By LARRY HUFFORD

The current Bush administration is promoting a campaign of fear based upon Iran’s supplying weapons to Iraqi insurgent groups. One explanation for this might be that since it is becoming increasingly obvious that the neoconservative plan to remake the Middle East into a pro-democratic, pro-West and pro-Israel region is a failed policy, the administration is now looking for a scapegoat.

It is not rocket science to state that Iran is training and arming selected Shiah Iraqi insurgent groups. It is also known that the al-Maliki government, supported by the Bush administration, relies on 30 seats in the legislative assembly controlled by the radical Shiah leader Muqtada al-Sadr to remain in power.

The Bush administration’s campaign of fear fails to mention that wealthy Sunni individuals in Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, perhaps with their government’s approval, are supplying money to Iraqi Sunni insurgent groups. The United States, meanwhile, is supporting, training and arming the “police” force in Kurdish Northern Iraq.

Saudi Arabia has said that it wants to develop “peaceful” nuclear capabilities as has Jordan. Russian President Vladimir Putin was recently in Saudi Arabia stating that his country would assist its “friends,” the Saudis, in building nuclear reactors. Iran looks around its neighborhood and sees that India, Pakistan, Israel and Russia have nuclear weapons. Iran realizes the United States is less likely to invade a country with a nuclear arsenal. If Shiah Iran has nuclear weapons, then it is easy to understand why the Sunni government of Saudi Arabia would want to go nuclear. This is the essence of realpolitik.

How can one make sense of all this? By rejecting neoconservative ideology and returning to old-fashioned realism, which has been with us since Thucydides wrote the history of the Peloponnesian War.

The nation-states in the Middle East are acting to preserve their national security within a realist framework. The reason the Reagan and Bush I administrations supported Saddam Hussein and Iraq during its eight-year war with Iran is basic balance of power politics. Saddam may have engaged in acts of genocide against his own people, but the United States supported him because Iraq was a Sunni secular government that provided a balance of power in confronting Iran. During the Iran-Iraq war, the United States had military and intelligence advisers working with the Iraqi government, army and air force. Saddam may have been an S.O.B., but he was acting in concert with the perceived national interests of the United States. With the administration’s neoconservative ideology, realist balance of power politics gave way to the use of military force to create a Western-style democracy in Iraq.

One principle in realist theory is that a country should never enter another militarily and then leave with the country and region more unstable than it was originally. This is exactly what the neoconservative ideologues (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Libby, Feith, Perle and others) have accomplished; thus, the need to find a scapegoat in Iran.

Because of the need to refuel in mid-air and fly over other nations’ airspace, Israel could not carry out an effective air strike on Iran without U.S. approval and logistical support. With two aircraft carriers now in the Persian Gulf, the United States could launch an air strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. However, it would have to be a sustained strike lasting seven to 10 days because Iran has effectively decentralized its nuclear facilities and several are constructed deep beneath ground level. It is conventional wisdom that air strikes ultimately require ground troops for stability and containment if military retaliation is to be avoided. In this case, many military strategists believe we would need to move ground troops into Iran to ensure that the Iranian military would not respond with attacks on oil refineries and facilities in the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia.

The population of Iraq is approximately 27 million while Iran’s is close to 70 million. The geography of Iran is far more problematic than that of Iraq. The United States doesn’t have enough troops for a third ground war. Additionally, Iran could create major problems for U.S. troops in southern Iraq while mining the Strait of Hormuz (at one point only 30 miles wide). This mining would disrupt the supply of oil to the world’s economic powers.

What is the alternative? Diplomatically recognize Iran. No quid pro quo needed. Begin bilateral talks with Iran, earning the support of moderate political voices there. Design a time frame for the strategic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Work through the United Nations to create a multilateral Islamic peace force in the region. Organize a regional summit of Middle East countries to discuss post-conflict regional stability, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Agree to work on long-term political, military and economic negotiations to create a peace that is more than the absence of war.

Any member of Congress or other citizen who cares about the men and women in the U.S. military and civilians in Iran must resist the current campaign of fear. The country cannot militarily or economically support another war of choice that would be predestined to fail.

Larry Hufford is a professor of international relations at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio.

National Catholic Reporter, March 3, 2007