by Shireen T. Hunter
Today Iranians celebrated, observed, or bemoaned the advent of the Islamic Revolution 35 years ago, depending on their cultural and political proclivities.
The revolution’s cultural dimension, its most important aspect, was nothing short of an effort to reshape Iranian identity and hence society and polity [...]]]>
by Shireen T. Hunter
Today Iranians celebrated, observed, or bemoaned the advent of the Islamic Revolution 35 years ago, depending on their cultural and political proclivities.
The revolution’s cultural dimension, its most important aspect, was nothing short of an effort to reshape Iranian identity and hence society and polity according to a new interpretation of Islam. The revolution wiped out the impact of nearly two hundred years of modernization by introducing a far stricter and intrusive Islam into society and peoples’ lives than had ever existed in Iran, even before the advent of modernization. For example, in tales told by foreign visitors, such as the French Chevalier Jean Chardin, who traveled to Isfahan of the Safavid era in the sixteenth century, there is no mention of morality police.
This cultural revolution also undermined Iran’s sense of national unity by attacking non-Islamic aspects of its identity and culture, under the guise of combating nationalist tendencies, and tried to create an identity based on Islamic universalism. This process altered the basis of political legitimacy and created a close linkage between culture and identity on the one hand, and power and legitimacy on the other.
The greatest damage done by these changes was in Iran’s relations with the outside world and in the conduct of its foreign policy. By relegating Iran as a country and nation to second place after Islam and pan-Islamist objectives, the Islamic government severely damaged Iran’s national interests, best demonstrated by Iran’s subjection to unprecedented economic sanctions. Ironically, the revolutionary government failed to gain the support of other Muslim states. Sunni countries continued to see Iran as a Shia and, hence, according to them, a heretic state, and the Arabs dismissed Iran’s Islamic pretentions as insincere and continued to view them as Majus (a derogative name for Zoroastrians) Persians.
Even more consequential was the transformation of Islam from a religion into a state ideology and the creation of a power structure with interests closely linked to the perpetuation of this situation.
Yet is it correct to say that what happened in Iran was really what all the revolutionary forces wanted? Or is it more correct to say that a particular vision of what a post-monarchical Iran should look like, namely the vision of the clerical establishment and some conservative segments of society, triumphed over others?
What happened in 1979 has come to be known as the Islamic Revolution, and in the post-revolutionary period the clerical establishment, together with certain segments of the conservatives classes, have taken credit for ousting the Shah, and the clergy, their families, and entourage. Together with such revolutionary organizations as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), this clerical establishment has been among the principal beneficiaries of the revolution, thus forming Iran’s new religious aristocracy.
Yet the idea that the Islamic Revolution was solely due to religion and the influence of the clergy — paramount among whom was Ayatollah Khomeini — does not quite square with the facts.
The idea of revolution in Iran has been part and parcel of the country’s modernization and the impact of Western ideas, both liberal and socialist. The Constitutional Revolution of 1906 was the direct result of the Iranians’ acquaintance with the democratic movements of Europe and European constitutionalism and nationalism. At that time, the overwhelming majority of the clergy were opposed to constitutionalism, and even those who supported it had a very limited understanding of what it implied. Certainly, even for the more ardent clerical supporters of the Constitutional movement, it did not mean secular rule based on sovereignty of the people.
By the 1920s, socialist ideas were the main wellspring of revolutionary thinking in Iran, a trend that continued throughout the 1970s in various incarnations. It was the socialists who turned Islam into a revolutionary creed and changed it from being a religion into an ideology. The late Ali Shariati was the main, if not the only, figure in this process. He himself has said that his greatest achievement was to change religion into an ideology.
The seminaries of Qom were meanwhile far behind. Shariati gave religion an ideological respectability, appealing to intellectuals and students. He was instrumental in replacing the concept of nation with the Islamic Umma; he attacked Iranian nationalism, and he popularized the concept of an Islamic vanguard in the guise of a new version of Imamate. Fortunately, his speeches are available for all to hear and see.
