The making of another armageddon?

Yet, the optimists believed that the new appointments in the state department and other changes in the administration may actually provide an opportunity for renewed diplomacy. Both President Bush and his new secretary of state, they argued, wanted to improve the US' dismal image in the world and repair damaged relations with former allies. The one silver lining that some analysts espied around the could of smokes over Iraq was the prospect that the scale of disaster would inevitably mute its perpetrators against further misadventure. That presumption was, of course, predicated on the supposition that the Bush administration's policy makers couldn't be completely immune to common sense.

However, the recent sabre-rattling over Iran points to the mood in Washington is yet to come out of the neocons' ideological bind and the hard stance the administration adopted during its full term. The trends that prevailed in the Pentagon during last four years are likely to be reinforced rather than relaxed. It may therefore be pre-posterous at this stage to have a lofty view of the pre-administration purely on presumption. The rhetorics from Washington are still laden with arrogance strongly flavoured with deja vu which suggests that a third Gulf war could be around the corner even as the second one is still raging. Reports at the weekend, citing the US official sources, said that the Pentagon's latest game plan for Iran involves not just the nuclear facilities but political targets as well. The preemption and regime change are thus likely to be recycled as a mantra in perpetuity, notwithstanding the fact that the first time around it turned out that there was nothing to preempt. As a matter of fact in a deliberate overkill the aggressor's intention in Iraq was only to create 'shock and awe' which however evaporated much before it could have an impact.

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The case is a bit different in Iran's context. The ostensible reason for the sudden heightening of US' hostility towards Tehran is precisely the element of Israel connected with the whole episode. Israel's Knesset was informed by Israeli intelligence that Iraq posed the gravest threat to the Jewish state. That was enough to set in notice the Bush administration to take steps in extraordinary haste. (Earlier it was the preserve of Iraq though Saddam regime evidently had nothing to fight with.) Beyond the superficial stimulus for possible action there is of course a deep sense of animosity on the part of the US -- that runs all the way back to Shah's overthrow in 1979 which for the US was tantamount to the loss of an invaluable regional asset. The Americans seldom forgot the humiliation it suffered in the process.

That did not prevent the Americans during Reagan regime from secretly selling arms to the Ayatollahs (ironically via Israel) during Iran-Iraq war while assisting at the same time Iraq's Saddam in his aggression against Iran. The drama was enacted when the US wanted the help of Iran's Mullahs to rescue the release of American hostage held by Hezbollah in Lebanon. In this love-hate relationship even if many Iranians particularly the younger ones yarn for change in the polity stifled by hardline Mullahs it is extremely unlikely that a large number would have looked upon an American invasions of Iran as a panacea even before Iraq exploded in Uncle Sam's face.

The US ground forces in Iran would encounter bloodier resistance in its ruggedly mountainous terrain. Perhaps that is why Pentagon is contemplating an air strike only in a possible invasion of Iran. And that too will be delivered by Israeli forces together with the Americans. But is Bush administration oblivious of the sort of genies an Israeli attack on Iran would unleash right across the Muslim world -- even in the countries that don't care very much for Ayatollah's brand of Islamic rule. But Bush's is one administration that gives damn to such considerations. America's unchallengeable firepower is all that matters. If the hearts and minds cannot be wor over, they can always be blown apart.

Here is however a snag. The confrontation with Iran is again going to pit the US against Europe. The offending American rhetoric has already undermined efforts by the European Union to resolve the nuclear row through diplomatic means. Iran already promised to suspend all uranium enrichment activities. But Iranian compliance, superficial or otherwise -- either with EU or IAEA -- hardly provides ground for complacency.

If the Bushies are determined to 'get' Iran for host of other excuses, the chances are that they will go ahead and do so regardless of consequences. They won't care for European opposition. They won't be dampened even in the unlikely event of Tony Blair opting out of the fray. Unless there is a miracle or a sudden change of heart the close-knit inner circle of Dubya, Dick, Rummy and Condi is sure to enact it, however much painful it may be to contemplate the shape of the world four years hence.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.