John Rapley
THERE WAS a brief glimmer of hope that United States-Iranian tensions might ease this week when word got out that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had sent a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush via the Swiss mission in Tehran. But hopes for a thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations - there has been no official contact between the presidencies since 1979 - soon evaporated. Washington dismissed Mr. Ahmadinejad's letter, saying it would not be responding.
The letter was certainly a rambling document which demanded little in the way of a reply. Yet it is not clear that the letter was really intended to open a dialogue with the White House. Rather, it seemed to speak more to public opinion, both in the West, and more importantly, in the Muslim world. In it, Mr. Ahmadinejad outlines what he considers the reasonableness of the Iranian position and the hypocrisy in the American one, all in a prose designed to mollify foreign audiences (heaping praise on Jesus and Christian values, for instance).
UN'S INDECISION
Tellingly, the letter offered no concessions on the principal bone of contention right now between the two countries: Iran's nuclear programme. Other than affirming Iran's right to conduct research, Mr. Ahmadinejad's letter largely ignored the issue that observers hoped it would address.
Gold prices and oil prices shot back up and the dollar declined. The world's oil markets went back into jittery mode. Diplomacy continues, but appears to be faltering. This is because the great powers at the United Nations apparently cannot agree on a course of action. The U.S. would like to impose sanctions on Iran, but the Chinese and Russians appear reluctant to do so. Some analysts reckoned that the purpose of Mr. Ahmadinejad's letter was precisely to reinforce these divisions.
The jitters returned because investors are not persuaded that diplomacy will suffice. If the Iranians can get around it, the likelihood of the U.S. or Israel taking matters into their own hands increases.
The Israelis have long considered Iran's nuclear ambitions to be an intolerable threat to their security. Mr. Ahmadinejad's recent statements concerning Israel - suffice it to say he is not a big fan of Zionism - can hardly have allayed their fears. So while all eyes are on the U.S., there is a real risk that the Israelis will press ahead with their own plans.
They will hardly be able to act alone, though. Their jets would have to fly over Iraqi airspace, which of course is controlled by the U.S. At a minimum, Washington would have to give a green light to such an attack. And even if Washington acted alone, throughout much of the Middle East, the attack would likely be seen as being done for Israel.
UNAPPEALING OPTIONS
Needless to say, this worries Washington. Already bogged down in Iraq, it hardly wants to open up another 'front' in the Middle East. Besides, there remain a plethora of risks in a strike on Iran. First off is the fact that American intelligence on Iran remains poor. The Americans cannot be sure where all the nuclear sites are. In order to raise the greatest likelihood of taking out Iran's nuclear programme, they would probably need to engineer a huge bombing campaign that could, potentially, inflame international opinion. It would almost certainly outrage popular sentiment throughout the Middle East.
So, faced with such unappealing options, the Americans press on with a diplomatic course that even they seem to accept will eventually fail. At most, they might deter Iran's acquisition of the bomb.
Nevertheless, that eventuality seems unlikely to sit well with Israel. Thus, the risk of a new outbreak of violence in an already-tense region remains high.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
