Wednesday, October 25, 2006

NUCLEAR IRAN : REGIONAL IMPLICATIONS

Dr Maqsudul Hasan Nuri, Senior Research Fello, IPRI, Islamabad

Introduction

O n 12 April 2006 Iran ’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made an important announcement, declaring that Iran had mastered the nuclear fuel cycle for uranium enrichment. He reiterated that Iran ’s nuclear energy was for peaceful purposes and not for manufacturing nuclear weapons. This assurance, however, is somehow not accepted by the US and EU countries, who remain deeply suspicious of Iran ’s nuclear programme.

This paper is speculative in nature and involves crystal gazing as it is based on the supposition, that given compulsions and dynamics, Iran will become a nuclear state in due course of time. The speculation is, however dependent upon various assessments.

At this point of time we have to see that as and when Iran crosses the Rubicon, how is its nuclearised status going to be viewed by its immediate neighbours.? Would it turn out to be a factor of stability or instability due to the new nuclear balance of power created in the Middle East.? What are the variables that could intervene? The study ends with some projections — short and long term and envisages likely scenarios of nuclearised Iran in the Middle East .

Background

Needless to say that Iranian civilization is one of the greatest civilizations that ruled in the past wide swathes of territory in eastern Africa , vIiddle East (ME) and parts of Eastern Europe , Central Asia and Western India . Imperial Iran ’s influence, especially under Darius and Cyrus the Great, is well recorded in history)

In recent history, Iran ’s decision to acquire a dominating role in the Gulf was taken before the announcement of Britain ’s withdrawal from the Persian Gulf in January 1968. The fact that Iran was already contemplating these moves before the British withdrawal, gave it great advantage in seeking to shape future events in the region. In November 1970, strike power of its armed forces was demonstrated in a military exercise, near the island of Beni Ferur , an Iranian possession in the Gulf. These maneuvers brought home the point that Iran would acquire undisputed leadership in the Gulf after the British exit. Before this, in a statement on 1 April 1968 , Tehran said that “it would reserve all its rights in the Persian Gulf adding that “these islands belonged to them, before they fell into the hands of present owners in the 19th century, it reserved the right to use force to reclaim them.”

When the British withdrew from the Persian Gulf in November 1971, Iran militarily occupied the three barren islands of Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tombs, near the 21-mile wide entrance to the Straits of Hormuz. Later on, it had a prolonged military involvement in Oman , while fighting against the Dafur rebellion. (1972-77).

Shah’s hegemonic control over the Gulf served three main aims of the US: one, to safeguard the regime against internal subversion, sponsored directly or indirectly by hostile Arab states or Soviet proxies; two, to ensure free transit through the Straits of Hormu the Gulf and Shatt el Arab; and three, to protect oil resources and facilities, both on and offshore against deliberate accidental threats. The Shah’s call for establishing Indian Ocean Community was one such attempt to oust foreign powers from the region.

The reinvention of Iran as an Islamic republic after the ouster of Shah did not change Iran ’s perception as a regional power. The first Gulf War against Iraq in Kuwait (1991-92) was seen as attempt by the US to establish its position in the region. Throughout the 1990s, Iran repeatedly called for withdrawal of US troops from the region and was reminiscent of the same tone used earlier that the security of the Gulf region should be left to regional powers alone.

When US invited herself to the region, Iran was initially relieved to see the ouster of two neighboring forces that were at variance with her ideological moorings. These were the two regimes: the Taliban of Afghanistan and Saddam Hussain of Iraq . However it was not until the last three years or so when the US forces got entrenched there for seemingly long haul, that Iran ’s eyebrows were raised from the US forces that could be seen as a bid for hegemony for Pax Americana.

Should Iran become a nuclear weapon state in a couple of years from now it will change the security landscape of the Southwest Asia, ME, Central Asia and South Asia. Although it calls itself as ‘ Near East ’ rather than ME country the impact felt in the region and abroad will be strong and reverberating.

Presently, there is an ongoing war of words between US and Iran on the charge that Iran has contravened the provisions of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); that it has not reported its activities for the last 18 years till detected and that it is secretly developing all wherewithal required for building of nuclear weapons. Alleged nuclear weapon ambitions, in tandem with some of the inflammatory statements by the newly elected hard]iner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have fuelled fears of Iran ’s so-called belligerent designs. Not only the US , but of late, the EU countries are feeling uneasy about Iran ’s intentions and think, that in case it manufactures N- weapons, it will destabilize the entire region.

