Iran: US’s Perpetual Bad Boy

By S P SETH

As if the world were not in enough trouble already, another crisis is brewing with considerable destructive potential. This relates to the US allegation of Iran’s involvement in a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in the United States. This was allegedly hatched with two Iranian front men, one of them a US citizen, who hired a Mexican drug mafia to do the killing in a restaurant frequented by the Saudi ambassador for a fee of $1.5 million. The plot was discovered and foiled in an FBI sting operation.

The US aired these allegations at a high level, with the country’s attorney general and FBI chief, fronting the press. More importantly still, President Obama also raised the issue at a press conference. The seriousness of the charge against Iran is apparent with Obama demanding answers, emphasizing that all options were now open, including possibly military measures. In the meantime, the US will work to further tighten international sanctions against Iran on top of a layer of them already in place.

Not surprisingly, Iran has denied the charge calling it a political fabrication.. Its supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, defiantly warned that Iran would deliver an “unforgettable response” to any “improper actions” from the United States over the alleged assassination plot.

This is a serious charge. But even in the US, there is skepticism about Iran’s alleged involvement. Mansour Arbabsiar, a used car salesman who is charged with the plot, is not the kind of guy with the skills and organizational ability to be involved in such a complex and dangerous task. According to a former business partner, “He was pretty disorganized, always losing things like keys, titles, probably a thousand cell phones…” In other words, he was kind of scatterbrain. At the same time, he “never spoke ill of the United States”, liked his whisky and wasn’t religious at all.

“He couldn’t even pray, doesn’t know how to fast. He used to drink, smoke pot, go with prostitutes.” These are some of the descriptions about Arbabsiar from friends and business associates who have known him for decades. On this portrayal, he is hardly the person who will have the passion and conviction of a religious fanatic or arch nationalist.

If Arbabsiar is the fall guy in an international power game, so much the worst for him. The question then is: what is this game? As far as one can see, it has different facets. At this time the politics of the coming US presidential election is an important factor. President Obama doesn’t want to end up as a one-term President. He is rating poorly in almost all opinion polls. Therefore, there is great need for one or more issues to distract the people’s attention from the country’s economy that is weighing him down. In the absence of any overriding domestic issue(s) to trump economy, an external mischief/danger from a known enemy, like Iran, might work. Whether or not it will is another matter. Iran is already a nuclear villain, perceived as posing a threat to the United States and its allies, most notably Israel.

Israel has been pressing the United States for some time now (starting with the Bush administration) to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities or else let it do the job with its support and help. Indeed, the then vice-president Dick Cheney was understanding and supportive of Israel undertaking this task in the interest of its security. But with the United States already bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush had stopped listening to Cheney.

There is no suggestion here that the US might let loose Israel on Iran, but this talk of keeping all options open is suspiciously reminiscent of the Bush-Cheney era. Any military action against Iran will have dangerous and unpredictable consequences for regional and global politics. With or without any military action against Iran, Obama’s tough talk against Teheran will go well with the Jewish lobby in the United States and garner electoral support for Obama in his race for re-election. Even though the Jewish population of the US is small, they are politically very powerful, being the United States’ richest and most successful minority. They are also part of a close political alliance with the country’s Christian right and support for them cuts across political divide between the Democrats and the Republicans.

Another explanation is the Saudi factor. Ever since the Arab Spring blossomed, the relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia have been strained, particularly, because after sitting on the fence, the US abandoned its old and reliable ally, Hosni Mubarak. Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow, with the US apparently doing very little to save him, even from subsequent public humiliation of a caged trial, hasn’t gone well with the Saudi royal family. It is not a good look for the Saudi royals.

Through its moral support for the Arab Spring (though belated), the US has lost important regional allies in Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, without any concrete gains—apart from Libya where Gaddafi has been eliminated. In this situation of diminished strategic assets, the US is keen to maintain and nurture its strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia. Which not only is its major oil supplier but also the dominant voice in the Gulf Cooperation Council. It is, therefore, keen to mollify the bruised Saudi kingdom.

