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Is war the only path to peace?

Though Bush has denied plans to wage another war, Seymour Hersh reports in The New Yorker that Washington may be planning another war to facilitate regime change in Iran. More alarmingly, the administration is planning a ‘tactical’ use of nuclear weapons to take Iran’s nuclear installations. The credibility of that assertion lies in Bush’s statement after failing to secure international support for sanctions against Iran last week. Refusing to rule out nuclear strikes against the Islamic republic, the president said: "All options are on the table..."

But do we need another war to either nullify Iran’s nuclear installations or facilitate regime change or both?

The "war for peace" doctrine originated in 1890s from President Teddy Roosevelt. "All the great masterful races have been fighting races," boasted Roosevelt, "and no triumph of peace is quite so great as the triumphs of war." Roosevelt’s call was countered by many predictions for peace. In 1914, novelist HG Wells wrote about World War I in the essay, The War That Will End War: "For this is now a war for peace. It aims at a settlement that shall stop this sort of thing forever...This, the greatest of all wars, is not just another war —it is the last war!" Like most of his writings, this too remains fiction. In 1918, US president Woodrow Wilson and British prime minister David Lloyd George joined Wells in predicting that World War I would be "the culminating and final war for human liberty".

Since then each conflict was to have been the last. But peace forecasts have been over-ruled each time. The first led to World War II, which ended only to trigger the Cold War that set off the Korean and Vietnam wars, interspersed by the Arab-Israeli conflicts, followed by the Gulf and Balkan wars, the never-ending African confrontations, and the ongoing Iraq misadventure.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union threw up a fresh hope for peace, but in it lay the emergence of the US unilateralism and the continuation of Roosevelt’s doctrine.

Now, according to Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington appears to be following the Iraqi script of ‘war for peace’ on Iran: "The vice-president gives a major speech focused on the threat from an oil-rich nation in the Middle East. The secretary of state tells Congress that the same nation is our most serious global challenge. The secretary of defence calls that nation the leading supporter of global terrorism. The president blames it for attacks on US troops."

So, is there no alternative to war? Despite what Iran is perceived to be and how complex the ground realities are, war is a weak solution because the current crisis emanates not from a single source in the present, but from a host of historical, political, religious, economic and cultural reasons.

One of the handy weapons against war is public opinion. Throughout the Vietnam War, American polls showed changing public opinion. According to a survey in 2000, 70 per cent of the Americans still believed that sending troops to Vietnam was a mistake. The length of the war, high number of US casualties, and exposure of US involvement in war crimes made many Americans turn against the war.

While the ongoing war in Iraq should have reinforced that belief, it is ironic that 48 per cent of Americans still support a military strike against Iran as opposed to 40 per cent against it, according to a Zogby International poll in January. However, 54 per cent said they did not trust Bush to "make the right decision about whether we should go to war with Iran", which is the window of opportunity that could be tapped in the country that is set to make the war cry.

An even healthier trend emerged from a December 2005 poll. While 43 per cent of those questioned in five Arab countries —including Iran’s Gulf neighbors Saudi Arabia and the UAE —by Zogby International said they believed Iran was trying to develop nuclear weapons, only six per cent felt that Iran posed the biggest threat to them.

One possible way of translating that into a mass movement for the sake of Arabs, Iranians and humankind is through a more proactive role by leaders like former US president Jimmy Carter —an American who has the credentials to propagate peace and a statesman who has often criticised Bush’s threats of war. Carter made a relevant statement while accepting the Nobel peace prize in Oslo in 2003: "War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other’s children."

Beyond intentions and interventions of dovish leaders, the need of the hour is dialogue that looks beyond the failed talks between Iran and the EU3, as well as the mediatory roles played by Russia and China. While a peaceful solution emerging from direct US-Iran negotiations cannot be ruled out without even attempting it, there is yet another possibility that has not been considered seriously enough —dialogue between the GCC countries and Iran. Just as the current episode exposes the crisis of confidence between the two sides, it also throws up the opportunity for both to mend fences. With the GCC countries being in the first line of casualties in the event of an armed conflict, it is imperative that they be involved to convince both Iran and the US against confrontation. Likewise, Iran must win the trust of the GCC countries and encourage them to serve as the messengers of peace with Washington. Teheran must take cue from the statements made by the GCC countries rejecting any nuclear threat from Iran, while also rejecting any aggressive intent against Iran.

There is no doubt that the status quo between the US and Iran is on shaky ground as it serves neither. One can’t help but wait and watch if, like in the case of Iraq, there already exists a pre-written script to attack Iran. With war or peace being the only options, the question is will a war or a bombing campaign —which most strategic analysts think would be disastrous —in Iran finally bring peace? The answer lies in the first paragraph.

Dr N. Janardhan is a political analyst and the Editor of the Gulf in the Media at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai