by Ray Takeyh
Once more, the failure of Iranian ambitions triggered reliance on terrorism and intimidation. If the Gulf leaders refused to sever ties with America, then perhaps violence directed against U.S. troops would lead Washington to voluntarily withdraw from the region. For the clerical regime, as well as much of the Middle East, the American departure from Lebanon after the 1983 bombing of the marine barracks was an indication that the United States was unwilling to accept casualties and that a spectacular act of violence could trigger America’s exit. The presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia proved tantalizing to the mullahs, as Riyadh had remained largely aloof from Iran’s blandishments. The 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers, housing American military personnel, has been attributed to Tehran by Washington.8 Given Iran’s policy of pressing for eviction of U.S. forces through acts of violence, this claim has a degree of credibility. As with the Islamic Republic’s previous acts of terrorism, once more its strategy of selective violence failed to achieve its ambitions.
In the end, Rafsanjani and his pragmatic allies did not fundamentally harmonize Iran’s ties with its neighbors. To be sure, the Islamic Republic did dispense with much of its revolutionary radicalism and began to project the image of a judicious state, basing its policies on careful calculations of national interest. However, Tehran’s tense relationship with the United States and its insistence that the Gulf states share its antagonism undermined its own gestures of goodwill. Once Iran fell back on its predictable response of terrorism, it essentially ended the possibility of emerging as a critical player in its immediate neighborhood.
The most momentous change in Iran’s regional policy came with the election of the reformist president Muhammad Khatami in 1997. As we have seen, Khatami’s international perspective grew out of the debates and deliberations prevalent in Iran’s intellectual circles. Many dissident thinkers and clerics were uneasy about the static nature of Iran’s foreign policy and its evident inability to respond to the changing global and regional realities. The reformist perspective was not limited to making the theocracy more accountable to its citizenry, but also sought to end the Islamic Republic’s pariah status and integrate Iran into global society. As with his political reforms, Khatami was drawing on the works of intellectuals outside a power structure that had grown stagnant and complacent.
In terms of his approach to the Gulf, Khatami appreciated that previous attempts at reconciliation with the sheikdoms had failed due to Iran’s dogmatic insistence that they share its hostility to America. In essence, Khatami compartmentalized Iran’s relations. Tehran continued to object to the U.S. military presence in the Gulf and persisted in calling for an indigenous network to displace the American armada. The refusal of the Gulf states to embrace Iran’s proposals did not, however, trigger a counterreaction and an unleashing of terror. Khatami was willing to normalize relations with the Gulf states despite their attachment to the United States. For all practical purposes, Iran was prepared to live in a Gulf whose balance of power was determined by the United States.
In a remarkable gesture, Ayatollah Khamenei endorsed Khatami’s initiative. In a speech to the gathering of Arab dignitaries at the Organization of Islamic Conference’s 1997 meeting in Tehran, Khamenei plainly declared, “Iran poses no threat to any Islamic country.”9 Tehran’s “Vision Statement,” which was approved by Khamenei, recognized the sovereignty of local states and the inviolability of borders, and it pledged noninterference in the internal affairs of the incumbent regimes. The mystery lingers of why Khamenei so fundamentally departed from his established antagonism toward the Gulf princely elite. Certainly, the popular appeal of Khatami in his honeymoon period must have impressed the Supreme Leader to adjust his positions. Despite the fact that Khamenei’s powers are not contested by elections or plebiscites, he has always been somewhat sensitive to public opinion and shifts in the popular mood. Moreover, despite his stern ideological predilections, Khamenei has historically exhibited sporadic bouts of pragmatism and may well have sensed that Iran’s lingering isolation in its immediate neighborhood was ill serving its interests. Gazing across the region, the Leader may have perceived that Khatami’s election offered Iran certain opportunities for mending fences and reconciliation with important states, such as Saudi Arabia. At any rate, Khamenei provided the essential backing that Khatami’s diplomacy of reconsideration required.
