ISSUES....
Inside,
confidential, off the record
At
last !
Why
hasn't the Jerusalem Post been following Petroleumworld, which
has made this very point for two years?
Iran
is 'chief beneficiary of the war on terror'
GEORGE CONGER, THE JERUSALEM POST Aug. 24, 2006
The
Anglo-American war on terror has had the unintended consequence
of
making Iran the dominant power in the Middle East, a London think
tank
concluded on Wednesday, creating a state of affairs which will
prompt hard
diplomatic choices for Israel in the coming year.
The report
by Chatham House, the Royal Institute for International Affairs,
released on Wednesday entitled "Iran, Its Neighbors and Regional
Crises"
concluded that there was "little doubt" that Iran had
been the "chief
beneficiary of the war on terror."
Speaking to
the BBC's Radio Four, Dr Ali Ansari, one of the authors of the
report, argued the current Anglo-American containment strategy
had failed.
It "needs to take a step back and reassess its entire policy
towards Iran
and work out, first of all, what does it want and how is it going
to achieve
it because at the moment everything is rather like putting a sticking
plaster on a fairly raw wound, and it is not really actually doing
much at
all."
The report
stated "The United States, with coalition support, has eliminated
two of Iran's regional rival governments, [the Taliban and Saddam
Hussein],
but has failed to replace either with coherent and stable political
structures."
Chatham House
argued that while the US had the "upper hand in hard power
projection", Iran had successfully mastered the art of "soft
power," using
its "culture, strong historical ties and administrative skills"
to gain the
political upper hand in the region.
As a result,
"The US-driven agenda for confronting Iran is severely
compromised by the confident ease with which Iran sits in its
region," the
report noted.
Iran's hegemony
over its neighbors had emboldened its attempts to develop
nuclear weapons, and "helps explain why Iran feels able to
resist western
pressure."
"While
the US and Europeans slowly grind the nuclear issue through the
mills
of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations
Security
Council, Iran continues to prevaricate, feeling confident of victory
as
conditions turn ever more in its favor," the report stated.
While noting
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's millenarian fervor and
anti-Israel rhetoric, including his threat to wipe it off the
face of the
earth, Chatham House argued the likelihood of an Iranian attack
was low. The
president's religious and strategic views were not universally
shared among
Iran's elite, it noted.
Ahmadinejad
believed Israel and the US were "ungodly and unjust states
that
will inevitably collapse."
However, the
Iranian president "does not believe he needs to do anything
to
encourage this collapse but, since it is inevitable, there is
no need to
talk to or engage with these states either."
"Even
though Iran is frequently depicted as a manipulator and instigator
of
violence in the broader Middle East," the report argued,
"the Iranian regime
is wary of provoking generalized chaos in the region, because
it is
essentially conservative and seeks to maintain the status quo."
However the
"danger" for the region lay in the "risk that Ahmadinejad's
confrontational politics" and rhetoric will take root across
the regime,
succored by perceptions of "Western weakness" and "become
even more
unshackled in ambition", inadvertently leading to a "provocation
too far."
Chatham House noted Israel had "genuine concerns" about
the Tehran's weapons
programs.
"Iran's
hostility to Israel could be regarded as toothless, were it not
in
the midst of a vigorous effort to enrich uranium and develop a
missile
delivery capability with a range enabling it to reach every part
of Israel."
While
the "probability" of an Iranian nuclear strike against
Israel "should
be regarded as low," it could not be completely discounted.
Chatham House
stated the "greater danger" from Iran lay in the "transfer
of knowledge and
technology to terrorist groups by rogue elements within the Iranian
regime,
which might end in a non-conventional terrorist attack. In either
case
Israel has to weigh the dangers and its response to them."
ISSUES....
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