The secular left also did its bit. It was the left, both religious and Islamic, that introduced the idea of armed struggle and engaged in urban and guerrilla warfare. It was their attacks that first demonstrated the vulnerability of the monarchy, and their intervention played a significant role in the final victory of revolutionary forces. Even the Shah inadvertently popularized the notion of revolution by calling his reforms the White Revolution.
Meanwhile, the liberal and semi-nationalists underestimated both the left and the clerical establishment and, instead of settling for constitutional reform, opted for revolution. It is ironic that very recently Said Hajarian, a major revolutionary figure on the left of the political spectrum, admitted that the Shah was capable of reform. But it is too late for Iran to realize that monarchy can be turned into a constitutional form of government without revolution. It is much more difficult to change an ideologically based system without major upheaval.
The left also bequeathed its foreign policy beliefs to the Islamic regime. The so-called struggle against global arrogance, with its focus on the United States, is a reworked version of the left’s anti-imperialist and anti-American creed, as is the inordinate hostility to Israel and so-called international Zionism, as well as toward conservative Arabs.
For those Iranians who are old enough to remember, imperialism, Zionism, and Arab reaction were the three devils of the Arab left and part of the European left, internalized by Iranian revolutionaries of various stripes. Together with the pan-Islamism of the conservative Muslims, this leftist legacy intensified the unrealistic and destructive dimensions of the Islamic government’s foreign policy.
The left wanted a socialist system with a thin veneer of Islam but got an Islamic system with a thin veneer of socialism and that only at certain periods. Consequently, what has happened after the revolution has been nothing short of a subterranean and more open conflict between the leftist and clerical/conservative elements of the Islamic revolution, as with the 1990s’ struggle over defining the Islamic revolution and Khomeini’s legacy. What has not changed is at least the pretension of allegiance to the revolution and to its so-called ideals, with virtually no one any more quite remembering what the revolution’s ideals were. According to Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, revolution was not for a better life but for the revival of Islamic values, while others claim that it was to achieve both goals.
Irrespective of what the revolution’s goals were, today concepts of revolution and counter-revolution are used to promote factional interests, going as far as to undermine the country’s very security, as illustrated by the seemingly ideologically based opposition to Iran’s interim nuclear deal with the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany). Yet increasingly, it is not ideology that determines factional divisions in Iran, but factional interests that determine the ideological positions of its different actors.
Of course, no country can remain in a perpetual state of revolution, and certainly ideological purity can not be pushed so far as to endanger national survival. The experiences of both the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union support this premise, as in both cases communism was adjusted to the interests of China and Russia.
The question is whether Iran can peacefully manage the transition to a post-revolutionary state. This is not impossible, though it will not be easy. Due to the ideological baggage of the Iranian revolution, legitimacy and power have come to be linked much more closely to ideology than at any other time in Iran’s history. A change in revolutionary ideology would mean a change in the composition of the political elite and the basis of power.
The question then becomes: can the current elite, or significant portions of it, put the interests of the country ahead of their corporate interests and develop a new, non-ideological and inclusive, Iran-based cultural and identity discourse, and thus a popular basis for political power and legitimacy? Failing that, can they at least allow for enough flexibility to avoid future upheavals and save Iran from its current predicament, until the revolutionary fever runs its course? The election of Hassan Rouhani so far offers a glimmer of hope that this might just be possible.
– Shireen Hunter is a Visiting Professor at the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University. Prior to that she was associated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 1983 to 2005, last as the Director of its Islam Program. Her last book was Iran’s Foreign Policy in the Post-Soviet Era: Resisting the New International Order, Praeger 2010.
by Farideh Farhi
I have recently returned from a three-month trip to Iran. I arrived in Tehran in early September before the famous Rouhani/Obama phone call and departed last week as the mood was turning more skeptical regarding the potential for some sort of final nuclear deal, which, in the [...]]]>
by Farideh Farhi
I have recently returned from a three-month trip to Iran. I arrived in Tehran in early September before the famous Rouhani/Obama phone call and departed last week as the mood was turning more skeptical regarding the potential for some sort of final nuclear deal, which, in the words of Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, would “normalize” the status of Iran’s nuclear program if it were to happen.