Khatami’s “Good Neighbor” diplomacy finally managed to rehabilitate Iran’s ties with the local regimes. An entire range of trade, diplomatic, and security agreements were signed between the Islamic Republic and the Gulf sheikdoms. In this way, Khatami managed finally to transcend Khomeini’s legacy and to displace his ideological antagonisms with policies rooted in pragmatism and self-interest. This is the impressive legacy that Iran’s unnecessarily maligned president has bequeathed to the reactionaries who have succeeded him.10
Today, as a hard-line government consolidates its power and proclaims a desire to return to the roots of the revolution, dire warnings are on the horizon. Both Washington policymakers and their European counterparts seem to suggest that the new regime will once more resort to violence and terror to subvert its neighbors and export its Islamic revolution. Such alarmism overlooks Iran’s realities. Under Khatami’s auspices, Iran’s Gulf policy underwent a fundamental shift, with national interest objectives its defining factor. Irrespective of the balance of power between conservatives and reformers, Iran’s regional policy is driven by fixed principles that are shared by all of its political elites.
This perspective will survive Iran’s latest leadership transition. Although Ahmadinejad and his allies are determined to reverse the social and cultural freedoms that Iranians have come to enjoy during the reformist tenure, with regard to Persian Gulf issues the new president has stayed within the parameters of Iran’s prevailing international policy. In his August 2005 address to the parliament outlining his agenda, President Ahmadinejad echoed the existing consensus, noting the importance of constructive relations with “the Islamic world, the Persian Gulf region, the Caspian Sea region, and Central Asia.”11 Moreover, the most important voice on foreign policy matters, the head of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, has reiterated the same themes.12 Unlike the Iran of the 1980s, Ahmadinejad’s Iran has not embarked on attempts to subvert the sheikdoms and has not revived its links to the Gulf terrorist organizations unleashing violence as a means of fostering political change.
Although the assertive nationalists who have taken command of Iran’s executive branch have dispensed with their predecessor’s “dialogue of civilizations” rhetoric and display a marked suspicion of America, they are loath to jeopardize the successful multilateral détente that was the singular achievement of the reformist era. As far as the Gulf is concerned, Iranians seemed to have finally buried Khomeini’s dictates and moved to an era of uncontested pragmatism.
SECOND CIRCLE: THE ARAB EAST
One of the more enduring ideological aspects of the Islamic Republic’s international relations has been its policy toward the Arab East. The defining pillar of Iran’s approach to this region has been its intense opposition to the state of Israel and the diplomatic efforts to normalize relations between the Jewish state and its neighbors. Iran’s strident ideological policy has been buttressed by strategic incentives, as its support for militant groups such as Hezbollah gives it a power to influence the direction of politics in the Levant and inject its voice in deliberations that would otherwise be beyond its control. Unlike the Gulf where geographic proximity compelled Tehran toward a pragmatic search for stability, in the more distant Arab East, Iran feels free to be mischievous and injudicious. Along this path, Iran has made common cause with the radical Syrian regime that shares its antipathy to Israel, while alienating the key Egyptian state that has often sought to resolve the divisive Arab-Israeli conflict. So long as Iran’s policy toward the Arab East remains immured in its conflict with Israel, Tehran is unlikely to edge toward the type of pragmatism that it has de
monstrated in the Gulf.
