Via Cernig, I was fascinated to read an analysis by a reputable firm (Stratfor) concluding that the recent stand-down by Sadr’s militia in Iraq was in fact brokered by Iran. Iran obviously has no interest in seeing Shiite fratricide simmer in Iraq, and as American power wanes they have every incentive to actively manage the situation. Naturally a strategic alliance between Iran, Sistani and the various Shiite factions leaves the Iraqi Sunnis holding the short end of a very pointy stick. One could imagine that the preponderance of Saudi suicide bombers in Iraq has something to do with the Sunnis’ strategic weakness if the situation ever settles down.
Kurds won’t like the alliance either, but Turkey’s hot breath on their neck will likely put Kurdistan in a more unionist mindset that it might have felt otherwise.
So if Iran isn’t a crazy suicidal state committed to destroying Americans at every turn, what exactly is it? A fascinating book by ex-Iranian international relations expert Trita Parsi suggests that just maybe if you discount the expected turmoil that comes from overthrowing a government by assassination (CIA) and revolution (mullahs), Iran has generally acted like a rational state that pursues its strategic interests. Among the conclusions that Parsi has picked up from interviewing dozens of officials in Iran, Israel and America:
* Iran’s and Israel’s interests more or less overlapped for most of recent history. Both countries feared Arab hegemony and supported the Kurds as a counterbalance to Iraq. For example, Israel intervened on Iran’s behalf while the revolutionaries still had American hostages.
* Saddam Hussein was a problem for both Iran and Israel. Apparently (I don’t know how well supported this is) Iran tried to bomb Osirak before Israel succeeded. However, Saddam and the Shah eventually reached an accord to Israel’s detriment. Then the revolution reversed that arrangement again.
* In recent years, with Iraq on the wane Israel and Iran perceived one another as their primary competitors for regional dominance. When Iran reached out to the US post-9/11 under moderate president Khatami, Israel sensed that US-Iran detente would diminish its own strategic importance and helped spike the discussions.
* Invading Iraq presented a serious problem for Israel and it offered a golden opportunity for Iran. Iran would certainly ally with Iraq’s now dominant Shiites, leaving Israel with few counterbalancing options that don’t involve violence. Stuck with an impoverished chess position, Israel’s best option now involved convincing the US to attack first and hope for a more friendly Iran when the dust settles. Overhyping the threat from IEDs, nuclear programs, military aid etc. all fit this strategy.
* In this context the astonishing violence of the Lebanon war more or less fits both sides of the equation – Iran wanted to preview what would happen if America/Israel attacked and Israel needed to prove that it could stamp out Hezbollah when the time came. Think of it as a semi-proxy war. Israel recognizes that it failed to accomplish its mission and probably would fail again. America performing the first strike, preferably a knockout blow, is clearly critical.
For inevitably hair-trigger readers, none of this means to argue that Israel is inherently good or evil or anything other than a country pursuing its interests in a region where disputes are rarely settled bloodlessly. Working with Iran doesn’t trip a moral scale any worse than us Americans trading spit with Saddam, a central American strongman or the Saudi royal family. However, it does suggest that we realigned the strategic balance of the middle east in unsubtle ways, that the new alignment will inexorably lead to large-scale violence whether we attack Iran today, pull out tomorrow or do nothing at all.
srv
Thanks to the likes of folks like Sharon, stability for the Gulf and stability for Israel will remain exclusive for generations to come.
I choose stability for my gas tank.
alphie
Violence isn’t inevitable.
It may take a while to clean up the neocon’s Middle East muddle, but it will only take dollars (and Yuan) to set things right there.
TenguPhule
The problem with Israel, Iran and the USA is that only two of these parties are acting rationally.
And the US isn’t one of them.
Robert
Your second point implies the Saddam/Shah “accord” followed the Osirak bombing. Not sure when the alleged Iran attack was supposed to have occured but the Shah was ousted in 1979. Israel’s attack was, if memory serves me correctly, in 1981.