Frankly, sitting in Tehran, it was hard to listen to various Obama administration officials’ frenzied explanations to the US Congress and Israeli government regarding how, even with the first-step agreement, Iran will remain in dire straits. It was hard to listen without becoming skeptical about the US political environment allowing an agreement that would also be acceptable to Iran. From the receiving end of all the nuclear chatter, the whole American demeanor on Iran appears imperious, even outright uncivilized; like people speaking calmly about the taking of others’ lives and imposing further economic misery on them as options that are still very much on the table.
As I write this, news has broken that the Iranian experts engaged in talks in Vienna over the first phase of the “Joint Plan” were abruptly recalled to Tehran in reaction to the blacklisting of 19 Iranian companies by the US Treasury Department — a move that both Iran and Russia said violated the “spirit” of the Geneva accord. The spokesperson of Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Marzieh Afkham, in describing the “unconstructive moves” by the Obama Administration, regretted “serious confusion in the approach, decisions, and statements of US officials.”
When I was in Tehran, Iranian officials of various political persuasions were rather soft in their reaction to all the hard talk coming out of Washington. Several officials, including key members of the Parliament, expressed their understanding of the Obama administration’s predicament in trying to sell the Geneva agreement to the US Congress. Talk about continuing pressure on Iran did provide ammunition to folks like Hossein Shariatmadari, the hawkish chief editor of the well-known Iranian daily, Kayhan, but Washington’s verbal assaults were mostly tolerated, even if Foreign Minister Zarif acknowledged that they were making his efforts to maintain support for the agreement difficult. But it appears that the latest Treasury Department move, which followed a rather harsh op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by David Cohen, the Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, made looking the other way difficult. Lest we forget: Iran also has domestic politics. Unlike its reception in Washington, the Iranian nuclear agreement was mostly greeted positively in Tehran given the general consensus that it’s time to resolve the nuclear imbroglio. But there are limits to what Tehran can ignore.
I am inclined to view this event as an “enough is enough” public statement directed at Congress and aimed at limiting further moves by the Treasury Department. Both the Obama and Rouhani administrations have raised the stakes in the talks high enough to prevent unraveling at this early stage. Nevertheless, the chances of this are quite high, particularly if the Iranian context for the decision to engage in talks in the current manner is misunderstood or willfully misconstrued.
With this in mind, I offer observations from my three-month visit to Iran, where I was mostly in Tehran:
Iran does not look like a sanctioned Country. There are reasons for this. The sanctions regime has targeted production and investment but not consumption. In other words, it has directed its powerful force towards the foundations of Iran’s economy and not its external architecture. There is extensive discussion inside Iran regarding the impact of a dearth of investment, for instance, in Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure. But while everyone worries about deteriorating foundations, the hustle and bustle of the streets and improved amenities (such as no more electricity blackouts) at least partially hides the damage.
Government policies have encouraged consumption as well. The Iranian state, with all its institutional appendages, remains more or less a welfare state, with all sorts of means to provide some support to the population. Gasoline is still cheap, public transportation is decent and heavily subsidized, one can still rely on markets sponsored by municipalities to access cheaper (not cheap) food, and Samsung is everywhere. I went to several cities and neighborhoods during the first 10 days of Moharram, when the martyrdom of Imam Hussein is celebrated. Celebrated is the right word given the carnival-like atmosphere generated by street theaters and ritualized walks of performing groups and an even larger crowd watching them, and large quantities of food distributed freely to the rich and poor in Styrofoam cups and dishes. The political economy of so much food — great food — offered free was as mind-boggling to me as the waste and soiling of the environment by the disposed Styrofoam was depressing.
