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Regime change in
Iran
The makings of a
revolution
By Barry Rubin
Two revolutions that made the modern Middle
East
The politics and ideologies dominating the
region can best be seen as the product of two great
regime-changing revolutions: Egypt in 1952 and Iran in
1979, respectively. Explicitly or implicitly, these
major innovations were taken as exemplars of the proper
ideology and methodology for seizing and holding power.
They were not merely political revolutions, but also
represented comprehensive worldviews and paradigm
shifts.
Now advocates of a third revolution have
appeared, though they are still far more prevalent in
the United States than in the Middle East. This third
revolution would be one which advocated as its main
features: democracy, moderation, human rights and civil
liberties, a more free enterprise economy, friendship
with the West, and peace with Israel, among other
features. It is the model that has basically triumphed
in most of the world, but certainly not in the Middle
East. The idea is that Iraq would be a starting point
and would then become a model whose success would
encourage others to follow in its path.
One
could argue that the failure of the two old revolutions
in their own countries would encourage - indeed, make
inevitable - their abandonment as a model for other
places. The fact that the Arab world and Iran have
suffered so many failures and defeats in the last
half-century, while not attaining any of their major
goals, should be very persuasive arguments. That this
has not happened is due to many factors, though it can
be most simply explained by the regimes' determination
and clever strategy in maintaining the beliefs that
justify their existence.(1)
What is undeniable,
though, is that even today, the overwhelming majority of
Arabs - though, ironically, not necessarily most
Iranians - still see the two frameworks represented by
these past revolutions as the very foundation of their
political views and even of their personal
self-image.(2) Although the product of these two
revolutions - Arab nationalism and Islamism - can be
seen as rival interpretations, they also have a great
deal in common. They seek to answer the same question,
solve the same problem, and share the same goals. Their
sense of right and wrong, friends and enemies, methods
and prescriptions, overlap far more than they conflict.
Both movements spawned by these two different
revolutions attempted to answer the same basic question
and provide the answer to it: Why were the Arabs,
Iranians, and Muslims in general behind the West? How
could they catch up and surpass the West? While the
prescriptions were not entirely the same, both rested on
revolt, mobilization, and conflict with the West.
While both could be said to embrace
value-neutral technology, and Arab nationalism took the
ideology of nationalism from the West (as well as other
techniques from the Communist states), both also
rejected the basic path taken by Western Europe and
North America. A path which includes embracing such
concepts as democracy combined with free enterprise, an
emphasis on moderation and gradual reform, and a defense
of the individual's rights against the state.
In
this process of surpassing the West, democratic rule and
moderation in general were largely discredited as useful
tools for Arabs or Muslims in pursuit of their dreams.
Cooperation with the West and with the existing
political order was seen as illegitimate, though in
practice often pursued. The proper goals of Arab
politics were seen as being the expulsion of Western
influence, the unity of all Arabs (and of all Muslims
for the later Islamists), the destruction of Israel,
mobilization of the masses from above, a statist and
socialist-style approach to economic development, all
under the aegis of a charismatic leader.
Of
course, there were also important differences between
these two revolutions and their successors. What
happened in Egypt in 1952 was a military coup in origin
and it brought to the fore ideas such as: the armed
forces would be the vanguard in transforming society,
Pan-Arab nationalism, the belief in a charismatic leader
who would unite the Arabs and bring them to victory, and
a statist economic system. This model took power in
Syria, Iraq, and Libya, while, at times, threatening to
do so in many other countries.
For
intellectuals, activists, and others, regime change
meant to transform a traditional system into an Arab
nationalist one. And the goal of the oppositions in
countries already ruled by such governments was to
produce an even more militant regime of precisely the
same type.
But a quarter-century later, while
still enjoying support from the majority of Arabs, this
system could be judged a failure. It had not gained
political hegemony in the Arab world, united the Arabs,
brought rapid economic development, banished social
problems, expelled Western influence, or destroyed
Israel. But what was the alternative? Traditionalism and
liberalism were discredited, and communism never really
caught on.
During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s,
Islamic movements were seen as socially conservative, as
pillars of the traditional order, which was largely
true. Saudi Arabia promoted Islam as a counter to
leftist movements; former Egyptian president Anwar
al-Sadat backed it for a while in the 1970s for the same
reason.
