In support of Iran

By Izeth Hussain

February 1, 2012 

I get voluminous and valuable material in support of Iran written by those who are clearly sympathetic to Iran. But I would rather not base my own case for supporting Iran on that material because it may be regarded as biased and covertly partisan. Instead I will base my case on a brief article written by someone who is right within the British Establishment, whose bias if any can usually be expected to be against Iran. The article which was by Peter Jenkins was originally published in the Daily Telegraph of London and was reproduced in the World View Supplement of the Island of January 25.

It is widely supposed that Iran is on the brink of a war that is about to be unleashed by the US, Israel, and their Western allies, a war that will have incalculable consequences for the world as a whole. I will not go into the details as they have been much publicized. Instead I will focus on Jenkins’ argument, which begins conveniently by stating its major conclusion: "Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium – but with the toughest safeguards". Recognizing that the Iran nuclear controversy is reaching a critical juncture, he writes that this is the consequence of what he believes to be a great diplomatic over-bid: the West’s demand that Iran surrender its capacity to enrich uranium.

Jenkins writes that it was nine years ago that in the capacity of Britain’s representative at the Atomic Energy Agency that he first discussed Iran’s nuclear programme with Iranian diplomats. He disbelieved their reassurances about not wanting nuclear weapons, and he was all for denying Iran any capacity relevant to the making of nuclear weapons. He now sees things differently. The crucial pint is that while the Non-Proliferation Treaty prohibits the making of nuclear weapons, it allows uranium enrichment and that is what is at the core of the West’s quarrel with Iran. Jenkins specifies this as the West’s quarrel with Iran for good reason. Earlier almost all members of the IAEA disapproved of Iran having concealed its research into uranium enrichment, and non-Westerners agreed with the West that Iran must suspend work on uranium enrichment until there is a full accounting of earlier work in that connection. At that point Jenkins writes, "Now, the West is all but isolated in insisting that Iran must not enrich. Most non-Westerners would prefer to see Iran treated like other NPT parties allowed to enrich uranium in return for intrusive monitoring by IAEA inspectors. My sympathies lie with the non-Westerners."

IAEA Safeguards

Jenkins believes that the gathering storm can be dispelled by a deal along the following lines: Iran be allowed to continue enriching uranium in exchange for stringent IAEA safeguards, and in addition Iran volunteers some confidence-building measures to show that it has no intention of making nuclear weapons. He then comes out with the surprising detail that that was essentially the deal Iran offered to the UK, France, and Germany in 2005. He writes, "With hindsight, that offer should have been snapped up. It wasn’t because our objective was to put a stop to all enrichment in Iran. That has remained the West’s aim ever since, despite countless Iranian reminders that they are unwilling to be treated as a second-class party to the NPT – with fewer rights than other signatories …". However, that missed opportunity need not prove lethal if the West now pulls back and joins the rest of the world in seeking an agreement along the lines indicated as the prudent way forward.

The underlying problem is supposed to be that Iran secretly wants to become a nuclear weapons power, or at least to have nuclear weapons capability, meaning the capability to proceed to make nuclear weapons. Furthermore, there is the impression that the IAEA has recently reported that Iran is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. Jenkins clarifies that that is not so. Prior to 2003, according to the IAEA, Iran researched some of the know-how needed for a weapon, and that further research may have taken place later. However, the IAEA has not reported evidence of attempts to produce nuclear weapons, or of any decision to do so. For years the Western assessment has been that Iran seeks nuclear weapons capability, but has taken no decision to produce them.

I will now quote Jenkins’ conclusion in full: "Imposing sanctions or even going to war could be a proportionate – and therefore a just – reaction to any Iranian decision to break the NPT and acquire nuclear weapons. But these measures are a disproportionate response to a state acting on its right to enrich uranium. The correct way to handle enrichment is the NPT way, namely that the process can go ahead but only under the strictest safeguards."

Before I make my comments, I will add one point to Jenkins’ exposition of his case. Even if there is credible evidence – and there is none – that Iran really wants to acquire nuclear weapons capability with the idea of actually producing them, the whole process will take months or years to complete. The ability to fit nuclear warheads to missiles will certainly take years to develop. What is the case at the present stage to deny Iran the right to enrich uranium, a right that is allowed to every other NPT signatory? What is the case for imposing sanctions that are meant to wreck the Iranian economy? What is the case for threatening military action which can cause economic havoc across the globe? My questions point to one conclusion: the West is now in the process of getting into the grip of aggressive lunacy, about which we Afro-Asians know a great deal through the experience of centuries.