Finally, Iran’s diversified and complex internal market for goods and services also explains the dizzying number of small businesses that continue to exist despite the harsh economic environment. In Qom, for example, every other shop seemed to be related to car repair. I couldn’t get my head around this until someone explained that as a destination for relatively poor pilgrims who visit with old cars, the repair business makes perfect sense. This explanation also partially addresses Qom’s lower unemployment rate of 7.6 percent in comparison, for instance, to the whopping rate of 15.6 percent in Kohkilouyeh and Boyerahmadi province. (According to the Iran Statistical Center, the lowest unemployment rate of 6 percent is in the West Azerbaijan and Golestan provinces).
This is not to suggest a lack of economic hardship or impact on consumption patterns. People complain about rising prices and youth unemployment all the time — though due to a drop in the pace of inflation in the past few months, complaints have also somewhat slowed. (According to the Central Bank chief, Valiollah Seif, inflation for the Iranian month of Aban — October 21 to November 20 — was only 1 percent). Still, Iran does not look like a sanctioned country. Bazaars are packed with people; restaurants are fairly full at lunch time; stores are full of goods and all kinds of useless things. Really! This observation is not merely about northern Tehran, which is much more affluent, it includes the less privileged southern and southeastern parts of the city too.
At the same time, Iran feels like a country in limbo waiting for direction. The management of the presidential election and stabilization of the Iranian currency to between 20-25 percent above the lowest rial to dollar rate have returned considerable economic and political calm to the country. So has the disappearance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s polarizing language and erratic policies. The Rouhani government’s greatest asset for at least the next couple of years is the dark memories of Ahmadinejad’s last few years. On the political front, one prominent human rights activist told me that while improved political conditions are real, just the mere absence of Ahmadinejad and his “buffoonish language and conduct” is enough to keep him energized and pleased for a while.
On the economic front, however, this calmness is described as a kind of hibernation. People are spending money on food, everyday items, even furniture, and from my point of view, there is grotesque conspicuous consumption on the part of the relatively well-to-do. But there are few major transactions on large assets. Housing prices have reportedly dropped as much as 20 percent (apparently in keeping with the revaluation of rial) but the more prominent economic conduct is reflected in a wait-and-see attitude.
No one is buying or selling, but most folks I spoke to believe that an agreement on the nuclear issue will solidify a new economic direction for the country. Rouhani has made clear that he sees the three wings of his campaign platform — improved economic conditions with an emphasis on the private sector, improved relations with the West, and the de-securitization of the political environment — as closely linked. His quick push for the resolution of the nuclear conflict would not have occurred had someone else been elected and, if successful, will impact the direction of Iran’s economic policy. In the words of Mohammad Quchani, the incisive editor of the reformist Aseman Weekly, Rouhani is not expected to bring about “secular democracy” or pursue “structural transgressions.” But the improvements he promised in economy, foreign policy and citizen rights are the “basis for an inter-linked package and cannot each be approached as a separate agenda.”
Waiting for some hints regarding where the country will be heading makes good economic sense for businesspeople and asset holders. The government has to make tough choices in the coming months, irrespective of the talks’ results. It is true that the Tehran Stock Exchange has risen by almost 130 percent since the beginning of the Iranian year (March 21) but this is in no way reflective of confidence in the country’s economic health.
The previous administration has imposed heavy economic burdens on the government, including massive commitments for the construction of inexpensive Mehr housing and cash subsidies, both funded mostly through the Central Bank’s cash printing machine with severe inflationary consequences. According to deputy Majles speaker Mohammadreza Bahonar, almost a quarter of Iran’s 40 percent inflation was caused by Ahmadinejad’s nationwide Mehr housing project, quite a bit of which remains unfinished.