Thus, Arab nationalism continued to be
the dominant model - and still is today - but there was
ample room for an alternative, which also expressed
radical discontent, the demand for quick fixes, the
possibility of wide unity, a vision of utopian
solutions, and the promise of total victory. But where
would that alternative arise?
Iran, the
Middle East's second formative revolution
Given
the near-monopoly of Arab nationalist forces in the Arab
world - along with the distaste for liberal democratic
or Marxist thought and the discrediting of Islamic
orientations - the new political idea and its successful
seizure of power had to come from outside. Just as
Russia was the birthplace of both Marxist-Leninist
doctrine and the first communist state, coming from
beyond a more industrialized Western Europe where other
types of revolutions had already taken place, so too
Iran became the source of the new revolutionary ethos by
being outside the mainstream ethnicity and the more
"advanced" polities of its own region.
In Iran,
the regime to be displaced was the "original"
traditional one. The only previous serious challenge had
come from a nationalist movement, that of Muhammad
Mossadegh, a quarter-century earlier. While the shah's
victory over Mossadegh in 1953 is usually attributed to
covert US assistance, it should be noted, though, that
the monarch also had the support of Islamic clerics, who
saw the independent-minded prime minister as an enemy of
the tradition they supported and especially distrusted
his communist allies. But militant nationalism had never
really been a potent force in the Iranian empire. And
while a variety of underground leftist movements arose
by the 1970s, they were not capable of overthrowing the
regime either.
At the same time, though, it
should not be taken for granted that the radical
Islamists would inevitably have gained victory in Iran.
In that country, as in Russia in 1917, there was a wide
spectrum of different groups and ideologies active
during the 1978 upheaval. These included Marxists,
Marxist-Islamists, Islamists of different orientations,
Iranian nationalists, Kurdish nationalists, Azeri
nationalists, and liberal democrats. The triumph of
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (similar to the triumph of
Lenin) was in no small part due to his individual
commitment, clear ideology, ruthlessness, determination
to seize state power, and refusal to compromise.
In a sense, it could also be said that
Khomeini's revolution encompassed nationalism even while
rejecting it explicitly. Radical Islamism was more
likely to unite the country's various ethnic communities
than would an Iranian nationalism, which could easily
have turned into an ethnic Persian doctrine. However, he
did offer an implicit Iranian nationalism. By projecting
Iran as the vanguard of a world revolution which other
countries and peoples should follow, Khomeini was
extolling its unique mission and justifying anything
that would further its national interests. His Islamism
also rejected foreign political or cultural influences.
At the same time, Khomeini subsumed a great deal
of leftism's appeal by championing social justice and
promising to mobilize people against imperialism.
Moreover, he was in many ways a traditionalist,
championing the Persian language and the old way of
life, rejecting new or imported ways. And yet, the
revolution also offered its own path to modernization,
using what were supposedly "proper" Islamic routes to
the goals of higher living standards and
industrialization.
In short, then, Khomeini
succeeded in large part because, despite his stern
insistence that his way was the only acceptable one and
everything else was anti-Islamic heresy and treason, the
worldview and policies he proposed let Iranians have
their cake while eating it too. While condemning the
left, modernism, tradition, and nationalism, Iran's
Islamic revolution claimed to give a blueprint to
achieve equivalent ends. Of course, and this is a
critical point, Khomeini was also ready to sacrifice any
other consideration for his rigid vision of an Islamic
state. This approach, along with serious repression and
the unifying power of a manufactured confrontation with
the United States and a life-and-death struggle with
Iraq, sustained the regime for many years.
The regional significance of Iran's
revolution
For Khomeini and his followers, what
they were doing in Iran was not merely a revolution in
one country but provided the vanguard and predicted the
future of the entire Middle East - and for all Muslims
and even the whole world as well. But ultimately, as in
Russia, they combined this ideology (and covert
revolutionary activity abroad) with a priority on
preserving the regime, a strategy which required a
combination of the most extreme rhetoric and sponsorship
of subversion with overt caution and restraint.
Certainly, the revolution had assets. These
included its own success in seizing power (against a
seemingly powerful ruler backed by the US); an ability
to appeal to all Muslims; a critique of the
unsatisfactory Arab nationalist or traditionalist
regimes; a militant position on all the usual issues;
and a base of operations in a country with a large
population, geographic size, and financial assets.
