By Matthew G. Bisanz
It looks like we’ll make it three in a row. A few months back on one of those late night programs I saw a map of Central Asia that showed Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran with an overlaid tic-tac-toe board. Iran was the center square. The joke being we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, so now we’d invade Iran to make three in a row.
Interestingly, of those three nations, Iran poses the greatest threat to America. Iraq was alleged to have chemical weapons, but those are big bulky weapons that are hard to get into a country over 10,000 miles away. Also, Iraq’s army was unable to act as a large scale offensive force, which it did in 1990. Afghanistan backed Al Qaeda, but Al Qaeda has shown it can hide out in almost any nation, including our own. Iran on the other hand is building the capacity to make nuclear weapons that can fit in a small truck. In addition, its president has made statements that appear to indicate Iran would invade Israel given the chance.
To me this means an invasion of Iran is in the best interest of the United States, Europe and Israel. However, we cannot afford to make the same mistake we made in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was the mistake of attempting to reform the governments of those nations. With Afghanistan and Iraq we tried to suppress hard line fundamentalist Muslims, while at the same time attempting to form liberal democracies. The problem is, democracy cannot be imposed. It is the culmination of decades and centuries of incremental change.
Even American democracy was not formed quickly. It was built up through small changes such as colonial assemblies and gatherings like the Stamp Act Congress, the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention. In fact, the current Constitution is actually the second constitution of the American states. The first one we abandoned seven years after ratification. Further, after ratification democracy was not achieved. Black Americans were not free and women could not vote. Only by 1920, a full 144 years after independence, was everyone over the age of 21 recognized as having an equal voice in the government. Even today pay discrimination and hiring preferences prevent true equality.
Therefore, if we invade Iran we should not attempt to reform their government. Iran has a very stable form of government and its parliament is elected by the people. Further, Iran has been a stable source of oil for America since 1980. Any long term occupation could destroy this vital flow of oil. America’s main goal should be neutralizing Iran’s nuclear and conventional weapons and leaving the country. Whenever government is imposed from the outside, problems form. Need we be reminded that the democratic Weimar government that replaced the monarchy of Kaiser Wilhelm in turn elected the Nazis party to power in 1933? Hitler ascended to power through democratic means. Iran may not be as bad as Nazi Germany, but the basic idea shows the best government is one internally formed by the people, not created by an outside power. Kuwait is a perfect example of incremental change. It moved from an absolute monarchy in 1990, to a point where the Kuwaiti Parliament was strong enough to successfully object to the hereditary succession of the king. This follows the history of England, where over a period of about 600 years the king went from being the sole source of law in the nation to a basic figure head who could not change the laws of Parliament. The same is true of Iran, who since the 1979 Revolution has successfully implemented multiple political parties and local government elections.
In fact, Iran’s only problem to the United States is the threat from its potential weapons. Any invasion or action in Iran should focus only on this aspect and leave the current political establishment intact. A theocracy may be the most stable form of government for Iran, and just because it is not a democracy, does not mean we must change it. Yes, we must prevent it from becoming a nuclear power, as that is a threat to our own national interests, but there are many undemocratic nations that we deal with on a regular basis. Iraq would probably be very happy with a theocracy along the lines of Iran, but as we have seen, they will not accept a form of government that is not in their own image. Further, this proposed course in Iran would show that America does indeed support freedom, as we would allow Iran to choose a form of government that we did not like and didn’t agree with.