by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright April 12, 2006
All Rights Reserved.

oasting that “Iran has joined the club of nuclear nations,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared psychological war on the West, counterpunching the Bush administration's recent bout of saber rattling. On the eve of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency Mohammed ElBaradei visiting Tehran, Ahmadinejad sent a loud message that Iran won't back down from its right to enrich uranium and complete the “nuclear fuel cycle.” Waving a vial of enriched uranium, Ahnmadinejad applauded the Iran's arrival into the “nuclear club.” Short of a new bombing campaign, there's little the U.S. can do to halt Iran's feverish pursuit of enriched uranium for “peaceful purposes.” Most Western nuke experts believe Iran seeks to build its first A-bomb, with clandestine help from Russia, China and Pakistan's renegade bomb maker A.Q. Khan.

      Ahmadinejad's announcement puts the West on notice that the Islamic republic takes great pride in its atomic work. There's little the U.S. can do to pressure U.N. Security Council members, especially China and Russia, to halt Iran's pursuit of fissile material. “Everyone agrees that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons,” said State Department Sean McCormick, calling for more diplomatic pressure. Yet veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, Russia and China, have already signaled they will stop any attempt to impose sanctions on the Islamic republic. U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan has made it difficult to contain a growing Iranian nuclear threat. Iran's supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has already said the U.S. has too much on its plate to open a new front in its war on terror, leaving Bush's bark worst than his bite.

      Flaunting a miniscule amount of enriched uranium on the world stage, Iran seeks to answer Bush's hard-line against Tehran's attempt to enrich uranium. Declaring Iran as a nuclear power Ahmadinejad seeks to neutralize White House saber-rattling about a possible military action, provoking the U.S. into a diplomatic war. If the U.S. says nothing, Iran wins the PR battle, convincing the world that the U.S. is a paper tiger, incapable of stopping Iran's nuclear ambitions. Putting the U.S. on the defensive gives Iran the PR edge, convincing the world that Iran's atomic program is a fait accompli. Taking his lessons from Osama bin Laden, Ahmadinejad (a) whips his country into a continuous frenzy, (b) hijacks the Palestinian cause and (c) directs Islam's hatred toward the Jews—the exact same formula used by Adolf Hitler to justify European hegemony and mass extermination.

      Propagandists, like Ahmadinejad, keep repeating the same lies until they become the reality of disenfranchised masses, directing hatred toward an artificially concocted enemy. Today's Iran, together with the rest of the Islamic world, blames Israel and the U.S. for the society's collective misery, not the host government that wastes oil revenue on developing atomic technology over improving the standard-of-living of its impoverished citizens. “Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation,” Ahmadinejad told a conference supporting the new Hamas-dominated Palestinian regime. Preaching to the choir, the hateful Iranian president seeks to detour attention away from Iran's defiant pursuit of nuclear technology to Palestinians' isolation from the Western world. Ahmadinejad called Israel a permanent threat to the Middle East “soon” to be liberated, without elaborating how. Nothing helps Iran's atomic cause more than anarchy in Palestine.

      Veiled or direct threats against Israel feed red meat to the Islamic street, plagued with poverty and unemployment. Ahmadinejad holds nuclear power as the key to force the U.S. to back down—the same equalizer Pakistan found to keep India in line. Iran's insistence on enriching uranium gives it extra clout with a public that has little to celebrate about. When Islamic radicals seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, it was show of force. Taking hostages gave Ayatollah Khomeini the same kind of leverage Ahmadinejad seeks with atomic power. Like Pakistan's A.Q. Khan, A-bombs are for “peaceful purposes,” because they keep enemies at bay. Bragging about joining the “nuclear club,” Tehran seeks to neutralize U.S. psyops, threatening possible military repercussions. When President George W. Bush dismissed reports about military action as “wild speculation,” it hurt U.S. psyops.

      Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Iran's best propagandist since Khomeini's Islamic Resolution. U.S. psyops must continue relentless pressure, letting Tehran keep guessing about possible military options. With the U.S. mired in Iraq, Ahmadinejad bets America is bluffing about possible military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. Threatening Israel only increases the stakes at a time when Iran wants the U.N. Security Council to back down off possible sanctions for defying ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Instead of getting seduced by Ahmadinejad's provocations, the U.S. should continue the quiet diplomacy of allowing surrogates, not the president, to speculate about the growing prospects of military action. Giving diplomacy a chance requires the U.S. to handle Tehran's propaganda without getting sucked into a tit-for-tat war of words.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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