WHICH IS MOST IMPORTANT FOR TODAY’S NATO – AFGHANISTAN OR IRAN?
Karine Ter-Sahakyan / PanARMENIAN News
PanARMENIAN.Net
November 12, 2010
If the Afghan problem has already become a kind of a home assignment
quite impossible to complete, it is much more difficult for NATO to
deal with its new problem, Iran.
At just another NATO summit there will be discussed the issue of
Afghanistan, i.e. what to do with it in the foreseeable future. To
leave the country or still try to bring the situation under control.
It is clear that no summit will ever solve this problem; everything
is too complicated and confusing. Afghanistan is a black hole for
the countries trying to either conquer it or lay hands on it.
And for some reason no one remembers the British, who after a long
and exhausting war at the beginning of the past century declared that
Afghanistan is impossible to defeat. They said it and left. Then came
the Soviet Union, ready to pay any price for the victory against
the Afghans. But they failed too. Since 1979 the country was lost
in chaos. And then stepped in the NATO, i.e. the U.S., and the chaos
became uncontrollable despite the presence of President Karzai, who
on the one hand supports the U.S., on the other is against it. So,
the Afghan problem has to be somehow settled at the summit, or roughly
speaking, either the way to narcotics must be blocked, or the latter
must be brought under control.
But if the Afghan problem has already become a kind of a home
assignment quite impossible to complete, it is much more difficult
for NATO to deal with its new problem, Iran. Iran is a country more
predictable and stronger than Afghanistan and the Ayatollahs’ regime,
no matter the world likes it or not, is quite stable. One way or
another, Iran will have a nuclear bomb, be it this year or next, and
the development of military industry may present NATO with the fait
accompli that Iran is well-armed and can give an adequate response
in case of attack. That is why Lisbon will put pressure on Turkey so
that she installs in her territory the anti-missile defense system as a
shield for Israel, to call a spade a spade. Iranian missiles will not
reach the United States, but they will reach Israel. That’s the whole
calculation of the Alliance. However, Turkey stands on the way of the
agreement. Turkish media reported on November 6 that Ankara will agree
to deploy the anti-missile defense elements of NATO on its territory,
if her three conditions are met. First, the Turkish authorities
advocate the creation of NATO and not American missile defense system.
Secondly, it must be aimed at ensuring the security of all member
states of NATO, and, thirdly, it must not turn Turkey into a flank
country, as it was at the time of the “Cold War”.
Turkey is in her usual role – threats, blackmail, requirements to get
the impossible, but finally she gets what she wanted at the beginning.
Most likely, the Alliance will come to an agreement which, as it was
the case with the OSCE, will remain just a piece of paper. Iran will
be improving her military power, so that by spring, when planning a
military expedition NATO completes the aerodrome in Kutaisi, Tehran
could be booted and spurred. And obviously Iran succeeds. And we, i.e.
Armenia, will have a military base on Mount Ararat, which will threaten
Armenia and the Armenian people.
From: A. Papazian