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By Robert Gaines and Scott Horton,The National Interest
Undeterred by decades of carnage and the disastrous outcomes of prior conflicts, ideologues within the Trump administration are clamoring for military action against Iran. The exact basis for this escalation varies. Common among the allegations are concerns over Iran’s civilian nuclear program, in spite of Iraniancompliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran nuclear deal) and their Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA. Other pro-intervention voices decry Iran’s alleged sponsorship of terror organizations or cite a general concern for U.S. interests in the region as a pretext for action. This view of the Iranian regime is overly narrow and ahistorical. Iran is a conservative state in a region otherwise awash in radicalism. Any military action undertaken by the United States or its allies against the regime in Tehran will represent a grave error.
Sponsorship of terror organizations or extremist groups is a hallmark of nearly all Middle Eastern states. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait have both lent financial and material support to Sunni extremist groups involved in the Syrian Civil war, Yet both remain in good standing as U.S. allies. Even Israel has aided rebels groups in Syria near its border, though Jerusalem denies that it is supporting extremists. Iran is not beyond reproach, for it has maintained relationships with Hezbollah and Hamas. However, these groups, while on the State Department’s terrorist list, do not threaten the United States.
(This first appeared in June 2019.)
The claim that the Iranian regime harbors or supports Al Qaeda is patently absurd and easily disproven.
Prior to the start of the Global War on Terror, Iran supported the foremost adversary of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the confederation of warlords known as the Northern Alliance. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Iranian government handed over photocopies of three hundred passports associated with suspected Al Qaeda members to the United Nations. Of these three hundred, many would be forcibly deported back to Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. In an additional gesture of good will, the Iranian regime offered to provide search and rescue support, humanitarian relief and targeting assistance in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda to then-Deputy Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Ryan Crocker. America was initially receptive, accepting Iranian assistance in the Bonn Conference that oversaw the creation of the post-Taliban Afghan government. Special Envoy James Dobbins would later state that the Iranians were “comprehensively helpful” in the post 9/11 period.
