by Ray Takeyh
After nearly three decades of constant change and reform, Iran’s hostility toward Israel seems the most entrenched of its foreign policy determinations. The Islamic Republic’s approach is still largely conditioned by an ideology that perceives Israel as a civilizational affront and a pernicious agent of American imperialism. However, the persistence of such animosity cannot be attributed exclusively to Iran’s Islamist ideology. After all, throughout the 1980s Khomeini and his firebrands castigated Saudi monarchs in equally harsh terms, depicting the House of Saud as purveyors of “American Islam.” In due course, as Iran’s national interests collided with its ideological claims, it gradually abandoned its animus toward the Saudi regime and embarked on a prolonged détente that has benefited both states. The problem with Iran’s incendiary approach toward Israel is that its defiance has served both its ideological mandates and its strategic calculations. As such, there has never been a sufficient incentive for the clerical oligarchs to abandon a policy whose costs in terms of U.S. sanctions and criticism seemed bearable.
The one occasion on which Iran adjusted its dogmatic policy toward the Jewish state was during the Khatami presidency, when a unique confluence of internal and regional developments pressed the theocracy toward a reconsideration of its policy. A reformist government intent on regaining Iran’s international stature and integrating the Islamic Republic into the global economy seemed determined to blunt the ideological edges of the regime. In the meantime, as the Arab-Israeli peace process was moving forward, Iran’s defiance isolated it from the mainstream of regional politics. Tehran may have reflexively opposed an American-sponsored peace plan, but once important actors like Saudi Arabia embraced the cause of a negotiated settlement and crafted a regional consensus behind such proposals, Iran was willing to accept the inevitability of peace.
In the heady days of the reformist tenure, it appeared that Iran might finally end its prolonged engagement with terrorism. The Islamic Republic had abandoned its terrorist allies operating in the Persian Gulf, and had shut down assassination squads targeting the exile community. The Arab-Israeli arena was one of the last frontiers where Iran still employed terrorism to advance its political objectives. However, even a Khatami government that did much to lessen Iran’s attachment to terrorism ultimately failed to dispense with the radical groups plotting against Israel.
Today, given the consolidation of conservative power within Iran and the collapse of diplomatic efforts to ensure a viable Israeli-Palestinian peace, Iran’s policy is unlikely to change in a measurable manner. All this is not to suggest that Iran’s militancy is constant; for despite its belligerent rhetoric, the Islamic Republic’s stance toward Israel has changed and the “Khatami compromise” remains alive despite attempts by the new government to revert to a more militant stance. In the end, the best manner of extracting Iran from the Arab-Israeli arena is for the United States and the key Arab states to launch a concerted diplomatic effort to resolve the remaining differences between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Given Hamas’s predominance, this may seem far fetched. However, the Middle East is often a land of surprises. Should the burdens of governance temper the Palestinian leadership’s militancy, then there may yet exist the possibility for a negotiated solution. Such a development would not just diminish Iran’s radicalism, but would remove a corrosive dispute that has done much to undermine the stability of the Middle East.
CONCLUSION:
GETTING IRAN RIGHT
Iran today is a country in transition. As a theocratic state struggling to conceive a governing order that accommodates both its religious convictions and its republican claims, it is often caricatured as a rigid regime governed by retrogressive mullahs in the name of an ossified ideology. An essentially pragmatic power that nonetheless bases some of its foreign policies on radical revolutionary values, it is routinely castigated as a state determined to upend the regional order. Too often when American policymakers look at Iran they see shadows of the democratic transitions that swept Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Cold War, or of Latin American authoritarian regimes capitulating to popular pressures. Given the complexities of Iran, it is best to set aside all the comparative models and understand the Islamic Republic on its own distinct terms.
On the eve of its momentous revolution, Iran’s triumphant clerics perceived it all to be so easy, as their new order would somehow transcend its contradictions, harmonizing Islamist injunctions and democratic aspirations. During the first decade of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini’s stature and undisputed authority overshadowed the paradoxes of the state. Through the force of Khomeini’s transcendant charisma, the fractious factions within Iran’s body politic were compelled to negotiate their differences and temper their ideological claims. In the meantime, elections primarily served as public approbations of Khomeini’s policies and sanctioned his choices and representatives. But a series of events in the late 1980s irrevocably shattered this pattern of governance. The end of the prolonged war with Iraq, followed a year later by Khomeini’s death, coupled with the emergence of a younger generation, ended the consensus underpinning the theocratic regime. Once-concealed competitive impulses and ideological divisions became apparent, and the consensus was eventually subverted by a restive public.
