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GELFAND’S WORLD - So how is that Nobel Peace Prize quest going for you, Donald? The president and his team have obviously adopted a different strategy – invade and blow up everybody and anybody where they can claim justification. So far, Trump seems to be winning the Iranian strike in terms of popular opinion. Sure, there have been the automatic protests against the use of American force but there have been bigger celebrations by Iranian-Americans here in our own streets.
Trump has caught the liberal side and quite a few sober rationalists off guard, because it is hard to defend the deceased Iranian ruler and his dictatorial record. Consider the comments by Jonathan Alter in his Old Goats column. “First, it’s good that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead. He was the worst tyrant of the last half-century, anywhere in the world. That doesn’t justify this war, but let’s not forget all the blood on his hands.”
I might quibble a bit over Putin’s massacre of tens of thousands of Ukrainians, but Alter seems to represent the current view on the streets of Los Angeles.
But Alter offers a caveat: “The Iranian people have no guns.” He takes that point to develop an argument that we are unlikely to see a spontaneous popular uprising leading to democracy and peace. You know, the uprising that our own president is calling for.
Alter suggests the possibility that Iran will descend into its own internal strife – a low level civil war seems to be the suggestion. His view is that the rest of us are better off with Iran temporarily gelded than we would be were the previous regime still in power.
So right now, Trump has won this round, and his Democratic Party opposition are stuck in place, pointing out the obvious – that the United States has once again violated its own Constitution and international law by its use of military violence against a sovereign country. This does not seem to have harmed Trump or the Republican Party politically so far.
But here’s the crux. Suppose the ruling party in Iran makes good on its promise to create a new ruling group out of the survivors. (It seems to have the candidates in place. They have appeared on international television.) They have a procedure for choosing a new Supreme Leader who will come out of the clergy. In other words, all other things being equal, the surviving government can resurrect the previous government, and all while using practices and procedures that have been internally accepted and used previously.
So absent another American/Israeli attack on a now more careful interim government, the situation is likely to return to the pre-war status quo in short order. The pro-freedom protestors are going to face more death, while the Iranian armed forced are going to be resupplied.
There is one bit of irony in Alter’s opening lead that the Iranian people don’t have guns. Isn’t this the point that our Second Amendment fundamentalists have been making all these years – that unlimited possession of firearms is designed to protect the people from a tyrannical government? The deeper irony is that our own, home-grown gun fanciers are exactly the people who are currently supporting the current authoritarian regime here at home.
And what of this new-found political gain for Donald Trump? We have every reason to believe that gas prices will go up, since Iran has been a substantial producer of crude oil and Iran has at least some control over the hugely important Strait of Hormuz. As of this writing, the news is reporting on that very fact. The first effect of rising gasoline prices is that prices rise on every commodity that depends on fuel to get it to market – in other words, everything. Hmmm – rising fuel prices and consumer inflation in this, the beginning of an election year. This is quite the risk for any government to take.
And then there is the war itself. Trump predicts another 4 weeks of military action against Iran. This prediction seems to depend on that popular uprising by all those freedom-loving Iranians – the uprising that would replace the current regime with something similar to our own system.
Meanwhile, the son of the deposed Shah of Iran would like to take over. Americans of a certain age will remember how eager the Iranian people were to get rid of the Shah the last time around. It is not impossible for a royal descendent to direct a transition to democracy (see Spain, for example), but I’m not seeing a lot of evidence that this is the guy or that he has any chance of gaining power. The Politico piece cited above lists the difficulties in such an undertaking.
One last thing. Suppose the current interim regime solidifies its control and continues to toss missiles around the middle east the way it has been doing for the past couple of days. And do they have any remaining submarines? Have we created a viable target out of the continental United States by opening up this conflict? And one last thought: What are the consequences of opening hostilities under the command of a lightweight like Hegseth?
David Ignatius at the Washington Post remarks on the danger that this war will continue. “What worries me most is that the conflict may put more time on the clock of an Iranian regime that was about to expire. The aging supreme leader was unpopular. Iranians had been jockeying for position in the succession process. The one thing that could rehabilitate the hardline clerical team he represents is his martyrdom.”
So what will it be? A new, democratic Iran with freedom for women? Or a continuation of what has been going on since the Iranian people rejected the Shah? Perhaps the next 4 weeks will show us. Meanwhile, an Iran absent nuclear weapons is desirable for the rest of us. A prolonged middle eastern war like we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan is the least desirable way to achieve this objective.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
