As the crisis generated by Iran?s nuclear programs intensifies, we are learning more about Iran?s regional foreign policy. It demonstrates that Tehran menaces all its neighbors and rivals ? not just Israel.
We learned late last year about an Iranian plot to hire a hit man from the Mexican cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington and blow up the Saudi and Israeli embassies there. On Jan. 25, Azerbaijan uncovered an Iranian plot to assassinate Israel?s ambassador to Baku, Michael Lotem. There were also reportedly plans to blow up a Jewish school near Baku ? though these were later denied.
Continue ReadingThis is not the only such plots against Israel in Azerbaijan. In 2008, Azeri security forces seized members of a terrorist cell who planned to blow up Israel?s embassy in Baku, in revenge for the killing of Imad Mughniyeh, a notorious terrorist implicated in the 1983 attacks in Beirut that killed 241 Marines, the 1996 Khobar Towers attack that killed 19 Americans and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish Community Center in Argentina.
Iran?s other neighbors, Iraq and Afghanistan, also confront Tehran?s systematic efforts to use terroism to subvert its neighbors. Iranians has reportedly trained Iraqi fighters, helping them develop improvised exploive devices and other weapons. It has assisted the Taliban and other terrorist groups; and, through Syria, is a leading supplier for Hamas and Hezbollah. These groups threaten not only Israel but also Lebanon. Meanwhile, Gulf states fear Iranian designs ? either on their territories or their regimes.
Iran also targets Azerbaijan. In 2001, Iranian forces blew up an Azeri oil exploration ship in the Caspian Sea, claiming it was in Iranian territorial waters. In 2009, Iran?s movement of an oil rig toward Azerbaijan?s territorial waters in the Capsian Sea led Baku to seek Washington?s advice about reacting to this perceived threat of a joint Iranian-Russian encirclement.
Throughout the decade 2001-11, Iran often reprimanded Azerbaijan for being pro-Israeli and pro-American, and warned that if it hosted U.S. military facilities it would face devastating Iranian attacks. More recently, on Jan. 16, Iranian sites launched cyber-strikes against 25 Azeri Internet sites, apparently not for the first time.
Since Iran is regularly cited as a leading state sponsor of terrorism, it is hardly surprising that it continues to foment terrorist plots against neighboring governments.
Moreover, its policies appear driven both by anti-Semitism and aggressive, perhaps even neo-imperial, designs on the governments (if not the territory) of its neighbors. Tehren is likely to increase these terrorist activities, based on the belief that nuclear weapons could provide an umbrella and that its regional enemies are weak and irresolute
Tehran?s behvior undermines its own argument that Iran with a bomb could be deterred ? since it Iran is not deterred even now from threatening its neighbors. U.S. history, with its Southern ?fire-eaters? in the 1850s, driven by racism and chauvinism, as well as the rise of European dictators in the 1930s, tell us that states driven by deep ethno-racial hatreds do not necessarily know when to stop.
This is not an issue of the clinical diagnosis of Iran?s leaders. Iran might be deterred from striking at the U.S., but it is not deterred from trying to conduct acts of war against Israel, Saudi Arabia and possibly others. The necessity of thwarting Iranian nuclear weapons should, therefore, be evident since it threatens its entire region.
Stephen Blank is a professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College. The views expressed here do not represent those of the Army, the Defense Department or the U.S. government.
peoples choice awards 2012 chicago weather forecast robert kardashian narcolepsy narcolepsy one tree hill weather st louis
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.