Opinion | Columnists
Banking on a 'velvet revolution'
For the US and Israel, regime change in Iran as a result of a popular uprising will prove cost-effective in the present scenario.
- By Abdel Bari Atwan, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:02 July 12, 2009
- Image Credit: Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News
The G8 conference has given the Iran government until the end of September to agree to negotiations limiting its nuclear capacity; simultaneously the protests in favour of the defeated presidential candidate Mir Hussain Mousavi have started again in Tehran.
It is clear that the US administration is banking on a 'velvet revolution' in Iran to undermine the regime from within and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the CIA is involved in fomenting one.
The Iranian demonstrations have been heavily featured in the Western media. Other Middle Eastern elections and protests have rarely been of interest to them - except the so-called 'Cedar Revolution' in Lebanon by the Coalition of 14 March against the Lebanese opposition led by Hezbollah; tellingly, there was little coverage of the 'orange' counter-demonstrations.
Regime change in Iran as a result of popular uprising would prove a cost-effective method at a time when US military and financial reserves are already fully stretched in Iraq (where 130,000 US troops are still deployed outside the cities) and Afghanistan.
Images of violence against demonstrators further serve to galvanise the Western public (increasingly weary of war) for a military strike, should one prove necessary.
If the 'velvet revolution' does not succeed in toppling Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - and let us not forget that independent surveys by US pollsters prior to the elections found overwhelming support for the incumbent with a 2 1 margin in his favour while support for Mousavi was largely among the elite - a coordinated strike by the US, Israel and possibly other Arab and Western powers seems highly likely. Everything is being put in place for such an eventuality.
In June, as part of a naval drill, the Israeli nuclear submarine Dolphin sailed from the Suez Canal to the Red Sea. The most significant thing about this is that the Egyptian authorities allowed it to happen.
At around the same time, more than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters participated in manoeuvres, some of them joint exercises with the US air force, as a dress rehearsal for a possible raid on Iran.
On July 6, French President Sarkozy said the Iranian people "deserve a better leadership" - exactly the same phrase used by former US president George W. Bush and other Western leaders prior to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
On July 10, he declared that a unilateral strike by Israel would be "catastrophic", adding that "Israel should know it is not alone".
Meanwhile, US Vice-President Joseph Biden apparently gave Israel the green light to attack Iran when he announced on July 5 that "Israel can determine for itself what is in their interest"; US President Barack Obama, whilst ostensibly denying the 'green light' theory, nevertheless re-affirmed (without irony) that "we can't dictate to other countries what their security interests are".
The Sunday Times of July 5 claimed that Saudi Arabia had agreed to allow Israeli warplanes through its airspace in order to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.
Denial of this story came, unexpectedly, from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then from a Saudi government spokesperson. This was unusual in that Israel is not in the habit of denying news relating to a third country.
Writing in the Washington Post on July 2, former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton urged Israel to strike Iran, saying that "negotiations represent an even more dangerous trap". Later, he affirmed that "it would be entirely logical for the Israelis to use Saudi airspace".
It is also noteworthy that on June 12, writing in the Wall Street Journal, Bolton made the uncomfortable, but probably true, statement that "most of the Arab world's leaders would welcome Israel solving the Iran nuclear problem, although they certainly won't say so publicly".
And so it seems. The 'Sunni Ayatollahs' appear to have decided to cooperate with their US ally and Israel in any imminent war against Iran. Netanyahu referred to this himself, when replying to Obama's Cairo speech; he spoke of a shared Arab-Israeli anxiety concerning Iran's nu clear capabilities, and urged his "'friends" and the Arabs to cooperate with him in an "international front against Iran arming itself with nuclear weapons".
It is possible, though unlikely, that a 'velvet revolution' will unseat Ahmadinejad, or that continued protests will prompt him to enter into negotiations with the US in a bid to present a more acceptable image to the international community.
But the Iranian power system is not about one man. Ayatollah Khamenei and the Guardian Council retain control of the state mechanism regardless of who is president.
On July 6, Khamenei adopted a far from conciliatory stance when he addressed "the heads of arrogant countries" and warned them that "even with the existence of some differences of opinion, the people of Iran will unite when faced with the enemy and will become a united fist against them".
The situation is highly reminiscent of the period preceding the invasion of Iraq with both sides adopting an increasingly entrenched stance, exaggerated accounts of Iran's nuclear capability, vivid accounts of its human rights violations and a Western media campaign geared towards psychological preparation and popular mobilisation for conflict.
Abdel Bari Atwan is editor of the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi.
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