Iran needs America’s help to pivot away from the past
In the Middle East the air is once again thick with talk of war. But the theory that US President Donald Trump is keen to rush into another conflict is absurd when his clearly stated intention has long been to withdraw the last American troops from Syria, Afghanistan, and probably the Korean Peninsula too.
Nonetheless, there is little doubt that two incidents which occurred earlier this month – the “sabotage” of four cargo vessels in UAE’s territorial waters and drone strikes on two Saudi Aramco oil installations – were a shot across Washington’s bows. But just like the case of Venezuela, the US has a dearth of options in dealing with Iran, no matter how hawkish the Republican administration’s reputation.
Stripped of all the heated rhetoric, what Iran needs is help pivoting away from its revolutionary, Shiite Islamist identity toward membership of the international community of nations. But that is easier said than done. The regime in Tehran does not contemplate the possibility of being supplanted by a socially liberal and unwarlike government, a set-up likely to find a plurality of support within Iran’s multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian population.
The war of ideas that erupted in Iran around 1997 between the reformists and the hardliners was settled in favour of the latter when the term of President Mohammad Khatami ended in 2005. What has since been reached, by all accounts, is a modus vivendi between a group of comparatively moderate politicians, personified by President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and the unreconstructed “Khomeinists” represented by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his inner circle.
But the current arrangement is possibly even less amenable to improvement than that which existed when Khatami was president. The hardliners maintain such an iron grip on Iran that they can afford to treat the moderates as mere instruments of statecraft whose main job is to charm Western governments and media liberals; coordinate plans with the pro-Iran lobby in the West; and to take the blame for everything from soaring inflation and a plummeting currency to flood devastation.
Iranians who have come of age in the period following the 1979 overthrow of the pro-Western Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the subsequent political takeover by the fundamentalist followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini have no illusions that they are living in a time warp. To enjoy some of the trappings of prosperity and modernity, they do not have to fly all the way to Southern California, which boasts the largest concentration of Iranians outside of Iran.
Cosmopolitan metropolises built on oil wealth and increasingly associated with high culture are just a short flight away from Tehran. Yet, unless they have the financial means and a visa to fulfil their dreams of escape, Iranians are condemned to a life of stress, social orthodoxy, and financial hardship in a country hostage to the bitter legacy of a revolution that has self-evidently run its course.
Not only Iranians – millions of Iraqis, Kurds, Syrians, Lebanese, and Yemenis also have to endure the physical and mental privations arising indirectly from the Iranian deep state’s entanglements in the political, security, and economic affairs of a whole raft of countries. Demography, it is said, is destiny, and few regimes in today’s polarized Middle East understand the importance of this old phrase better than Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Which inevitably raises the question: should the Trump administration use more stick and less carrot, or vice versa, in its effort to force the Iranians back to the negotiating table? Were the question put to Obama White House alumni and European Union bureaucrats who negotiated the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and a group of six world powers, the answer would surely be “more carrot than stick”.
But if the past is any guide, a decision by Trump to partially lift sanctions or reopen trade with Iran will likely have as much success in undoing the revolutionary character of the regime as it had when it was taken by President Barack Obama, to say nothing of the impact on China’s one-party system of Bill Clinton’s fervent plea to the US Congress to pass the China Trade Bill in March 2000 if it believed “in a future of greater openness and freedom for the people of China”.
On the other hand, there is a limit to how much economic pressure the regime in Tehran can tolerate before it reckons the writing is truly on the wall. The incidents near the UAE emirate of Fujairah and the apparent drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities were possibly elements of the deterrence strategy of IRGC commanders rather than a declaration of their readiness to attack Washington’s Gulf allies or block the Strait of Hormuz.
The Asharq Alawsat columnist and veteran Middle East political observer Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed recently envisaged three interesting scenarios resulting from mounting US economic and military pressure on Tehran.
In one scenario, Iran will hope that Trump will change his stance or decide to wait out his presidency, which carries the risk of regime collapse. In another, Iran will negotiate with the Trump administration and compromise at the risk of “denting its pride” and sacrificing its “expansionist geopolitical agenda”. The worst-case scenario is the third: Iran will try to force the US to compromise by ordering its auxiliaries in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen to launch combat missions.
Ideally, Iran’s rulers will have surveyed the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East and North Africa and concluded that what autocratic rule, religious fundamentalism, and jihadism have produced is a pile of failed or fragile states with shattered economies and large refugee populations. They would have then tried to jettison their sectarian agenda and clerical rule in favour of a liberal, secular, democratic system.
In making this difficult transformation, Iran’s rulers would have found plenty of encouragement and support from its Arab and Kurdish neighbours and Western governments who want a conflict-free region. By boldly admitting the mistakes of the last 40 years and negotiating a new compact with its people, Iran’s rulers would have stunned the whole world, to say nothing of their own people, especially the marginalized ethnic and religious minorities.
But all that is theory for the time being.
Given how regime change by force in 2003 opened the gates of hell in Iraq, plus the lack of clarity on whether Iran’s recent actions have crossed the threshold that justifies military action, the Trump administration’s use of gunboat-cum-dollar diplomacy should be aimed at inducing sweeping change in Tehran’s behaviour. In other words, as Shahin Milani, who tweets about Iranian politics, was quoted by Reuters as saying, “the people should do it themselves” because “as long as the Islamic Republic is in power, the shadow of war will loom over Iran”.
