Online Reporter
Gibson Nyikadzino-Zimpapers Politics Hub
THE current behaviour of the United States being witnessed in Iran, and recently in Nigeria, Venezuela, Canada, Greenland, Gaza and Ukraine, is not conducive to solutions or to peace.
Before the world’s eyes the United Nations Charter is being belittled while international law is being disregarded for the pursuit of one state’s interests.
After kidnapping Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro on January 3, of interest are US and Israel’s overt and covert actions in Iran.
The US has been fighting Iran primarily using economic warfare and financial means under the “maximum pressure” policy to effect regime change.
Last month the CIA and Mossad instigated other forms of violence inside Iran, including the beheading and shooting of innocent people to undermine the legitimacy of the revolution.
Iran must be doing something correctly or has values it does not intend to give up, for it has been in western corporate media for the longest run since 1996. For a generation, its reputation has been besmirched, its leaders denigrated and its revolutionary ideology dismissed.
Furthermore, it has been accused for wanting to acquire nuclear weapons, a pretext that has been repetitively used to find a way to either invade or bomb its structures. In short, western media has been misleading its constituencies and continues to do so about Iran.
What is encouraging is that the military pressure and build-up being pushed by the United States and Israel is easing, at the moment, as diplomatic channels are being opened.
But lies and accusations against Iran are so because since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the US, the European union (EU) and their allies in Western Asia (known as Middle-East) have felt that the entirety of Iran’s behaviour is denying the re-imposition of imperialism within its borders. The West, in this regard, wants to fight Iran at any cost.
However, Iran is one of the oldest surviving nations in the world.
For the past half millennia it has existed on the world map with the same borders and there is not a single historical superpower that has not tried to invade it, from the Romans, the Arabs, Mongols, Turks, Russians and the Great Britain.
They all tried to conquer Iran for one major reason; that it lies at the crossroads of the world. It is the central link for business, culture and economic lifeline to three continents; Africa, Asia and Europe.
The last country to invade Iran, which is Iraq, with sponsorship from the US and other countries, its forces were expelled from Iran.
And invading Iran today will be highly costly than the misadventures by the US in both Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively.
Additionally, Iran also has access to three seas. To its north is the Caspian Sea, and to its south are the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
On its southern side lies the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most important strategic points in the world, where around 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supplies pass through.
The strait is a choke point that also gives Iran its biggest geopolitical leverage. If Iran were to block the Strait of Hormuz using its navy, the global economy would collapse as 15 percent of the world’s energy supply passes through that point to reach Asia and Europe.
This geography of Iran has been more valuable in early 20th century when massive oil and gas reserves were discovered near the Persian Gulf. Today Iran holds nearly 10 percent of the world’s oil and 15 percent of world’s total natural gas reserves.
The West’s headache
Western cultural biases regarding Iran make it easy to locate the prejudices they have towards this country. For the past 40 years, Iran’s refusal to give up its values, ideology, independence and sovereignty has been a headache for the western world. Despite having powerful armies and economies, no western country has been able to attack and conquer Iran because all anti-Iranian forces are aware that attacking Iran directly could seriously backfire. The major reasons for Iran’s ability to stand unconquered have been its geography, history and an established axis of resistance which have made it so powerful and nearly impossible to triumph over.
What infuriates the West is that before the 1979 revolution Iran was considered a liberal country and a very strong ally of the United States in the region. When the revolution swept with the arrival of Imam Khomeini, all the geopolitical dynamics changed. Before 1979, Iran and Israel had very good relations.
Back then, Iran was the second largest Muslim-majority country to recognise Israel in 1948. From 1979, Imam Khomeini voiced strong support for the Palestinians, cutting all ties with Israel.
Iranians have a strong sense of justice, independence, patriotism and loyalty to their country unlike most other Muslim countries in the Arab world.
Partly, this is because Iran has existed as a cultural and political entity for more than 2 500 years. Thus, Iranians have always had a distinct sense of unique cultural and political identity at the national and regional level.
Allies not proxies
The Islamic Revolution in Iran has been a feared engine because of its infectious positions against Palestinian occupation and its resistance to imperialism through use of proxy states in Western Asia. Arab states around the region have cooperated more with the US than Iran in fear that its ideology might spread to the Arab states and harm their kingdoms, as most have been monarchies. This was the reason that Arab states collectively backed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 1980 to attack Iran.
It is upon this that Iran realised that for it to be stable and more secure, it had to have new allies, in particular, those fighting for justice against imperialist and expansionist positions in the region. To Iran, resistance groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen and Hamas in Palestine, are not “proxies” as western media suggests. Instead, they are allies in a network of resistance. Through this network, a lot of pressure has been exerted on imperial interests in Western Asia, forcing the West to rethink before taking any step against Iran.
Resisting imperialism
Iran’s 1979 revolution, by all accounts, was one of the representations of Iranian resistance to Western imperialism, yet, on the other hand, Iran is an insurmountable hurdle for US’ expansionist interests. US post-1979 interventions and engagements in Western Asia are no coincidence but a calculated strategy for long term national interest.
However, a protracted and active presence of Washington is arguably the continuity of Western imperialism in the region and thus bound to be resisted.
If ever it happens that there is talk of rapprochement between Iran and US, and the normalisation of relations, such should be done by keeping the latter at an arm’s length. To the US, Iran should develop its state into one that embodies many Western ideals. Such ideals are incompatible with the idea of resistance, which Iran stands for.
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