If the US really wanted to stop nuclear weapons proliferation in the Middle East, it would have long ago supported the moves to declare the region a nuclear weapon free zone, and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor it.
Despite our anti-nuclear credentials, New Zealand has never supported the Middle East becoming a nuclear weapon free zone. At a press conference, I remember asking the then-PM Bill English why New Zealand didn’t support the concept, and he answered that he could see what I was trying to get him to do i.e. to take sides against Israel, the region’s only nuclear power. (Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran is.)
Basically, the West aims to ensure that Team Israel continues to be the neighbourhood’s bully, thanks to its US backing, its overwhelming superiority in conventional arms and its nuclear arsenal, which reportedly consists of 90 nuclear warheads.
So…currently, we are seeing carnage in the Middle East because Iran has had a nuclear energy programme that might possibly, conceivably one day enable it to possess one such weapon – even though on all of the available US intelligence evidence, it had not done so, and was still engaged in talks to achieve trade gains for itself from not doing so.
Moreover, if the Trump administration was ever serious about using peaceful means to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, it would have honoured the US side of the deal that the Obama administration signed with Iran back in 2015. At that time, Iran had agreed to limit nuclear enrichment at below weapons-grade levels, and to submit itself to regular IAEA monitoring, in return for the lifting of US/European trade sanctions.
Instead, Donald Trump ripped up that deal, and confirmed the suspicions of the hardline clerics in Tehran that expecting the Americans to act in good faith was naive, and bound to end in disaster. Trump repeated this bad faith by engaging in diplomacy that – according to US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth – it had engaged in as a form of deliberate “mis-direction” and cover for bombing raids that the US had been planning for months.
Incidentally, this underlines how pathetic it is for New Zealand to be now calling for diplomacy to resolve this crisis. The whole process of diplomacy has been hopelessly degraded by America’s repeated displays of bad faith.
History on repeat
To an eery degree, the US is repeating the precedents it set in Iraq, in 2003. After the 9/11 attack, US President George W. Bush became obsessed with causing regime change in Baghdad, bypassed the IAEA and waged a ruinous war – on the basis of a bogus existential threat that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Here we go again. After October 7.2023, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu became obsessed with causing regime change in Tehran, bypassed the IAEA, and is waging a ruinous war – on the basis of a bogus existential threat that Iran was about to possess a nuclear weapon of mass destruction.
In reality, regime change in Iran has been front and central of Israel’s plans for a very long time, whatever Iran tried to do to avert it. That is why, prior to its onslaught against Iran, Israel first chose to unilaterally attack and weaken Hezbollah in Lebanon. In both cases – and as in Gaza – Israel has had no compunction about bombing residential centres and inflicting large numbers of civilian casualties.
Again, and as was also the case with the invasion of Iraq, delusionary beliefs have been expressed that the people of Iran will now rise up against an unpopular regime and embrace them as “liberators.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Given Iran’s proud history, the only thing capable of uniting the Iranian people behind the widely despised clerical regime would be an attack by a foreign invader. At this point, the situation in Iran looks a lot like the conditions in 1991, immediately after the First Gulf War.
At that point in 1991, an oppressive regime in Baghdad had seen its military forces decimated by the US. Yet the West chose to leave Saddam Hussein in power for 13 more years, as a lesser threat to Western interests than a popular uprising that would be likely to put the oppressed Shia majority in power. For that reason, the West then sat by and watched while Saddam’s forces slaughtered thousands of people who had risen up, in the mistaken belief that the West had wanted to see democracy triumph in Iraq.
Similarly, the US may now be hoping that yesterday’s bombing raids will be the sum total of its involvement, and that a weakened regime in Tehran can now be left to cling to power as best it can, within a ruined country.
Yet if Israel does go ahead and bring about regime change, it will get bogged down – as it is already in Gaza – in administering the shattered remains of its field of “victory.” Currently, Israel is getting away with committing genocide against the 2 million inhabitants of Gaza. But Iran is a country of 95 million people, and a genocide on that scale may be beyond even the Netanyahu government.
If instead, Israel creates in Iran another failed state -another Libya of warring factions – then this will inevitably become a fertile recruiting ground for the likes of Islamic State. Except this time, Iran and Hezbollah will not be around to do the bulk of the fighting, and to help defeat the jihadis on the West’s behalf.
Israel may think regime change in Iran will solve its problems. But if it “ succeeds” in removing the clerical regime by military means, forces even more dangerous to its survival are likely to fill the vacuum. Neither the US or Israel appear to have a feasible end game in mind, for what they have started.
Footnote One : Short term, what are Iran’s options for retaliation? It could adopt Islamic State tactics and bring suicide raids and terrorism back to European cities, and to US diplomatic missions abroad.
Iran’s Doomsday option would be to mine the straits of Hormuz and bring international shipping trade – including global oil supplies – to a standstill. This would deal a serious blow to the world economy, and to Iran itself.
One restraint against it doing so would be China, which is not only the sole remaining market for Iran’s oil, but also…China itself is not self-sufficient in oil. It has come to rely on the oil that it extorts at a cheap price from Iran. So under pressure from China, Iran might not play that final, desperate card in the straits of Hormuz.
Except…here’s the thing. Iran may now have nothing left to lose. The Israeli bombing raids have targeted Iran’s oil facilities. By doing so, Israel may have removed the key restraint against Iran taking destructive action to mine the sea lanes or sink its own ships to block the straits of Hormuz. After all…if Iran’s ability to pump and export its oil has been destroyed, there may now be no reason to abstain from shutting down the global economy. The Saudis? They have been doing nothing for Iran in its time of need. Nothing much for Iran to lose there, either.
So…at the very least, New Zealand should be taking a serious look at its oil supply chains, and at how long our current oil reserves might last.
Footnote Two: As usual in any Middle East crisis, New Zealand’s media coverage is being dominated by Israeli/US voices. To support the claim that Iran had posed an existential threat to Israel, the hoary old cliche has been repeated on RNZ that Iran does not recognise Israel’s right to exist.
For the record, this is an age-old argument about legitimacy, not about a current existential threat. When there is talk about a “right to exist” what Iran and other regional powers are refusing to endorse is the legitimacy of Israel’s seizure of Palestinian land, its forced displacement of Palestinian people, and the ongoing Israeli settlement encroachment onto Palestinian land that Israel illegally occupies in violation of UN resolutions.
For exactly the same reasons – i.e. a refusal to put a stamp of legitimacy on the historical wrongs done to Palestinians – Saudi Arabia also does not recognise Israel’s “right to exist.” Yet Israel isn’t bombing Riyadh. Instead, it is doing its best to normalise diplomatic relations with the Saudis.
This diplomatic engagement has been sabotaged by Israel’s ongoing aggressions in Gaza, in Lebanon and now, in Iran. Lets be clear. On the evidence, the expansionist power that is actively undermining the cause of peace, stability and diplomacy across the Middle East is Israel, not Iran.
Bombardier Blues
Unfortunately, this First Gulf War lament for those who inflict death from above seems to be forever timely: