by Ray Takeyh
9. Al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 29, 2001.
10. AFP, October 10, 2001.
11. Quoted in Ervand Abrahamian, “Empire Strikes Back: Iran in U.S. Sites,” in Inventing the Axis of Evil (New York: New Press, 2004), 96.
12. Condoleezza Rice, “Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest,” Foreign Affairs (January–February 2000).
13. New York Times, February 1, 2003.
14. White House Press Office, “The National Security Strategy of the United States” (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2002).
15. Washington Post, December 10, 2005.
16. For contending views on Bush’s national security doctrine, see John Gaddis, “Bush’s Security Strategy,” Foreign Policy (November–December 2002); Robert Jervis, “Understanding the Bush Doctrine,” Political Science Quarterly (Fall 2003); James Chace, “Imperial America and the Common Interests,” World Policy Journal (Spring 2002); Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment Revisited,” The National Interest (Winter 2002–2003).
17. William Kristol, “The End of the Beginning,” Weekly Standard, May 12, 2003.
18. Gerard Baker, “After Iraq, Where Will Bush Go Next?” Financial Times, April 14, 2003.
19. Jamie Glazov, “Iran, a Coming Revolution?” Front Page Magazine, September 18, 2002.
20. Bernard Lewis, “Time for Toppling,” Wall Street Journal, September 27, 2002.
21. Associated Press, February 16, 2002.
22. U.S. Department of State, press release, August 2, 2002.
23. New York Times, February 8, 2002.
24. IRNA, March 2, 2002.
25. IRNA, June 5, 2005.
26. Sharq, June 6, 2005.
27. New York Times, June 26, 2005.
6. ALONG THE NUCLEAR PRECIPICE
1. www.whitehouse.gov/press/release, January 31, 2006.
2. For important studies on Iran’s nuclear designs, see Shahram Chubin, Whither Iran?: Reform, Domestic Politics and National Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Geoffrey Kemp, Iran’s Bomb: American and Iranian Perspectives (Washington, D.C.: Nixon Center, 2004); International Crisis Group, “Dealing with Iran’s Nuclear Program,” October 2003; Kenneth Pollack and Ray Takeyh, “Taking On Tehran,” Foreign Affairs (March–April 2005).
3. Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2004.
4. Abbas Milani, Michael McFaul, and Larry Diamond, Beyond Incrementalism: A New Strategy of Dealing with Iran (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, 2005), 6.
5. IRNA, May 25, 2004.
6. AFP, May 25, 2004.
7. Cited in Shahram Chubin, “Iran’s Strategic Environment and Nuclear Weapons,” in Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Options: Issues and Analysis, ed. Geoffrey Kemp (Washington, D.C.: Nixon Center, 2001).
8. Cited in Chubin, Whither Iran?, 73.
9. Ya Lesarat, October 22, 2003.
10. Cited in Wyn Bowen and Joanna Kidd, “The Iranian Nuclear Challenge,” International Affairs 80 (March 2004): 264.
11. IRNA, September 13, 2004.
12. IRNA, May 17, 1998.
13. New York Times, June 7, 1998.
14. Jomhuri-ye Islami, November 3, 2004
15. Aftab-e Yazd, June 21, 2004.
16. Reuters, April 19, 2003.
17. Iran News, February 9, 2004.
18. Jomhuri-ye Islami, April 3, 2005.
19. Resalat, May 30, 2004.
20. IRNA, September 17, 2005.
21. Jomhuri-ye Islami, May 26, 2004.
22. Farhang-e Ashti, February 28, 2006.
23. Keyhan, February 12, 2006.
24. IRNA, September 22, 2004.
25. Sharq, October 25, 2005.
26. Aftab-e Yazd, October 16, 2005.
27. IRNA, January 11, 2006.
28. La Repubblica, March 4, 2006.
29. AFP, June 9, 2004.
30. Sharq, October 9, 2003.
31. Sharq, January 19, 2004.
32. IRNA, October 28, 2003.
33. Dow Jones International, March 14, 2005.
34. Washington Post, March 11, 2003.
35. IRNA, October 28, 2003.
36. BBC, November 8, 2004.
37. IRNA, October 30, 2003.
38. Resalat, October 6, 2004.
39. Jame’eh, April 27, 1998,
7. IRAN’S NEW IRAQ
1. Shahram Chubin and Sepehr Zabih, The Foreign Relations of Iran: A Developing State in a Zone of Great-Power Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 163–212; Shaul Bakhash, “The Troubled Relationship: Iran and Iraq, 1930–1980,” in Iran, Iraq and the Legacy of War, ed. Lawrence Potter and Gary Sick (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 11–29; Efraim Karsh, “Geopolitical Determinism: The Origins of the Iran-Iraq War,” Middle East Journal (Spring 1990).
