A stitch in time …: A founder member of George Bush's now infamous Axis of Evil, Iran now finds itself at the axis of world affairs: a position which is making governments around the world uneasy

Middle East, The, April, 2006 by Richard Seymour

UNEASY, NOT SIMPLY FOR THE VERY real concern regarding Iran's intentions towards its neighbours (particularly Israel), but also the creeping shift of power and influence from its current centres in western capitals to destinations eastward.

The election last June of the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the face of an expected upsurge in liberal reformism, was the beginning of a process that put Iran on a collision course with Washington, whose plan for the region does not include a hardline conservative leader with publicly stated antipathy toward the very existence of the state of Israel.

The issue currently sending diplomats scurrying along the corridors of power is the issue of Iran's nuclear ambitions, which predate the current Iranian administration. Key to the matter is trust. Despite being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran hid its nuclear programme from international inspectors for almost two decades, directly breaking its treaty obligations.

Iran argues that since its programme is now out in the open, it can and should be trusted to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, which it has a legal right to do. But it is the initial secrecy that has led many in the West to doubt the integrity of Iran's promise not to develop nuclear weapons.

For its part, Iran has good reason to distrust the United States. George Bush's speech that placed Iran within the so called Axis of Evil was interpreted by Tehran as a clear warning that the threat against it was building. And recent forced regime changes in Afghanistan and Iraq will have left Tehran in no doubt that change in Iran is what the US wants to bring about, by one means or another. The speech was the final encouragement for North Korea--also part of Bush's so-called 'axis'--to develop nuclear weapons of its own. And, if the feeling in Tehran is that a nuclear deterrent is the only deterrent effective against the US, who can be surprised at the logic?

For decades, Iran has been regarded internationally as the key player in the region. A glance at a map of the region shows heavy American presence in Afghanistan--on Iran's eastern border--and also on its western border, in Iraq.

In such a high-stakes game, the West must be hoping that if the US does manage to force Iran to show its hand, it will not be revealed to have been holding all the aces.

Tehran, however, holds at least one ace we can be certain off its vital role in supplying gas and oil to Russia and China, both of whom hold vetoes on the United Nations Security Council.

China's indefatigable economic progress is fuelled, quite literally, by Iranian oil, without which it simply could not prosper. And Russia's ailing nuclear technology industry relies heavily on being able to supply Iranian nuclear facilities for years to come, thus securing its short- to medium-term future.

Any western pressure on China to distance itself from Iran will be easily resisted. For as much as China relies on exporting its goods to the West, those economies are also reliant on the cheap DVD players and television sets that proliferate in their markets.

For so long as China, in particular, is the boiler room of the world's economy, it would not suit the world to stop feeding it fuel: fuel which comes, by the barrel, from Iran. Despite this, the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) has referred Iran to the Security Council for further discussion, and the US has insisted it will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. However, exactly what measures it proposes to use to stop it, remains unclear.

The military option has not been ruled out. But with public faith in the ability of political leaders to enter into war for the correct reasons at an all-time low, across the globe, George Bush would be hard pressed to drum up support for that. It should also be remembered that military action would have a severe effect on international oil supplies.

It appears, at least from the well-chosen language coming out of Washington and London, that 'peaceful' regime change is hoping to be stoked. The US in particular has recently been at pains to insist its quarrel is not with the people of Iran, whose side, it claims, it is on, but with the current administration. The British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, has added to this sentiment by saying he believes the people of Iran 'deserve better' than they are currently getting.

It may be that, while not dismissing altogether the military option, the West is about to settle down into a 'cold war' of attrition, similar to that which characterised its relationship with the former Soviet Union for so many years.

The perception in Washington is that there is a large, liberal reformist majority inside Iran that the current administration is entirely at odds with. The hope might be that such a majority could be mobilised to force policy change from within--a suggestion the ruling elite of Iran find laughable.

A change in relations may take decades to achieve, but a war fought with bombs is not in anybody's interests. So long as Iran's nuclear programme is not proved to be a pretext for something else, then it is likely a third way will be found.