For Saudi Arabia, there are two major concerns. First, of course, is the Arab Spring, being a threat to the kingdom’s stability and even its monarchy. For the present, though, it seems to have bought off most of its citizens with a bit more share in the country’s oil wealth. Second: Riyadh is terribly worried about Iran’s regional designs. The Saudis believe that Iran is creating trouble in Bahrain, Yemen, where there is a Shiite separatist movement, and in Saudi Arabia’s oil rich eastern province with its Shiite majority.

Riyadh has canvassed the United States to further toughen its policy against Iran. As WikiLeaks revealed, the Saudis, like Israelis (but for their different strategic reasons), pressured the US to bomb Iranian nuclear installations. Since the nuclear issue hasn’t so far galvanized the world into anti-Iranian frenzy, and Iran is managing to live with multiple sanctions, a new issue has emerged by way of the alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in the United States. Washington is demanding answers from Iran, is further tightening already tight sanctions and has put all options on the table to deal with Iran.

This should mollify Saudi Arabia, and might even, at some point, divert the focus from popular revolts in Arab countries with Iran emerging as a regional and global threat with its nuclear ambitions. Whether or not it works is another question, but it should satisfy Riyadh that the US, at the very least, is responding to Saudi concerns.

Similarly, Israel is keen to shift the focus from the Arab Spring and the Palestinian issue to the much more pressing issue, for them, of the Iranian threat. Rekindling the Iranian issue in a Saudi context tends to give it an Arab texture to revive the emotively charged issue of Sunni-Shia divide with Iran perceived as seeking to dominate the Arab world.

As things stand, it doesn’t look like that an Iranian threat will overshadow the popular movements in the Middle East. But to the extent that Iran has become a fresh issue in US politics allegedly plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador, this might encourage Israel to create further diversion by bombing Iranian nuclear installations with US understanding, the way Dick Cheney saw it in terms of Israeli security. If so, it might open a dangerous new front in an already charged region.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times

US Decline: Is it for Real?

By S.P.SETH

When historian Paul Kennedy wrote his book, “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers… “, in the eighties his main argument was that the fall of great powers in the past could be attributed to a mismatch between their ambitions and resources. And when ambitions overtake resources causing military and economic overstretch, the decline and fall of empires is the logical result. It is an impeccable argument and is proven by the examples of old empires. And the United States is not immune to this, and is likely to succumb to it. He argued that that the United States has the typical problems of a great power of balancing guns and butter and investments for economic growth. As military overstretch overtakes economic growth, it eventually “leads to the downward spiral for slower growth, heavier taxes [on rich proposed by President Obama], deepening domestic splits over spending priorities, and weakening capacity to bear the burdens of defense.”

Though Kennedy was right in predicting these long-term trends about the United States, his timing was wrong. Just around this time the Soviet Union was crumbling and finally collapsed in 1991. And the United States claimed credit for it, having won the Cold War. The United States emerged as the world’s only superpower. And Francis Fukuyama, an American author, declared the victory of the liberal capitalist model with the US as its nerve centre. It was the “end of history”, he declared. Because: the capitalist liberal democracies are the only and last model for human society.

While the US was in a mode of self-congratulation, Paul Kennedy was correctly identifying the trends of an already overstretched United States. The US is in all sorts of difficulties--economically, politically and militarily. Economically, it is deep in debt—nearing 100 per cent of its GDP. It runs an annual trade deficit of $500 billion. Countries like China, Japan and others, are financing its profligacy by buying its bonds and treasury notes. Its Federal Reserve is doing its bit by printing more money and keeping interest rates at near zero level to stimulate the economy.

But nothing seems to be working. As a result, unemployment is static at about 9 per cent, which is 14 million without work. And if one takes into account those who are underemployed or have stopped looking for work, the total number might be edging toward 20 million. That is a lot of adults (and their families) becoming economic and social misfits in the world’s richest country. Imagine the potential for social strife and unrest if the economy doesn’t pick up. Some idea of this can be gleaned from swelling protests against Wall Street and other conglomerates in different parts of the country.

