Is war with Iran necessary?

Ever since the “Axis of Evil” speech by former President George W. Bush, the possibility of war with Iran has been contemplated and discussed by politicians, political scientists, the media and ordinary Americans. There are few countries in the world that are able to provoke such antipathy in most Americans than the Islamic Republic ever since the Iranian Hostage Crisis that began  thirty years ago this month. Since the attacks of September 11th and the revelation of Iran’s nuclear program, an actual war between the United States and Iran has become a possibility. Although there is no precipitous momentum for such a confrontation, there are many reasons given by war hawks for such an event.

The main reason to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons is under the ominous title “The Islamic Bomb”. The implicit idea behind that phrase is that nuclear weapons and the religion of Islam cannot unite without disaster for Western civilization. The phrase has been around for at least twenty years and is today primarily used in regards to Iran. Those who peddle in it do not often mention that Pakistan had tested a nuclear weapon in 1998 and is in possession of an estimated 70 to 90 warheads. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan, for that is its official name, may be much more secular in its government (though one could say more religious in its population) than Iran, but it’s a country that has spread nuclear information to Lybia, Iran and North Korea; not to mention that its intelligence service, the ISI, in many ways created the Taliban. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and it has been coaxed into stopping the spread of nuclear information and technology and is today an indelible ally of the West in the Afghan War. If Pakistan can be accepted as a Muslim country with nuclear weapons, why would Iran having them be such a horrific event?

The possible answer lies when those same war hawks say that the very nature of Iran’s government, casually known as “the mullahs”, make them irrational actors that cannot be coaxed like Pakistan or contained like the USSR. The Iranian presidency of the blatantly cretinous populist, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made that case more plausible than it was under the reformist president Mohammad Khatami- the president under whom the secret Iranian nuclear reactors were made known to the outside world. All it takes to dispel the boogeyman in the shape of Ahmadinejad is to study where power lies in Iran: and it is in the hands of the Supreme Leader, the Guardian Council and Assembly of Experts. And if Ahmadinejad may be a member of a crack-pot Shia cult that awaits the end of the world and who claims to have seen a green halo during his United Nations speech, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (the real leader of Iran) and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (the head of the Assembly of Experts) have shown themselves to be clear-headed power players with whom it is possible to negotiate. To those who say that theocratic leaders cannot play ball, I’d recommend a nice fat tome on the history of the papacy during the Middle Ages.

The reason for Iran’s nuclear program must surely be defensive, like that of North Korea. When President Bush made his “Axis of Evil” speech in 2002 and the plan to invade one of the triumvirates of evil was obvious that year and was carried out the next, the other two decided to take precautions. North Korea declared that it had nuclear weapons and had been developing them in secret and Iran was found to have secret nuclear power-plants. A country that has nuclear weapons does not get invaded by anyone, is the logic of national self preservation. If only Iran is guaranteed that its government will not be toppled by the United States, it’s reasonable to assume that it will agree to permanent IAEA monitoring of its nuclear program. Since the Obama administration has shown a desire to have a peaceful dialogue with Iran, the latest Iranian acquiescence to IAEA’s demands will continue in the same direction and the possibility of war will slowly disappear.