Tony Blair is gone, and with his political demise Britain’s honeymoon with Washington has also ended. Mr. Bush, however, is not unduly worried; he has found another mate in Europe for “parroting” and promoting his dangerous policies in West Asia. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy’s leanings towards Washington were well known, but he would play a Tony Blair so early and so shamelessly was not expected. His warning that a war with Iran over its nuclear programme is imminent shows, among other things, that France is now America’s European ally and it will do exactly what Washington thinks, says and wants.
It is clear now that the West, among other things, is a strategic thinking. There might be, or may emerge, differences among various Western countries regarding the policies and methodologies that they would ultimately adopt for recolonizing the third world. The moot point is that they are one and can go to any extent for maintaining their military, political and economic domination of the world.
It is also clear that Israel is an essential part of the West’s strategic thinking. Yesterday it was developed as a bulwark against the influence of communism and the Soviet Union and today it is expected to help maintain the Western domination in the region. Israel, too, has willingly accepted this role, and this is the reason why it has never tried to be a part of West Asia; instead it has always tried to dominate the region as per the Western scheme. The West, therefore, feels obliged to protect Israel and eliminate all threats to its existence. Iran’s nuclear bomb, if it is ever developed, would, at best, act as a deterrence rather than pose any threat to the West or to the heavily nuclearized Israel. But even a country’s capability of defending itself is against the West’s policy of total domination and, therefore, it has decided to punish Iran.
There is a discernable method in the West’s policy towards Iran. It is more or less similar to the one they had adopted about Iraq before occupying it. The first stage of this policy is to isolate and weaken Iran. The gradual or step by step sanctions are a part of this scheme. The second stage would arrive when the West will try to impose arms embargo against Tehran. And in the third stage they will manufacture reasons for attacking and occupying Iran.
However, if the US, or Israel, feels that the above policy would not deliver the desired results, they might opt for massive air strikes. Perhaps Israel, with American blessings, might have already done it. The problem is that they are yet not sure if just air strikes are enough to put a brake on Tehran’s nuclear programme. Iran’s nuclear programme is being carried out at difference places and most of it is underground, in concrete bunkers which ordinary bombs will find difficult to destroy. This is the reason that Israel is reported to be working on a small nuclear bomb to destroy Iran’s heavily fortified and well-defended nuclear programme.
The West is also not sure about Iran’s reaction to any attack on its nuclear facilities. They know that Iran would not take it lying down and that its military response will surely target Israel. They specially fear the deadly missiles that Iran has developed/obtained from China and North Korea. Israel and America claim that they have developed an affective anti-missile system but the fact is that such a technology has yet not been discovered, or at least it is not as effective as it is being claimed to be. This is the reason that a section of America’s policy-makers is in favour of launching a prolonged and massive air strike against Iran with a view to destroying its entire military capability.
The West’s another problem is Iran’s capability of creating problems for the US in Iraq and opening a military front against Israel in Lebanon. Having learnt its lessons the hard way in Iraq, a section of America’s military leadership is against opening any new war front, specially the one that involves physical occupation of a country.
However, the million dollar question is if the above-mentioned problems will succeed in persuading Bush and Israel to see reasons and desist from attacking Iran. Their agenda is to recolonize West Asia directly or indirectly in order to exploit its economic and mineral resources which are valued to be in trillions of dollars. So, their argument is that the West must take risk of subduing Iran if it wants to maintain its present standard of living.
France under Nicolas Sarkozy now seems to be replacing Britain as America’s new trusted ally in Europe. His statement that a war with Iran is imminent is not an impulsive one, rather it has been well-timed, well-calculated and has been issued with full American blessings. At a time when Britain is withdrawing its forces from Iran, Sarkozy has come out in favour of military action against Tehran with a view to improving the sagging image of America in Europe. This is aimed at silencing the section of America’s military leadership which is opposed to any attack against Iran.
It may rightly be concluded that Bush and his conservative supports are not willing to learn any lessons from their Iraq fiasco and are hell-bent to attack Iran. Perhaps they would concede to their opponents a bit and would not go for physical occupation of Iran. But a massive air strike is imminent, perhaps sooner than later.
What should be Iran’s response? The best strategy is always the one that understands the purpose of the enemy and tries to frustrate its designs. One only hopes that Iran’s leadership will fully grasp the Western design and will take all possible steps to ensure its defeat and failure. Surely their military response would not be as strong as that of the West but they must employ all their mental capabilities to defeat them in the mind game. Thus they would not only save themselves but would also save the entire third world from being recolonized.
[September, 2007]
No comments:
Post a Comment