Iranian calculus and rationale is based on the following lines: given its hostile relations with US for the last 28 years or so, and the recent ‘encirclement’ by US troops, it must build its defences, of which nuclear weapons could be pivotal as a means of deterrence. Besides, it needs to diversify its abundant resources for development. It claims that it is not making nuclear weapons but wants peaceful use of nuclear energy for development. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), after all, provides the right to all countries to gain access to all forms of N- energy, including uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing under adequate “safeguards.”

Iran feels that it is unjustly targeted for political reasons. The Iranians contend that if North Korea has acquired N- weapons together with Pakistan and India without signing the NPT, ostensibly there should be no justification to deny it the option of peaceful generation of N-energy.

While the common Iranian does not talk of nuclear weapons, the unstated assumption with many is: In the event of acquisition of N- weapons by North Korea , the US attitude had markedly changed from confrontation to tacit acceptance. Similarly, in the case of Pakistan , accused of ‘buying’ nuclear technology from open market, the US stance has since changed as it has become a major non-NATO ally. Also, for decision makers in Iran , the case of Iraq starkly stands out: perhaps it could not have been invaded and occupied if it had possessed N -weapons. Besides, for most Iranians acquiring nuclear fuel cycle has become a trademark of nationalistic pride and sovereignty.

How is it that the US is allergic to Iran ’s becoming a nuclear state? The fact is that Iran does not have any expansionist designs but it is the Islamic character and its recent provocative statements that act as bugbear for the Americans. Besides, the history of the 1979 US embassy hostage crisis, blowing up of US marine barracks in 1983 in Beirut and of Khobar towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 haunt the US memories. US suspects Al-Qaeda cadres on Iranian soil and smells Iranian involvement in the troubled Iraq .

In the US estimations, both Iran and North Korea stand as ‘rogue states.’ North Korea opted out of NPT regime and is in possession of N- weapons and is perceived as a threat by neighbors. Iran , on the other hand, is a signatory to NPT, is clubbed as “axis of evil” as it poses major challenge to the US policies in ME. While the former is an impoverished and isolated state, Iran is bigger in size and richer in resources. Hence in order to deal with the two ‘difficult’ regimes the US is using the six-party talks and EU-3 mechanism.

However, there is one important difference: North Korea is a declared N- power while Iran is not. Also, the stakes for US are greater in the ME due to oil resources and the preservation of the Israeli state to which the latter i committed.

Implications for the Region

A heated debate is raging on Iran ’s nuclear crisis and the US — Iran nuclear row, with implications for the future. In other words, the question frequently posed is that if and when Iran acquires a nuclear arsenal how will it impact the region?

Some observers view this in deterministic terms, given Iran ’s peculiar security dilemma and as a culmination of Persian nationalism; it merits its right to gain nuclear technology under NPT provisions. Others, especially th US and some EU countries, see any acquiring of N-weapons as a real danger to peace in a volatile Gulf region. Needless to say, for the Iranian leadership, the nuclear question has become an issue of national sovereignty, a right for national development and a symbol for national unity.

If Iran chooses to become a nuclear weapon state it would substantially alter the security landscape of the region. The “war of words” was in evidence between US a Iran since early 2006.

There are two schools of thought on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) On the one hand, it is posited that nuclear weapons induce prudence and restraint. The example of two superpowers in the Cold War era is often cited, though they did undertake many frightening risks like the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The other view holds that WMDs, including nuclear weapons, may increase propensity for bravado and risk taking. The classic example that comes to mind is of Saddam Hussain’s Iraq regional policy of aggression after acquiring chemical and biological weapons (1989-90) when it attacked Kuwait in 1990; similarly, In the Indo-Pak subcontinent the Kashmir border crisis (May-July 1999) took place under the cover of N- umbrella. Though it cannot be predicted about Iran ’s diplomacy, it showed some aggressive behaviour against Azerbaijan in 2001 (to halt explorations of oil in the disputed Caspian Sea ) and repeated rebuffs to IAEA.

Theoretically speaking, if internal reforms in Iran come to a grinding halt and the regime flounder, or come under extreme threat, it could direct aggression against its external enemies and in desperation, even resort to use of N-weapons. Admittedly this is a dire scenario but given the ideological nature of the regime and its visceral animus against the Israeli state and the US this cannot be ruled out. In any case, for the bristling ME, an addition of nuclear weapon state will mean more fingers on nuclear triggers.

Arab Neighbours

Iranian-Arab rivalry is rooted in history and has remained latent despite US designation of Iran and Saudi Arabia as "twin pillars’ of Cold War containment policy. After the Islamic revolution under Ayottolah Khomeini, this fear became more pronounced as Iran’s brand of anti-US Sbiite Islam was ardently advocated for the overthrow of US-supported corrupt non-Shiite regimes in the Arab World. However, the Iranian model had little resonance because of Shia—Sunni schism and the fact that many affluent oil rich economies of the region had little appeal for Iran ’s radicalism.

In the 1980s, Iran came under sanctions, followed by the debilitating Iraq-Iran war, thus creating a wedge between the Arabs and Iranians. There was a short period under pro-reformist Khatamai regime in the opening up with Arab world but it has lately been reversed by the posture of the new hard-line President leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who assumed office in August 2005.

The Arab countries are uneasy over Iran ’s becoming nuclear but at the same time they do not share the alarmist perspectives of the US and EU. They want the Middle East to be declared as Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) that would deprive Israel of N-weapons. This is a convenient way of taking a position against Israel without openly criticizing Iran . But knowing that neither is there any possibility that US would disarm Israel nor would Israel voluntarily forswear its N-weapons, the Arabs generally tend to take a fatalistic view.

The Arabs know that Iran will not use these weapons against them, as these are primarily meant for the US and Israel . Moreover, they are already under the nuclear umbrella. However, pressure could be exacted if Iran comes under sanctions or military strikes are directed against it. Most of the Gulf States trade with Iran and, most likely, they would suffer if the Persian Gulf is closed for maritime traffic. They would let the US and EU do the “dirty bidding” of pressurizing Iran to stop its N- weapons and in the process hope that things do not escalate.

Large Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia , Egypt , Syria and others do not claim to voice openly their worries about emergence of Iran as a nuclear weapon state. In fact, some of them viz., Egypt, Syria and Libya, on their volition, have turned their back on nuclear weapon programme, mainly for lack of resources, financial inducements or fear of reprisals from major powers. Following the 1973 Arab boycott, their relations relaxed after the 1989 Egypt-Israel Treaty, followed by the 1993 Oslo Accords. However, Syria and Lebanon have kept strong contacts with Iran out of the 22 Arab League members.

Today, some Arab nations trade with Israel through third countries. However, opposition at the public level remains strong against Israel . Given the historical nature of Iranian-Arab relations and the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war latent tension still persists.

GCC Countries

GCC countries face a profound dilemma. In the recent crisis, they are not taking any active role. They blame both the US and Iran for “vitiating” regional security and deplore lack of contacts between them.

GCC countries, together with the US , have been creating balance of power in the region from 1971-78, when the US designated Saudi Arabia and Iran as “twin pillars” of security in the Gulf region. During the 1980s, they, in deference, to the US , supported Iraq as counterweight to revolutionary Islamic Iran. With a brief interlude in the 1 they tilted towards reformist Iran , when it signed a number of agreements on policing, drug traffic and arms smuggling. However since 2003, they fear the loss of Iraq as a “counterweight” to Iran and Iran ’s rising power status manifested in quest for nuclear weapons. Further, they fear the rise of Shiite crescent in the region, headed by Iranian clerical leadership.

The GCC options are limited: to ignore Iran ’s rising power, to accept US protection or go nuclear for protection. Moreover, they fear a war between the US , a superpower, their “security guarantor” and Iran , their largest and most powerful neighbour. They are convinced that Iran is on road to nuclear proliferation and is reaching the point of no return. Besides, they are concerned that if a war breaks out — the fourth major regional conflict in the region since the 1980s— perforce, they might be drawn into the conflict.

For the GCC countries, considerations of “democracy” in Iraq or N- armed Iran are as not as pressing issues of security insofar as they happen to be “consumers” and not “providers” of security. So, while they do not want Iran to become nuclear, they also do not share the alarmist perspectives of the US and EU. They want the Gulf region to become Nuclear Weapon Free Zone) NWFZ. This is a way of taking the issue against Israel , without criticizing Iran openly. While cognizant of the fact that Iran will not use N- weapons against them as the latter’s N-programme is primarily against the US and Israel , they are nevertheless concerned about increased pressures, if the US sanctions or attacks Iran .

For the Gulf States ’s trade and business with Iran will suffer if the Gulf is closed due to outbreak of hostilities. In the event that Iran acquires nuclear capability they may be coerced to toe Iran ’s line. In any case, they cannot do much to dissuade either parties, except pleading for dialogue and peace. Hence, their advice to the US is not to push Iran towards confrontation, not marginalize it and rectify the balance in the region between a strong Iran and a weakened Iraq .

