Though borders and rulers changed, many pockets of continuous Persian culture have persisted in what was once the Persian Empire, such as Isfahan, the former capital of the Safavid dynasty and “[t]he Persians called it Nisf-e-Jahan, half the world; meaning that to see it was to see half the world.” (Ethnic map of Iran.)
Oh yes, and unlike the site of the Bahmiyan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban, over a million people live in Isfahan. But not just any people. It’s one of the cities in Iran whose residents are most likely to hold a 3 week open air dance party with drinks on the house and Googoosh‘s greatest hits blaring from every stereo the day the regime changes. You remember the scene from the end of the re-release version of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, where the camera pans across whole cities given over to spontaneous celebration? It will probably be like that.
Unless American bombers place Isfahan in the center of a fallout zone while trying to hit the uranium conversion facility located there, or the nearby manufacturing plant needed to make alloys used in nuclear plants.
It may seem like I’ve lost the plot here, or perhaps like I’m about to wander even farther off point, but this is in no way a digression. During the red-baiting heydays of the Cold War, leftists and human rights activists were targets of brutal assaults in every American client state under the banner of fighting communism. This held throughout Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In some of these countries, like Saudi Arabia for example, these campaigns were so successful that to this day it’s difficult to find an opinion in the Kingdom of Saud that wouldn’t be at home on the 700 Club or at a John Birch Society meeting, given a few minor tweaks. That is not the case in Iran.
Left well enough alone, Iran would likely eventually return to the style of secular, open government that its citizens chose for themselves when the British left. The style of government that the United States took from them in a coup.
Does it take a foreign policy expert to piece all this together, look at the state of the region right now, and suggest that dropping a nuke on a city that’s iconic of Iranian national pride and one of the more secular segments of their society is just a bad idea every which way? Not that it would be any less immoral if a nuclear first strike was dropped on a largely Arabic or Armenian population; indeed, it would be just as reprehensible. What I’m saying is that it would be hard for a person to come up with a strategy that would better alienate the segment of Iranian society that westerners have the most in common with.
If the goal is in any far future time an Iran that the United States can negotiate with, this is a path that will push that date at least 80 years down the road. It is gross immorality, mass murder, with a heaping helping of stupidity to top it off. It would be the answer to the prayers of the ayatollahs, who would finally get to turn around to all the secularization activists and say, “See, we were right all along. They hate all of us and we will never be able to please them unless our entire nation serves at their command. They will not rest until they can steal our oil as they are stealing Iraqi oil.”
Yet not knowing the meaning of ‘enough,’ the Bush administration could have been planning its war with Iran perhaps as early as 2003 and has been violating their airspace since at least 2004 using spy drones and manned fighters. Upon entry into Iraq, US forces gave gave Geneva Convention protection to the Marxist-Islamist Mujahideen-e Khalq, a group on the State Department’s terrorist watch list, in their camp in Iraq and may have set them loose to start a bombing campaign inside Iran in 2005. This is the same MEK group that has made big news around these parts lately as new evidence has come out that they are currently gathering intelligence for the US inside Iran. Bush must think that if he’s got a bunch of cultish terrorists that turned against their country to fight for Saddam and the wishy-washy son of the late Shah on his side, that practically constitutes a referendum on the will of the Iranian people. After all, hasn’t Dubya proven that a dynasty and a handful of fanatics are all it takes to govern even America?
I’m sure they’ll welcome us with tulips and baklava.
Fortunately, even Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, doesn’t seem so sure about that and is trying to tell the administration to cool it. Perhaps he’s been talking with the same generals who spoke to Seymour Hersh, the ones who are considering resigning, or perhaps sending a strongly worded policy statement, in opposition to a bombing campaign against Iran. They seem to know that in spite of all the hype, in spite of the petty tyrant at the helm, the Iranian government is still offering to negotiate and they can be reasoned with.
The Bush administration, on the other hand …