The post-Khomeini regime quickly fractured as competing factions of clerics and politicians became enmeshed in an internecine debate over the essence and direction of the theocracy. Some dedicated disciples of Khomeini sought to sustain the existing order and continued to insist that religious discipline and revolutionary values were the most important guideposts for social organization. Two decades of self-defeating policies and the emergent postrevolutionary majority had altered the national landscape, however, producing a reform movement that called for a state whose legitimacy was predicated on popular sanction. In the middle were the pragmatists, less focused on revolutionary pedigree or democratic pluralism, who stressed the need for an economically efficient order that at least met the material needs of Iran’s restive middle class and burgeoning youth movement. The intriguing aspect of the Islamic Republic is that elections and plebiscites don’t seem to dislodge any of these factions from the national scene; they persist, continually battling each other for influence and making perennial comebacks.
The durability of the Islamic Republic and the resilience of its factions have invited yet another misplaced American initiative, a State Department plan to spend $85 million to promote democracy in Iran. The Bush administration is seemingly taking a page from Eastern Europe, where the United States used radio broadcasts and direct assistance to opposition groups to help undermine authoritarian governments. However, the conditions in Iran bear little resemblance to those that accompanied the downfall of dictatorial regimes in Europe. The Iranian theocracy is not as brittle as its Eastern European counterparts, nor is the idea of broadcasts of any value in a society already drenched in information and debate. Indeed, the Bush administration’s rhetoric—and now financial support—makes life more difficult for the democratic advocates it is intended to buttress, since they are now vulnerable to being castigated as agents of the “Great Satan.”
In the meantime, Iran’s international orientation was undergoing its own evolution, discarding its radical patrimony for the sake of national interest. After decades of failing to refashion regional norms, the clerical rulers finally confined their Islamist imagination within Iran’s borders. Despite continued revolutionary pronouncements, Iran has evolved from a revisionist state seeking to export its governing template to a rational state that bases its foreign policy on pragmatic calculations. This transformation is neither complete nor absolute: Iran’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is still derived from a self-defeating calculus comprised in equal parts of domestic political considerations and ideological imperatives. As such, the theocracy is capable of a bewildering range of policies, from practical dealings with Russia to relentless opposition to the peace process.
As
a state that is neither revolutionary nor fully pragmatic, Iran poses a challenge that has confounded two generations of American policymakers. Contrary to the presumption in Washington that the Islamic Republic is a fragile state about to collapse if America exerted determined pressure, the theocratic regime with all its unresolved contradictions and power struggles is likely to endure. The reality of Iran today is that its internal struggle is not a simple conflict between the mullahs and the people. The flexibility and decentralization of Iran’s Islamic order ensures that it will perpetuate its ruling elite and retain its ardent supporters. The theocracy’s complex institutional arrangements, whereby elected branches of government beholden to the public are frequently at odds with nonelected bodies, belies the notion of clear demarcation between the regime and the public. Thus the starting point of any judicious policy assessment is to set aside the chimera of regime change that still tempts many in Washington.
Since the inception of the Islamic Republic, the United States has pursued a policy of containment in various forms, essentially relying on political coercion and economic pressure to press Iran in the right direction. The failure of this policy is routinely documented by the U.S. State Department, which insists on issuing reports denouncing Iran as the most active state sponsor of terrorism and warning that its nuclear program is rapidly advancing toward weapons capability. The American diplomats fail to appreciate how, after twenty-seven years of sanctions and containment, Iran’s misbehavior has not changed in any measurable manner. Even more curious, the failed policy of containment enjoys a widespread bipartisan consensus, as governments as different as the Clinton and Bush administrations have largely adhered to its parameters. Although at times the Bush White House has indulged in calls for regime change, its essential policy still reflects the containment consensus. In Washington policy circles evidently nothing succeeds like failure.
The other facet of U.S. policy is its emphasis on “linkage.” Successive American administrations have maintained that before full-scale normalization of relations can take place, an entire range of Iranian policies would have to alter. Consequently, even if Iran were to suspend critical components of its nuclear infrastructure, it could not anticipate measurable relief from sanctions or a resumption of diplomatic ties with America. In essence, all aspects of Iran’s objectionable practices are linked together: Tehran must cease its opposition to the peace process, renounce terrorism, and abandon its nuclear program before enjoying the benefits of routine ties with the United States. Instead of relying on a comprehensive diplomatic process that would address both American and Iranian concerns, Washington has insisted on its preconditions. The problem with the policy of linkage is that it has produced paralysis—a paralysis that in the end may yield a nuclear Iran still sustaining its ties to terrorist organizations. For progress to be made, the United States must not just revise its policy of containment but discard its practice of linkage.
In essence, this is a battle of two domestic political systems. Given the provocative nature of Iran’s policies and its many areas of objectionable conduct, successive U.S. administrations have feared offering concessions to Iran unless they can be assured that the totality of Iran’s foreign policy alters. At the same time, after nearly three decades of hostility and suspicion, Iran’s oligarchs have limited trust in America and remain unconvinced, after all the rhetoric from American leaders, that the United States has abandoned its essential goal of regime change. It is the dissonance of these two political orders and the lack of imagination and courage by politicians on both sides that has led to the persistence of this most peculiar of stalemates.
