Time bomb ticks in Middle East

It’s not often that I find myself in agreement with the
24-hour message of Fear and Impending Doom that has been emanating
from Washington for the last five years. The Department of Homeland
Security, with their colored wheel of danger and the continual
image of terrorists plotting to kill anyone who loves freedom, more
often than not seems to serve as a psychological electric fence,
keeping the general public penned inside a realm of thought that
the administration has pre-approved as “patriotic.”

But the State of the Union on Tuesday and the news coming out of
the Middle East for the last month has placed a real threat of
impending danger clearly in our paths. Iran has broken the U.N.
seals on its uranium enrichment plants and has begun operation in
the face of strong resistance from the U.S., Europe and the
especially zealous objection of Israel.

With the looming prospect of an atomic bomb in Iran, a
domino-like interplay of media messages and standoffish behavior
has much of the world price-shopping for fallout shelters.

In Israel, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has all but outright
declared that they will use military action if necessary to prevent
Iran from going nuclear, which they see as a direct threat to their
national security. This perspective is certainly valid, considering
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the same man who, in late
October, told a group of 3,000 students that “Israel must be
wiped off the map.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi called
Israel’s threats a childish game and made veiled threats of
his own, saying that Israel would not attack Iran because it would
be a “fatal mistake.” During all this, the defense
minister promised that if attacked, Iran would deliver “a
crushing response.”

In Washington, Bush reiterated his stance Tuesday, saying that
“the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear
weapons.” Then Wednesday he called Iran’s threats
“disturbing” and said that “Israel is a solid
ally of the United States; we will rise to Israel’s defense
if need be.”

And in Los Angeles, the UCLA campus bustles with MP3 players and
midterms. Outside of the occasional news story, all these angry
people feel like they are a world away. Every day is a beautiful
day in Southern California, and the sound of the ocean crashing
against the Malibu shore has a tendency to make us not care as much
about the morbidity we see at the newsstand each day.

But it is becoming increasingly clear that the problems in Iran
affect all of us. Michelle Sassounian, member of the Persian
American Jewish Organization student group, says that she is
extremely frightened of the Iranian intentions and that the world
“should view their desire to make nuclear weapons as a
hostile threat and danger to the international community as a
whole.”

The situation has gotten to the point where if all involved
parties do what they have threatened, the situation will be
catastrophic. Iran has vowed to continue uranium enrichment,
claiming it as their sovereign right. If Iran continues, Israel
attacks, then Iran retaliates, then the U.S. gets involved and we
have a brand new war in the Middle East.

This path appears to be an inescapable highway to war, but it
does not have to be. There are some countries, such as France, who
have stressed that they continue to see diplomacy as a possible
solution. It is true that there have been months of talks with no
real progress, but the alternative is still too frightening to
consider and should truly be viewed as the absolute last resort. As
first-generation Persian student Vissy Kobari put it, “there
has to be another way, and we need to find it.”

This is a time when the moral lines of the U.S. as world police
are hazy. From the Iranian standpoint, there is no good reason why
Iran should not have the bomb, at least to match the standing
Israeli monopoly on Middle Eastern nuclear power. But from the
Western and Israeli standpoint, it will not be permitted. National
interests are at stake, and as Sassounian puts it, “(Iran) is
more dangerous than Iraq ever was.”

These unfolding events provide a chance to correct the mistakes
of the past. Instead of rushing off to conflict, we should exhaust
all possible options. Instead of sending aggressive messages
through the news, we can press our elected officials to keep
talking. If Iran remains steadfast and cannot be swayed by
compromise or reason, there are no options.

But I would at least like to know that, for once, the Bush
administration did everything possible to avoid war.

If you want to go half-and-half on

a bomb shelter, e-mail O’Bryan at

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