UJP, Dorchester People for Peace, and the Boston University Antiwar Coalition cosponsored a teach-in on April 28 hosted by the Suffolk University Government Department at the Suffolk Law School in Boston. Entitled "New War in the Middle East? A Teach-in on Iran," the ambitious program featured two panels with several university professors, students and a public official. Following are some highlights from the afternoon.

Video of the Teach-In

The first panel was entitled, "US tensions with Iran and the possibility of a new war in the Middle East." Prof. Afshin Razani from Berkeley College in NJ provided historical context by pointing out that Western powers have been trying to control Iran at least since the discovery of oil and Iran's Constitutional Revolution over 100 years ago. Razani sees the current US effort to achieve a friendly government in Tehran as part of this long history, and this policy will continue even if the nuclear crisis is resolved. Razani also emphasized the behind the scenes power of the Iranian revolutionary guard.

Elaine Hagopian, professor emerita of Simmons College, pointed out that a defacto alliance of Iran-Syria-Hizbollah has been the main obstacle to US-Israeli expansion of influence and domination in the region, and pressure on Iran (or Syria) is an effort to break that alliance. Hagopian also touched on the importance of understanding Israel's role as a major source of tension and talk of war. Tufts physics professor Gary Goldstein gave a briefing on the technical requirements of building a nuclear bomb: the scientific and engineering expertise, raw materials, sophisticated equipment such as centrifuges, and ability to miniaturize the bomb and deliver on target by guided missiles. He might have added maintaining security from computer virus attacks and preventing assassinations of scientists. Iran's nuclear program is decades old and has made steady but slow progress; but all the evidence says a decision to build a weapon has not been made and would take considerable time to accomplish in any event.

(Published by the International Network of Engineers and Scientists, April, 2012)

Despite its recent dubious military triumph in Libya, NATO is an alliance in crisis. With the rise of China and other BRIC nations and the Western economic crisis, U.S. economic power – and thus its ability to maintain historic levels of military spending and mobilization – is in relative, if not absolute, decline. NATO’s “new strategic concept”, formally adopted last year in Lisbon, was designed to compensate for this loss by increasing both the influence and burden-sharing of Washington’s European allies. In exchange for assuming greater financial and war-fighting burdens, privileged European partners are to have a greater say in the alliance’s policies and a larger share of the booty. With Europe’s economic crisis threatening to pitch the world – as IMF Managing Director Christine Legard warned – into a 1930s-like Great Depression, Europeans are understandably in no rush to financially reinforce the alliance.

The alliance faces a second major challenge: the loss of perceived legitimacy. Cold War tensions provided rationales for the alliance, but since the implosion of the Soviet Union U.S. national security managers have reiterated that Russia poses no threat of invasion. In fact, despite very real tensions over U.S./NATO missile defense deployments, Iran and Syria, the Russian and Western European economies are increasingly integrated and interdependent, with oil and natural gas as lubricants. Rather than giving priority to preparations for war with Russia, the alliance has been transformed and now focuses on “out of area” operations that could extend as far as the South China Seas. As a result, good faith arguments that the alliance exists to defend Europe from Russia are increasingly difficult to come by. Add to this NATO’s subversion of the U.N. Charter with its regime change war against Serbia; the decade old war in Afghanistan, described by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Anan as illegal (with the U.S. now seeking to negotiate a Karzai-Taliban coalition government;) and the violation of the U.N. mandate in Libya resulting in the replacement of the Qaddafi dictatorship with militia fueled chaos, and you have a delegitimized NATO.[1]

Thus it is hardly surprising that NATO’s agenda for its Chicago summit this May focuses on these fault lines.