In May 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took a significant step in Washington’s dealings with Iran, announcing American readiness to participate with Iran in multilateral talks focused exclusively on the nuclear issue. The problem with this diplomatic gesture is that it miscasts the dispute between the United States and Iran as a mere disarmament disagreement. Iran’s quest for nuclear arms stems primarily from its tense relationship with the United States. Any diplomacy with a chance of meaningful success has to be broad enough to take into consideration both American and Iranian grievances. So long as political and strategic discord between the two states remains unresolved, it is unlikely that a durable nuclear accord can be negotiated.
In dealing with Iran, it is time for not just a policy shift but a paradigm change. In crafting its strategy toward Iran, the United States might draw lessons from the history of its relations with the People’s Republic of China, another ideological regime oscillating between moderation and militancy. The history of U.S.–Chinese relations is similarly laden with emotional baggage, as China fought a war against America in Korea, did much to sustain the Vietnamese resistance, and spent decades demonizing the United States and its political class. Yet somehow compelling common interests have allowed the two parties to transcend their historical animosities and forge constructive relations. Today, the United States and China continue to have significant differences and equally important shared objectives. As such, Washington and Beijing cooperate with each other on certain issues while actively disagreeing on a range of others. America’s opposition to China’s Taiwan policy does not preclude dealing with Beijing on the issue of North Korea and the stabilization of Northeast Asia. Moreover, since Richard Nixon’s breakthrough diplomacy, successive U.S. administrations have appreciated that trade and commerce, designed to integrate China into the global economy, is an effective means of circumscribing the regime’s revisionist impulses. When it comes to China, America has wisely abandoned both its policy of containment and its presumptions of linkage—the United States and Iran can move toward a similar model of competing and cooperating at the same time.
The best manner of arriving at such a mature relationship is to commence direct negotiations with the Islamic Republic on the issues of critical importance—Iran’s nuclear program, its sponsorship of terrorism, and the future of Iraq. As Iran edges closer to a nuclear capability, the unresolved nature of this issue threatens to press the theocracy toward crossing the threshold, and potentially even assembling a bomb. Iran’s involvement with terrorism has been most manifest in the Arab-Israeli arena, and credible accounts, such as the 9/11 Commission Report, suggest that elements within the theocracy are harboring al-Qaeda suspects. Moreover, as the U.S. presence in Iraq recedes, it behooves Washington to contemplate a strategy of bringing in regional powers to the task of reconstructing and rehabilitating Iraq.
The practical operational aspect of such diplomacy should envision three separate negotiating tracks, whereby each of these issues is considered by both sides. However, dispensing with linkage, progress on any one track should not be necessarily contingent on the others. For instance, if the United States and Iran are making important strides on the nuclear issue, negotiations should not be discontinued because of lack of progress on terrorism or Iraq. Having stipulated the essential autonomy of each individual track, it is important to stress that in actual practice progress on any one of these issues is bound to have positive reverberations for the others. An Iran that finds its security situation improved and is benefiting from lucrative commercial deals with American firms is bound to be a country more open to tempering its radical tendencies regarding terrorism.
Given the imminence of the nuclear danger and the need to fashion a political strategy for Iraq, these two issues ought to assume priority in any set of negotiations. Iran’s nuclear ambition stems from a desire to craft a viable deterrence capability against a range of evolving threats, particularly from the United States. Instead of relying on threats of sanctions, a more effective way to convince Iran to suspend the critical components of its nuclear infrastructure is to find ways to diminish its strategic anxieties. Should Washington dispense with its hostilities, assure Iran that its interests will be taken into account as it plots the future of the Persian Gulf, and relax its economic prohibitions, then the case of nuclear proponents within the cleri
cal state would be significantly weakened. After years of inconclusive negotiations with the European powers, international rebukes, and sporadic military intimidation, it is time to appreciate that threats only harden the stance of the theocratic regime and enhance the strategic utility of the bomb.
On a separate track, negotiations should focus on Iraq and the best means of coordinating U.S. and Iranian policies there. Since toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime, Washington has worked hard to limit Iran’s influence in Iraq, repeatedly warning Tehran to steer clear. Although Iran has been busy buttressing the fortunes of its Shiite allies and arming their militias, beneath the veneer of recriminations and accusations the two powers actually have many interests in common. Tehran, like Washington, is keenly interested in avoiding a civil war and sustaining Iraq as a unitary state. Moreover, the clerical regime appreciates that the best means of realizing its objectives in Iraq is through the electoral process, which is bound to empower the Shiite community. A functioning and legitimate Iraq state would be equipped to neutralize the insurgency, sap the Ba’athists of their remaining power, and incorporate moderate Sunnis into an inclusive governing order. It is no accident that Iran’s mischievous mullahs have emerged as forceful advocates of democratic pluralism in Iraq, seeking to temper the simmering sectarian violence that threatens the country’s political cohesion.