On the surface, the high-profile visits and the wide variety of compacts and accords may give the impression that Iran and Syria are intimate allies sharing the same vision and embracing similar priorities. However, the ties between the two states are at best an alliance of convenience based on shared fears and apprehensions. For the past two decades, Iran’s persistent animosity toward Israel has coincided with Syria’s quest to exert pressure on the Israelis as a means of recovering lands lost during the 1967 war. However, while Iran’s policy is driven by Islamist determinations, Syria is propelled forward by cold, strategic calculations. Tehran may view Hezbollah as a vanguard Islamist force struggling against the “Zionist entity,” while for Damascus, the Lebanese militant party is just another means of coercing Israel. As such, potential disagreement between the two states looms large. Syria may yet accept an agreement that exchanges recognition of Israel for the recovery of the Golan Heights, while Iran’s more ideologically driven hostilities are not predicated on territorial concessions.13
Beyond the issue of Israel, Iraq also constitutes a potential source of division between Syria and Iran. During Saddam Hussein’s reign, the two powers shared yet another antagonist. The Syrian Ba’ath Party long condemned the so-called revisionism of its Iraqi counterpart and viewed itself as the legitimate representative of the Arab socialist cause. The very secular objections of the Syrian regime were shared by the Iranian mullahs, whose own war with Saddam made them equally hostile to the Iraqi dictator. However, once more there are indications that Iran’s lone Arab alliance may not survive the changing politics of the Middle East. Unlike the Iranian theocracy, Syria does not wish to see a further empowerment of religious forces, particularly Shiite actors, in Iraq. As a secular state that has waged a merciless war against its own Islamists, Syria finds the ascendance of religious parties in Iraq particularly disconcerting. As with most of the dynasties and republics of the region, Syria had hoped that Saddam’s demise would somehow bring to power yet another Ba’athist amenable to the predilections of the secular Arab bloc. The intriguing aspect of Iraq’s current tribulations is the extent to which Iran and Syria are on the opposite sides, with Damascus fueling the largely Sunni insurgency, while Tehran lends its support to the ruling Shiite parties. One state is hoping to destabilize Iraq through continued violence, while the other views the conventional political process as the best means of securing its national objectives.
In yet another paradox of the Middle East, what is increasingly binding Damascus and Tehran together is the Bush administration. The inability or unwillingness of Washington to substantively engage in the Arab-Israeli peace process and craft an agreement acceptable to Syria has made Iran an indispensable partner for Damascus. The relentless pressure brought on both parties by the Bush White House has compelled them to rely on each other as they face yet another common enemy. Nonetheless, developments in the region during the next several years may yet disentangle ties between these two unlikely allies. In the end, as a state that neighbors Israel, Syria will one day have to accept a territorial compromise with the Jewish state and end its prolonged and self-defeating conflict. However, an Iran that is beyond the reach of Israeli armor can afford its militancy and persist with its ideologically determined policies. In the meantime, as a secular state Syria may find Iran’s new Shiite allies in Iraq as objectionable as do the Saudis and Jordanians, who are loudly decrying the emergence of the “Shiite Crescent.” As the Middle East increasingly polarizes along sectarian lines, Syria will have to choose between its contentious alliance with Iran and its alignment of interest with the larger Arab bloc.
Whatever the vagaries of the Iranian-Syrian alliance, Egypt remains the epicenter of Arab politics. Egypt’s population now exceeds that of the rest of the Arab East, and its geographic size dwarfs peripheral states such as Lebanon and Jordan. Moreover, Egypt’s encounter with modernization is the longest, its industrial and educational structures the most extensive, and its cultural and intellectual output the most prolific. Cairo’s influence has ebbed and flowed over the years, but it is hard to imagine Arab cohesion without its active leadership. Iran’s tense relation with Egypt has drastically limited its influence in the Arab East. No alliance with Syria or patronage of Hezbollah can compensate for Tehran’s estrangement from the most pivotal state in the region.14
