Iran Wielding ‘Soft Power’ Against America
Tehran's quest to overthrow the existing order and dominate the Persian Gulf region is being cleverly strategized.
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Perhaps, but it seems likely that policymakers won’t talk about Gulf energy resources because it is one place where the Republicans are as vulnerable as the Democrats are to the inanities of the left. What can the slogan “no blood for oil” possibly mean in the real world? That we won’t lift a finger to ensure that foodstuffs and other essential items are moved in a timely and inexpensive manner from one part of this large country to another? That we’ll just roll over and play dead if our geographic and therefore our social mobility is circumscribed by fuel prices set by Iran? That we won’t fight at all since the fact that all of American life, society, culture, and commerce is organized around the free flow of the affordable energy resources that also sustain global markets is of absolutely no consequence to those of pure conscience?
The question then is not what the next president of the United States intends to do about Iran, but which candidate will treat the American electorate like adults and speak plainly, maybe something like this:
“We have been at war for over five years now with one goal of our fight being to bring freedom to other nations and peoples around the world. But now it is time to speak of our freedoms and our way of life, and how we intend to preserve them.
“I would not be running for this office if I did not have full faith and confidence not only in the strength and resilience of the American people but also in our native genius and creative energy, a living tradition that you and I must stand in awe of as it reaches from Bill Gates back to Benjamin Franklin and thus ties us to our roots in our forefathers, the founders of our great nation. This is our vivid legacy and thus I have no doubt that in due course we will develop a reliable and affordable substitute for fossil fuels. Who knows but that inventors are not already on the verge of a breakthrough? But perhaps we are not so close; maybe the talent who will usher in a new age of cheap and clean energy has just gone off to summer camp with her friends — in a school bus consuming diesel fuel at more than $5 a gallon. That is to say, there are yet harder times ahead for all of us, and surely some will only find warm consolation in the prospect of our children reaping the great benefits of their parents’ courageous sacrifice in relinquishing our position in the Persian Gulf.
“That, my fellow Americans, is one option before us. The other is to do whatever it takes to secure and sustain the privilege won and bargained for by President Franklin D. Roosevelt some sixty years ago and asserted and exercised by every American government since that time — our position in the Persian Gulf. This hard choice will almost certainly mean some form of military action against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Losing the Persian Gulf to a fanatical, terror-supporting regime that threatens all its neighbors, Israeli and Arab alike, would do untold damage to the U.S. economy and world markets; and by paving the way for nuclear proliferation in an extremely volatile part of the world where states typically use terrorist organizations to advance their strategic goals, our exit would entail a major threat to U.S. national security. The costs of relinquishing our position in the Gulf would be virtually indistinguishable from losing a world war.
Lee Smith is a Washington, DC-based writer and visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute. He’s a frequent contributor to the Weekly Standard on Middle East issues.
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12 Comments
1. westerner:It should be clear that the purpose of any action is to maintain a free and open market in oil, not to monopolise the whole production for exclusive American use.
Jul 4, 2008 - 2:50 am 2. Lisa:Just bomb the facilities already.. before Obama gets into office. That namby-pamby will do nothing. Israel should take out those damn facilities and have its citizens on high alert.
No nukes for Iran!
Jul 4, 2008 - 4:17 am 3. chuck,:Somebody had better be schmoozing, and schmoozing hard, with China, India, Russia and other parties beforehand to get them to agree that the removal of this pain in the butt would be good for everybody. If we don’t play this right, we could end up playing Germany to Israel’s Austria-Hungary, which didn’t turn out so well for either of them.
Jul 4, 2008 - 5:48 am 4. Eric:The election of Obama will be a world wide disaster. Maybe that’s what it will take to return true men of strength, character, and determination to the WH instead of the steady stream of mediocrities with the lone exception of the Gipper.
Jul 4, 2008 - 1:39 pm 5. rotwang:The Gipper sold missiles illegally to Iran, our enemy, and then lied about it.
If he’s the high-water mark of recent presidents, we are truly a lost cause as a nation.
He had the strength, character and determination of a mollusk.
Jul 4, 2008 - 10:34 pm 6. Bart:At the time, Iran was fighting a war with our other enemy Iraq, whom we then tilted toward when the Iranians began to get the upper hand. These were tactical, not strategic, missiles.
