Ahmadinejad: The Latest Accessory for US-British Dominance in the Middle East?

Originally published in Shahrvand English (N° 49) – November 1, 2005 

Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s categorical declaration this past week, that Israel ‘should be wiped off the map’, resonated through the international community like a morbid bell that had not been run in over a decade; and already world leaders are echoing back their displeasure, disgust and disturbance at the fundamentalist pronouncements of the newly ‘elected’ flag-bearer of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  

Personally, my first reaction was one of confusion. The way the news was broken across the world through the usual cabal of media release points, it sounded almost like a declaration of war. I am sure I wasn’t the only Iranian who shook his head with the thought that what everyone had feared when Mr. Ahmadinejad was elected had finally come to happen. After all, this was a man who had claimed the election as his based on a platform of return to the original values of the Islamic Republic, and a man who believed in the strict principles of the theocracy he was inheriting as strongly as anyone, since the death of Ayathollah Khomeini. In fact, one could safely say that, at least from what was seen from outside the country, everyone was surprised at the absence of any radical action or rhetoric, which most were expecting. Well, that wait ended quite suddenly with the news of his statements.  

At first, it was a struggle to try and understand the statement. I realized that the only way to understand this was to ask some simple questions. The first question that I asked was, ‘What is there to be gained by making such a statement?’ In retrospect, I think part of the confusion was as a result of the, dare I say, ‘oddly’ violent reaction shown by the international community to the statement. I do not in anyway, condone or even support the idea relayed by Mr. Ahmadinejad, but one must keep a proper perspective. Such anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist statements have been common place in the Islamic republic since its inception. All one has to do is take a walk down any street in Tehran, and slogans such as “death to Israel” or “down with the Zionists” are visible on most walls. While such rhetoric was a shock to the world at the beginning, after twenty-seven years of the same, it begins to look a lot like what it really is, meaningless rhetoric.  

So the next logical question would have to be, ‘who would benefit from this  debacle?’

Nonetheless, with Iran being under such scrutiny as it currently is for its nuclear activities, it did not make sense – in a logical world – for the president of the country to make such a statement. So the answer to the first question would be, ‘nothing for Iran’.  

So the next logical question would have to be, ‘who would benefit from this  debacle?’ Ironically enough, the closest answer would be the very same people who have most strongly condemned the action, that is to say, the US and Israel. Admittedly, the scenario comes off as conspiratorial, but if it makes sense why not? Let us look at the situation from a wider standpoint. Iran and the aforementioned have been locked in a battle for over a year now, over Iran’s nuclear situation.  

While, justly enough, most countries would not like a Nuclear-armed Iran, most have tried to deal with the situation diplomatically. Only the US and Israel have insisted that this is perhaps not the best way to deal with the situation, with Israel going as far as threatening to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, in an Osirak-style strike, in the name of self-defence. (As an amusing aside, considering the fact that Israel, unlike Iran, does have nuclear warheads and is not party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which country is the more threatened, Iran or Israel?)  

Until the election of this past summer, in light of the cooperation of Iran with the IAEA and the European countries, the case to take Iran to the Security Council or more radically to attempt military action against Iran was getting harder and harder to justify. In the meantime, the US continued to push the argument that Iran was getting nearer and nearer to nuclear armament in the face of various published reports arguing that Iran was years away from reaching such military aspirations. However, without any warning, only several weeks after the election, the nuclear activities recommenced, and the government began to speak more defiantly than before, to the point that even the European negotiators and the IAEA decided that they would be willing to refer the case to the Security Council.  

Nonetheless, despite all this and in the absence of any real evidence, the chances of a resolution being passed against the Islamic Republic were not too strong. However, with this new debacle, the parties who were never interested in diplomacy have the chance to pick this up and run with it, case in point Mr. Blair’s reaction in saying “Can you imagine a state like that with an attitude like that having a nuclear weapon?” Even the BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson hinted that Mr. Blair’s comments carried an “implicit threat of military action.”  

I suppose the point is that the whole situation comes about in a way that is almost too convenient, starting from the actual ‘election’ of Mr. Ahmadinejad. This was a candidate that almost literally came out of nowhere to win the election. He was an unknown entity until he became the mayor of Tehran in 2003, and none took his presidential candidacy too seriously even though he was the candidate that was backed by Ayatollah Khamenei, which should have meant something.  

Moreover, everyone knew what he was about: he was one who had fundamentalist views and would implement them the way they had been during the time of the  creator of this regime – and perhaps it was for this reason that none took his candidacy seriously. However, he managed to not only make to the Presidential run-off but to actually win despite the fact that everyone, even the reform supporters, were urging the voters to elect Mr. Rafsanjani. The fact, then, that he should make such statements upon being put in the seat of power can not be claimed as a surprise.  

Thus, his coming into power, as strange and unforeseen as it was, definitely created the proper environment for the making of controversy, and controversy and unexpected events have been the driving engine behind the US-Britain push for dominance in the Middle East.  

If one even chooses to put on the conspiracy-theorists’ hat, one can say that this was the very reason that he was able to succeed into such a position of power. One needs not go as far as saying that he was told to say such a thing. All that is needed to be said is that, when there is a person of such beliefs out there, all one needs to do is prepare the path for his ascension to power, and the rest will take care of itself.  

Furthermore, Mr. Ahmadinejad, following this performance, has the chance to become the newest member of a cast of convenient characters that have appeared at the proper time in the Middle East in order to assure proper justification for outside intervention in the politics of the region. For Afghanistan to be taken there was Osama Bin Laden; for Iraq to be taken there was Saddam Hussein. Will we, one day in the future, find ourselves saying that for Iran to be taken Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was there?  

Perhaps one needs not even to go to such extremes, to see a benefit for the powers that be. This could just be another tool to put more pressure on Iran in the nuclear duel.  

Unfortunately, whatever the motivation or the consequence of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s statement may be, one cannot help but fear that ultimately those who will be hurt most by it, will, as usual, be the Iranian people. Be it as a result of eventual sanctions, or due to misconceptions of the international community towards them; such as through the unfortunate portrayal of the ‘anti-Israel rallies’ in Tehran which anyone who has been aware of the state of the country since the revolution would know are nothing but trivial and ritualistic demonstrations of the regime’s ideology attended by a negligibly small percentage that have probably been put up to the task; it is very hard to believe the regime when they state that Mr. Ahmadinejad speaks for the Iranian people, and that he expresses the opinion of the nation. Such extreme lines of thought only exist in ideologies, and in the minds of extremists, not the beliefs of a people who simply want to have the rights that are and should be afforded to all free people. 

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