Politics: Theology and Foreign Policy

A friend of mine sent me a link to this essay on Iran. Here is the key quote:

Iran's president is a disciple of the Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, an obscure Iranian cleric who preaches a radical strain of Shiite liberation theology. Ahmadinejad, like his mentor, believes fervently in the return of the Mahdi, or Twelfth Imam — a second coming that many are convinced will occur as a result a regional conflagration.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Ahmadinejad is actively courting a crisis with the West.

I have little familiarity with Islamic theology. Thus, I went to the internet to check out this idea. The material in Wikipedia says the following:

According to the Islamic view Jesus (Isa, in Arabic) is not the Son of God, but was a prophet and will return to Earth. It is believed that Jesus never died and he was not crucified; instead he was raised into heaven still physically alive, where he lives now. At the time appointed by Allah, Jesus will physically return to this world, and together with the Mahdi will end all wars, and usher in an era of peace. The messianic era comes after Jesus kills ad-Dajjal, the antichrist figure in Islam, and defeats his followers.

I went to Google to see if I could find a web page that is explicitly a Muslim page. I suppose the Wikipedia page could be written by a Muslim and is a fair representation of the doctrine. In my seach I found this page where it says of the Mahdi concept:

The questioning by Munkar and Nakir, and the punishment of the tomb, are realities; so also are the signs of the end, such as the slaying of the Dadjdjal by `isa.--Between death and the resurrection on the Last Day men will be questioned in the graves by two angels, Munkar and Nakir, and rewarded or punished. Various signs of the coming of the Last Day are also mentioned. These are popular beliefs, based on Tradition and not on the kur'an, but they have been incorporated into the creeds [cf. `adjab al-kabr]. Among the Shi`a special emphasis is laid on the Return (radj`a [q.v.]), i.e. of the Mahdi and of a limited number of very good and very bad people; this is for the punishment of the latter and the glorification of the household of Muhammad (cf. D. M. Donaldson, The Shi"ite Religion, London 1933, 236 f.). This return to earth before the Last Day, though "a preliminary judgement", is to be distinguished from God's final judgement.

If indeed, the current leader of Iran subscribes to these ideas then it may well be rather difficult to steer him away from a confrontation over the nuclear programs in Iran.

From a "realpolitics" point of view, there appears to be little the USA can do about the Iranian nuclear program.

An air-only military strike to destroy the nuclear program would probably only be partially effective.

In 1981, Israel hit the nuclear reactor at Osiraq. This strike was a serious set back to the Iraqi nuclear program.

The Iranians obviously fear such a move by Israel or America so they have probably built their facilities deep in the ground to survive such a strike. It also wouldn't surprise me if they have dispersed it in as many locations as possible with decoy locations.

Thus, an air-only military option may set back the Iranian program but inflame the passions of the region.

Of course, in DC and Tel Aviv, they might be receiving back channel communications saying: in public, we will have to vigorously criticize your attack on Iran's nuclear program but please know you have our thanks.

The other military option would be to invade the parts of Iran where the facilities are suspected. Only the US military has such capabilities. However, that option would be difficult to execute given the strained military resources due to the Iraq conflict.

Also, from the Iraq experience, we have learned the limits of intelligence gathering. Of the suspected sites in Iran, how many are actual sites? How many locations in Iran would military teams have to be sent? If the US military is strained by Iraq, then how much more difficult would it be in Iran, a much larger country?

Thus, we are left with diplomatic options and those don't promising either.

The most rosy scenario would be for the Iranian leadership to so bungle their managment of the country that they are ousted by the people. Hopefully, the new leaders of Iran would then say why waste billions of bucks on nuclear technology and abandon the program.