 Dangerous chess: Baghdad endgame
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United Nations — As war clouds gather on Iraq’s horizons and the clock for Saddam’s survival ticks louder, the U.S. and Britain would be well advised to look beyond the obvious, and consider the endgame in Baghdad. In other words, will a post-Saddam Iraq slide into the chaos of fragmented opposition groups or ultimately under the shadow of Islamic Iran?
A complex geopolitical chess game confronts Washington planners. During hostilities with Iraq, our biggest mistake would be to tilt towards the mullah regime in Teheran as a way to pressure Baghdad. Following Saddam’s ouster there will be a dangerous power vacuum in Iraq which may play into the hands of neighboring Iran. I’m not only speaking about Iranian support of Shiite Moslem resistance to Saddam but the equally deep strategic goals in Teheran, which looks to a weakened Iraq as a sphere of influence.
Playing the Ayatollah’s against Saddam can bring short-term tactical gain but longer term political instability. Catering to the seemingly moderate mullahs to offset the dictator in Baghdad would be an ironic political volte face of earlier policies when the West backed Iraq in the 1980’s against revolutionary Iran. Such a policy is ill advised and reckless.
Iran forms Iraq’s eastern frontier. And let’s not forget that it was Islamic Iran in the 1980’s that systematically supported radical Islamic fundamentalism and sponsored terrorism based on a seething hatred of the U.S.. That agenda, predated the more predictable threats from the nationalistic Iraqi dictator.
Politically Iran is in ferment. And while the Islamic rulers have played the game of hardliner versus moderate, the bottom line remains that the country has suffered socially, politically, and economically under the mullah’s regime. Persian culture has moreover been taken hostage by the fundamentalists.
There are many political alternatives in Iran — many of them favor a secular democracy which would restore Iran’s once close ties to the U.S.. A key opposition figure remains the exiled Reza Pahlavi, son of the last Shah of Iran. Reza calls for a referendum among Iranians which would choose the country’s political future.
In a recent address to the National Press Club in Washington DC, Reza Pahlavi, confronted the daunting challenges facing his homeland. Why is Iran so important?
“Iran is the pivotal country in the Middle East…a change in Iraq is necessary...but a change in Iran would have direct impact in the region,” he stated adding, “It would put an end to the challenge of this regime to export its utopian vision of a radicalized Islam to the world, regionally and beyond to foment violence to finance terrorist organizations, to develop weapons of mass destruction, to be behind all these elements of instability and only for one reason — their own survival.”
Ironically despite being a major petroleum producer Iran has actually seen its once higher standard of living slide backwards under the Ayatollahs. Reza Pahlavi lamented, “Iran is a county that is in the top three or four oil producers in the world yet we are not even in the first 100 economies in the world, and more fifty percent of Iranian society lives under the poverty line. There is something wrong with this picture.”
The reasons are manifold, “We have 23 years of experience with a theocratic regime that took out country back to Medieval times, to a point that the slightest question, challenge or criticism of the regime itself constitutes a criminal offices, many times punishable by death.”
Reza Pahlavi implored, “I believe that the world is about five years behind the curve of where we are right now. Iran is in a state of implosion.” While this is certain, a swirling vortex of political forces are yet to be set in motion.
This is precisely why Washington must prepare a pro-active policy to effect change in Iran by assisting democratic opposition groups. In this geopolitical chess game, the U.S. must not only to oust Saddam in Iraq, but as significantly, plan the coup de grace to topple the mullahs in Islamic Iran.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