Even if some financial assets flow into the country from the relaxation of financial sanctions, the government must still develop policies that balance tough austerity measures to counter inflation with spending that at least keeps some of the unfinished projects going in the hope of preventing worsening unemployment and providing people with some of what they were promised. Last week’s en masse resignations of all MPs from Khuzestan and Kordestan in protest to budget cuts of some of the unfinished development projects in their provinces was symbolic but reflective of the kind of pressures and demands that have been generated from 8 years of expansionary budgets. In the words of Massud Nili, a respected Iranian economist who advises Rouhani, “under these circumstances, how could the government tell people that because I want to bring inflation down I have decided to cut these [housing] loans.” Clearly the issue at hand for the new government is not merely reaching agreement over what medicine needs to be provided to the patient, but also the body politic’s social reaction to that medicine.
Among the general public, there is still neither full confidence in Rouhani’s external interlocutors responding positively to his nuclear gambit, nor full trust in the government’s capabilities. And yet, as Nili points out in an interview with Iran newspaper, the “paradoxical” situation is the demand on and expectation from the government to resolve the problem when it is itself among the “weakest” and “most inefficient” institutions of the country and has become more so in the past few years. In these “emergency” situation circumstances, the wait-and-see attitude toward the new team in the government’s driver seat makes sense. But this situation will not persist forever. No matter what happens with the nuclear talks, economic decisions under whatever circumstances Iranians think are there to stay will replace wait-and-see. Even emergencies have a way of becoming routine and adjusted to after a while. Zarif’s time frame of one year for the resolution of the nuclear conflict was issued for a reason. The country will move out of limbo one way or another even if by limping. The question is: in which direction.
The nuclear Agreement is a preference and not an existential necessity. There are folks in Iran — I would say a minority — who are gleefully betting that there won’t be a final agreement because the United States cannot come to terms with Iran’s bottom lines regarding enrichment and the right to be treated like every other member of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. I also met folks who saw the agreement as a bad deal for Iran. Some genuinely objected to the terms of the agreement and blamed the nuclear negotiators for making mistakes while others from the opposite end of the political spectrum saw this bad deal as a necessity for regime survival. Even though the folks in the latter category dispute the need for Iran’s nuclear program and regard it as a waste of time and resources as well as a dangerous gamble, they regard the support Leader Ali Khamenei has given to nuclear negotiations as a sign of desperation; a drinking from the poison chalice; a submission to an outside power for the sake of his and the regime’s political survival.
Most people I met, however, did not consider a final nuclear agreement as either inevitable or necessary for the survival of the Islamic Republic. They saw it as a preference and as mentioned above, instrumental in shaping the economic and political direction of the country. Reformist friends worried about the impact a failure to reach an agreement will have on tipping the political balance again in favor of those who want a more inwardly oriented Iran that prefers a closed political and cultural environment. Less political folks worried about the continuation of a limping economy unable to address the desires and ambitions of their children.
By presenting a nuclear agreement as a preference, the Rouhani administration has created stakeholders in the pursuit of a “good agreement” and not just any deal. The people I met understood that an agreement that is interpreted as submission domestically will not only worsen Iran’s conflicted domestic politics, it will also ultimately prevent economic re-direction. They understand that a deal which does not address Iran’s bottom lines will not endure and hence are quite pragmatically unwilling to accept just any deal either.
Iran’s more open political environment is solidifying support for the government’s negotiating team and posture. On this issue I relied on my journalist and civil rights activist friends who unanimously announced good riddance to the “dark years,” particularly since the 2009 election. This does not mean that there is an end to harassments, arrests, newspaper bans, or awful things like excessive executions. It simply means that a more open political environment that had all but vanished since 2009 now exists alongside all this again.
