Iran's Struggle for a More Equitable World Order

Iran does not deserve the hostility of, and is no threat to, the United States. In fact, the West’s current obsession with Iran is fueled by little more than Iran’s rejection of double standards in international relations. Accusations that Iran will develop nuclear weapons come most forcefully from sources that lied about Iraq. Even the US intelligence agencies’ claim that Iran had a clandestine nuclear weapons project until 2003 fails for lack of evidence.

Despite years of arm-twisting by Washington, UN inspectors on the ground have found no trace of nuclear weapons intentions in Iran. The accusers, on the other hand, have violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by rejecting Iran’s invitation to participate in Iran’s nonmilitary nuclear sector and by refusing to eliminate their massive stockpiles. Worse yet, the US is designing small “tactical” nuclear weapons for use against non-nuclear states.

Among the accusers, Israel has, with US approval, built a nuclear arsenal but refuses to join the Treaty or allow inspections. Another nuclear outlaw, India, has been promised American nuclear technology assistance. Based on known facts, then, the US is the world’s leading proliferator.

Iran’s nuclear program was in fact prompted in the 1950s by Washington, shortly after the CIA overthrew the country’s revered secular prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. During the 70s Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz led a Ford administration drive to sell Iran a half-dozen reactors. Iran’s electricity needs were a quarter of what they are today, but they did not insist then as they do today that Iran has enough oil and gas to generate power.

Iran has not attacked another country in more than two centuries, and it developed powerful missiles only after the US banned the sale of air force jets to Iran by all suppliers. Harsh rhetoric aside, Iran spends less per capita on its military than most countries in the region do. It can not possibly challenge the legendary military superiority of Israel, which fears US-Iranian reconciliation would diminish its strategic value to Washington and therefore make the occupation of Palestinian lands politically untenable.

Iran helped create Hezbollah in Lebanon but no longer directs its actions, according to most knowledgeable analysts. In Iraq, the White House has produced zero evidence to back its claim that Iranian infiltration contributes to the deaths of US troops. Iraqi president and prime minister have often praised Iran’s role in Iraq. Washington, on the other hand, is funding terror groups that aim to destabilize Iran, according to Seymour Hersch and ABC’s Brian Ross.

If keeping Tehran from possibly contemplating nuclear weapons is a US priority, why not stop threatening Iran so the least reasonable elements in its policy circles remain marginal? Why did the White House dismiss Iran’s formal offer in 2003 to negotiate about all outstanding issues? And why ignore Tehran’s offer earlier this month to permit extra-intrusive inspections (the “Additional Protocol”) if Iran’s file is sent back from the UN Security Council to the International Atomic Energy Agency?

The answer lies in Washington’s bipartisan insistence to replace the Cold War with a world order that includes no rivals large or small, as articulated in the official National Security Strategy of the United States in 2002 and reaffirmed in 2006. Iran, along with Russia, China, Venezuela, and other assertive nations are equally determined to resist the empire and steer the world towards a multi-polar order.

To American leaders, China in particular is an awakening “menace” that is on track to rival the US in two decades, unless its dependence on imported energy can be exploited against it. But an American chokehold on the global energy market is not easy as long as Iran, located strategically between the world’s largest oil and gas reserves in Central Asia and Persian Gulf, refuses to take orders.

Thus it is the US insistence on domination, rather than any legitimate national security worries, that underlies Washington’s obsessive push to marginalize and destabilize Iran.

The antiwar movement should demand that the White House initiate a wide-ranging, unconditional, and sustained dialog with Iran to test its sincerity. American activists can also make war with Iran less likely by insisting that the International Atomic Energy Agency, rather than the UN Security Council, be the arbiter of Iran’s nuclear file.