Still, it also faced considerable drawbacks in
spreading its direct influence or even the popularity of
its program. Foremost of these was the fact that it was
Persian, not Arab, and a Shi'ite Muslim, not Sunni
Muslim, revolution and regime. Many Islamists downplay
these differences, claiming these divisions are
Western-fostered ones. But they are nevertheless quite
real and pose major barriers for Iran and the movement
it backs.
In terms of its regional effect, the
Iranian revolution had a half-dozen potential or actual
effects.
First, of course, it was an Islamic
revolution and this was a fact that colored every aspect
of its influence and reception. For secular - meaning
Arab nationalist or modernist - forces, it appeared
dangerous and destabilizing. The same was true for the
Islamic traditional regimes of the Persian Gulf, which
Khomeini openly wanted to overthrow. On this level,
then, the regime change in Iran heightened suspicions
and antagonisms.
Previously, the Gulf Arab
monarchies had gotten along quite well with the shah,
whose protection might be thought slightly overbearing
but nevertheless welcome. Now they were at risk from an
Iran that wanted to outplay them with the Islam card,
which had always been their own strong suit. For these
countries and many other Arab states, the revolution
forced them to shore up their own Islamic credentials
and to keep a close eye on domestic movements which
might seek to follow the Iranian model.
Yet,
whether the Arab rulers liked it or not, the regime
change put the question of Islamist politics
center-stage from Morocco to Pakistan. At last a new
basis existed in practice for opposition movements to
pose a serious threat to governments. Thus, the overturn
of a government in one country overturned the entire
political order in the region and sought - albeit
ultimately unsuccessfully - to overturn all the
political systems in the region as well.
For the
various existing Islamist movements in the region - most
notably, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, Syria and
other countries - the Iranian revolution provided an
inspiration but not a leader. If their counterparts in
Iran had succeeded, then they felt more confident of
achieving the same outcome. Yet they did not feel any
need to take lessons from Khomeini or to become his
clients. In Egypt, the Brotherhood continued to seek a
path of legal activity and gradual base-building, though
some of its cadre would later break away to follow the
revolutionary dream. In Syria, the Brotherhood was
either tricked or tempted into a revolt in 1982 and was
crushed by the government.
The power of the
Iranian revolution was not that it took over existing
movements but that it inspired the creation of many new
ones. Those groups which would become the leading
opposition forces - the Islamic Salvation Front in
Algeria; Hizbolla in Lebanon; Hamas among the
Palestinians, and so on - were new groups created in the
Islamic revolution's wake. With the exception of
Hizbolla, which was Iranian-sponsored, these groups were
Sunni.
While the revolution had little effect on
old movements and inspired new ones, the most direct
relationship was with some specific groups. The ones
closest to Iran were also Shi'ite, notably Hizbolla. But
other than that Lebanese group, Iran's clients were
largely small and highly dependent on Tehran's subsidies
and help. They were effective at terrorism but had no
serious chance of becoming mass movements or seizing
power in their countries.
In general, no one
could ignore the Islamic revolution's critique of Arab
nationalism. It openly proclaimed that radical
ideology's failure and ascribed that failure to being
too moderate and too soft on the West. What was needed,
Iran's message said, was more militancy, more armed
struggle, and the expulsion of Western influence on the
political and cultural levels. Even the Arab
nationalists were influenced in this direction. And by
persuading so many Arabs that more extremism was the way
to success, Iran's revolution also undermined the appeal
of the other main potential alternative - liberal
democratic movements - and set back the possibility of
democratic change for many years, even decades, to come.
Second, the revolution's other most important
factor was its location. Since it took place in Iran,
the regime change had the disadvantage - in regional
influence terms - of being Persian and Shi'ite. A
revolution in any major Arab state would have had more
effect, though as noted above it also would have been
far harder. Still, Iran was large, highly populated, and
enjoying considerable oil revenues. In all three
respects, the innate power of Iran magnified the
importance and affective power of the revolution. An
Islamist revolution in, say, Yemen - or as would
actually happen when a roughly parallel event happened
in Sudan - would be more easily ignored.
In
addition, being in the Persian Gulf, Iran's revolution
was going to produce stronger changes in that immediate
neighborhood. Gulf stability was undermined decisively,
a situation continuing to this day. Traditionally, Gulf
security rested on balances among Iran, Iraq, and the
Gulf monarchies, along with considerable external -
first British, after 1970, US - support.
