Bombs or Dollars?

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The US and Iran appear to traveling along two different paths. There’s the one favored by AIPAC and certain Republicans that has us bombing Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and sending us directly into World War III (or IV depending on your definition of the Cold War). The other one has Iran moderating itself politically and furthering its integration into the greater world stage by joining the WTO.

Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's leading presidential candidate and a former president of Iran, promised recently to liberalize his country, which is a goal in stark contrast to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As a matter of fact, Khamenei is calling on all good Iranians to elect an anti-Western president, but Rafsanjani countered his call by stating that Iran needs "to think global, since globalization is a reality and not a foreign-made (concept)."

He added, “Iran needs a new form of communication with the world. We have to take the international climate into account and take advantage of it.” My sentiments exactly Mr. Rafsanjani.

Another player whom is trying to usher Iran toward moderation is Mostafa Moin. He is a reformist and close ally of outgoing reform President Mohammad Khatami. He’s promising freedom and democratic reforms to a generation of Iranians who have lived under the boot of the Ayatollah but never knew the treachery of the Shah. Moin has the benefit of enjoying popularity among Iran's predominantly young population.

For those in Washington with their crosshairs on Iran, this can only throw a monkey wrench into their plans. The US government doesn’t now, now will they most likely ever have enough support for military intervention in Iran. The only way enough folks in this country would support another military adventure is if we suffer a “terrorist” attack. There are rumors as we speak that Israeli intelligence is cooking up something as we speak that would spark such an endeavor. I have no idea if that’s a crock or not but all things being equal, it wouldn’t surprise me. Obviously when Baby wants a war, Baby gets a war. However, if Iran can get some new leadership and democratic reforms going, no amount of lobbying by AIPAC will get us to undermine that. Even to an unread and unwashed populace as those living in the United States, you’d be hard-pressed to tell people you were trying to spread democracy and then summarily bomb a country going through a democratic revolution.

The other side of the equation that may result in the staying of hawkish claws is Iran’s possibly entry into the WTO. Bloomberg.com reports that, “Iran was given the go-ahead to start talks on joining the World Trade Organization after the U.S. dropped its opposition, following an Iranian commitment to resolve a standoff over its nuclear enrichment program.

The U.S, which accuses Iran of supporting terrorism and has applied a two-decade long trade ban to the country, has blocked 22 previous Iranian requests to begin talks to join the Geneva-based WTO since 2001. Iran rejects U.S. accusations that its nuclear power program will be used to make weapons in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran, which has the world's second-largest oil and gas reserves, yesterday reaffirmed a commitment not to seek nuclear weapons at a meeting with the foreign ministers of the U.K., France and Germany. The U.S. will support Iranian WTO membership and consider sales of commercial aircraft parts if Iran stops uranium enrichment permanently, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said March 11.”

I said yesterday that money changes everything and I wasn’t lying. If the Iranians end up truly liberalizing their economy and there’s money to be made you can bet that Wall Street will lobby harder than AIPAC against any intervention that would mess with potential trade. There may be some nuts (I believe the cool kids call them neo-cons) that see our interests in the Middle East as both a new crusade and an opportunity to take a final stab at Russia but those same folks obey a higher power, the almighty American dollar. If Wall Street says, “hold those bombs,” you can bet, as C-3PO once said, they’ll be, “…no more adventures!”

President Bush stated that a decision to allow Iran to apply for membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) "seemed like a reasonable decision to make in order to advance the negotiations between Iran and the European trio (France, Germany and Britain). Now some would suggest that if Bush says one thing he means the opposite but aside from Jesus, he too must listen to the whims of Wall Street.

Going forward the question for Iran remains, will it be bombs or dollars? We keep hearing about how countries such as Iran and N. Korea need nuclear weapons because they’re scared we’re going to invade them. Granted, in light of everything that’s happened in Iraq it’s obviously not improbably and certainly the more I read about AIPAC the more leery of that organization I become. However, it would seem to me that the real way to stop US aggression is not to arm yourselves to the teeth with weapons that can hurt us; it’s to trade with us instead. Buy our guns, movies and computers and then sell us cheap oil and natural gas. That’s a far better solution to “US imperialism” than provoking the Cold Warriors in the pentagon itching to use the new armaments they bought.

We’ll see how things turn out June 17th when the Iranians go to the polls. Hopefully we’ll see something like the Iraqi elections. Something that will give those of us whom are not too enthusiastic about more wars a glimmer of hope that a semblance of peace can be maintained.