The Prime Minister sits alone in his office, staring out his window as he subconsciously rocks in his brown leather chair. He envisions streets full of rubble, buildings gutted by the explosion, all against the backdrop of nuclear winter. With a stony resolve and a sinking heart, he officially orders the most complex surgical aerial bombardment in human history.
Within hours, hundreds of the most advanced jets are prepped for the long mission that will see a stream of planes stretching from Israel to Iran. Tunneling bombs rain on the underground nuclear facilities to make sure nothing is left.
But the Israeli Air Force faces a worthy opponent in the S-300 missile defense system that Russia has agreed to sell Iran. A number of jets are damaged in the assault, and some pilots are stranded in Iran. Iran responds to the attacks with a missile barrage on Israel, which is relatively ineffective against Israeli surface-to-air defenses. Rockets launched by paramilitary groups supporting Iran cause some significant damage.
Iran attempts to isolate Israel in the region economically, and then engages in international denunciations of the Israeli attack to test international support. Western Europe, the United States and the Middle East collectively sigh as the threat of a nuclear Iran has been neutralized, but what will the international community do in the aftermath?
Now, imagine a nuclear-energy-seeking Venezuela led by President Hugo Chavez, and a similar U.S. assault strategy. Earlier this week, Chavez announced both the purchase of highly advanced anti-aircraft weaponry from Russia and his plans to develop nuclear energy capabilities. A Latin American Missile Crisis may not be far off. But, more likely than not, this missile crisis is actually occurring in the Middle East, under the facade of Venezuelan defiance.
Robert Morgenthau, the district attorney of Manhattan, spoke on the Iran-Venezuela relationship at the Brookings Institute earlier this month. Due to his office’s investigations, Morgenthau believes Iran is conducting illicit weapons testing in isolated locations in Venezuela. Morgenthau also spoke of financial schemes that have allowed Iran to bypass economic sanctions and secure funding for their nuclear program. And with Venezuela’s large uranium deposits, the Iran-Venezuela partnership, armed with Russian weapons systems, could very well lead to two new nuclear powers in two of the world’s hotspots.
The Obama administration has so far faltered in addressing the Middle East. John Hillen, Trinity ’88 and former assistant secretary of state for political military affairs, spoke about the current U.S. approach to the Middle East in his talk at Duke last week. He pointed out that Obama’s delay in speaking to the American people about Afghanistan does a severe disservice to our efforts in that country. More importantly, Obama’s failure to clearly outline any Middle East policy has seemingly unhinged the region.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is suspected to have met secretly with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin last week, and a Russian vessel that may or may not have been carrying an illegal shipment of anti-aircraft missiles to Iran may or may not have been hijacked by Russian agents after Russia was informed of the illicit material en route to Iran.
Without U.S. leadership, Russia has the opportunity to increase its influence. Interestingly, Israel has also improved its relations with nearby countries, including Egypt, mostly through very basic collective security agreements against Iran. Perhaps the absence of the U.S. is leading to increased stability in the region, just out of sheer necessity. But these same regional deals could have been made with proper U.S. involvement. The absence of the U.S. only helps Iran buy time, and time is of the essence for all parties involved.
The U.S. needs to reestablish a foreign policy focus. The implications of increasing Iranian power are not limited to the Middle East. Iran is financially active in Latin America, financing players in the Colombian drug trade. And if the relationship between Venezuela and Iran continues to develop, Venezuela may be armed with potent missiles, supplying Iran with multi-faceted support for the Iranian nuclear program and protected by Russian-built surface-to-air missiles that would give even the U.S. Air Force a run for its money.
In this increasingly globalized world, every act can have reverberating repercussions. U.S. non-involvement in the Middle East has become a threat to our national security. With its military already stretched in two conflicts, the U.S. must find other means to achieve its policy objectives.
Firstly, the Obama administration needs to outline those objectives. Secondly, the U.S. must emphasize diplomatic and economic means to achieve those goals. Finally, the U.S. must cope with the idea that we aren’t the only important players in the world anymore. We haven’t performed well on the world stage lately, and, until we do once again, countries will look for substitutes to U.S. influence. Ships will go missing, Russia will be the new cool kid on the block and the U.S. will watch as its once unparalleled global influence gradually fades away.
Elad Gross is a Trinity senior. His column runs every Wednesday.
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