Ten Days That Shook Tehran
Given its
monopoly of guns, bet on the Iranian regime. But, in the
long run, the ayatollahs have to see the handwriting on
the wall.
Let us assume
what they insist upon—that
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the June 12 election; that,
even if fraud occurred, it did not decide the outcome.
As Ayatollah Khamenei said to loud laughter in his
Friday sermon declaring the election valid,
"Perhaps 100,000,
or 500,000, but how can anyone tamper with 11 million
votes?"
Still, the
ayatollah and Ahmadinejad must hear the roar of the
rapids ahead. Millions of Iranians, perhaps a majority
of the professional class and educated young, who
shouted, "Death to the Dictatorship," oppose or detest them. How can the
regime maintain its present domestic course or foreign
policy with its people so visibly divided?
Where do the
ayatollah and Ahmadinejad go from here?
If they adopt a
harder line, defy Barack Obama and refuse to negotiate
their nuclear program, they can continue to enrich
uranium, as harsher sanctions are imposed. But to what
end adding 1,000 more kilograms?
If they do not
intend to build a bomb, why enrich more? And if they do
intend to build a bomb, what exactly would that achieve?
For an Iranian
bomb would trigger a regional arms race with Turkey,
Egypt and Saudi Arabia seeking nuclear weapons. Israel
would put its nuclear arsenal on a hair trigger. America
would retarget missiles on Tehran. And if a terrorist
anywhere detonated a nuclear bomb, Iran would risk
annihilation, for everyone would assume Tehran was
behind it.
Rather than make
Iran more secure, an Iranian bomb would seem to
permanently isolate her and possibly subject her to
pre-emptive attack.
And how can the
Iranians survive continued isolation?
According to
U.S. sources, Iran produced 6 million barrels of crude a
day in 1974 under the shah. She has not been able to
match that since the revolution. War, limited
investment, sanctions and a high rate of natural decline
of mature oil fields, estimated at 8 percent onshore and
11 percent offshore, are the causes. A 2007 National
Academy of Sciences study reported that if the decline
rates continue, Iran`s exports, which in 2007 averaged
2.4 million barrels per day, could decrease to zero by
2015.
You cannot make
up for oil and gas exports with carpets and pistachio
nuts.
If Tehran cannot
effect a lifting of sanctions and new investments in oil
and gas production, she is headed for an economic crisis
that will cause an exodus of her brightest young and
quadrennial reruns of the 2009 election.
And there are
not only deep divisions in Iran between modernists and
religious traditionalists, the affluent and the poor,
but among ethnic groups. Half of Iran`s population is
Arab, Kurd, Azeri or Baluchi. In the Kurdish northwest
and Baluchi south, secessionists have launched attacks
the ayatollah blames on the United States and Israel.
As they look
about the region, how can the ayatollahs be optimistic?
Syria, their
major ally, wants to deal with the Americans to retrieve
the Golan. Saudi Arabia and Egypt are hostile, with the
latter having uncovered a Hezbollah plot against
President Hosni Mubarak.
Hamas is
laser-focused on Gaza, the West Bank and a Palestinian
state, and showing interest in working with the Obama
administration.
Where is the
Islamic revolution going? Where is the state in the
Muslim world that has embraced Islamism and created a
successful nation?
Sudan? Taliban
Afghanistan? Somalia is now in final passage from
warlordism to Islamism. Does anyone believe the
Al-Shahab will create a successful nation?
As for the
ayatollahs, after 30 years, they are deep in crisis—and
what have they produced that the world admires?
Even if the
"green revolution" in Iran triggers revolts in the Gulf states,
Saudi Arabia or Egypt, can Iran believe Sunni
revolutionary regimes will follow the lead of a Shia
Islamic state? How long did it take Mao`s China to
renounce its elder brother in the faith, Khrushchev`s
Russia?
When one looks
at the Asian tigers—South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan,
Singapore, Malaysia—or at the China or India of recent
decades, one sees nations that impress the world with
their progress.
Iran under the
mullahs has gone sideways or backward. Now, with this
suspect election and millions having shown their
revulsion of the regime, the legitimacy and integrity of
the ayatollahs have been called into question.
Obama offers the
regime a way out.
They may
exercise their right to peaceful nuclear power, have
sanctions lifted and receive security guarantees, if
they can prove they have no nuclear weapons program and
will cease subverting through their Hezbollah-Hamas
proxies the peace process Obama is pursuing between
Israel and Palestine.
If Iran refuses
Obama`s offer, she will start down a road at the end of
which are severe sanctions, escalation and a war that
Obama does not want and Iran cannot want—for the winner
will not be Iran.
COPYRIGHT
CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Patrick J. Buchanan
needs
no introduction to VDARE.COM readers;
his book State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America
is Churchill,
Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its
Empire and the West Lost the World,
reviewed
here by
Paul Craig Roberts.