Text courtesy from the author's article printed in IPRI Journal Summer 2006 issue-ed.

A Song, A Blast And The Indian Media's 'Secular' Pretensions

By Yoginder Sikand

15 September, 2006

Bias against Muslims is deeply-rooted in large sections of the Hindu-owned media in India, even in influential sections of the English press that prides itself in its claim of being 'secular' and 'progressive'. Two ongoing controversies-the Vande Mataram affair and the Malegaon bomb blasts-suffice to confirm this argument.

Some weeks ago, Indian newspapers were awash with reports about Muslims protesting against the suggestion that all children studying in schools be forced to sing the Vande Mataram song, which, numerous Hindu-owned newspapers, television channels and politicians declared, was India's 'national song'. Refusal to sing this song, they claimed, was a thoroughly 'un-patriotic' act, suggesting, thereby, that Muslims, by definition, were 'anti-national'. Consequently, Muslims were forced, as they often are, to prove their patriotic credentials, and the overall result of this sordid controversy was to only further reinforce deeply-rooted anti-Muslim feelings among many non-Muslim Indians.

Media projection and coverage of the Vande Mataram controversy was cleverly contrived to put Muslims in the dock and to defend a certain vision of Indian nationalism that is framed in 'upper' caste Brahminical Hindu terms, in which Muslims, Dalits and other non-'upper' caste Hindu communities have little or no space for their identities, aspirations and interests. Few 'mainstream' Indian papers cared to mention crucial facts of the history of the controversial song. The Vande Mataram is part of a novel, the Anandmath, which reeks of anti-Muslim hatred and is the rallying cry of Brahminical Hinduism that is premised on an unrelenting hatred of Muslims. The was the novel written by Bankim Chandra Chatterji, a late nineteenth century Bengali Brahmin, a major cult figure in Hindu 'nationalist' circles.

The crux of the novel is an ardent appeal to Hindus to rally against and slaughter Muslims and drive them out of India . The Vande Mataram, sung as a war-cry to rouse Hindu mobs against Muslims, exhorts Hindus to do all this for the sake of the Mother-India deified as the Brahminical goddess Kali or Durga. Curiously enough for a song that is projected by its advocates as the emblem of Indian nationalism, the novel ends with the hero welcoming the British take-over of India . 'Now the British have arrived', the hero exclaims with ill-concealed glee, 'and our wealth and lives will be safe'. 'The subjects [Hindus] would be happy in the English kingdom', he goes on, '[.] [so] refrain from waging war with the Englishmen [.] Your mission has been successful-you have performed [sic.] well-being of the Mother-the English reign has been established'. Now that the Muslims have been killed and driven out and their place has been taken by the British, the hero concludes, the Hindus should accept the British as their 'ally'.

Hardly the stuff that one would expect from a song that is bandied about as the herald of Indian nationalism and anti-imperialism. Even more curious in this regard is the fact, which the 'mainstream' media probably has deliberately sought to conceal, that Bankim Chandra Chatterji was hardly the ardent 'nationalist' that he is made out to be. In 1858 he was appointed to the post of Deputy Magistrate by the British, the first Indian to enjoy that dubious distinction in the immediate aftermath of the failed Indian Revolt of 1857. When he retired from that post he was conferred with the titles of Rai Bahadur and Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire by the British, an 'honour' reserved, of course, only for pro-British toadies.

From the very start, when Brahminical revivalists in the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha began insisting that the Vande Mataram must be made India's national song, Muslims and other non-Hindu communities angrily protested. There was no reason, they argued, why non-Hindus should be forced to worship a Hindu deity, even if in the form of 'Mother India', suggesting that the equation of Indian nationalism with Brahminical Hinduism was aimed at excluding non-Hindus from the definition of the 'national mainstream'. The Muslim argument, which has been repeated ad nauseum and highlighted in the Urdu press in the course of the recent controversy, is that the novel of which the song forms a part is clearly anti-Muslim and, furthermore, the Vande Mataram's appeal to prostrate before to and worship the Mother, in the form of Durga incarnated in the guise of India, is forbidden in Islam, a fair enough point that any non-Hindu would make.