But
with two radical states in the area, the balance was
upset. And the fact that this very rise of radicalism
made the conservative monarchies frightened about
seeking outside, Western, help - at least at first -
made things worse. The Iran-Iraq war, Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait, and a US-Iraq war were only the most salient of
many events which probably only took place because the
Iranian revolution had happened. And from the war over
Kuwait arose Osama bin Laden, who protested both the
resulting US presence in Saudi Arabia and the sanctions
against Iraq, and from that came the September 11, 2001
attacks on America, the "war on terrorism", the American
intervention in Afghanistan and the second US-Iraq war.
From 1979 onward, the Saudis, Kuwaitis, and
other Gulf monarchies faced a new threat, Islamic Iran,
which might also manifest itself in domestic disorder.
They used their money, of which they had a remarkably
large amount, to shore up their internal support and
bought arms to defend themselves. Equally, they
carefully maintained their links with the United States
in case its protection would be needed. But they
couldn't confront Iran directly or make its potential
threat go away.
Ultimately and ironically, the
country most dramatically affected by Iran's regime
change was Iraq. Iraq became critical in several ways.
The Gulf Arabs wanted this stronger neighbor to be their
protector, and Saddam Hussein was eager to take up this
role as part of his wider ambition of leading the Arab
world. Unlike any of the Gulf monarchies, Iraq had a
large army. Believing Iran to be weak, Saddam was
certain that he could quickly and decisively defeat
Iran, ensuring his emergence as the Arabs' new hero. In
that case, he, and not Khomeini, would be the one to
reshape the Middle East.
But if Baghdad's
opportunity was greater, then so was the threat it
faced. Iraq, unlike the monarchies, had a long border
with Iran. And, perhaps most important of all, it had a
very large Shi'ite community - even a majority - that
might respond to Iran's siren call. Thus, the revolution
gave him motives for war: the belief that his neighbor
was a threat, the concern that inaction would lead to
his country's collapse, the certainty his rival was
weak, and confidence that victory would bring tremendous
rewards.
Third, and very surprisingly, the
revolution's unique method had little or no influence
anywhere else. In Iran, the regime change came as a
result of a mass movement, in contrast to the military
coups and palace intrigues which had brought about all
other regime changes for a quarter-century before and
after the events in 1979.
Even the Islamist
movements which tried to follow in Iran's footsteps
never sought to use the mass movement method, preferring
armed struggle and terrorist violence by a small number
of cadres to a mass revolution. This was very much the
case, for example, in both the Algerian civil war
conducted by the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and the
Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and with the insurgency in
Egypt by al-Jihad and the Islamic Group. None of these
groups were proteges of Iran. Yet these terror/guerrilla
tactics also characterized Lebanese Hizbolla and
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which were Iranian clients.
In this tactical sense, it was as if the remarkably
mass-based character of Iran's revolution had never
happened at all.(3)
Fourth, while the way Iran
behaved in the decades after the revolution stirred
considerable regional turmoil, its simultaneous
restraint also kept that response from being even more
tumultuous. Either due to its priority on consolidating
the revolution at home or as a result of its desperate
situation brought on by international isolation and the
Iran-Iraq war, Tehran quickly took an overtly cautious
posture toward promoting revolution and destabilizing
its neighbors.
The revolution in Iran would not
be risked or sacrificed for the sake of spreading the
revolution abroad. Again, this Iranian policy in the
1980s and 1990s can be compared to the Soviet Union's
behavior when faced with problems of internal
consolidation and external threats during its early
decades. Tehran did not launch attacks on its neighbors
or threaten them with aggression or a systematic,
energetic campaign of subversion. Rather, Iran often put
forward a dual strategy of seeking stable relations or
even rapprochement with various countries while covertly
helping local forces engage in violent revolutionary
activity against the regimes there.
Yet, when
necessary, it was also prepared to sacrifice its
revolutionary program for Iran's nation-state interests.
There were limits to this process - Tehran was prepared
to pay the costs of continued hostility toward the
United States, for example - yet it would not sponsor
revolutionaries against Syria, a regime quite repressive
of Islamists, in order to preserve the friendship of one
of its few allies. Similarly, Iran needed good relations
with Russia (and so did not get involved in Chechnya or
push too hard to gain influence in Moscow's former
Muslim provinces) and even sided, in practice, with
Christian Armenia against Muslim Azerbaijan.
