Playing to Iran's strengths

Asia Times Online
1 February 2006


Middle East

SPEAKING FREELY
Playing to Iran's strengths
By Sanam Vakil

Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
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Editor's note: The permanent five members of the United Nations
Security Council agreed on Tuesday that this week's meeting of the
UN's nuclear watchdog should report Iran to the council over its
nuclear program. The decision was reached after a meeting among the
foreign ministers of China, Russia, the United States, France and
Britain, as well as Germany and the European Union's foreign-policy
chief.

History always repeats itself. This old axiom is ever pertinent in
examining Iran's regional alignments and positioning as it jockeys
for power as a regional contender in the Middle East. For the Bush
administration to understand the theocratic regime's ambitions,
Washington need only open the history books to deconstruct Tehran's
regional aspirations.

Indeed, the decision to exclude Iran from a regional security
framework after the 1991 Gulf War marginalized the regime and led
Tehran to strengthen its subversive regional networking strategies.
Ironically, this same pattern can be witnessed today. After a decade
of war and isolation ending in 1989, the Iranian regime made an about-
face and sought a neutral policy of accommodation with the US in its
war with the irredentist Saddam Hussein. No longer able to curry
favor with its war-weary population or stimulate its war-torn
economy, the clerical cadre calculated in favor of realpolitik.

For the more moderate elements driving Iran's foreign policy, this
strategy of temperance was a gamble as the factional hardline
ideologues were stridently opposed to bargains with the "Great
Satan". Ultimately, Iran's newly elected president, Hashemi
Rafsanjani, sought to guarantee Iran a role in the postwar regional
security framework. In doing so, Iran would not only be flush with
revenue but also would assume its innate position as a regional power.

Events, however, did not unfold as Rafsanjani had anticipated. In the
postwar reconstruction, US anxieties over Iran's nefarious activities
prevented cooperation between the two countries. Specifically, Iran
sought an invitation to participate in the US-sponsored 1991 Madrid
Peace Conference, while Washington had no intention of including
Tehran in the Arab-Israeli peace process, thereby demonstrating its
irrelevance to the entire negotiations.

This clerical exclusion was a profound rebuff, especially to
hardliners who were unconvinced about the moderation in Iran's
foreign-policy position. In response, Iran, which had taken on the
banner of Palestinian nationalism in the 1979 Islamic Revolution,
lashed out against this rejection ferociously.

Indeed, as known sponsors of Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic
Jihad, patronage for these groups and their activities increased.
Throughout the decade of the 1990s there were intensified activities
linking Iran to bombings in Buenos Aires at the Jewish community
center, the Khobar Towers bombing in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and even
the Mykonos restaurant attack in Berlin against Kurdish dissidents.
This implicated the highest echelons of Iranian leadership and led to
the withdrawal of all European ambassadors from Tehran in 1997.

At such volatile times Iranian support also extended into Alawite,
Syria. The Assad regime had pledged mutual allegiance to their
clerical comrades during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War as the sole
Arab state supporting the "fire-worshipping Persians". In return,
grand ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Shi'ite brethren enabled Hafez
Assad in his atavistic quest to lay claim to Lebanon through
Hezbollah. In effect, one facilitated the other and together they
could strike back at the "Little Satan" - Israel.

The events of September 11, 2001, were a catalyst for regional change
in the Middle East. The traumatic events presented a unique
opportunity for cooperation between the US and Iran, while also
permitting Iran to alter its regional alignments. The momentous shock
to the American empire was bound to have after-effects on the Middle
Eastern landscape.

For Iran, the "war on terror" was a blessing and a curse. As Pax
Americana came knocking on Tehran's door, Washington first sought to
eradicate the cleric's nemeses. Initially, there were signs of
cooperation between the two nations. However, news of Iran furnishing
the Karine A vessel bound for Palestine with armaments terminated all
such dreams of rapprochement and immediately returned Iran to its
notorious role as a triumvirate member of the "axis of evil".

With the United States commencing operations to oust Iran's enemy,
Saddam, Iran nonetheless would soon bear the fruit of the US campaign
in Iraq. The consequences for the Islamic Republic, though, lay in
its enclosure as the democratic winds of Pax Americana would blow
from the south, east and west encircling the Iranian frontier.

Reminiscent of 1991, this isolation of Iran has yet again reproduced
Tehran's regional balance of power schemes as a way of pre-
positioning itself to fend off any threat from Washington.

This time, however, Tehran is better situated, having extended its
foothold to threaten US interests in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine,
Lebanon, Syria and the Persian Gulf.

In Iraq, Iran has allies among the Shi'ite victors in the recent
parliamentary elections. In Afghanistan, both President Hamid Karzai
and warlord Ismail Khan in Herat cooperate with their Iranian
neighbors. Hamas leader Khaled Mishaal Sayyed has promised to
retaliate if Israel strikes Iran's nuclear sites. Lebanon's
Hezbollah, while on the road to a democratic transition, still
receives considerable financial support from Iran.

Most significant to this group, though, is Syria, which signed a
mutual defense pact with Tehran last spring. Indeed, both alienated
countries continue to support each other in their domestic and
international crises.

Ultimately, with Iran's nuclear crisis coming to a head, Iran's
regional alignment only seeks to protect the Islamic Republic in the
face of the looming military campaign whispered in the corridors of
power in Israel and the US.

Most interesting has been the recent bout of support from Saudi
Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, who suggested that "the West is
partly to blame for the current nuclear standoff with Iran because it
allowed Israel to develop nuclear weapons". Egyptian Foreign Minister
Ahmad Aboul Gheit, meanwhile, called for a continuation of dialogue.

Additionally, the Russian and Chinese reluctance to sanction the
clerical regime signifies the converging commercial and strategic
synergies that override the importance of this nuclear issue.
Clearly, the Iranian clerics have cleverly pre-positioned themselves
with regional and international allies willing to support the Iranian
position or thwart a crisis in the event of a military strike.

For the administration of US President George W Bush, which is in a
unique position to manage this nuclear crisis, understanding and
managing Iranian regional objectives is crucial to mitigating this
tenuous aperture. Ultimately, the Iranian clerics continue to seek a
role in the Middle East's regional security.

Indeed, the clerical elite consider Iran to be located on the
precipice of global power in the region and thus cannot be neglected.
This writer's research and interviews in both capitals concluded that
Washington and Tehran have mutual interests of regional stability and
security. These interests can be brought together under the umbrella
of the pressing issue of regional security.

If the Bush administration included rather than alienated Tehran in
these regional security arrangements, the converging national
interests of Washington and Tehran could result in the further co-
optation of the Islamic Republic.

Sanam Vakil is an assistant professor of Middle East studies at the
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.