Trevor Busch

Iran testing missiles isn’t anything new. The country is mired in an agoraphobic perception of world politics which was better suited to the Cold War atmosphere of the 1950s.When they test long-range missiles, develop nuclear technology, violently repress their own people and promote their own paranoid brand of social and political wisdom — we should take note. The testing by Iran last week of a “long-range” Ghader surface-to-surface missile, and subsequent threats to place a stranglehold over the strategic Strait of Hormuz, has also been noticed.
Some of us might tend to laugh at Iran’s claims of controlling the Strait of Hormuz, a nation which sports a piddling navy, rudimentary nuclear technology and substandard strategic weapons. But for oil-hungry nations throughout the world, Tehran’s warning hits home. The Strait of Hormuz is a passageway for one-sixth of the world’s oil supply — unless many North Americans would like to see their lifted trucks and gas-guzzling SUVs grind to a halt, dependence on foreign oil is a fact of life. And no region currently exports more oil than the Middle East.
To say keeping the Strait of Hormuz free from military threats is vital to the national security of Western powers would be an understatement. The West depends on oil exports — completely cut off from this supply, we would quickly see economic and social chaos. And it would likely be a prelude to war.
The Americans, for their part, still practise what was once known as gunboat diplomacy. If the Iranians seem content to rattle the sabre over the Strait of Hormuz, then parking a powerful carrier battle group in the Persian Gulf might get them to put the blade back in the sheath, at least for now.    
However, military operations involving hostile forces in such close proximity is inherently dangerous. Mistakes could be made, on either side. Still, there are times when it is necessary to do more than wag a finger. The threat of Iran is growing, and there will come a time when that threat becomes more than a mouse fighting a gorilla — as last week’s missile test would seem to foreshadow.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has weighed in on the growing tensions, characterizing Iran as the world’s most serious threat to international peace. Harper also stressed the nuclear ambitions of Iran and his view economic sanctions imposed by the international community are having a significant impact.
Maybe Harper really believes sanctions are having an impact. However, anyone that believes sanctions are a one-stop ticket to steering Iran towards a path more amenable to Western interests is seriously fooling themselves. Economic sanctions may allow politicians and the international community to collectively pat themselves on the back, but it doesn’t mean the Iranians are going to come back weeping on their knees because they’ve been suddenly cut off from importing cheap microwave ovens and flat screen televisions.
Economic sanctions are simply a way for the international community to appear to be doing something about a threat, when in reality, they are content to do next to nothing. Sanctions is code for an international lack of resolve. If the Iranians tested a nuclear device tomorrow, that position might change. For now, the talk is all about sanctions. But make no mistake, economic sanctions send their own message, loud and clear — we’re hoping to hit you in your pocket book, but however grudgingly, we accept what you’re doing.
And historically, economic sanctions have been a utter failure. Most recently, the sanctions imposed on Hussein’s Iraq following the Gulf War in 1991 did little to temper the regime and a lot in making the common people suffer, fueling resentment towards the West, which would later boil over following a subsequent Iraq-U.S. conflict.
And sanctions tend to have the whiff of appeasement about them, too. The European countries that attempted to curb the power of Nazi Germany in the postwar years following the end of WWI by giving Hitler everything he wanted, are cut from the same cloth as those who argue for economic sanctions today as an “effective alternative to military conflict.” The leaders of that era tried everything to avoid a conflict with Nazi Germany, but they only succeeded in advertising their own weakness. History has already passed judgment on Neville Chamberlain and his empty promises of “peace in our time,” while Wehrmacht panzers were already rolling over the rest of Czechoslovakia.
A case in point? The Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. The Italians brutally overran the inoffensive African kingdom in a matter of months, forcing Emperor Haile Selassie to flee. However, the curtain didn’t completely fall on Ethiopia. Both Italy and Ethiopia were members of the League of Nations, and theoretically Italy’s invasion of another member state should have constituted an act of war, which should have brought members to the military defense of another. But the League of Nations, as we know today, was an ineffectual organization whose members were more interested in protecting their own interests than defending those of a small African nation attacked by a European colonizer. They opted instead for a “diplomatic” solution — they voted for economic sanctions against Italy. And not only did this do nothing at all besides bemuse the Italians, it signaled the League of Nations — representing the international community — was unwilling to do anything to defend another member state if it required them to commit their own forces to a conflict. The significance of this precedent, and others, might have been missed in London and Washington and Paris, but it certainly wasn’t in Rome, Berlin, Tokyo and Moscow. And it would factor significantly into decisions that would lead the European continent into another world war.
The few economic sanctions initially enforced against Italy were eventually stripped away — it was more profitable to trade with Mussolini than to oppose him. Looking back on the conflict today, one can see the writing on the wall — and sanctions were proved to be as laughable then as they should be regarded today. Radical, stubbornly-entrenched regimes will rarely bend to economic pressure — it just isn’t enough to influence them to temper their views.
Accepting this truth shouldn’t be hard for the international community, and it doesn’t mean economic sanctions aren’t effective as part of an approach to dealing with rogue states like Iran, North Korea or even Syria. But we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be convinced sanctions alone will alleviate our problems for us. We need to “walk softly and carry a big stick.” Armed conflict with these types of regimes should be avoided if possible, but not at any cost, or we will risk following the path of the appeasers.
After Haile Selassie fled from Ethiopia following the Italian invasion, he made a farewell address in 1936 at the League of Nations, which in time has become famous. Selassie warned the nations’ delegates, many of whom would fall under the hobnailed boot of the Germans in a few scant years, of the danger of inaction, and the consequences of indifference. Shortly after this speech, he bitterly issued his most dire warning for them all: “It is us today,” Selassie was quoted as saying. “It will be you tomorrow.” We should have taken him at his word. If the appeasers had chosen to hammer their plowshares into swords, or the international community had decided to give Mussolini a taste of his own medicine in 1935, then perhaps more then 50 million people need not have died in WW II.
We’ll never know. With Iran, it might be a stretch to suggest the Strait of Hormuz today, something else entirely tomorrow — that is, if we choose to do nothing but deprive them of dishwashers and toaster ovens.