Nuclear Imbroglio

I believe that we cannot understand Iran’s nuclear imbroglio in terms of the "sweet reasonableness" that is an essential part of the British liberal tradition, indeed of the Western liberal tradition, of which people like Jenkins are highly civilized exemplars. That tradition is something that is very valuable. The problem is that it cannot explain or cope with whole areas of human experience and action from which "sweet reasonableness" is conspicuously absent. The Iran nuclear imbroglio provides an outstanding example. With that in mind I will now make a few observations touching on matters which really require to be dealt with in depth and at length.

The first thing to do in trying to understand the imbroglio is to note the blatant double standards that have been in operation. It is assumed that it is alright for Israel to have nuclear weapons, but not for any other Middle Eastern country. Indeed, the mere suspicion that Iran might want to have nuclear weapons, which will take years to make them usable, is a case for the West to right now prohibit uranium enrichment to Iran, a right that is allowed to all other NPT signatories, to impose sanctions that are meant to wreck the Iranian economy, and to threaten war that could take the form of bombing Iran to smithereens. My phrase "aggressive lunacy" is surely not excessive.

Militant Nationalism

We have to ask what makes Iran so special. There are three reasons, the first of which is that Iran is an example of the kind of militant nationalism that turns against the West, most particularly against the US. This is something over which the world should show sympathetic understanding because until 1979 Iran was under the heel of a brutal and exceptionally stupid leader, the Shah, who was seen as having degraded the Iranians, the creators of one of the great civilizations of the world, by his subservience to the Yanks. The second reason is that a nuclear Iran could want to bomb Israel. It is an idiotic supposition because if Iran is loony enough to commit that kind of aggression it will itself be wiped out by the US.

Anyway, the US will not tolerate any serious threat to Israel because the racists there clearly see Israel as an outpost of

white civilization serving to hold at bay the Islamic hordes. The third reason is that because of developments in recent years Iran is emerging as the potential leader of a Shia bloc in the Middle East. As a result of US aggression against Iraq, and its withdrawal from there with nothing positive accomplished for the US, the Iraqi Shias become the preponderant group, which could lead to the entirely unintended consequence of an enormous accretion of strength for Shia Iran.

For these reasons Iran is a very special phenomenon for the US and the West as a whole. A nuclear weapons India is clearly acceptable to the West, a nuclear weapons Pakistan may be tolerable provided fundamentalists don’t seize power there, but the prospect of a nuclear weapons Iran drives the West into a fit of aggressive lunacy. We must bear in mind the Iran-Iraq War which broke out in 1980, went on for nine terrible years, leaving a million Iranians and four hundred thousand Iraqis dead. It was a proxy war in which Iraq served as the proxy of the US and the West, backed by the oil billions of another US proxy, Saudi Arabia. A revealing little detail is that the US provided its full arsenal of biological and chemical weapons to Iraq for deployment against Iranian humanity. It showed the nasty murderousness that can be deployed against Iran by the West. We must view the present imbroglio in that perspective.

What should be done? Obviously accommodation should be sought along the lines indicated by Jenkins. The liberal tradition of "sweet reasonableness" represented by him is something that is very valuable, and is powerful enough in the West to possibly prevail over the aggressive lunacy that can bring disaster to the world as a whole. But something more than a temporary and provisional accommodation is required. Iran-West relations should be subjected to radical revision. The core problem is that there has prevailed in the West a serious misunderstanding about the nature of the 1979 Iranian Resolution. It is seen as fundamentalist and nothing else, representing a retrograde and aggressive Islam that has spawned terrorism among other things. In fact, the spread of fundamentalism and an associated terrorism was the consequence of the CIA-Saudi promotion of an international jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. I cannot go into the details here.

The Iranian Revolution should be viewed rather as an example of something very rare in history, a mass revolution. The historical evidence suggests that such revolutions tend to follow a certain trajectory: liberation followed by repression and Terror followed by the moderation of Thermidor followed by setbacks and the eventual formation of a new society. The probable reason for the eventual positive outcome is that when the masses are allowed some degree of participation in the political process the eventual outcome tends to be wholesome and positive. I will cite as an example the fact that at its inception the Iranian Revolution wanted the total suppression of females, whereas subsequent years witnessed their glorious emancipation. Iran has been practicing political pluralism which has been far more democratic than what has prevailed in the rest of the Islamic world over a long period. In the arts Iranian cinema has gained international recognition, with Abbas Kiorastami being given the accolade of the Asian successor to Satyajit Ray by the great Kurosawa. The further wholesome evolution of the Iranian Revolution has been held back by Western hostility, at the core of which is the racist idiocy of Israel. That hostility has tended to make the Iranians nervous about further liberalization. It is time for a radical review of Iran-West relations.