I called a prominent reformist upon my arrival. He laughed and asked me whether I thought I was visiting Switzerland since I was using his home phone line. Then he invited me to come over for a visit. Khayan’s Hossein Shariatmadari still refers to former President Mohammad Khatami as the ring-leader of “sedition.” But gone for now are the days when Khatami’s picture and words could not be on any newspapers or magazine. All in all, I found the conversation regarding the state of the country and even sensitive issues such as the nuclear negotiations or the role of the Revolutionary Guards in the economy or politics as quite frank, yet civil. The shouters — definitely now fewer — remain, but the sincere conversation about the state of the economy or what Iran can or should agree to in the nuclear talks is itself producing a calming effect on the country. It has also been relatively successful in keeping the Iranian citizens I met mostly content with their choice to participate in the presidential election. Many saw themselves as instrumental in bringing about change. Moreover, they seemed pleased with their choice of a gradual road to reform; political polarization now seemed quite dangerous in a region full of countries wrecked by extremism, domestic conflicts and external interventions. “Thank you, but no Syria for Iran” was a common refrain. And the most disdainful epithets were reserved for the names of two men who many in the Iranian public now identify with extremism: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Bibi Netanyahu!
The call for “moderation” is real and not only coming from the government. The reformist experience during Khatami’s presidency and the 2009 election weighs heavily on everyone’s mind. It’s not only this new administration that wants to avoid past mistakes and laying the path, yet again, for the return of what is openly regarded as the extremism of Ahmadinejad’s second term. Reformists are also cautious and wary of moves that could threaten key stakeholders of the Islamic Republic or be perceived as too hasty or provocative by a population tired of — even bored with — fights at the top.
There is no doubt in my mind that the political calm that currently exists in Iran has been profoundly shaped by the extraordinary events of recent years and the utter failure of major political players from both sides of the spectrum to purge their opponents from the political process. Certain issues continue to weigh heavily on everyone’s mind and conscience, especially the continued detention of key politicians. I cannot even begin to tell you what a conflicted experience it was to join a good number of women activists in giving a raucous welcome to Shahindokht Mollaverdi, the new Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, during a ceremony held in the presidential building on Pasteur Street. These activists from across the political spectrum were very pleased with the appointment of Mollaverdi, an impressive lawyer and formidable promoter of women’s rights, and showed their joy loudly, completely ignoring Islamic decorum by whistling and shouting. The loudness inside the building, however, was a stark contrast to the silence everyone exhibited as we passed Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard’s home down the road across from the presidential building. Even the location of this home, enclosed by ugly aluminum barriers, is reflective of the imposing and expectant patience that characterizes the mood of Iran. Rouhani and his team have so far exceeded expectations and proven adept in their respect of this mood at least rhetorically. That mere respect has earned them kudos, but their heavy burdens linger.
Photo Credit: Fars/Farhad Kabarkohian
]]>You will not hear me say this often, but Hossein Shariatmadari — Iran’s irascible and intractable editor of the hardline Kayhan daily — makes one important point in this editorial. Although a few months ago Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei referred in general terms to the fact that Iran had been [...]]]>
You will not hear me say this often, but Hossein Shariatmadari — Iran’s irascible and intractable editor of the hardline Kayhan daily — makes one important point in this editorial. Although a few months ago Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei referred in general terms to the fact that Iran had been involved against Israel’s previous attacks against Lebanon (2006) and Gaza (2008), this is the first time that both the Iranian and Palestinian leaderships have officially and unabashedly acknowledged Iran’s military support.
Shariatmadari does not address the question of what has led to this new official posture since his piece is really not about what has brought about this change but a convoluted attack — based on fabricated quotes — on reformists who in his words have been directly or indirectly supported by the Israeli government in order to weaken the Islamic Republic’s support for the “resistance.” What else could the protestors’ chant — Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon, I give my life to Iran” — in the post-2009 election environment have meant but “playing in the wolves’ team,” Shariatmadari asserts. But what Shariatmadari takes for granted is that the hardline position on the need for Iran’s support for resistance in Palestine has not only been vindicated but become common sentiment as well.