However, in the heat and din of the recent controversy, the 'mainstream' Indian media, some notable exceptions aside, shamelessly shed all pretensions of 'secularism' and made it out to be that by refusing to sing the song Muslims were demonstrating that they had no love for India and that they were 'anti-national'. The point of how a mere song could be the test of Indian nationalism, the issue of the political context of the song, the clearly anti-Muslim thrust of the Anandmath and Bankim Chandra Chatterji's own collaboration with the British, were all carefully glossed over. Nor did the 'mainstream' media raise the obvious point that forcible extraction of demonstrations of 'patriotism' by Muslims unwilling to sing the song were pointless and completely farcical. And the fact that the mounting insecurity and threats to their life, property and identity that many Indian Muslims face today at the hands of the votaries of the Vande Mataram, a situation that is hardly conducive to promote passionate demonstration of love for the country, was completely lost on the 'mainstream' media, which was awash with stories of Muslims singing or not singing the song.

It is not that both the Congress, votary of 'soft' Hindutva, the hardcore Hindutva lobby and the 'mainstream' media were unaware of the fact that appealing to or forcing all Indian school-going children, including Muslims, to sing the song would be stiffly opposed by most Muslims, for there has been a long history of Muslim opposition to this. In fact, it appears that it was hardly the intention of the ardent advocates of the song to promote patriotism by advising that all school-children sing it. Rather, it seems obvious that the brouhaha about the song was simply yet another stick for Hindutva fascists to beat Muslims with, to force them to accept their diktats and to terrorise them with threats of being expelled from India simply because of their refusal to sing a song that even most Hindus do not know and which fewer Hindus know the meaning of, being in highly Sanskritised Bengali. But this, of course, was a point that few 'mainstream' newspapers refused to point out, thus clearly revealing their underlying anti-Muslim bias and the fact that their perception of Indian nationalism is firmly within the framework of Brahminical Hinduism.

Another glaring instance of clear anti-Muslim prejudice in large sections of the 'mainstream' Indian media is the coverage of the recent blasts outside a mosque in Malegaon that claimed almost forty Muslim lives. While the Mumbai train blasts this July hogged the headlines for days, the Malegaon tragedy has received relatively little attention, probably because the victims in this case are Muslims. The identity of the perpetrators of the Mumbai train blasts is yet to be ascertained, but police, intelligence agencies and the media are insistent on what they claim, was an 'Islamist terrorist' hand. Consequently, hundreds of Muslims were arrested in the aftermath of the blasts. The contrast with the Malegaon blasts could not have been more striking. While it is entirely plausible that they could have been the handiwork of Hindutva activists and while the likelihood of Muslims being behind them extremely remote, if not impossible, the media is awash with stories that argue the unlikely thesis of a hidden 'radical Islamist' or Pakistani ISI hand behind the blasts and the theory that they could have been the fallout of intra-Muslim sectarian rivalries. It is as if Hindus could never commit such an act of terror, the hundreds of anti-Muslim pogroms in India which thousands of people have lost their lives in recent decades notwithstanding.

That probably explains why it is that, in contrast to the massive wave of arrests and harassment of Muslims in the wake of the Mumbai train blasts, the police have not deemed it necessary to arrest or question rabidly anti-Muslim Hindutva activists, who may possibly have been behind the blasts, on any significant scale in Malegaon and thereabouts. Nor is the 'mainstream' media demanding this. Instead, the Malegaon blasts appear to be fast disappearing from the screens and pages of the 'mainstream' media, being replaced now with stories about the court cases relating to the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai in which some Muslims are said to have been involved.

Even here the reporting is obviously biased and skewed, for few newspapers have cared to view these blasts, as they should be, in the backdrop of the widespread anti-Muslim violence in large parts of India just a year before in the wake of the destruction of the Babri Masjid, in which thousands of Muslims were slaughtered in cold blood by Hindu mobs. Needless to say, the non-Muslim Indian media, by and large, is supremely unconcerned about justice to the families of the several hundred Muslims slain by Hindu gangsters in league with the elements in the police and the administration in Mumbai itself just weeks prior to the serial blasts and which must have provoked the perpetrators of the blasts to do what they did. Nor is the media talking about justice for the almost three thousand hapless Muslim victims of the state-sponsored massacre in Gujarat in 2002 and their relatives, and the victims of innumerable other such bouts of bloody anti-Muslim violence that do not seem to deserve any more than passing mention, if at all, on television screens and in obscure corners of some odd newspaper.

So much, then, for the 'secular', 'patriotic' pretensions of the Indian 'mainstream' media.

The author works with the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi , and moderates an online discussion group called South Asian Leftists Dialoguing With Religion