Containment of Iran’s aggressions and drying up its terrorist funding are two features of what is clearly a multi-faceted non-military war being waged by the U.S. against Iran. Critics of the President miss the mark when they focus solely on whether we have succeeded in ridding Iraq of terrorists. No nation is ever completely free of existing or potential terrorists. That is not the point of the war in Iraq. As the President frequently states, we are fighting terrorists in Iraq so we will not be forced to fight at home. That may sound like a mere campaign style platitude, but it is not. The number of actual terrorists in Iraq is undoubtedly smaller than the number would be if we were militarily engaged in Iran, or even Pakistan. That is precisely the point. By conducting this war in and eventually securing a stable non-terrorist Iraq, we are quietly squeezing Iran’s oil-dependent economy through investment pressure while simultaneously denying Ahmadinejad of something he covets and will need desperately in the future: Iraq’s oil fields.
The Bush Administration should be given credit for recognizing long ago that forcible regime change, while clearly feasible in Iraq, was not a viable option for halting Iran’s rapid march toward nuclear weapons and its penchant for financing terrorist training and operations worldwide. Rather than bragging about America’s might and capability to remove Ahmadinejad, President Bush has followed the Reagan Cold War approach by working to force an enemy to use all of its natural resources to sustain its own needs and the likely result of this tactic may be that Ahmadinejad’s Iran will spend itself into regime change. How is this quiet war being waged? The major fronts are economic pressure and securing Iraq and its resources for the Iraqis, not for Ahmadinejad, and are detailed below:
1. Discourage foreign investment in Iran - In a nation-state version of the Terror-Free Investing strategy championed by Missouri Treasurer Sarah Steelman as detailed in a previous post, the Bush administration has relied on strong personal trust and good relations between the President and his fellow heads of state in key nations, such as Japan, to wield significant financial power in Iran and withdraw from contracts for Iranian oil. L.A. Times writer Kim Murphy, in an article titled "Health of Iran's Oil Fields in Question, Analysts Say," published in today’s NY Sun, cites oil industry analysts who agree that America’s quiet efforts to dry up foreign investments in Iranian oil and natural gas development projects are creating a significant burden on the Iranian economy. This is evidenced by Iran’s increasing embrace of Russian and Chinese investments in Iranian oil field development, although the Bush Administration is pressing both nations to reduce or abandon such investments until Ahmadinejad complies with UN sanctions related to the Iranian nuclear program.
These analysts further observe that the cancellation of foreign contracts for oil and gas development is forcing Tehran to divert increasing amounts of the oil it produces for use in its own oil consuming infrastructures. Thus, Iran, through America’s quiet war to keep money out Ahmadinejad’s hands, is keeping him from funding terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States. Of equal if not greater importance, the decreasing flow of oil revenue into Tehran’s coffers also hampers Iran’s suicidal quest for nuclear weapons. As Iran’s oil consumption eventually overtakes its production, Iranians themselves, as the former Soviet states did, will demand fundamental changes in leadership and economic priorities.
2. Remain in Iraq - By remaining in Iraq until the Iraqi government expresses confidence that it is prepared for our withdrawal. The similarities between Iraq’s establishment of democracy and that of America itself are striking. In the founding of both democracies, geographic and religious groups united in the overthrow of tyrannical government, then squabbled for years over representation in the new government. It took America more than a decade to agree on a constitution. Iraq has one already and is working to hold the diverse elements of the government together, and like our own Civil War, there will be failures and setbacks. The difference for America was that after defeating the British, America was capable of defending itself from foreign aggressors until the governmental creation phase was completed. Iraq has not reached that stage or military independence and may not for several years. America started Iraq on this path which Iraqis have now embraced, and America must not withdraw at this point and leave Iraq’s fate in the eager hands of its neighbors.
Remaining in Iraq until the Iraqis no longer need us will prevent Ahmadinejad from taking aggressive actions to acquire the prized Iraqi oil fields. As America’s financial pressure on Iran continues through diverted investments and Iran’s own rising domestic consumption of oil creates more strain, Ahmadinejad will need additional sources of revenue to fund the projects most pressing to him, i.e. the Iranian nuclear program and funding of global Jihad. Should we leave Iraq ill-equipped to defend itself or unstable in its government foundations, Ahmadinejad would seize the Iraqi oil fields and exponentially increase revenues for his nuclear and terrorist ambitions. In that sense, the mantra that the war in Iraq is a war for oil is true, but only as one aspect of a complex multi-front war to contain a much more dangerous and powerful enemy, Iran.
Instead of militarily engaging and attempting to disarm a heavily armed Iran on its turf as it grows stronger, we are engaging small pockets of terrorists in Iraq, building an Iraqi government capable of sustaining itself against Iran, and preserving the Iraqi oil fields as the key revenue producer for the fledgling Iraqi democracy. The cost of 3,000 American casualties seems too steep to the war-weary Democrats, like Pelosi, but the cost in American casualties had this war been militarily waged in Iran would have been much greater.
The withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the abandonment of American goals there would render impotent any American-led financial pressures on nations who continue to enter oil contracts with Iran. In Murphy’s article, the following paragraph should receive close scrutiny from those who oppose the war in Iraq and want to see it ended:
If Iran were suddenly to stop exporting its 2.4 million barrels of oil a day, such as in the event of a military strike, world oil prices probably would skyrocket. But a gradual decline probably could be offset by other OPEC members, analysts say, particularly as Iraq increases its oil production [emphasis added] and Saudi Arabia carries out plans for significant increases in its production capacity.
By establishing a stable Iraq exporting oil more efficiently and profitably than under Sadaam, we lessen the world’s dependence on, and thus also its investments in, Iran’s nuclear weapon-seeking Mullahs. Battling Tehran on these fronts, rather than in its streets, is a strategy clearly calculated to achieve containment and eventual disarmament at minimal loss of life and should be applauded for its similarities to Reagan’s Cold War economic tactics that strained the Soviet economy until it reached critical mass. Iran’s once robust economy, though strained now, will not crumble overnight, and America should not expect immediate gratification from this strategy any more than it did with similar efforts to curb the Soviet Union. Yet the approach is tactically sound, minimally costly in casualties, and has proven in the past to be most effective.
Technorati Tags: Ahmadinejad Sarah Steelman Reagan Iranian Oil Iraqi oil fields Cold War Nancy Pelosi Bush Administration Civil War Iranian nuclear program investing in Iran Iraq War War On Terror
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