This is a debatable assumption since one of the basic disagreements between those in Iran who have called for a less confrontationist foreign policy, and those who continue to push for an offensive or aggressive foreign policy (siast khareji-ye tahajomi), has been over Iran’s role beyond the Persian Gulf region. While the former does not see Iran’s involvement in broader regional issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as serving the long-term interests of the country, the latter argues that regional links will check Israeli threats and enhance Iran’s standing vis-à-vis the United States. While the former worries about the additional threats an offensive foreign policy — which it calls adventurist — will bring for Iran, the latter insists that the only deterrent to international “bullies” is a show of strength and resolve combined with just a pinch of Nixonian madman posture.
But the decision on the part of Iran to publicly own up to its military and financial support for Hamas does hint at the possibility that the hardline position may have become consensus at least for tactical purposes as Iran prepares to re-engage in nuclear talks with the United States within the 6-world power (p5+1) framework.
As I mentioned in a previous post on Iran and Gaza, Tehran’s initial response to the Israeli attack was rather cautious and conceding of Egyptian leadership. The chair of the Parliament’s National Security of Foreign Policy Committee, Alaeddin Borujerdi, went as far as to say that Iran had nothing to do with Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israel. But in the span of a couple of days — surely after a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) — a decision was made to not only announce Tehran’s financial and military support, but also state the country’s pride in doing so. Similar language used by Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and IRGC commander Mohammad Jafari — both members of the SNSC — suggests prior coordination.
This was done despite at least one warning in the press that the Gaza attack was “an Israeli conspiracy to destroy the opportunity for talks between Iran and the West.” It was also done despite worries that the war was mostly about testing the Iron Dome and deterrence against Iranian missiles. I am unable to access the editorial in the daily Jomhuri-ye Eslami from a few days ago, but if I remember correctly, it said something like Israel now knows a lot more about Iran’s capabilities than the other way around.
Despite these concerns, Iran’s assertive posture is probably the result of the calculation laid out by Sadeq Kharrazi, deputy foreign minister in the reformist era and current publisher of “irdiplomacy”, a website dedicated to foreign policy. He suggests that Iran’s concrete support for Hamas essentially steers attention away from Iran’s conduct in Syria and towards the “paradoxical behavior” of the “traditional leaders of the Arab World and Turkey” which “do not take any measures to militarily support the Palestinians while they continue to send ships filled with ammunitions and arms to Syria’s opposition.”
But his hopes, which I think also underwrite Iran’s openly supportive posture towards Gaza, are as follows:
The complicated crises of the Middle East and its equations are becoming more complex day by day, and one cannot confront them with the policies of the past. The US and other world powers must know that the equation of the Middle East region will not be solved without the presence of all regional powers. Perhaps one of the objectives of the Zionist regime behind attacking Gaza was to weaken or delay the possibility of dialogue between Iran and the US—and to overshadow it—but it seems that the crisis in Gaza, more than ever before, proved to Obama that he needs to interact with Iran as the proponent of dialogue, revolutionary and Jihadist ideas in the region, so that part of the problems of the region, from Syria to Gaza, can be solved with Iran’s support.
Bottom line: the Islamic Republic is making a point that it is part of a variety of problems in the region; making it part of the solution to these problems will require a different US approach.
This is an argument that Kharrazi, proponent of a grand bargain with the US, has been making for a long time. The glitch in this argument is that US policy makers have remained unimpressed with Iran’s regional clout either because they do not find it impressive enough (despite trumpeting it for domestic purposes), or because they think Islamic Iran is structurally unable to be helpful in wielding its clout. They have instead opted for isolating Iran through a ferocious sanctions regime.
Now, with Gaza, the Islamic Republic is making the same argument in a more concrete fashion. The problem of course is that in the Middle East, playing hardline usually begets hardline.
Nevertheless, hardline is what Tehran has decided to play at this moment and public announcements about Iran’s military support for Hamas in spite of presumably crippling sanctions should be viewed as a statement — bluster or not — regarding the failure and even danger of policies that try to bring about regional security at the expense of Islamic Iran’s insecurity.
