[Caution. I think the ethnic numbers are very wrong. At least they don’t come close to agreeing with Wikepedia.]
Op-ed: Imagine the Islamic Republic falling apart like Syria, Iraq, Libya or Yemen in a civil war with armed militias – and nuclear facilities all over the area.
On Independence Day, I received a message on Facebook from a man who lives in Iraq and wanted to congratulate the State of Israel on its independence and thank it for destroying Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor in 1981.
If it were not for that, he wrote, Iraq would have been filled with nuclear facilities, and imagine what would happen now, with the all-out war taking place there, where there are no rules and no limits and everything is permitted. Israel saved the Iraqi people, he wrote and thanked us.
Indeed, Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor, had it remained, would now be in the area occupied by the Islamic State in the al-Anbar province. What would the world do then?
His messages raises a lot of interest not just about what happened and what was prevented, but also about what will happen. Iran is an ethnically, religiously and tribally torn country, just like Iraq and Syria, and maybe even more. It has no majority ethnic group, and the Persians, because of the negative birthrate, have already become a minority, although they are the largest minority among all other minorities, 24%. The others are Azeris, Balochs (Sunnis), Tajiks (Sunni), Lurs, Turkmens (Sunnis), Kurds (mostly Sunnis), Arabs (Sunnis) and others.
Some of these minorities want to split from Iran and connect their territory to other countries. The Azeris want to join Azerbaijan; the Balochs want to join Pakistan; the Kurds want to establish the “Great Kurdistan,” which will extend over parts of Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran; and the Arabs want to establish their own independent state which will be called Ahwaz in Arabic or Khuzestan in Persian.
In other words, a breakup and a Sunni-Shiite ethnic war and a war between different ethnic minorities is only a matter of time in Iran. The ground is already on fire, and there are constant conflicts between the Balochs and Ahwazi Arabs and the regime, which is oppressing them with an iron fist.
The only thing that is still keeping this huge disintegrating country together is the fear of the void that may be created instead of the hated regime. They are afraid to become Syria, but when the ethnic and religious impulses rage, that can no longer be stopped. That’s why it’s important for Iran to divert the attention to Israel – in order to hide this destructive internal hostility.
Imagine Iran falling apart like Syria, Iraq, Libya or Yemen in a civil war with armed militias and nuclear facilities all over the area – what a danger of mass destruction that will be. It doesn’t have to be ready bombs. With radioactive materials one can prepare “dirty nuclear bombs” or other means of horror, and we already know that there is no mercy between the Sunnis and the Shiites – they just don’t have a nuclear weapon yet.
The American administration is naively assuming that the Iranian regime will continue to rule the area, but the Bashar Assad or Muammar Gaddafi regimes were as strong, and so were the regimes in Egypt and Yemen. In addition, Iran is a sort of transit country with representatives from all the nations in the region – from Afghanistan to Pakistan, from the Persian Gulf to Turkey – and if it falls apart, dark terroristic forces will penetrate and infiltrate it.
The Persians are actually a relatively weak force among the regional forces, and it will spark a competition over who will take over the nuclear facilities faster and who will also use them – because forces like ISIS have no responsibility or limits.
So how exactly will US President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement help? It’s like flogging a dead horse. Only one question will remain: Who is the dead horse? Now no one can say they didn’t know.
The sooner the better. Of all the people of the ME and N-Africa, the Kurds are the ONLY one who should and need to have their country. It will be bloody and painful, but every birth is bloody!
@ NormanF:
The ethnic divide in Iran is not the same as anti Islam divide…. The rebels that revolted a few years ago and Obama refused to intervene were led by ther political opposition also Islamic radical and also pro Nuke program in fact they began the programs and ran it for years before the current gang ousted them. The divide in Iran is mostly over economics and some personal freedom not anti cleric and not anti Islamic….. My gut tell me that any change will not effect Iran’s policies in their drive for regional hegemony. The revolutionary guard is the tail I think that actually wags the head. Most of the major Industry and commerce is owned and run by the Guard and they will protect their interests to the death…..I don’t believe any opposition will get to first base in Iran as they have a very tight lid on everything that goes on there….
There is now only one way to stop Iran and that is to attack them. I don’t see anybody doing that and they will get their bomb or bombs and then it’s a new ball game…. I would like to see them into an all out against ISIS similar to the Iran Iraq 10 year war….Maybe that’s the program concept all along? otherwise I can’t understand the American policy logic… In any case Assad is just about gone and don’t be surprised to see one day the younger Assad and family living in Luxury somewhere we never expected but he does have a place to move to maybe Baltimore or Detroit? LoL 🙂
Be sha’ah tovah!
I wonder where the author got his/her numbers from.
Persians only 24%???
Not likely.
All other sources show 60% and over.
http://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2013/sep/03/iran-minorities-2-ethnic-diversity
@ yamit82:
If the Islamists disappear in Iran and they cease to view Israel as a threat, Iran’s greatest concern will be Sunni Islamic terrorism. They’ll still a need a nuclear bomb because they feel existentially insecure. And the Persians remember the Arabs invaded and Islamized them and there is no love lost between them and the Arabs. As the Arab World continues disintegrating, yup, who is going to stop them?
Got News for ya all Assad will be gone in a month or two. Iran using it’s Revolutionary Guards and Iraqi Shia militias to open a land corridor from Iran to Syria in order to supply Hezbollah directly. I think after that Jordan might be next target but from anti Monarchy forces from within Jordan, Saudis reported looking to buy nukes from Pakistan and Egypt planning next war against Israel. This hoped for regime change in Iran won’t change the fact that they are or about to become a Nuke power in the region and nobody is going to give up the project of nukes if they already have em willingly. As long as ISIS is independent and not in need of support from any of the GCC and have money and brains working for them who is going to stop them?
I have been “imagining” it here on Israpundit for at least a couple of years as the last phase of the sunni gulf reversing the persians usurping of their traditional spheres of influence. Not much to imagine:
First, an incident which inflames the targeted group…
second, lots of twittering to spread the news of the “atrocity” and the venues for protext etc….
third, the activation of the many moles(some at the top) in the orgs targeted to participate in the protests and/or uprising….
etc etc etc…. a playbook of destabilization, this is how it went in all the prior (LOL) spontaneous “arab spring” theaters.
What people do not understand is that under these scenarios the goal is not necessarily to end with a winner but often the end goal is simply the destabilization itself as an ongoing status quo, a continuing state of chaos and disorder. In order to see the benefits foreseen in the creation of such a state of being one need only look to Libya, egypt, syria, Iraq,……..
I am not advocating for such scenarios, I merely point out that they exist and are often intentionally created.
Chaos in a theater allows the remaining powers to divvy up the loot. Look at europe after WWII. The US and soviets divided up the world as spheres of influence.
at this point we cannot be sure of what the real US position really is: at the outset the US was on the sunni side and for all intensive purposes, apart from rhetoric, they may still occupy that position. furthermore, when the smoke clears we might see all the major players with their share of the loot. its a matter of who plays along and who bucks the odds.
In this case, I expect if Iran does not come to agreement with the sunni gulf, the phase of internal destabilization in Iran will begin. but I do not expect this, rather I expect that the sunni gulf and Iran will both have increased their control over their relative proxies and their proxies lands, even at the expense of their proxies. I would prefer a further weakening of the Iran side especially regarding hexbullah. assad has already been reduced and weakened, time for hezbullah who is spread very thin.