COMMENTARY Making enemies
friends over Iran By Dmitry
Shlapentokh
As the heat over Tehran's
nuclear program intensifies, there is rote
repetition in many of the Western media of
linkages between Iran and al-Qaeda. Such a
simplistic assessment could actually help the
Islamic extremists - the true enemies of the US.
Iran is reported to have sent a letter to
the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
asking that it remove by mid-month all seals and
surveillance systems on Iranian facilities still
being monitored by international inspectors. The
letter follows a decision by the IAEA to report
Iran to the UN Security Council
over
allegedly
not fully complying with the United Nations
watchdog.
There is no doubt that most
Iranian leaders have little time for the US, and
that they have something in common with Osama bin Laden.
Yet Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and bin
Laden are two very different phenomena. Bin Laden
and al-Qaeda, as well as similar groups, are the
products of the decomposition of traditional
society; their goals call for revolution and
violence without end. In a way, the jihadis could
well be compared with the Trotskyites, who were
committed to "permanent revolution".
These
people cannot be induced to renounce terror with
incentives, threats or through retaliation.
Iran, on the other hand, represents a
different type of regime. It is true that the
protagonists of the Iranian revolution of 1979
rose to power with the proclaimed goal of
spreading radical Islam all over the world. Still,
as was the case with the Bolsheviks and other
revolutionaries, whose initial ideology became
"national-Bolshevism" with transformations,
Iranian radicalism has blended with traditional
Persian nationalism.
It has become the
ideology of the regime that wants not so much to
spread revolution but to uphold the prestige of
the state. In fact, what is proclaimed as
revolutionary ideology is nothing but a means of
spreading the influence of the Iranian state. In
sharp contrast with the Taliban, the political and
ideological fellows of bin Laden, the Iranians
have diplomatic relations with many countries;
they are members of the UN and have legitimate
bank accounts.
The Iranians do not destroy
ancient monuments in the Taliban fashion, and they
are immensely proud of their Persian heritage,
which goes back to pre-Islamic times.
And
institutionalized revolutionaries such as those in
Iran and radical Islamists do not even have much
sympathy for one another. In bin Laden's recent
audio tape in which he threatened attacks on the
US, he did not even mention Iran and its
confrontation with the US. And he often expressed
his dislike of the Saddam Hussein regime, another
example of an institutionalized revolutionary
regime.
An example of animosity between
jihadi extremists and institutionalized regimes
can be found on the Internet site of Chechen
fighters against the Russians. They have
increasingly become jihadi extremists rather than
nationalists.
The site devotes
considerable attention to Iraq and Afghanistan; it
frequently quotes Taliban sources and elaborates
in detail on American losses. At the same time,
coverage of the Iranian standoff is minimal, and
frequently without expression of any sympathy for
the Iranians.
Yet extreme pressure on
Iran, such as sanctions or even military action,
would push these opposite forces into an odd
alliance that, instead of increasing the overall
security of the US, would actually lead to the
opposite result. And of course it would increase
instability in the Middle East, if not the global
community.
Diplomacy is as essential in
defending national interests as understanding the
importance of the use of force. And the art of
diplomacy is to turn one's enemies into friends -
not to unite one's enemies against you.
Dmitry Shlapentokh, PhD, is
associate professor of history, College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences, Indiana University South Bend.
He is author of
East Against West: The First Encounter - The Life
of Themistocles, 2005.
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