CO07016 | What if Iran is Attacked?

Despite the global spread of the idea of jihad, the vast majority of Muslims in the world are still not prone to political violence and had spurned the militant revivalist movements spearheaded by groups like Al Qaeda. But there are indications that more and more Muslims, especially in seemingly integrated societies, are now getting increasingly sensitized about global incidents such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the cartoon controversy, to name a few. All these crises are being received as part of the global conspiracy to destroy Islam. It is most likely that the Muslims on the fringe would perceive the attack on Iran as yet another attack on Islam, even if the targeted population is primarily the Shi’as. This would lead to increasing levels of support from a cross-section of the Muslim community, the sectarian divide notwithstanding.

New alignments; new actors

There is thus the possibility that the Shi’a and the Sunni groups may find an accommodation with each other. While it remains unlikely that there will be an outpouring of brotherly love between the two sects, there is already evidence that they recognize and leverage on each other’s areas of interests and capabilities. Jihadists are adept at constructing a discourse to justify almost every operation. For example, when Al Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al- Zawahiri, was criticized for his professed support for Hizbullah during the 2006 Israeli attacks, he managed to change the rhetoric by contextually distinguishing the enemy. Al- Zawahiri drew a distinction between Shi’as fighting against the Zionists and the crusaders under the banner of groups such as Hamas and Hizbullah and the Shi’as in Iraq, who have traded their religion for power and authority. The wider Muslim community would view Iran’s resistance to Western pressures as a struggle against the Zionists and the crusaders.

Hizbullah is an older and more established organization than Al Qaeda. It has a global reach from the Middle East to Europe, North and South America and South Asia. While it has chosen to not operate “out of area” with only minor exceptions, it would have a built-in global capability to launch attacks on virtually every continent. If its support and logistics cells are required to morph into operations cells, the timeline for such a transformation could be very short. At the same time, many radical, but not necessarily violent, individuals who would not have supported Al Qaeda in the past, may now then move to pick up the struggle.

Need for even-handedness

It is for the international community to judge Iran on the nuclear issue. However, given the evolving nature of the jihadist movement, the impact of its actions needs to be considered carefully. We do not propose to be apologists for Iran’s nuclear programme. There is no argument about the international community’s concerns about security both from traditional and non-traditional threats. But the Muslim world’s unhappiness with the failure of the US to deal with Israel in the same way that it is treating Iran now over the nuclear question should not be taken lightly.

In the context of the current predicament of the international community in the war on terror, the need for an informed and balanced decision about how to deal with issues with global ramifications, such as Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, can hardly be overemphasized.