Containment of Iran
Since the US and its western allies managed to defeat the Soviet Union and Communism, it should be easier to defeat Iran and Islamic terrorism. After all the Soviet Union was a huge and well armed nuclear power that was in direct conflict with the West and had a much larger population (over 300 million) than Iran (68 million) and was much more industrialized.
So superficially it might seem that using the same strategy that defeated the USSR would work against the lesser enemy of Iran. The strategy used by the US against the USSR was "containment," i.e. not allowing the USSR to expand its political system into other areas. After the Iron Curtain was raised across Europe, the US and western European nations had armed forces on alert to prevent any military expansion of the USSR and was always active in attempting to defeat their tactics, such as the Berlin airlift of 1948-9. The Wars in Korea and Vietnam were undertaken by UN forces in order to prevent further Communist expansionism, although with mixed success.
The policy of Containment was attributed to George F. Kennan, a leading US diplomat and defense expert, who in 1947 published an article proposing this approach that was taken up by the US Defense establishment. After the Vietnam War, as both sides realized that neither could win any direct military engagement, the US Govt. policy changed to that of Detente. It seems that now we need a restatement of such a containment policy to encompass the Shi'ite revolutionary regime in Iran and its satellites, Syria, Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
This is quite different from the former strategic situation in the Middle East in which Israel was (and still is) facing a combination of Sunni Arab military regimes, and the US and some western countries supported Israel. This situation gradually segued into one in which Israel became self-sufficient militarily and did not need direct US or other intervention (even though depending on US military supplies), and western European support gradually whittled away.
Now the Europeans as well as the Americans find themselves under attack from a combination of extremist Sunni and Shia Islamism, the most dangerous form of which is supported by Iran, in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza.
The main reason for Pres. Bush's tour of the Middle East, just concluded in Egypt, was to try to draw the stable, moderate Sunni Arab forces together into an anti-Iranian alliance. However, the two main difficulties he faces is that first, these countries, especially Saudi Arabia, are very leary of being on the same side as Israel, which is the main declared target of Iran's regime. And even before Bush left Washington, in a little noted move, the Saudi Government stated that they would not allow their territory to be used by US or other forces directed against Iran. So they are as usual playing both sides.
After his trip, I hope that Pres,. Bush sits back and looks at the map of the Middle East with a calm and jaundiced eye. He will see that there is only one powerful and reliable US ally in the whole region, namely Israel. Egypt is unreliable and is an unstable dictatorship, where the dictator Pres. Mubarak is both ill and undemocratic. The Saudis are both undemocratic and unreliable, and the Gulf States are too small and insignificant militarily to be a factor. It is odd that Bush did not visit his good friend King Abdullah II in Jordan on this trip, but in a way that indicates that Jordan is already in his pocket, for what it's worth.
So if we see Iran as the main instigator of State-sponsored military action against the US and the West, then we need to have an explicit policy of containment of its form of Islamism. This will include both its isolation thru sanctions as well as selected military actions if necessary.
So superficially it might seem that using the same strategy that defeated the USSR would work against the lesser enemy of Iran. The strategy used by the US against the USSR was "containment," i.e. not allowing the USSR to expand its political system into other areas. After the Iron Curtain was raised across Europe, the US and western European nations had armed forces on alert to prevent any military expansion of the USSR and was always active in attempting to defeat their tactics, such as the Berlin airlift of 1948-9. The Wars in Korea and Vietnam were undertaken by UN forces in order to prevent further Communist expansionism, although with mixed success.
The policy of Containment was attributed to George F. Kennan, a leading US diplomat and defense expert, who in 1947 published an article proposing this approach that was taken up by the US Defense establishment. After the Vietnam War, as both sides realized that neither could win any direct military engagement, the US Govt. policy changed to that of Detente. It seems that now we need a restatement of such a containment policy to encompass the Shi'ite revolutionary regime in Iran and its satellites, Syria, Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
This is quite different from the former strategic situation in the Middle East in which Israel was (and still is) facing a combination of Sunni Arab military regimes, and the US and some western countries supported Israel. This situation gradually segued into one in which Israel became self-sufficient militarily and did not need direct US or other intervention (even though depending on US military supplies), and western European support gradually whittled away.
Now the Europeans as well as the Americans find themselves under attack from a combination of extremist Sunni and Shia Islamism, the most dangerous form of which is supported by Iran, in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza.
The main reason for Pres. Bush's tour of the Middle East, just concluded in Egypt, was to try to draw the stable, moderate Sunni Arab forces together into an anti-Iranian alliance. However, the two main difficulties he faces is that first, these countries, especially Saudi Arabia, are very leary of being on the same side as Israel, which is the main declared target of Iran's regime. And even before Bush left Washington, in a little noted move, the Saudi Government stated that they would not allow their territory to be used by US or other forces directed against Iran. So they are as usual playing both sides.
After his trip, I hope that Pres,. Bush sits back and looks at the map of the Middle East with a calm and jaundiced eye. He will see that there is only one powerful and reliable US ally in the whole region, namely Israel. Egypt is unreliable and is an unstable dictatorship, where the dictator Pres. Mubarak is both ill and undemocratic. The Saudis are both undemocratic and unreliable, and the Gulf States are too small and insignificant militarily to be a factor. It is odd that Bush did not visit his good friend King Abdullah II in Jordan on this trip, but in a way that indicates that Jordan is already in his pocket, for what it's worth.
So if we see Iran as the main instigator of State-sponsored military action against the US and the West, then we need to have an explicit policy of containment of its form of Islamism. This will include both its isolation thru sanctions as well as selected military actions if necessary.
posted by Jack Cohen at 4:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home