Iran's push for regional
power By Dr Michael A Weinstein
Tensions between Iran and the United States have
recently heated up to the point that some analysts,
particularly in the Arab world, surmise that the
struggle between the Iraqi transitional government and
the Shi'ite resistance led by Muqtada al-Sadr is
essentially a proxy war between the two countries.
Iran has been the instigator of the present
surge in tensions, taking advantage of the military and
diplomatic vulnerabilities of the United States that
were revealed by Washington's campaign for regime change
in Iraq. Despite deep internal divisions in Iran over
the vision of its future (Western or Islamic), all of
its significant political forces are nationalist,
uniting on the premise that any foreign attempts to
change the Iranian regime and forfeit the revolution
(however its meaning is interpreted) are unwelcome,
indeed, intolerable, and are to be firmly resisted.
Political forces in Iran are also one in the
belief that the country should pursue a policy of
enhancing its military machine to make it an effective
deterrent against external attack and expanding its
influence as a regional power in all directions.
Tehran's bid to alter the regional balance of power in
its favor is evidenced by its increasing defiance of
international controls over its nuclear program and its
financial and probably military support of a wide
spectrum of Shi'ite movements and factions in southern
Iraq.
Iran's actions have sparked a strong
reaction from the United States, which has made it
clear, through National Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice, that the US will not tolerate a nuclear-armed
Iran. Rice's threat was answered by Iranian Defense
Minister Admiral Ali Shamkhari, who said there were
established political circles in Iran recommending
preemptive military "replies" against any entity that
"decides to inflict harm" on the country. Despite the
bellicose rhetoric from both sides, there is no direct
war between the two adversaries in the immediate works.
The rhetoric is an indicator of Iran's push for power
and America's attempts to resist that push.
Iran's strategic scenarios That Iran
is the protagonist and the US the antagonist in the
current tensions means that the Iranian regime senses
the opportunity to enhance its power position. Several
strategic scenarios dominate Iranian thinking,
reflecting the possibilities that policymakers perceive
in the current situation.
The best-case scenario
for Iran is that the US military is forced to withdraw
from Iraq, leaving Iran with a dominant sphere of
influence over a Shi'ite-dominated Iraq, or a breakaway
Shi'ite mini-state in the south, and that Iran is able
to achieve nuclear weapons capability. Were this outcome
to occur, Iran would be the dominant power in the
Persian Gulf, displacing the United States.
The
worst-case scenario is that the US or Israel launches a
preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear complex, possibly
associated with American military efforts at regime
change.
In between the two extreme cases is a
gamut of more realistic scenarios. On the favorable
side, Iran would exhaust the US in southern Iraq through
its support of resistance and would drag out
negotiations on its nuclear program by exploiting
divisions among external powers working through
international agencies. On the unfavorable side, Iran
would be excluded from influence in Iraq by an
American-oriented regime, would suffer economic
sanctions for failing to submit its nuclear program to
international supervision, or would feel constrained to
give up that program and would be diplomatically
isolated.
The recent assertive behavior of Iran
suggests that it is determined to resist any concessions
on its perceived vital interests, risking the worst-case
and other unfavorable scenarios in order to realize as
many of its ambitions as possible.
Iran's
strategic situation The scenarios projected by
Iranian policymakers are relative to Iran's strategic
situation. That situation is marked by threats to and
opportunities for Iran's vital interests, giving rise to
the range of possibilities from best-case to worst-case
scenarios. In seeking to ward off threats and exploit
opportunities, policymakers are constrained to play a
hand that has assets and liabilities.
Liabilities The most important
obstacle to Iran's drive for regional power is the
presence of US ground forces in its eastern neighbor
Afghanistan and its western neighbor Iraq, and US naval
and air forces in the Persian Gulf. Iran is partially
encircled by the US, whose explicit best-case scenario
is Iranian regime change. The immediate proximity of
American military forces results in a bias among
policymakers toward building up military security above
any other priority.
