The making of yet another war – regime change in Iran

By: Hatto Fischer, Athens

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Watching closely the ‘cold warriors’ around President Bush in recent days and weeks lets one notice a change in focus. Iran has become the key target. State Secretary C. Rice speaks about a regime that suppresses its own people. Dick Cheney utters something about ‘possible consequences’ if Iran would go ahead with its nuclear enrichment program. And Rumsfeld shifts away from the quagmire of Iraq and lets the world know if that country enters a civil war, it will be its own doing, while he is sure that the new Iraqis forces can deal with the situation. That suggests a freeing of American forces from the permanent, indeed negative preoccupation with Iraq. And all of this goes hand in hand with Iran now being referred to the Security Council of the United Nations after countless diplomatic efforts especially by the Russians to strike a deal about uranium enrichment programs remaining on their soil while Iran can benefit from a build up of new energy resources based on nuclear energy were dealt a final blow when Iran’s radical President lay claim, Iran would not wish to be curtailed in its freedom to enrich uranium at home.

While analysts have pointed at numerous factors, they all seem to miss one obvious point. The American military needs an easy target to strike at in order to exercise once again all that for what it has been trained for and equipped to do best: an all out missile war with precision bombing a part of the mighty arsenal. Anyone with knowledge about armies, once they get bogged down, they become an enemy to themselves. Rumsfeld sees that and hence he wants to reinvigorate the fighting spirit, as it has to be called, within the army so as to keep up its defensive capacity i.e. offensive striking ability.

A highly sophisticated machine like the American Forces need from time to time such ‘exercises’ so that muscles can be flexed and some other, less exciting business like patrolling day by day in the streets of Baghdad, be put behind. This relief to finally get going rather than merely lying around and waiting till the marching order comes, that every commander of a ship knows. As a matter of fact it is one of the largest challenges, namely how to keep any army active during peace times or for that matter longer lulls in a war.

Consequently Iran proves to be at this moment a decisive positive distraction from much else going from bad to worse. This includes the approval ratings of President Bush by now down to 34%, and subject to still falling as many more Americans begin to realize what person they have put into the position of Commander-of-Chief. Bush is incapable of any coherent policy and cannot articulate in any intelligent way novel ideas about society, politics and history. His latest problem with the ports of America being subject to foreign ownership contrasts greatly with his proud attestment during the last election that he would never put American decision making capacity into foreign hands.

However, the problem of Bush is created more by the people around Bush. When elected first, he brought to power people who could never deal with the end of the Cold War. They were all like Rumsfeld ‘Cold War warriors’ and they can think only ‘rational’ if at war. The doctrine of the ‘permanent war’ that Rumsfeld designed after 9/11 meant he along with Dick Cheney and others can only conceive the world in terms of war rationality, nothing else. The frightening aspect in all of this is that they believe in their ‘insanity’ to be doing rational and logical things.

Indeed the American Forces need a distraction from Iraq, therefore a strike against Iran is inevitable as it follows the logical need of a military machine wishing to prove to itself that it is still at the top of its own technological warfare game. In that sense the frightening aspect is again regardless what is being said, the furry of the believers in their mission like Rumsfeld will begin to unfold once again, sooner than to be expected and not at all in the world’s interest but to no avail. World opinion does not count. It will hear almost identical arguments as brought forth against Saddam Hussein prior to the invasion of Iraq, but like a slave beaten to the ground, this time world opinion is even too weak to blink in protest when again the military machine starts to roll.