. Its efforts to round up Al Qaeda and capture Osama bin Laden will peter off as its “nation-building” in Afghanistan comes to an end and Pakistan’s own nuclear arsenal comes under threat from the terrorists.

Iran can be stopped in its tracks by squeezing its only economic resource, which is oil, through making it cheap. Any trouble in the area pushes up oil prices and enables Iran to increase its dollar revenues. The prospect of peace brings the oil price down. One reason Iran has made it public that it will attack and block the Straits of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf is the rise in oil price such action will bring at the global level. The president of Venezuela has been to Iran to express solidarity, but he should have gone to Washington to thank President Bush for bringing war to the Middle East and pushing up the prices that are making Venezuela a rich state. He should expect another windfall if the US attacks Iran.

Iran is the second largest producer in the Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC). A military conflict involving Iran, warned OPEC’s Secretary General Abdalla Salem El Badri, would see an “unlimited” rise in oil price. Any reduction of shipments through the narrow Straits of Hormuz could not be replaced in the short term, which means 40 percent of the world’s oil supplies. An American or Israeli attack on Iran would destabilise the region and bring economic hardship all round without achieving its long term objective. Washington must not embroil the Muslims in another potentially aggressive civilisational dispute. *

SECOND EDITORIAL: Burying women alive?

It must have been the lowest moment of the Pakistan Senate on Friday when, in answer to Senator Yasmeen Shah’s statement, Baloch Senator Israrullah Zehri, informed the Senate that burying women alive in his province was a part of the code of tribal honour and that the Senate should not discuss the matter to “safeguard tribal traditions”.

Five women were recently buried alive in Balochistan to satisfy tribal honour. As if in imitation, a man in Sindh declared his wife “karo” with his brother because she could not bear children. He had married again but wanted to get rid of the first wife through killing her. She ran away and reported the matter to the police.

Pakistan has the misfortune of honouring tribal leaders who bury women alive. It has to fight against the Taliban who blow up girls’ schools in various parts of the country. And it has mullahs who recommend jihad on all and sundry at a time when Pakistan is in dire economic straits. Senator Zehri wants rights for Balochistan but also wants us to look away when he threatens half the province’s population with honour killing. What he has actually done is soil the honour of his proud race. He doesn’t deserve to sit in the Senate as its representative. *

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