The New York Times has published an article headlined "Drawing a Line on Syria, U.S. Keeps Eye on Iran Policy." The main idea of the article is that by launching an air strike on Syria the United States is actually going to send a clear message to Iran. According to the author, supporters of the US strike on Syria believe that if Obama lets Syria cross a "red line" (the use of chemical weapons), very soon Iran will do the same. This means that a strike is necessary. The same approach is probably shared by the majority of US lawmakers. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, and the Democratic faction's leader Nancy Pelosi have already announced that they would support President Obama's proposition on Syria.
In other words, the Syrian war is a part of the "anaconda tactics" against Iran, even though Obama began his presidency in 2009 with a suggestion to start talks with Iran, which has been proved to be insincere. At the same time, in concordance with the latest tendency, many American experts discuss a possible harmonization of US-Iranian relations. The head of the Stratford research centre, George Friedman, has devoted a whole book to the matter. The most recent reason for optimism is the victory in the Iranian presidential elections of Hassan Rouhani, who is a keen supporter of better relations with Western states and the struggle against economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
The UN General Assembly is going to gather in New York in a month. The event is expected to be attended by the new Iranian President . Many experts believe that the Iranian leader may use this opportunity to meet with top US officials. Rouhani was educated in the West, his foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif served at the Iranian embassy in the US for 19 years and spent a great part of his life there. Prior to his appointment Zarif was even forced to prove to Iranian lawmakers that he has never applied for American citizenship. It seems like Washington would never have a better person to talk to in Iran.
The main question is whether this great opportunity to resolve the US-Iranian conflict will be lost or not.
It seems like it will be and there is no one to blame except to the leaders of the United States and the European Union. Iran has already said that it would consider a strike on Syria as aggression against itself. While Iran is so sincere, the US says it's ready to attack the "axis of evil" - Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. The US considers Hezbollah a primitive terrorist organization, while a US strike on Syria will probably strengthen the position of the much more radical Al-Qaeda in the country, no matter whether the US administration understands that or not.
Supporting Obama's position on Syria, the hawks in the Congress, headed by former presidential hopeful Senator John McCain, are making a peaceful solution to both conflicts (that in Syria and that in Iran) impossible. The situation is becoming more and more dangerous for other regional powers, such as Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia, and of course Russia. However the opinion of these states is not very interesting for Western powers.
Not every loudly-expressed opinion is wise. What is happening now is, in fact, complete madness and terrible cynicism. Syria's transformation into a bulwark of a radical Sunni Islamists and further escalation of the conflict in the region leading to a US-Iranian war seem very likely in such circumstances. All this is hardly in US interests. Of course, this scenario is possible only in case of a large-scale campaign. A limited operation will only make Assad and Iran more angry and give them a chance to announced that they defeated the world's greatest superpower. Moreover, such an operation will lead to an increase in oil prices, which will be favourable for the Russian and Iranian economies. That is why it's hard to believe that the campaign will in fact be limited. When one starts a war, it may be very hard to stop it.
So why did the world come to the verge of this catastrophe? The reason is similar to that in 2003, when the war in Iraq started. It's propaganda and moral pressure. It was moral pressure that Secretary of State John Kerry used while addressing members of the US Congress. "Are you ready to continue your life, knowing that you could have stopped the violence, but you didn't?" he said. What can one respond to this pseudo-Hamlet question that requires such answers as "yes" or "no", while the reality is so much more complicated?
Moral pressure is when the issue of moral responsibility is being raised in a provocative and biased manner. How can one say that one does not support the idea of punishment for those who launched the chemical attacks? In a world where the economy is tough and a person only grasps the gist of news programmes, moral pressure is very effective. A lack of information always leads to prejudiced position. It's very important to struggle against such a biased approach.
By Dmitry Babich, correspondent of the Voice of Russia radio
Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
