Hugh Pope

The US bombing of Iranian targets today got me thinking about how US actions in the Middle East have often propelled it into places that it had no apparent inkling about beforehand. 

I studied Persian at university, lived for year as a journalist in Iran and made several trips to the country during three decades of reporting all over the Middle East. I’d say that it’s worth bearing in mind that few people are good at predicting the future anywhere, and that we can expect plenty of unintended consequences:

Iranians are in my experience one of the more secular and pro-American peoples in the Middle East, and many people there are indeed sick of the oppressive Islamic Republican regime. But that will likely evaporate when under direct attack. I remember how even some ordinary Iraqis warmed to the idea of Americans taking down Saddam Hussein in 2002. But when the US actually attacked in 2003, bitter enmity ensued.

The US bombing is no bolt from the blue. In fact, the action feels like the long-awaited Phase II of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. A subsequent attack on Iran was often on the agenda of the right-wing Israeli, pro-Israeli and neo-con columnists who so compellingly urged President George Bush to attack Iraq after 9/11. We can debate why it is that Israel has so dearly wanted the US to do this (to distract from actions in Gaza and the West Bank, to tie the US to Israel, or now to prolong the political life of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against corruption allegations, etc). But it is clear that Netanyahu and right-wingers like him have been trying to embroil the US in wider Middle East for decades, and that Netanyahu is the person who is most absolutely delighted about this turn of events. It will be harder than ever to separate whether the US or Israel is responsible for what’s happening.

Let your actions match your words, if you care about your image. Outsiders listening to Israelis or Western media outlets talking about fear and consequences of Iran’s scattershot attacks on Israel often weigh this against how Israel does not allow any direct reporting of the fear and consequences of Israel’s own far more concentrated and devastating attacks on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. 

When states call their rivals “terrorists”, it always gives me pause. The US public may not normally notice it, but there has never really been a moment when the US has not been in some kind of war with Iran since 1979, when Islamic Revolutionaries took American diplomats hostage for more than a year. (Note: none of the diplomats were killed, and the US had orchestrated the coup that put the previous Shah on the throne and maintained his sometimes oppressive regime in power for 25 years). The 46-year-long US punishment of Iran has not just been in the form of punitive sanctions and exclusion from the global order. It has backed bloody action against the country by Iraq, by Israel and in some cases its own forces.

Beware of what you wish for. Regime change would be another coup. There seems to be no organised force or organisation ready to assume control. That means that there will be an extended struggle for power in Iran, deep instability and threats to things the world holds dear like access to the oil & gas of the Gulf.

The law of unintended consequences always applies. Egypt’s autocrat and Gulf Arab monarchies are on the US side for now, but are the people? Saudi Arabia was on the US side in 2001, but I remember interviewing Saudis highly sympathetic with the 9/11 attacks on America. Indeed, that cataclysm was dreamed up by an ex-Saudi, Osama bin Laden, and 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudis. Often they were fired up with anger about the US alliance with an Israel intent on crushing Palestinians. No change there either.

Europe may think it is a neutral actor watching from the sidelines but it is not and will be drawn into all the messy consequences as well.

I can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel on this. But I did take solace from reading Branko Brkic in the excellent British Journalism Review (oddly, the only publication I regularly read almost cover to cover). Here he skilfully puts the argument that:

“History is never kind to autocrats and bullies, thugs and their enthusiastic helpers.The pendulum always swings back. Humanity one day might very well forgive … still, it cannot forget.“