At
the same time, though, this strategy put a premium on
terrorism as a covert, violent way to bring about regime
change. But, like the USSR, Tehran usually found it
could deal more easily with movements under its control
rather than those that retained a large degree of
independence. Thus, Iran, like the USSR with local
communist parties - has put much of its effort into
small groups that are either extensions of Iranian
intelligence or paper organizations. This was especially
true with regard to activities in the Arab Gulf states.
By the same token, though, these groups could not build
much of a popular base. These types of tactics also
contributed to the disillusionment of the Iraqi Shi'ite
opposition, which did not want to be under Iran's thumb.
The main exception to this pattern is Hizbolla
in Lebanon, which maintains a large organization along
with its independence. Even Hizbolla, however, has
remained far too weak to take over Lebanon or even to
gain hegemony in the Shi'ite community there. During the
1980s, however, Iran at last - albeit too late for its
historic ambitions - broke through to establish strong
links to some Sunni groups, notably Hamas and the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General
Command (PFLP-GC). By then, though, the Iranian
revolution was no longer considered a vanguard by
Islamists. Osama bin Laden had replaced Khomeini as the
hero of the day for many radical Islamists and a new
inspiration for their doctrines and strategies.
Fifth, as in the Soviet case, the perceived
failures of the Iranian revolution to produce an ideal
society and successful economic development discouraged
others from following its lead. In addition, the Iranian
revolution - at least as the rulers were managing it -
was rejected by a large majority of its own population
in the 1990s. The high degree of social control, poor
economic performance, corruption, and other problems
especially alienated young people who did not remember
the previous regime. An attempt to reform the country
from within the revolution, led by President Mohammad
Khatami, was a dismal failure. By the turn of the
century, the majority thus had a stark choice:
maintaining sullen passivity or launching an extremely
bloody revolt.
This situation undercut the
appeal of Islamist movements in general to those who had
not joined them; it also greatly reduced pro-Iranian
sentiments among these groups' members. In addition, the
revolutionary groups which had originally been
encouraged by Iran's revolution failed to seize power in
the 1980s and 1990s. While some individuals gave up the
struggle, others developed a post-Iranian interpretation
of the situation.
The Iranian revolutionary
model placed the priority on overthrowing the "near
enemy" - ie, the regimes in various Arab states. They
failed because the governments of those states were
effective in using a mix of cooptation and repression,
but also because the masses did not view the
revolutionaries as the proper form of Islam and thus did
not support them.
Bin Laden's new school
responded to this situation by arguing - inaccurately -
that the struggle had not succeeded because the United
States had kept the regimes in power. In addition, they
claimed that a battle waged directly against the United
States would be more popular than killing fellow
Muslims. Although the bin Laden groups remained small,
their ideas did change the flavor of the ideological
debate, especially after September 11, 2001. One might
compare bin Laden's function to that of the Maoist and
New Left doctrines which had appealed to radicals in the
1960s and afterward, when the USSR had come to seem a
tired and failed model.
Iranian regime change
and the US
Sixth, the hostile attitude toward
the US of the government resulting from Iran's regime
change had enormous impact on regional - as well as US -
policy and behavior. Khomeini's triumph made
anti-Americanism a high-priority item in the region's
ideological doctrine and as a target for terrorism. Many
of the themes later evinced by bin Laden already existed
in Khomeini's worldview. In a sense, the new regime
proposed a two-front strategy. While the principal
emphasis was put on staging revolutions against local
regimes (the "near enemy") there would also be direct
efforts to attack US influence or presence in the region
(the "far enemy"), mainly through terrorism.
Ironically, though, this effort had the directly
opposite effect from that intended by the Iranian
Islamist rulers. Fear of Iran actually prompted the Gulf
Arab monarchies, and even for a time, Iraq, to move
closer to the US. This was especially true during the
Iran-Iraq war, which culminated in the request to reflag
Arab tankers with the stars and stripes to put them
under American protection. US military sales and direct
military presence in the Gulf increased. Iraqi actions,
which had their origin in the regional alterations made
by the Iranian regime change, continued and intensified
this trend.
What happened in regard to the US as
a result of the regime change in Iran is one of the most
remarkable developments in the entire history of
American foreign policy. The Persian Gulf had been a
backwater, an area where the US had little involvement
and about which the American people had little interest
or knowledge. During the two decades following the
revolution, the Gulf became a focal point - arguably the
most important area of the globe - for the US.
