Cato's astringent view that Carthage represented a clear, present, and very dangerous threat to Rome and its larger interests carried little freight with the Roman elite and plebs alike. Until one fine day the elephants of Hannibal came trumpeting at the gates of the City on Seven Hills. By then it was darn near too late for the laid back folks of the Republic. Hannibal's troops not only crossed the Alps thus taking Rome's dependencies by the back door, they chewed up Rome's active duty army by the legion.
Had the Carthaginian general had that time's equivalent of nuclear weapons or long range missiles, the decline and fall of Rome would have been expedited greatly. Fortunately for the previously war-averse gentry and plebs, Hannibal had no siege engines, no battering rams, no catapults and was stopped by the walls of the city. Rome had the time to out wait Hannibal, who could do nothing but traipse around the landscape doing marginal damage.
Eventually Hannibal had to leave. Then, in the fullness of time, the Romans emerged from behind their walls, built a fleet, carried the war to Carthage, and opened a giant can of vengeance on the inhabitants thereof. Defeating the army, selling the citizens into slavery, pulling down the walls and buildings and, in a final gesture, plowing over the ground and sowing it with salt, the Romans put paid to the ambitions and threats of Carthage.
Requests and suggestions that the US duplicate the final Punic War with respect to Iran are leaking around the right edge of the blogosphere. So far the requests and suggestions are mild, appropriate to a people and a time for which war is even more to be shunned than it was by the Romans of Cato the Elder's time.
The Geek rather suspects that were Cato alive and well today he would see the mullahocracy of Iran as every bit as much of a threat to the national and strategic interests of the US and its allies as was Carthage to the Rome of twenty-two centuries ago. It is difficult for anyone who is well oriented as to time and place right now to construe the Islamic Republic of Iran as anything other than the single largest disturber of international harmony.
The world view, belief system, policies and actions of the Grand Ayatollah Khemenei and his coterie of similarly minded clerics and secular jefes (including his son and preferred successor, Mojtaba Khemenei) assure that Iran will not willingly nor quickly abandon its offensive, destabilizing, and repressive ways. The recent vituperative diatribe issuing from the front man of the mullahocracy, Ahmedinejad, shows that.
Ahmedinejad's tirade, in which he demands that President Obama "apologise" for having expressed "outrage" at the repressive efforts of the mullahs and their henchmen of the basji and police and states that there is no reason for conversations with the US unless and until such an apology is received, demonstrates convincingly that Khemenei pere understands the nature and quality of the ongoing attacks on the regime. The introduction of Khemenei fils and the strong potential of a struggle for both power and rights of succession escalates the stakes in play currently.
While the MSM have paid little attention to either the matter of succession and how it may be directly affecting the post-election crisis, the same MSM have overlooked the role of Iraqi cleric Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani. Al-Sistani who ranks equal with Khemenei in the Shia hierarchy of clerics, has been meeting with dissident heavyweight clerics including Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Rafsanjani is both a former Iranian president and current head of the Assembly of Experts. He is also a long time opponent of GA Khemenei. Rafsanjani opposed the ascension of Khemenei to his current exalted position, ostensibly because Khemenei lacked the theological credentials and juice to do the job. Be that as it may, the crucial reality is that Khemenei outmaneuvered his opponent even though Rafsanjani was an icon of the Revolution.
The most important take away regarding al-Sistani is his often restated public position on the relation of multi-party, multi-denomination democracy and Shia. Put briefly, al-Sistani has taken the position that there is no fundamental discord between democracy and the requirements of observant Shia. Rafsanjani may not have gone so far in public, but neither has he embraced, recently at least, the notion so popular with Khemenei that there is no role for democracy in Islam.
Rafsanjani is getting on in years. So is his presumed bete noir, Khemenei. The notion of a family dynasty cannot be at all appealing to Rafsanjani or others of his generation. More than any of us on the outside, Rafsanjani and others such as former president and current dissident, Mohammad Khatami, and yet another Grand Ayatollah, Hossein Ali Montazeri, know how much and how disastrously the present Supreme Leader has altered the initial course of the Iranian Revolution. More than any of us on the outside can know (or perhaps imagine) these men fear the concentration of unaccountable power within the ambit of the Khemeneis, father and son.
The notion of dealing with men such as Rafsanjani, who was one of those infamous "moderates" during the long, long agony of the Iranian Hostage Affair, is not particularly appealing. However, the very real potential that a combine of Rafsanjani, Montazeri, and al-Sistani can pull off a palace coup cannot be overlooked and must not be ignored. The present turbulence in Iran--particularly if the body count suddenly escalates or Moussavi is arrested as an "agent" of the US, UK, Zionists, whatever--represents the last, best chance Rafsanjani and company have of taking back the fruits of the Revolution from those who would destroy it from within.
This far-from-remote possibility gives a basis for the Obama administration to recast their public posture regarding Iran. Initially the hands-off, detached approach was appropriate. But, that may well no longer be the case. It is true that anything the administration does to hold the mullahocracy's collective feet to the fire might engender more deaths on the streets of Tehran. It is absolutely true that any more robust language, let alone action, from the administration will result in more vitriol from Ahmedinejad.
More importantly, a stronger position taken by the US including rapid passage and signing of the sanctions legislation directed against those companies supplying gasolene and other refined petroleum products to Iran may well provide the critical impetus to the execution of the palace coup. Rafsanjani may be a "moderate" only in comparison with Khemenei but the fact that he has been meeting with al-Sistani (who is an unsung cause of the success of the American "surge" in Iraq and a man who has shown a rapid and effective learning curve in Iraqi politics) shows that he may be open to a new approach to both the internal politics and external relations of Iran.
The least worst outcome for both the Iranians and the rest of the world would be a Rafsanjani orchestrated palace coup. This would allow new elections, a step back from unending confrontation with the US while keeping the thugs of the Revolutionary Guard and basji employed and reasonably content so as to diminish the potential of either a counter-coup or a prolonged and very bloody struggle for power.
Absent a palace coup, without the replacement of the Khemeneis at the top of the power pyramid, there can be no hope of any meaningful change in the regime's approach to either internal politics or foreign relations. Iran will continue to be a threat to the US and its allies. Over time the nature of its threat will increase.
We will, as that reality unfolds, have a compelling need for a latter day Cato. We will need someone to demand over and over again, "Iran must be destroyed."
And, if we do not heed the call, the day will come, come with rapidity and starkness, that the new Hannibal will have his nuclear elephants blaring at our gates.
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