The main problem is that the United States is looking for solutions within the old and familiar system of unlimited economic growth based on limitless consumption. This pattern had indeed become outdated some time ago when a parallel economy of financial instruments, not backed by real money and goods, started trading to create an illusion of ever-growing economy. But, as the 2008 economic crisis originating in the United States, has shown that the old economic pattern of limitless consumption and phony financial instruments has run its course. First: because people have started to save (if they can) for a rainy day bitten by the continuous stream of bad economic news. Second: with high unemployment there is not much to spend except on necessities. Third: since the banks and other credit institutions are themselves in trouble with their debt problems; they have tightened their credit lines. Lastly: the systemic failure has created a crisis of confidence all around.

The global economic system, with the United States as its nerve center, has become too big and unmanageable. One sees this at the increasing number of international economic gatherings (EU and IMF meetings to discuss debt management, G-20 gatherings and so on) unable to find effective solutions to the world’s endemic problems. The system simply is not working. But the governments are still looking for solutions within the old system, as if with some tinkering here and there it will start working again and everything will be back to normal. Well, it won’t.

Politically, the recent gridlock between the competing political forces over the question of raising the country’s debt ceiling is symptomatic of the malaise afflicting the United States. President Obama’s election was a breath of fresh air as he promised to change things radically to lift the country’s sagging fortunes. He wanted to create a national consensus on important issues facing the country. But his political opponents weren’t keen on becoming part of his bandwagon lest he becomes politically entrenched and thwart their political ambitions. The result is a deeply divided and fractious political elite gnawing at each other. And with presidential elections looming ahead, Obama has lost his shine and looks like any other politician fighting the same old battles.

Militarily, the US is a diminished force bogged down in a ten-year old war in Afghanistan with no satisfactory conclusion. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown that despite its massive military power, the US is not invincible even against ill equipped and rag-tag terrorist groups. Now, with economic difficulties overwhelming the country, there is need for pruning the military machine. Over the next ten years, the cuts of anywhere between $500 billion to $1 trillion will need to be made in the United States’ defense budget which now stands at $720 billion, up from $432 billion in 2001 (the year of the war in Afghanistan), an increase of 67 per cent. These cuts in defense budget will obviously be reflected in cost cutting in all branches of its armed forces, and the defense establishment is crying wolf that it will adversely affect the country’s global position. According to Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (just retired), “Our global commitments have not shrunk. If anything, they continue to grow, and the world is a lot less predictable now than we could have ever imagined… Cuts can reasonably only go so far without hollowing the force. ”

All in all, the US is not the superpower it was a decade or more ago. But it is still the most powerful country and will remain so for quite some period. Despite its myriad economic problems, the world still has faith in its destiny. Otherwise, China, Japan and many other countries wouldn’t be lending it money at one of the lowest interest rates of 2 to 3 per cent on its bonds. Similarly, the US dollar, as international reserve currency, still remains the safest bet (apart from gold, perhaps) in these volatile times. Indeed, whenever the world markets go through one of their steep falls (which is now frequent), the global investors rush to buy US dollars as safe haven. Whether or not the US economic fundamentals are sound or not, the world seems prepared to bet on the United States.

Militarily, the US is still the most powerful country in the world. Its defense spending is largest of any country in the world, and will remain so many years to come even after the cuts in its defense budget over next ten years. These cuts are expected to trim some fat from its otherwise bloated military establishment, which might not be a bad thing for the United States and even the world. It might put some restraint on its tendency to fish in troubled waters everywhere.

There is no denying the fact like all past imperial powers, with overstretched commitments; the US is also on a downward trajectory. But it is important to remember that like all fading empires the United States will be playing an important global role for quite a few decades.

Note: This article was first published in Daily Times.