There once was a time in late '90's when we looked to the current Iranian President, Mohammed Khatami, and his moderate backers as the best hope for an eventual rapproachment with Iran. George Bush's ill-advised 2002 "Axis of Evil" State of the Union speech made that all but impossible, however, and virtually assured that if we are ever forced to invade Iran, we have virtually no friends when we enter. This means that we can expect to have no obvious friendly factions to align with when invade and to place in power when finally do win. Whoever we do put in power will have no popular legitimacy, meaning that should an Iraq-like insurgency erupt, it will have possibly greater popular support than the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. And that's just the obvious and likely ways it will play out.
This week we saw yet more reason to believe that this version of events will be the most likely.
Iran, facing mounting U.S. pressure over its nuclear program, promised yesterday a "scorching hell" for any aggressor as tens of thousands marched to mark the 26th anniversary of its Islamic revolution.
A month after President Bush warned that the United States hasn't ruled out military action against Iran, President Mohammed Khatami responded before a crowd gathered on a snowy square in Tehran.
The U.S. accuses Iran of maintaining a nuclear-weapons program, which Iran says is for peaceful energy purposes.
"Will this nation allow the feet of an aggressor to touch this land?" Khatami asked at the crowd. "If, God forbid, it happens, Iran will turn into a scorching hell for the aggressors."
His statements drew chants of "Death to America!" from the crowd.
Not exactly what you want to be hearing if your going to take another shot at installing democracy in the region.
Khatami is widely recognized as a leader of a moderate faction in Iran. Indeed, Khatami himself indicated in his speech that the talk of a possible U.S. invasion was pushing him into a united camp with Iran's hard-liners against foreign meddling.
Exactly. The idea here is to seperate the hardliners from the people we're looking to install in power.
"The Iranian nation is not looking for war, violence and confrontation," Khatami said.
"But the world should know that the Iranian nation won't tolerate any aggression and will stand united against aggression despite differences," he said, referring to the internal divide in Iranian politics between reformers and the more conservative clerics.
Last week, Bush accused Iran of being "the world's primary state sponsor of terror," and last month he said his administration won't rule out using military force against Iran over its nuclear program.
Until Khatami's statements, some had pointed to a possible softening in Iran's position in recent comments made by Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, who said that his country wants to resolve its differences with the United States. But in his speech yesterday, Khatami was adamant that Iran won't scrap its nuclear program. Iranian scientists worked hard to develop nuclear technology on their own and will not stop due to "the illegitimate demands of others," he said.
What's truly sad is there is a definite longing for democracy in Iran, but everytime the US involves itself, it has always somehow resulted in moving them further away. That goes for the CIA coup under Eisenhower which installed the Shah in place a democratically elected government to the present day marginalization of the reformment thanks to our country's inept diplomacy. Stopping Iran from possessing nuclear weapons would never have been easy. Bush has successfully made it all but impossible.