This point is demonstrated by a simple list of
the issues and crises emerging from the Iranian
revolution: the hostage crisis in Tehran; the Iran-Iraq
war; perhaps the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; the
upsurge in Islamist terrorism, the reflagging affair,
the Iran-Contra scandal, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, a
gigantic series of arms sales; September 11; and the
US-Iraq confrontation of 2003.
What is
especially important to note, however, is that during
this period - and contrary to the beliefs of many in
Tehran - US policy toward Iran was never one seeking
regime change there. The evolution of American means and
goals can only be briefly presented here, but the basic
starting point was that the US hoped to see, or force,
the revolution to act more moderately rather than to
disappear altogether.
During the revolution
itself, the US did not give full backing to the shah to
crush the revolt. Immediately afterward, then president
Jimmy Carter sought detente with Iran, in part to avoid
the country allying itself with the USSR. Ironically, it
was fear of the popularity of the US, as well as to use
anti-Americanism to reinforce and radicalize the new
regime, that caused Khomeini and his followers to take
the American diplomats as hostages in 1979. Carter even
took the remarkable step of promising not to use
military force on Iran, despite the kidnapping of
American officials and their imprisonment for 444 days.
While Carter preached coexistence, his successor
Ronald Reagan sought a secret rapprochement by selling
some arms to Iran in exchange for Tehran's help in
freeing Americans held hostage by its clients in
Lebanon. The Reagan administration's alternative
approach was not regime change but containment, achieved
partly by a US tilt toward Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war of
1980-1988. The goal was not to unseat the revolution but
to ensure Iran did not become too powerful or able to
expand the revolution.
Once Iraq invaded Kuwait
in 1990, Baghdad became the principal threat in the eyes
of both America and the Gulf Arabs. After the war, the
Bush administration still followed a policy of
containing Iran but this was now called "dual
containment", with the inclusion of Iraq as well. Yet
precisely because the US assumed that Iran's revolution
was here to stay and the concern about other threats -
earlier, the Soviet Union, after 1990, Iraq - American
leaders were always ready for a rapprochement with Iran.
This was a route tried by Bill Clinton with no more
success than his predecessors. The underlying problem
was not only that Iran's hardline rulers did not want to
change their policy but also because they feared
reinforcing their reformist rivals and worried that the
US would be more popular with the Iranian people than
they were.
In this context, it is important to
recall the purpose of the US sanctions against Iran.
Sanctions were not an attempt to overthrow the regime
but to isolate it internationally, ensure it did not
become too strong in economic or strategic terms, and
persuade it to turn away from the three objectionable
policies: the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction,
subversion of Arab-Israeli peace efforts, and
sponsorship of terrorism. Of course, obviously the fall
of the islamist regime - or at least of the hardline
ruling faction - would have been warmly welcomed by the
US. But it would have been happy with modifications of
specific foreign policy stands.(4)
One reason
the US did not promote regime change with regard to Iran
was the intrinsic difficulty of such an effort compared
with Iraq, since Iran was stronger, larger, and the
American effort against it was almost entirely
unilateral. Another key factor here was that while
believing the Iranian regime was very radical and the
world's most important sponsor of terrorism, US leaders
also saw the regime as restrained in its behavior. It
did not attack neighbors directly, the regime operated
within a framework of realpolitik, etc.
This is
in contrast to Iraq, which truly was perceived over time
as a rogue regime - as well as a weaker one. Whatever
its extremist rhetoric, Iran had been invaded by Iraq in
1979, not vice-versa; and Iraq, not Iran, had invaded
Kuwait. While Iran obtaining WMD was very dangerous, it
might be constrained from using such weapons, unlike
Iraq. International support for actions against Iraq was
much stronger than against Iran - the former were UN
sanctions while against Iran they were unilateral US
ones. Iraq had been defeated in war and undertaken
commitments which had been broken, giving a strong
rationale for US military action even if many countries
did not accept this argument.
Finally, of
course, at least in the second half of the 1990s, it was
possible to hope that Iran would undertake its own
internal reform due to the moderates' electoral
victories and the stance of President Muhammad Khatami.
President George W Bush's inclusion of Iran as one of
the "axis of evil" trio (along with Iraq and North
Korea)signaled not a turn to regime change but the end
of the US hope for Iran's "self-moderation".