TigerHawk
The problem with almost all public discussion of Iran is that virtually everybody skates over the all-important question suggested in this post, “How should we conceive of Iran?” Is Iran an essentially peaceful country that finds itself for reasons of geography in history caught in a “security dilemma” (i.e., its legitimate insecurity drives it to take actions that cause other powers to react against it)? Or is the Islamic Republic of Iran a revolutionary state with ambitions that extend far beyond its border? This argument ought to be akin the argument over the nature of the Soviet Union during the Cold War(was it insecure and incompetent, or confident and revolutionary?), but it has not really been joined in the same way. There are a number of reasons for this, but the dominant one is that we are grieviously short of Iran experts who do not have some serious ax to grind from the get-go.
Point is, Iran is very rational. We just do not know what its objectives are.
Mr. M'Choakumchild
We need to approach Iran like China- an ancient nation that has occasionally been successfully invaded, but has repeatedly swallowed up its invaders. It is also an unstable revolutionary state where the principals that drove one generation are not being conveyed to succeeding generations.
You can’t tame this tiger, but you can work with it from a distance in order to change its behaviour. And if you go demonizing it all the time, you are unlikely to understand it well enough to act properly and decisively when a tipping point comes.
Remember how stupid they look when they have huge demonstrations shouting “death to America”? It is done for their own domestic consumption, and is a sign of the regime’s weakness, not strength. If we respond with the same sort of foolishness we will be playing from weakness, not strength.
If there was ever a time for Detente with Iran, it is now. let’s get their young people over here and into our colleges and communities, and the Mullahs will be weaker and weaker each time they try to crack down. Like in East Germany, at one point they will just be ignored.
Wilfred
As has been pointed out, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a revolutionary state, one that has resurrected ‘Muslim’ as political consciousness. Similar things are happening throughout the Muslim world, most notably in the transnational body of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has rejected much of the transplanted ideological formations that the United States depends on for exerting its power and influence. In Marxist terms, this political consciousness is the true political consciousness, as opposed to the false consciousness of nationalism, free enterprise, etc. imposed by the ruling class only to be internalized and spewed back on demand. Thus:
In other words, imbue them with the false consciousness of the historical inevitability of capitalist expansion while at the same time disrupting their political consciousness as Muslims, precisely the sort of cultural artifact that stands in the way of that expansion. A perfect example of this was a post that Tim made recently about a ‘re-education’ camp run by the Army in Baghdad. I quote from the WAPO article:
The term “house of wisdom’, immediately recognizable to Arab and non-Arab Muslims as a colonial usurpation of the bait al Hikma, one of the most important cultural institutions in the classical period, is followed by what seems like mixed metaphor parody of evangelical Christian propaganda (Muslims are rotten eggs hiding in Easter baskets. In a Baghdad prison camp.) but it is an all too real expression of current American ideology, right down to its treatment of Muslims as some kind of chemical – ‘busted down’ into elemental particles in order to form new ‘moderate compounds’. This is the true transformation, followed by the assumption of false consciousness on the part of the converted, who act out the ideological objectives of the American occupation by throwing more observant Muslims against a fence and shaving ‘their frickin’ beards off of them’ in an ‘historic’ moment. Weirdly, wildly, the General accidentally confirms the relative political status of both groups. After conflating the insurgency against American occupation with religious extremism, he suggests vocational training to improve their material well-being as a means of reducing insurgent numbers, recognizing perhaps that only by enabling the possibility of material consumption can the American project in Iraq overwhelm the religion-based resistance. He wants to provide jobs for released detainees: “I’m not naïve. If they don’t have any income, they’re going to go back” to the insurgency.”
Iran is a revolutionary state, and revolution is always about raising political consciousness, whether as embryonic Americans or the original Ba’ath invocation of pan-Arab nationalism. The Iranians have an acute sense of history, and not just their own.
Incidentally, there is an enormous amount of information available about what the Iranians think and want, much of it in English. Start with Ahmed-Dinejad’s letter to Bush, blithely dismissed by Rice as a ‘negotiating ploy’.
