The recent passage of the NDAA codified into law the disturbing notion that the United States should approach the entire world, including its own territory, as a battlefield. With an emerging consensus of liberal internationalists and neoconservatives behind this expansion of government’s scope, the U.S. now scans the globe in search of vaguely defined terrorists, and so regards conflict with Iran as inevitable. Our sprawling international military reach, our loose regard for national borders, and the fading of our own Constitutional rights continues, because our politicians claim that these steps away from our freedom are necessary to prevent future terrorist attacks…against our freedom!
But has this policy, the diplomatic equivalent of shooting first and asking questions later, really resulted in the lessening of violent Islamic extremism in the Middle East? In 2003, President Bush claimed that American forces were helping the Afghanis “secure their country, rebuild their society, and educate all their children.” Over a decade later,can we still claim to believe in this nation building by force in the Middle East, or have we further unleashed the forces of religious factionalism by endless, boundless wars? Though the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan went well in their early stages, it soon became clear that the plan for the reconstruction of those nations ignored the complex political arrangements lost in the simplified presentation of a single enemy in the case for war.
Now the same false premise of a monolithic enemy is again being sold in the case against Iran. The media always simply presents a monolithic Islamic regime headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But the supreme religious leader Ayatollah Khamenei actively fights for power with the secular administration of Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad is himself the target of aggressive censorship by Iran’s supreme religious leaders, who openly regard him as a political rival.
Ignoring Iran’s internal political conflicts allows the assumption that Iran wouldn’t shy from its assured destruction should it use nuclear weapons, and would embark on an apocalyptic mission to annihilate Israel, regardless of any retaliation from the West. This simplified narrative of impending cataclysm ignores the voices of those who have studied the complex motives of the Iranian regime, who don’t see Iran as suicidal. General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently stated in an interview that he believes Iran to be a rational actor.
Indeed, though it seems like a distant memory, prior to President Bush’s identification of Iran as part of the “axis of evil”, Iranians held a vigil in memory of victims of the 9/11, and even offered support to the US in its mission to track down Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. As one further investigates the history and political situation of Iran, the simple narrative of the single-minded apocalyptic Iranian threat dissolves like the political fairy tale it has always been.
Pakistan, for example, has existed as a nuclear-armed state with a similar internal conflict between radical Islamic and secular forces for over a decade, without them embarking on a first strike. To facilitate peace in these nations, America should approach them without the presumption of their malice, which would tip the delicate balance of power toward the liberalized elements of the society.
America cannot continue fighting wars based on mere suspicions which no hard facts have confirmed. Widespread internal discontent with oppressive rulers in the Middle East is itself the best weapon against the plots of a narrow, non-representative interest of radical religious leaders. Yet Republicans and Democrats have been edging us toward war with Iran since 2001, only increasing the power and influence of the violent radical Muslim minority in that country by our threats.