Iran's nuclear program,
which it insists is only for peaceful purposes, but is
likely for weapons capability, is only one part of an
ongoing Iranian program for military self-dependence in
the face of sanctions. Recently, Iran successfully
tested a new version of its Shahab-3 missile, with a
range of 810 miles and a capability of striking Israel.
Iran also has produced tanks, armored personnel carriers
and a fighter plane. Yet, Iran still would be no match
for a full-scale American attack - its only effective
deterrent would be nuclear weapons. Iranian policymakers
are aware that the American threat is ever present, even
if it has receded for the moment.
Iran also
faces a military threat from Israel, which might launch
a preemptive strike against Iran's Bushehr reactor and
is reportedly working with Iraqi Kurds to destabilize
the Iranian regime. Iran has recently threatened to bomb
Israel's nuclear complex at Dimona if Israel attacks
Bushehr. As the country that feels most threatened by
Iran, Israel has a vital interest in eliminating Iran's
nuclear program or at least seriously setting it back.
Iranian policymakers can do very little about the
Israeli threat and have begun a program to install
technologies and procedures to minimize the effects of
the release of radiation that would follow a successful
strike on Bushehr.
Iranian ambitions to create a
sphere of influence in Iraq are not only checked by the
American military presence, but also by divisions in
Iraq's Shi'ite population and leadership, a large
proportion of which are nursing the prospect of Shi'ite
dominance over Iraq following scheduled elections in
January 2005. At present they are not seeking Iranian
protection, although they are willing to accept Iranian
aid.
Internally, Iran is socially divided by the
familiar split that has marked countries on the borders
of the West, such as Russia and Turkey, between
Westernizers and traditionalists. In Iran's complex
post-revolutionary political institutions, the executive
is currently controlled by the reformists, and the
parliament, judiciary and supreme religious authorities
are controlled by the theocrats. Outside the state
institutions, the increasingly youthful population
generally favors a loosening of theocratic rule and a
more Western lifestyle. With the successful suppression
of reformists in the last parliamentary elections, the
theocrats have engineered a short-term victory at the
cost of intensifying social polarization.
Washington's strategy toward Iran makes the
division between Westernizers and traditionalists the
centerpiece of plans for regime change. Iranian exile
groups and American neo-conservatives argue that an
aggressive policy of weakening the Iranian regime, if
not an invasion of the country, would unleash the forces
of Westernization and bring Iran into the circle of
American-led capitalist globalization. Iranian
policymakers, increasingly dominated by the
traditionalists, have responded to the social and
political divide by appealing to the need to defend the
country's integrity above any other interest.
Assets Counterbalancing the negatives
in Iran's strategic environment are a number of assets
that give it the necessary room for maneuvers to pursue
its ambitions. Most importantly, the US military is
overextended from its Iraq and Afghanistan missions and
its continuing needs and commitments to maintain an
Asian and European presence. It is unlikely at present
that the United States is militarily ready or
politically capable of mounting an operation against
Iran similar to the one that it undertook in Iraq.
Iran is also a much more formidable adversary
than was Ba'athist Iraq. Its population of 70 million
dwarfs Iraq's 26 million and, unlike Iraq, Iran is not a
construction of colonial rule combining diverse ethnic
and religious groups without a common history, but an
ethnically and religiously homogeneous society with a
long history of independence and a strong sense of
nationalism. Iran's military is also more capable than
Iraq's was, and it is a center of post-revolutionary
nationalism. In its war with Iraq in the 1980s, Iran
absorbed heavy losses and eventually repelled an
aggressor that had the backing of the United States.
If the United States attempted to occupy Iran,
it could not use the divide-and-rule strategy that it
has employed in Iraq. The Iranian regime banks on the
expectation that in the case of external attack,
nationalism will override the rift between Westernizers
and traditionalists. Analysts in the Middle East
generally agree that the regime's judgment is correct.
Iran's trump card is the geopolitical fact that
it is a major oil producer bordering other major oil
producers. A large-scale war undertaken by the United
States would almost surely lead to a disruption of world
oil supplies and the danger that Iran would use its
missiles to attack Saudi or Gulf state oil complexes.