Wilfred
I accidentally blockquoted some of my own comments in the newspaper story, adding them again later. Sorry.
Bob In Pacifica
Does this mean we can come home now?
Mr. M'Choakumchild
The anti-modern political consciousness promoted by the revolutionary Iranian elite is in serious trouble. After more than a generation in power, the inevitable corruption and self-dealing among the Mullahs and former revolutionaries has discredited a movement based on public morality.
The revolution was never just about Islam. Fundamentalist Islam was just the most powerful anti-modernist movement that could give the revolution a cultural legitimacy that it needed.
taking a page from V. Lenin, Khomeni proceeded to consolidate power ruthlessly and to put the Mullahs in charge of the new government. The main-street middle-class, being culturally conservative went along with it.
The revolutionary government may be in trouble, but it will not fall until the middle-class businessmen repudiate it. The middle class’s children populate the universities, and are pushing back against the Mullahs. However, the middle-class care more about the economy, which for Iranians means nuclear power. If we go directly after the nuclear power development, we force the middle class back into alignment with the revolutionary elites, and will stick the world with another 50 years of Mullah rule, and regional instability.
scarshapedstar
As always, when discussing Iran, I remind people to look at a map and count the countries that border both Iraq and Afghanistan. You might find it enlightening. Hell, you might even understand why Iran has become a little bit nervous.
LITBMueller
Well, as far as Revolutionary States go, Iran ain’t very good at is, as Scott Ritter explains.
Clearly, we need to bomb them because its much easier to pick on weak, sanctioned Middle Eastern states than tackle our real problems. Like health care.
Billy K
See? These people are idiots. Everyone knows Iranians are Arabs.
Wilfred
Bourgeois revolution in Iran? Maybe in 300 years, about the length of time complete transformation occurred in Western Europe. Besides, there is such a thing as an Islamic political economy, most notably advanced by Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (uncle of the current al-Sadr), that directly challenges bourgeois, capitalist models. Prioritization of Muslim identity terrifies the West (i.e. the bourgeoisie) because it repudiates the (outmoded) traditionalism of nationalism, an essential ingredient of culture hegemony – witness the 28%’s.
Again, the Western emphasis on the inevitability of capitalist expansion is being challenged by a counter-narrative of Islamic cultural hegemony and its own expansion.
IMO the long-term Iranian objective is leadership in a unified Muslim world, one without Western-imposed frontiers or concepts like nationalism or fascism. To millions of Muslims, this is quite an attractive idea. The United States’ problem, as it was during the cold war, is that it lacks ideas, it’s chief attraction is based on material prosperity.
Dennis-SGMM
The candidates from both parties skip over the tedious intelligence work that will have to be done to identify and track terrorists. They all move right on to how much should we bomb them and when as if we knew with certainty who they are and where they are. It might help to know that before you start slinging ordnance around.
The only national political figure to state that fighting terrorism was a matter of intelligence and police work was John Kerry – and that was held against him. Today’s terrorism did not spring up over night and indiscriminately blowing up this village or that one because you think that terrorists are there only creates more terrorists.
BFR
What’s puzzling is that nothing has really changed in the larger strategic picture. Iran and Israel (Turkey too) are major powers in the Arab Muslim near-east whose populations are comprised of non-ethnic arabs and non Sunni Muslims (Turkey excepted on that part).
Unfortunately, I think 1953-1979 forced all political opposition to be channeled through Islam, leading to virulent anti-Americanism along with rage at it’s near proxy, Israel. At this point, the hatred of both is just vesitgal, it no longer serves any real strategic usefulness for Iranians (excepting the clerical leadership of course, who clearly benefit from this agitation).
Our policies right now seem pretty clearly aimed at perpetuating this irrationality among portions of the Iranian population, for reasons I can’t even begin to fathom.
capelza
Great post. I hope this kind of conversation about Iran grows.