We’re not in as bad a situation with Iran as it may appear. You’ve got to put yourself in the other guy’s shoes. Their economy is a wreck - not merely in a minor cyclical slowdown but a real wreck, with stratospheric unemployment and inflation. They are exporting oil but importing gasoline due to lack of refining capacity. At least half their population is hostile to the regime. They are surrounded on three sides by our troops, who rolled up in three weeks the military in Iraq whom they could not defeat in 8 years. We control the high ground of space and their air force is no match for ours. They have missiles which can theoretically reach Israel and Eastern Europe, but with poor quality control and anti-missile systems on the other side, they are of questionable value. If they get into an unconventional missile war with Israel, they will be annihilated.
The reality is that Iran is weak. The danger is that the regime will do something stupid in desperation to cling to power. But, with the younger generation overwhelmingly opposed to the Islamic Republic, their days are numbered.
Jul 5, 2008 - 7:03 am 7. PD Quig:“If each Muslim throws a bucket of water on Israel,” said the late Ayatollah Khomeini, “Israel will be erased.” This immortal sentiment, and surreal image, captures the..” ignorance of the Grand Poobah mullah.
I hate to break it to Old Eyebrows posthumously, but assuming 1.4 billion Muslims, and assuming each bucket carried one gallon of water, depositing said water on Israel (20,330 square miles of landmass) would amount to a mist of less than .004″ of precipitation.
Jul 5, 2008 - 7:43 am 8. Zane:rotwang
Neat, the way you summed up a mans life in one episode. Do you have any idea what Iran/Contra was all about or are you just spouting the party line?
If you took the time to look closer, you would discover that the Gipper was is it to win. That’s Strength, Character and Determination.
Oh . . . and he won.
Just like the current Repeb Pres is winning.
So what you got against winning?
Jul 5, 2008 - 9:04 am 9. Boazhorribilis:rotwang
Not enamored by the Gipper but to impune motive and reason retroactively twenty years later is ridiculous. All actions and policies must be considered in their timely and current circumstances.
Jul 8, 2008 - 2:06 am 10. Mary Madigan:Even Washington doesn’t seem to have noticed that Iran has pulled a three-card monte trick with a vital American interest — the Persian Gulf.
Washington notices everything that happens in the Persian gulf - their obsession with the place is partly responsible for the mess our economy is in lately.
We’ve always depended on our Gulf allies to regulate oil prices and defend American interests in the area. We’re now discovering that our Gulf allies are useless. They can’t regulate oil prices, their influence is minimal, they have less oil than they claimed to have, their economy is a tulipmania bubble about to burst and they’re generally not worth our trouble.
Then there’s the fact that Saudi Arabia is the hub of world terrorism. If Washington does finally realize that our Gulf enemies are no longer a vital American interest, if they realize that they can be as malign as the Iranians, they deserve a lot of credit.
Oil in the Middle East may be of vital interest, but it’s not our vital interest. We get most of our oil from the Western Hemisphere. We should be paying more attention to our own backyard.
Jul 8, 2008 - 12:19 pm 11. Iran Wielding 'Soft Power' Against America | NeoConstant | Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs:[...] by Lee Smith [...]
Jul 8, 2008 - 1:06 pm 12. kabud:Mary Madigan
it just happened that TODAY there is no substitute for transportation fuel.
Mind that major oil-nat.gas reserves are located on the enemy territory: Russia and ME, also effectively controlled by Russia
Mexico where we get a big chunk of our oil imports is always in the state of instability and under marxist threat
Mexico is crawling with kremlin agents and their instrumental `islamic radicals`
Canada as well is and always was infiltrated by kremlin to the unprecedented degree.
You are right we have to work on the situation in the Western Hemisphere.
Or may be start working on elements of active subversion right here in USA?
There is another approach that doctor Zubrin is promoting:
instead of oils and natural gas we may use domestically produce METHANOL for transportation fuel: auto and air as well.
It is much better option then ethanol, because we will not be dependent on agricultural situation or external imports like from brazil or Caribbeans where subversion goes full grown
Jul 13, 2008 - 10:44 am