- Farideh Farhi is an independent researcher and an affiliate graduate faculty member in political science and international relations at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.
]]>I wrote a couple of days ago about the reactive nature of Iran’s Syria ‘strategy’ but what I really meant was Iran’s Syria ‘policy.’ The distinction is important because by providing full-fledged public support to Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Iran’s leaders have made a critical policy move. They could have [...]]]>
I wrote a couple of days ago about the reactive nature of Iran’s Syria ‘strategy’ but what I really meant was Iran’s Syria ‘policy.’ The distinction is important because by providing full-fledged public support to Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Iran’s leaders have made a critical policy move. They could have made a different choice. There are significant elements within Iran’s foreign policy and even defense establishments which view the Syrian regime as a significant ally of the Islamic Republic, but do not see its collapse as an existential threat. More importantly, while they value the strategic relationship with Syria as a highly valued instrument for resisting Western penetration of the region, they do not see it as a vital interest. While acknowledging Iran’s security interests in their immediate neighborhood, including in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, they do not consider Iran’s extensive involvement in issues related to Palestine, Lebanon, or Syria as so critical to the country’s long-term strategic interests.
This explains the existence of alternative voices in the country that have called for a more balanced and proactive approach to Syria that did not place all of Iran’s eggs in Assad’s basket from the beginning of the unrest. And, Tehran did indeed take the initial steps toward providing full-fledged support for the Assad regime rather hesitantly in major part because it risked undermining Iran’s stated position in support of protest movements in the region. But, as regional players Turkey and Saudi Arabia began supporting the opposition, and as rhetoric in the United States and Israel focused increasingly on how the fall of the Syrian regime would constitute a “strategic” blow against Iran, Tehran ultimately adopted a policy of full support for the regime. This move arose from the argument – and, in some cases, genuine conviction – that, while the unrest was initially part of a spontaneous, domestic movement, at some point it turned into a larger geopolitical struggle in which regional and international players intent on weakening and eventually undermining the Islamic Republic were playing an increasingly critical role. Of course, one can point to paranoia as the source of this policy, but it’s a paranoia that’s at least partially situated in reality and that’s certainly fed by pundits and politicians in the US and Israel.
Regardless of the reasoning behind the decision-makers’ rationale, given what has transpired in Syria, Iran’s chosen policy appears to have been the wrong one.
Instead of hedging by trying to establish links with a multiplicity of political forces as Iran did effectively in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the policy of fully supporting Assad’s regime has not only come to naught, it is also hurting Iran’s attempts to develop relationships with newly elected Islamist governments in the region, particularly in Egypt, a country with which the Islamic Republic hoped to improve relations rapidly following the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood. More importantly, this one-track Syria policy has diminished Tehran’s leverage when it comes to gaining a seat at the table where regional issues are deliberated upon. If Iran’s only leverage in Syria is through Assad and company, what can Iran contribute that is beyond what Russia is already doing (or not doing)?
The question of whether the Islamic Republic could have actually pursued a more balanced approach is by the way not an easy one to answer. Given the under-studied dynamics and mechanics of relations between Tehran and Damascus, it is not at all clear if Iran had the capability to hedge in Syria. The nature of the Assad regime in all likelihood prevented Tehran from establishing any linkages with the opposition in the same way, for instance, that the Shah’s regime limited the Carter Administration’s potential linkages with the opposition in the late 1970s.
Still, the question of whether a more nuanced game could have been played remains. There are also serious questions concerning the quality of Iranian intelligence about on the ground conditions in Syria. Quoting a Syrian MP, Fars News, the penultimate tribune for hard-line bravura in the country, is still assuring its readers that “terrorists have so far not been able to take charge of any region. Damascus is under control, and Assad is in charge.” I have no idea if this is really the assessment of the hardliners who now control the country’s multiple intelligence-gathering bodies. But neither the boast nor the assessment suggests a very competent handling of the Syria situation.
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