IRAN MUST NOT BECOME A PARTY TO ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
By: Nicholas. M. Gilani
Soon, it will be 23-years that the former revolutionaries, now uncomfortably positioned clerics-turned politicians, have trumpeted the cause of the Palestinian people (although mostly of the Hamas variety) by providing political, financial and some say, military support to groups fighting the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
I am not here to argue for or against the Palestinians or the Israelis. This tale is old and repetitious and in any event, appears to be reaching a climax in the next 12 months or so. What conclusion it may take the form of is the six-million-dollar question.
However, what I fear is the grave risk the clerical regime has placed Iran by conducting an unwarranted and religious-based anti-Israeli policy that may be on a collision course with Iran's long-term interests.
Iran, this cat-shaped nation, straddles five regions: (1) the Middle East (Iraq) and Turkey, (2) the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia), (3) the Persian Gulf (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman), (4) Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan) and (5) South Asia (Pakistan and India).
These regions are currently home to dysfunctional political systems that take the form of states with the following traits and characteristics:
* Armenia and Azerbaijan---forming states;
* Afghanistan-a non-state;
* Pakistan-a failing state;
* Saudi Arabia-a threatened and perhaps imploding state;
* Iraq-a renegade state;
* Turkey and Azerbaijan-- the first, a bullying state and the second, an ethnically threatening state.
In view of the above, what are Iran's national interests, those paramount and permanent codes of conduct that remain unchanged irrespective of the regime in Tehran?
Iran's national interests are:
1) Preservation of territorial integrity through secure and defensible borders;
2) Maintenance of ethnic and religious calm at a minimum and harmony at a maximum within Iran's borders;
3) Unimpeded ability to modernise Iran's defensive weapons capabilities including those involving a limited tactical nuclear deterrence—without engendering pre-emptive strikes from concerned states such as the US or Israel;
4) Creating and expanding regional markets for Iranian capital, goods and services (including the export of skilled and semi skilled labor);
5) Maintaining friendly relations with the West in general and the United States in particular, while reserving the right to say "no" to it without causing the US' wrath (the so-called China model);
6) Curtailing the flow of narcotics into Iran;
7) Encouraging the use of Iranian territory as a point of transhipments for oil, natural gas and other commodities, thereby earning fee-based income;
8) Preserving the uninterrupted exploration, production and transportation of energy supplies from the Persian Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz into the Arabian Sea and beyond;
Threats emanating from Iran's neighbours are either through contagion, i.e., by simply being neighbours or malignant through intentionally malicious acts.
The challenge before any policy maker is to safeguard Iran's national interests in the face of neighbouring dysfunctional states. Any Iranian strategist would have his/her hand full, when one considers the potential harm each of these states are capable of delivering to Iran.
It behoves any sensible and patriotic Iranian policymaker to pay attention to what is happening not only at Iran's back door, but also its front and side doors!
Unfortunately however, the clerics in Tehran seem to have closed their eyes to these imminent realities and continue instead to hold on tight to the coattails of a long simmering ethnic conflict between two peoples, both rightly entitled to a wretched and woefully small piece of arid real estate, smaller than some private game ranches in the state of Montana!!
May I remind the "brothers" in Tehran that any threats that Iran has faced in the past, as recent as 1980, emanated from neighbours that either coveted Iran's territory or its peoples. Iraq or the republic of Azerbaijan from the old Soviet Union are recent examples. The Ottoman Turks in World War I and prior to that (all the way to the Battle of Chaldaran) are more distant ones. Both Turkey and the Republic of Azerbaijan are perhaps future threats to Iran.
Israel, on the other hand, by virtue of its being surrounded by Arab states with deeply hostile populace, not only cannot be regarded as a threat to Iran, but in fact, it could be viewed as a potential and immensely powerful and influential ally to Iran--this precious land of Ferdowsi.
It is my belief that it would be highly desirable to neutralise the menacing designs some of Iran's neighbours have on its territory by gaining the neutrality, at a minimum, and good will, at a maximum, of nations such as Israel.
Let us face it. Iran is not and should not be a party to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It does not serve Iran's national interests to advocate the Palestinian cause beyond simple humanitarian gestures. Iranians cannot be more Catholic than the Pope.
Israel, together with its lobby can help Iran gets its message across in Washington in ways that no Arab money could ever will. Until Iranian-Americans have reached that critical mass to lobby in Washington for Iran's strategic interests on its behalf, Iran should not bring about Israel's wrath upon itself. In fact, it should never do that. Period.
Because, once again, IT DOES NOT SERVE IRAN'S NATIONAL INTERESTS.
ENDS IRAN ISRAEL PAL COMMENT 15402
Editor’s note: Mr. Nicholas M. Gilani is an Iranian-American investment banker in California.
He has contributed the above comment to Iran Press Service
Highlights are from IPS