| | I read Dr. Alexiev's interesting and informative article. From his description, Americans and Israel are on a collision course with Iranian messianic psychopaths.
I appreciate Dr. Alexiev's intelligent approach to this problem, including his insistance that any military intervention by the United States in Iran be narrowly aimed at key components of the ruling elite, as opposed to targeting "Iran" and anyone who happens to live within its proximity. His description of the totalitarian and messianic worldview of the thugs who control the state is chilling. His observation that the ruling class lives by oppressing its subjects, and that it might be possible to exploit this essential conflict of interests through propaganda and the promotion of reformist ideas is worth thinking about.
Sadly, while I am willing to think actively about arguments to the contrary, I find it difficult to picture such a campaign of political warfare succeeding. I find it exceedingly hard to believe that the US state, which is, in effect, the world's biggest reigning meat ax, capable of designing and implementing such a subtle, difficult and unpredictable campaign of influence.
The ultimate object of any such campaign would be to install democracy in Iran. But it is unproven that Iran, with its warring ethnic tribes now kept in line by a totalitiarian regime, would be hospitable to democracy. In fact, I doubt that anyone can predict with assurance what the outcome of a campaign of political warfare in an alien culture would be. Let's not forget that American nation-builders installed the Shaw of Iran, with his oppressive central planning and his brutal secret police, after the preceeding regime nationalized British-owned oil holdings. One unintended result was the promotion of anti-American feeling in Iran that I assume continues to this day.
The most basic reason for my skepticism is that the US state--like states everywhere--is a blunt instrument of coercion and violence. By the time any plan of political warfare and support for reform movements emerged from Washington DC, I doubt it would resemble the plan that Dr. Alexiev has in mind. The warped incentives that drive political organizations make intelligent planning nearly impossible.
In addition, the only really effective means our government could use to persuade Iranians that the United States is a benevolent and peaceful country is to act that way. Withdrawal from the Middle East and elsewhere would constitute an effective propaganda message, because actions speak louder than words. Stating to the world that henceforth our policy is to mind our own business and protect Americans from any foreign threat, and then actually doing so, would make American appeals to the good sense of Iranians far more credible and influential. By removing our military from the Middle East and winding down the risk of an American invasion of Iran, we would reduce the incentives among saner Iranians for acquiring nuclear weapons.
At the same time, we could take additional actions designed to head off any threat posed by Iranian mullahs. We could promote the idea that the cost of any nuclear exchange would fall on the Iranian people. We could prohibit American oil service companies from dealing with the Iranian state, since those companies have no right to traffic in stolen property. In fact, we could repeal the myriad of restrictions and punitive taxation imposed on our domestic energy entrepreneuers, thereby unleashing the creative energy of capitalism in energy production. As George Reisman has persuasively explained in his book Capitalism, this would accomplish far more than any other policy to dramatically undercut the revenues flowing into the coffers of Middle Eastern thugs. We could also withhold official benefits extended by our state to European companies who supply the state-controlled oil monopoly in Iran. Americans could do a great deal to quietly and rapidly destroy the Iranian state oil monopoly on which the existing Iranian ruling elite is utterly dependent.
However, our present policy of indiscriminate invasion and large-scale killing accomplishes exactly the opposite of its stated objective. Rather than protecting Americans, it targets them for eventual nuclear annihilation. Unfortunately, it is unrealistic to expect our government to withdraw troops from the Middle East and elsewhere, and to keep its hands off American energy producers. Perhaps Dr. Alexiev's proposal is our best hope.
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