Nonetheless, there is little doubt that two incidents which occurred earlier this month – the “sabotage” of four cargo vessels in UAE’s territorial waters and drone strikes on two Saudi Aramco oil installations – were a shot across Washington’s bows. But just like the case of Venezuela, the US has a dearth of options in dealing with Iran, no matter how hawkish the Republican administration’s reputation.
Stripped of all the heated rhetoric, what Iran needs is help pivoting away from its revolutionary, Shiite Islamist identity toward membership of the international community of nations. But that is easier said than done. The regime in Tehran does not contemplate the possibility of being supplanted by a socially liberal and unwarlike government, a set-up likely to find a plurality of support within Iran’s multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian population.
The war of ideas that erupted in Iran around 1997 between the reformists and the hardliners was settled in favour of the latter when the term of President Mohammad Khatami ended in 2005. What has since been reached, by all accounts, is a modus vivendi between a group of comparatively moderate politicians, personified by President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and the unreconstructed “Khomeinists” represented by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his inner circle.
But the current arrangement is possibly even less amenable to improvement than that which existed when Khatami was president. The hardliners maintain such an iron grip on Iran that they can afford to treat the moderates as mere instruments of statecraft whose main job is to charm Western governments and media liberals; coordinate plans with the pro-Iran lobby in the West; and to take the blame for everything from soaring inflation and a plummeting currency to flood devastation.
Iranians who have come of age in the period following the 1979 overthrow of the pro-Western Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the subsequent political takeover by the fundamentalist followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini have no illusions that they are living in a time warp. To enjoy some of the trappings of prosperity and modernity, they do not have to fly all the way to Southern California, which boasts the largest concentration of Iranians outside of Iran.
Cosmopolitan metropolises built on oil wealth and increasingly associated with high culture are just a short flight away from Tehran. Yet, unless they have the financial means and a visa to fulfil their dreams of escape, Iranians are condemned to a life of stress, social orthodoxy, and financial hardship in a country hostage to the bitter legacy of a revolution that has self-evidently run its course.
Not only Iranians – millions of Iraqis, Kurds, Syrians, Lebanese, and Yemenis also have to endure the physical and mental privations arising indirectly from the Iranian deep state’s entanglements in the political, security, and economic affairs of a whole raft of countries. Demography, it is said, is destiny, and few regimes in today’s polarized Middle East understand the importance of this old phrase better than Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Which inevitably raises the question: should the Trump administration use more stick and less carrot, or vice versa, in its effort to force the Iranians back to the negotiating table? Were the question put to Obama White House alumni and European Union bureaucrats who negotiated the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and a group of six world powers, the answer would surely be “more carrot than stick”.
But if the past is any guide, a decision by Trump to partially lift sanctions or reopen trade with Iran will likely have as much success in undoing the revolutionary character of the regime as it had when it was taken by President Barack Obama, to say nothing of the impact on China’s one-party system of Bill Clinton’s fervent plea to the US Congress to pass the China Trade Bill in March 2000 if it believed “in a future of greater openness and freedom for the people of China”.
On the other hand, there is a limit to how much economic pressure the regime in Tehran can tolerate before it reckons the writing is truly on the wall. The incidents near the UAE emirate of Fujairah and the apparent drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities were possibly elements of the deterrence strategy of IRGC commanders rather than a declaration of their readiness to attack Washington’s Gulf allies or block the Strait of Hormuz.
The Asharq Alawsat columnist and veteran Middle East political observer Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed recently envisaged three interesting scenarios resulting from mounting US economic and military pressure on Tehran.
In one scenario, Iran will hope that Trump will change his stance or decide to wait out his presidency, which carries the risk of regime collapse. In another, Iran will negotiate with the Trump administration and compromise at the risk of “denting its pride” and sacrificing its “expansionist geopolitical agenda”. The worst-case scenario is the third: Iran will try to force the US to compromise by ordering its auxiliaries in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen to launch combat missions.
Ideally, Iran’s rulers will have surveyed the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East and North Africa and concluded that what autocratic rule, religious fundamentalism, and jihadism have produced is a pile of failed or fragile states with shattered economies and large refugee populations. They would have then tried to jettison their sectarian agenda and clerical rule in favour of a liberal, secular, democratic system.
In making this difficult transformation, Iran’s rulers would have found plenty of encouragement and support from its Arab and Kurdish neighbours and Western governments who want a conflict-free region. By boldly admitting the mistakes of the last 40 years and negotiating a new compact with its people, Iran’s rulers would have stunned the whole world, to say nothing of their own people, especially the marginalized ethnic and religious minorities.
Instead of treating the country’s courageous reformists and political dissidents as enemies, the regime would have sought their advice in preparing the country for a belated transition. Rather than aspire to be the new hegemon of the Middle East, Iran would compete with its Arab Gulf rivals for the role of ambassador of moderate Islam, global values, and religious tolerance.
But all that is theory for the time being.
Given how regime change by force in 2003 opened the gates of hell in Iraq, plus the lack of clarity on whether Iran’s recent actions have crossed the threshold that justifies military action, the Trump administration’s use of gunboat-cum-dollar diplomacy should be aimed at inducing sweeping change in Tehran’s behaviour. In other words, as Shahin Milani, who tweets about Iranian politics, was quoted by Reuters as saying, “the people should do it themselves” because “as long as the Islamic Republic is in power, the shadow of war will loom over Iran”.
Arnab Neil Sengupta is an independent journalist and commentator on the Middle East. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw. |