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Threatening Iran
By Zoë Williams
williamz@mscd.edu

Regardless of what appears to be bipartisan opposition to a war with Iran, the Bush administration is implementing some heavy rhetoric and military posturing against one of its last opponents in the East Mediterranean. It is too bad that Iran’s threat to the United States, Iraq and the world seldom exists outside of claims, suspicions and accusations.

The U.S. government has charged Iran with providing Iraqi resistance groups with sophisticated “shaped charges,” armor-piercing weapons.

What they failed to mention is that the technology around the shaped charges has existed since the 1880s and amounts to little more than an inward slope at the base of the canister of the bomb that could easily be produced in Iraq with a lathe and some knowledge of munitions.

Furthermore, the resistance in Iraq that has posed the greatest threat to the United States has come from Shiite Iran’s theological opponents: the Sunni resistance. Shiite forces in Iraq have either been allied with U.S. forces – as was the case for the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq or the Badr Organization – or were formed with anti-Iranian policies, as with the Mahdi Army.

According to the National Intelligence Estimate of 2007, Iran is not likely to have any role in escalating violence in Iraq. The Iraq Study Group Report found that it is far more likely that donations from Saudi Arabia are financing more weapons than Iran is.

Iran is a country that has been peaceful since the 1990s and could not have a nuclear-weapons program any earlier than 2015 under the most ideal circumstances. The U.S. intimidation of Iran is unfounded and will set back the progress of the nation by decades. Economic and political interests of the United States have shaped Iran’s existence since the 1950s through coups, the installation of military dictatorships and the funding and subsequent vilification of the Islamic Republic. In order for progress to occur in Iran, the United States needs to step back.

Iranian students, women, intellectuals, religious minorities and dissidents have sacrificed freedom and safety in social movements for a secular, democratic and progressive Iran. Each time that the United States steps in, situations worsen and Iranians critical of the regime retreat in defensive nationalism or fear of government crackdown. In order for progressive change to occur in Iran, it must happen from within. Iranians have the power, and it is time to give them the necessary space to bring change.