Is an Iran crisis building up?

Is this assumption correct? If so, a United States that has been so involved in its so-called “active engagement” policy over the past 23 years would definitely have found a pretext for staging an operation in Iran.

A possible American attack on Iran popped up on the international agenda once again with an article in the New Yorker magazine on Sunday. The article said U.S. commando units were conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to identify hidden nuclear and chemical sites for possible future strikes. The New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh — the journalist who first exposed the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal — suggested that Pentagon officials were eager to tackle Iran in Bush’s second term, which starts on Thursday.

It is no secret that Iran has been on the American list of "axis-of-evil" countries. On the other hand, Iran is no Iraq, where the entire power was concentrated in the hands of one dictator, Saddam Hussein, and the defense systems of the country as well as its social fabric were seriously destroyed by an international economic blockade imposed for the decade preceding the American operation.

Of course, U.S. President George W. Bush would not rule out possible action on Iran if that country was not forthcoming about its nuclear program. Washington has been accusing Tehran for a long time of secretly trying to make an atom bomb and has distanced itself from the European Union effort, insisting that Iran must be brought before the U.N. Security Council and face economic sanctions unless it proves the suspicions to be unfounded. Iran, however, has been denying that its nuclear facilities are to be used to make nuclear weapons.

Bush’s remarks on Monday, however, that he would not deny such a possibility, do not imply that the global cowboy has pulled on his boots and is preparing to march on Iran.

Iran is not only one of the oldest countries and cultures in this part of the world, it also has one of the oldest state administrative traditions in all the world, and unlike the ambiguity in many countries of this region vis-a-vis who is second in command, Iran’s structure runs so deep that removing one top leader would not bring about the collapse of the entire state apparatus.

That is, irrespective of to what extent Iranian forces could resist an occupation or respond to a limited and pinpointed attack on a facility, an attack on Iran could be costlier than Vietnam to any aggressor.

In particular, the immediate EU reaction to Bush’s remarks after the New Yorker report was published has to be taken into account by any American administration before an operation on Iran is launched. Could Washington risk its relations with the EU while the rift between the two sides of the Atlantic over the Iraq war is hardly over?

Besides, Washington has to take very seriously the intense efforts of the EU countries, particularly Britain, Germany and France, who have been seeking to persuade Tehran to abandon technology that could be used to make nuclear warheads in return for incentives such as trade deals and help with a civilian nuclear program.

In this discussion, although everything was based on a conspiracy theory, there still ought to be some sort of a reaction from Turkey as well. Unfortunately, the Turks were busier preparing for the upcoming Edi al-Adha (the Feast of the Sacrifice) than concentrating on more worldly problems such as, “What would the impact on Turkey be of an American attack on Iran?”