A complex nation with a long memory. Perhaps a bad comparison, but one that most Americans can understand, the revolutioin in China and then the Cultural Revolution, no that long ago, and look how fast things are changing there now.
That Iran would be interfering with Iraq..it makes perfect sense. A long shared border amongst other things. America occupying a nation on either side and none too well. The analogy has benn used before, but if some power from say Asia has invaded Canada AND Mexico, we certainly would be doing the exact same thing. And we have interfered with nations before, in spectacular ways..one of them being Iran.
Apparantly it isn’t “cowboy” enough to actually talk to Iran. Cripes, even Nixon went to China!
Zifnab
This was used to display how “unserious” Kerry was in his approach to combating terrorism. Kerry wanted to “investigate”, “study”, and “track” terrorists. This, compared to Bush’s plan of tapping everyone’s phone line, waiting for someone to say ‘Osama Bin Laden’ enough time, then dropping ordinance on them to level a city block, was considered impractical and too risky for the American People to bare. Bush’s “Shoot first, waterboard for answers later” attitude was considered the sort of thing that would get the job done. And, since we haven’t been hit by a terror attack since, it clearly must be working. Right?
The Populist
First to all the righties:
The Preznit cannot keep you safe. It is not a guarantee. They can do everything possible to keep you safe but selling out the constitution for a sliver of so-called safety is nuts.
As for Iran? If we attack be prepared for $5-10/gallon gas as well as being hated by everyone in the world. We will be a pariah. China and Russia will get us economically.
It’s FUBAR. Why is this genius of a President not trying to figure out a way to co-exist with this country? If Iran is a problem, they are a problem WE created with the invasion of Iraq.
The Populist
Oh yes, can somebody on the right continue to defend a President that allowed the leaking of a Bin Laden video which lost us our hack of the AQ intranet?
Who’s keeping us safe again? Certainly not these doofuses.
capelza
The fact that they would blow an operative to make political hay says more about this admin in a nutshell than anything else.
Tsulagi
Certainly not the first time
One of the best was Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. After AQ was chased in Afghanistan, communications was a problem. Wouldn’t want to use a sat phone as a JDAM might fall on your head. Khan, a sys admin/network engineer/hacker type became the bottleneck though which communication moved from AQ to the outside world and then back in.
Pakistani intelligence quietly captured and flipped him. He was then cooperating with US and British intelligence. He was a gold mine. In time he might have produced actionable intelligence to get Osama and/or Zawahiri, maybe create plants in other AQ networks, or other good stuff.
But at the end of the 04 Democratic Convention a terrorism alert was called. It’s timing was questioned. To ‘prove’ it wasn’t politically motivated, the admin pointed to old photos of buildings in the US stored in a laptop. Khan’s laptop. They burned him to justify a terrorism alert.
British intelligence was pissed. They had been tracking an AQ cell in London. After Khan’s name was published, they had to quickly raid the cell which even led to some car chases through London. Cool. In typical British understatement, the director of MI6 commented “I really wish the Americans would think these things through.”
Dude, 9/11 changed everything.
HyperIon
From FOX amazingly:
evidently some Iranians have never met a person not worth greeting with “Death to…”
Evilbeard
I thought Iranians were Persians and not Arabs. Am I wrong here?
rachel
Peace is for weenies.
Z
“The United States’ problem, as it was during the cold war, is that it lacks ideas, it’s chief attraction is based on material prosperity.”
I think that is incorrect. We did have ideas: that people have a right to be a voice in their government, that people have certain basic human rights (including property rights), and that respecting these fundamental rights lead, not just to greater prosperity, but to greater opportunity for the pursuit of happiness. The problem today is that this administration has put a knife in the back of half of these.
ATS
Debate it all you like, but the administration’s key decisions on Iraq will all be made in Tel Aviv. Condi is about to find this out, to her sorrow.
PS: Whatever happened to atomic submarine spy uncovered a few months ago, the navy officer passing secrets to “a foreign power.” I’m sure we are all wondering which foriegn power, and why the media silence. Hahahahaha.