Although many in the United States are accustomed to perceiving Iran as unrelentingly hostile to America, during the early part of the revolution, Iran’s animosities were distributed more widely. For Khomeini and his followers, no leader symbolized the pusillanimity of the Arab political class more than the Egyptian president, Anwar al-Sadat. The Camp David Accords ending Egypt’s hostility toward Israel were bitterly denounced by Iranian clerics as a gesture of un-Islamic behavior, even apostasy. For Khomeini, the accords proved that Sadat was the purveyor of “false Islam” and an agent of Zionism. Sadat’s warm embrace of the exiled Shah (who spent the last days of his life in Egypt) further enraged the reigning Iranian clerics. Tehran’s crass celebration of Sadat’s assassin by naming a prominent street after him and even issuing a stamp commemorating the occasion in turn infuriated an Egyptian ruling elite that was already anxious about the potential of Iran’s revolutionary Islam. These early policies established a certain legacy for Iran’s relations with Egypt that would prove difficult to surmount. In the intervening decades, other events would intrude, buttressing the legacy of mistrust and animosity.15
The Iran-Iraq war further added fuel to the Iranian-Egyptian antagonism. For Cairo, which was ostracized by the Arab bloc because of its reconciliation with Israel, the war offered a unique opportunity to reassert its Arabism and to mend ties with its erstwhile allies. Soon after the war began, Egypt started furnishing arms to Iraq despite the fact that the two powers had spent decades bitterly vying for the leadership of the Middle East. Beyond exploiting an opportunity to return to the Arab fold, Cairo’s policy was designed to contain Iran’s revolution within its borders. An Iran that was preoccupied with the daunting challenges of a prolonged war was bound to be a less mischievous state. For the Islamic Republic, such policies were tantamount to Egypt effectively joining the war, congealing the clerical class’s enmity toward Cairo.
The aftermath of the war did not necessarily lead to a thaw in relations. The 1990s witnessed yet another radical divergence of perspectives between Tehran and Cairo. For the United States and Egypt, the defeat of Saddam’s armies constituted an ideal time to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, while Iran perceived the time ripe for the advancement of its Islamic model. Militant Islam seemed an ideology on the ascendance, with Islamic Jihad challenging the Egyptian regime, Hezbollah assuming a greater prominence in Lebanese politics, and the Islamic Salvation Front triumphing in democratic elections in Algeria. The Palestinian resistance that had historically been led by secular leftist parties was increasingly being spearheaded by violent Islamist organizations such as Hamas. For the Iranian mullahs, it seemed that the region was finally embracing Khomeini’s message. While the Egyptian state was seeking to stabilize its domestic situation and persuade the Arab states to follow its path of reconciliation with Israel, Iran was actively promoting the fortunes of the emboldened Islamists.
In a sense, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s blaming of Iran for the surge of fundamentalism in Egypt and the wider Middle East was self-serving and convenient. Egypt has long struggled with Islamic radicalism and the roots of the Islamist rage lay deep in the Egyptian society. After all, the most significant fundamentalist party in the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood, was born in Egypt in the 1930s, and since then has found a ready audience across the region.16 The fascination with Wahhabi Islam ought not obscure the fact that the intellectual and tactical architects of al-Qaeda are mostly Egyptians, led by the notorious second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.17 Nonetheless, even the modest support that Iran offered Egypt’s religious extremists was sufficient to antagonize an Egyptian state that in the
early 1990s was battling a serious Islamic insurrection.
During the Khatami era there were attempts to relax the tensions with Egypt. However, it appeared that such normalization was not a top priority for either state. Khatami’s internal struggles and his attempts to reach out to the United States were sufficiently contentious to preclude yet another provocative diplomatic foray. In the meantime, the Mubarak regime was struggling with its own domestic challenges and with a foundering peace process, and so it was also disinclined to move forward aggressively.
Today the relations between the two states may not be as inflammatory as during the early periods of the revolution, but they seem frozen in time, as neither side seems inclined to press ahead. The hard-line Ahmadinejad regime is unlikely to seek a new opening, as many conservatives in Iran have yet to forgive Egypt for the Camp David Accords. The reactionary newspaper Jomhuri-ye Islami captured the sentiment of many on the Right: “Any form of political relations with Hosni Mubarak is tantamount to getting digested into the system prepared and designed by America and Zionism in the region.”18 Given such sentiment within his support base, it is unlikely that Ahmadinejad can move forward toward more proper relations, even if he were so inclined.