Iran also has a strategic ally in Syria, which
shares with it the same security interests and borders
Iraq on the west. The Iranian and Syrian regimes have
been conferring closely since the American occupation of
Iraq and have a common line that the United States
should withdraw from the region. Russia is a benevolent
neutral, perhaps ally, providing help with Iran's
nuclear program and interested in diminishing American
power in the region.
The European powers are
ambivalent, subject to American pressure to bring the
issue of Iran's nuclear program to the United Nations
Security Council, where sanctions could be imposed, and
desirous of pursuing economic interests in Iran. Thus
far, Iran's policy of "commercializing" relations with
Europe has been a relative success, leading to
reluctance by the Europeans to follow the American hard
line. Instead, they have followed an independent
diplomatic path to resolve the nuclear question.
Recently, as Iran has taken a harder line toward the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the Europeans have
begun to tilt toward the United States, but it is still
not certain that they will back a sanctions regime.
Finally, it is possible that Iran can turn the
presence of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to
its advantage. Historically, Iran has had close contact
with, and political and cultural influence in, the
regions on its eastern and western borders. Longstanding
economic and cultural interchange gives Iran footholds
in the west of Afghanistan and the southeast of Iraq,
which it is presently using to back political forces
that favor its strategic interests. In a wide-ranging
interview with alJazeera television on August 19,
Iranian Defense Minister Shamkhari observed that the
American military presence in its neighbors "is not
power for the United States because this power may under
certain circumstances become a hostage in our hands".
When the positives and negatives of Iran's
strategic situation are weighed, it becomes clear that
the complex balance of opportunities and threats
provides the opportunity for Iran to try to expand its
regional power at considerable risk. The reasoning of
the hardliners, who are gaining increasing control over
Iranian foreign and security policy, is that Iran has
little choice but to attempt to strengthen itself by
militarizing and pressing for spheres of influence,
since the alternative is acceptance of American hegemony
in the Persian Gulf. Their posture is primarily
defensive, but they believe that the best defense at the
present time is an assertive one. They will act with the
best-case scenario in mind as they maneuver to avoid the
worst case, resorting to brinkmanship and tactical
retreats.
Conclusion Iran plays its
hand through one of the most complex sets of political
institutions in the contemporary world. Not only are
clerical institutions overlaid on the conventional
executive, legislature and judiciary, but different
factions have vested influence and authority within each
of them. Iran does not speak with one voice or act with
one hand. Indian political analyst Hamid Ansari observes
that Iran's shifting stances of conciliation and
defiance, and its elliptical and contradictory policy
statements are "fully reflective of the multiplicity of
centers that characterize the decision-making mechanism
of the Islamic Republic".
Unlike Iraq under
Saddam Hussein, Iran has a polycentric politics, in
which decisions on security and foreign policy are the
result of shifting alliances and independent
initiatives. This complexity leads to the simultaneous
pursuit of seemingly opposed policies, but it would be a
mistake to interpret it as a sign of weakness, since all
participants are committed to Iranian independence and
integrity.
Iran's polycentric decision-making
system is, in fact, a source of strength in its current
situation, since it leads structurally, rather than by
design, to a multi-pronged strategy that hits all
possible vulnerabilities of its adversaries, confuses
them and allows for flexibility. If one policy fails, it
will be de-emphasized in favor of another. If one
faction is discredited, another is ready to take its
place. If all possible proxies in Iraq and Afghanistan
are backed by one Iranian faction or another, downside
risk is minimized and opportunity is enhanced. If
reformists pursue commercialization of foreign relations
and hardline traditionalists pursue militarization, Iran
potentially gets the benefit of both tracks.
It
is impossible to predict whether Iran will succeed or
fail in its bid for security and regional power, but its
regime has impressive and surprising assets that work in
its favor.
Published with permission of
thePower and Interest News Report,
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insight into various conflicts, regions and points of
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