Hence, an active effort to achieve regime change
was never US policy toward Iran and this has not changed
at all. Despite some scattered voices calling for a
comprehensive US policy promoting regime change, the US
attack on Iraq makes such a stance toward Iran less
likely. The US is preoccupied in Baghdad and does not
want to provoke an Iranian attempt to destabilize a
post-Saddam Iraq. Ironically, this step will also show
how the Iranian revolution's paranoia about America
became a self-fulfilling prophecy: the US presence in
the Gulf and the Gulf Arab states' dependence on America
will be greater than ever.
The third
revolution?
What did the Iranian case, along
with the Egyptian one, show about regime change?
Clearly, that the change in regime of a major Middle
Eastern state can have an extraordinarily large impact
on the region both through the example of a new type of
regime and through the specific policies of the new
government in power.
Certainly, the specific
nature and strategic situation of the state in question
is a key element here. As a non-Arab state, Iran was
more limited in providing a model for the Arab world. As
a non-Sunni Muslim state, Iran was less able to be an
ideal to the majority of Arabs who follow that
denomination. Yet the results were still impressive. A
whole era of Middle East history was influenced by this
event and also, despite predictions to the contrary, the
shift proved to be a lasting one.
By the same
token, at some point a revolution is going to be judged
a success or failure by its neighbors and its own
citizens. If it does not provide stability, better
living conditions, and other things, the impetus of the
early days will wear off. It will face internal
challenges and be less attractive as a model for
foreigners. But even then it can have a powerful
attraction. Beyond that, repression, demagoguery and
material incentives can extend its life for many
decades.
There is no question that the Middle
East has been facing a particularly potent blend of
deadlock and stagnation. The old concepts and methods
have not worked; expectations have been disappointed.
Either the region is ready for a new model of revolution
or it is awaiting even more variants on the failed
doctrines of Arab nationalism and Islamism that
militants and masses can believe will succeed.
The most optimistic assessment of the effect of
regime change in Iraq is that it will be, in effect, the
Middle East's third revolution. Instead of Arab
nationalism or Islamism - which have many things in
common - the new model would be one of democracy, human
rights, moderation, free enterprise, and good relations
with the West. This is, after all, the model that has
prevailed in every other part of the world. Such a
model, however, must be perceived as workable and
successful. And even then, the existing regimes, their
mobilized supporters and adherents of the two other
revolutionary models will do everything possible to
ignore, subvert and defame their new competitor.
This, then, is an ambitious undertaking on a
level - and even then only if accepted as such by the
Arabs themselves - than the regime changes which began
in Cairo or Tehran and went on to become strategic and
ideological changes for the Middle East as a whole.
But will such acceptance come for a US-initiated
regime change in Iraq? So far, the signs are not so
hopeful on a regional level. Only time can show the
trend, though this also presupposes a successful
democratic transition in Iraq, among other things. On
all levels, this is a hazardous, complicated and
long-term undertaking and a great deal can go wrong.
While these developments should be studied and
analyzed with an open mind, knowing that precedent is
not always a reliable guide and skeptical about grand
plans and easy promised solutions. Actually predicting
what will happen, as Iran's modern history shows, is
extraordinarily difficult and deservedly daunting.
Notes
(1) This issue is
explained in detail in Barry Rubin, The Tragedy of
the Middle East (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2002).
(2) Obviously, Arab nationalism
was never a model for Iran, which, of course, is one
reason why the revolution there followed an Islamist
course.
(3) The Palestinian intifadas, which in
both cases reverted quickly from mass activity to armed
action, do not seem to have any direct relationship with
the events in Iran, but even if it did that was a sole
exception. For a detailed discussion of the Egyptian
case, see the author's Islamic Fundamentalists in
Egyptian Politics (Palgrave/St. Martin's: NY, 2002).
(4)One of many statements that discuss these
goals is Secretary of State Madeleine K Albright's
remarks at the Asia Society Dinner,
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, June 17, 1998.
Barry Rubin is director of the
Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA)
Center, at the Interdisciplinary University. His latest
books include The Tragedy of the Middle East
(Cambridge University Press) and, with Judith Colp
Rubin, Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East
(Oxford University Press). Their biography of Yasser
Arafat will be published by Oxford University Press in
September
This article is reprinted from
Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA)
Journal [vol X, no X, 2002]. Copyright MERIA. For a free
subscription, e-mail MERIA at gloria@idc.ac.il. Or visit
all MERIA publications. To see the
work of MERIA's publisher, visit the Global Research in International Affairs
(GLORIA) Center.
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