2. Rouhollah Ramazani, Iran’s Foreign Policy, 1941–1973: A Study of Foreign Policy in Modernizing Nations (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1975), 411.
3. Keyhan, January 14, 1969.
4. Ramazani, Iran’s Foreign Policy, 418.
5. Stephen Walt, Revolution and War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), chap. 6; Farhang Rajaee, “Iranian Ideology and Worldview: The Cultural Export of Revolution,” in The Iranian Revolution: Its Global Impact, ed. John Esposito (Miami: Florida International University Press, 1990), 63–83.
6. Efraim Karsh, “From Ideological Zeal to Geopolitical Realism: The Islamic Republic and the Gulf,” in The Iran-Iraq War: Impact and Implications, ed. Efraim Karsh (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 13–26; Ehmund Ghareeb, “The Roots of Crisis: Iraq and Iran,” in The Persian Gulf War: Lessons for Strategy, Low and Diplomacy, ed. Christopher Joyner (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1990), 21–39.
7. Shahram Chubin and Charles Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991), 53–68; F. Gregory Gause, “Iraq’s Decisions to Go to War, 1980 and 1990,” Middle East Journal (Winter 2002): 63–69; Eric Davis, Memories of State: Politics, History and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 176–200.
8. R. K. Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran: Challenge and Response in the Middle East (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1986), 57–67; W. Thom Workman, The Social Origins of the Iran-Iraq War (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994), chap. 4; Majid Khadduri, The Gulf War: The Origins and Implications of the Iran-Iraq War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Stephen Pelletiere, The Iran-Iraq War: Chaos in a Vacuum (New York: Praeger, 1992).
9. Gause, “Iraq’s Decisions to Go to War,” 67.
10. Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran, 61.
11. For important accounts of Saddam see Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, Iraq Since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship (London: I. B. Tauris, 1990), 255–69; Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985); Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 193–275; Kanan Makiya, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
12. Dilip Hiro, The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict (New York: Routledge, 1991); see also The Iranian Labyrinth: Journeys through Theocratic Iran and Its Furies (New York: Routledge, 2005), 241–95.
13. Chubin and Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War, 38.
14. IRNA, December 4, 1983.
15. Hashemi Rafsanjani, Dar maktabi-jum’a: Majmu’eh-ye khotbaha-ye namaz-e jum’ah-ye Tehran (Tehran: 1987), 80; Ali Khameini, Dar Maktab-e Jum’ah. Majmu’eh-ye khotbaha-ye namaz-e jum’ah-ye Tehran (Tehran: 1989), 366.
16. Saskia Gieling, Religion and War in Revolutionary Iran (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999), 40–107.
17. IRNA, November 10, 1987.
18. Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran, 70–86.
19. S. Taheri Shemirani, “The War of the Cities,” in The Iran-Iraq War: The Politics of Aggression, ed. Farhang Rajaee (Gainesville: University Press of Flordia, 1993), 32–41.
20. Time, March 19, 1984; Human Rights Watch, Iraq’s Crime of Genocide: The Anf
al Campaign against the Kurds (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), chaps. 1 and 2.
21. New York Times, July 2, 1988.
22. Joost Hiltermann, “Outsiders as Enablers: Consequences and Lessons from International Silence on Iraq’s Use of Chemical Weapons during the Iran-Iraq War,” in Iran, Iraq, and the Legacies of War, 151–67.
23. Anthony Cordesman and Abraham Wagner, The Iran-Iraq War: The Lessons of Modern War, Vol. 2 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990), 318–20; Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1990), 273, Kenneth Pollack, The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America (New York: Random House, 2004), 229–31.
24. Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 274; Robin Wright, In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 188.
25. Shahram Chubin, “The Last Phase of the Iran-Iraq War: From Stalemate to Ceasefire,” Third World Quarterly (April 1989).
26. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, 232.
27. “Why Did the War Continue?” Sharq, April 24, 2005; “The Continuation of War After Liberation of Khoramshar: An Interview with Former Foreign Minister Akbar Velayati,” Baztab.com, April 14, 2005.
28. Farideh Farhi, “The Antinomies of Iran’s War Generation,” in Iran, Iraq, and the Legacies of War, 101–21.
29. Ruhollah Khomeini, Sahifeh-ye nur: Majmu’eh-ye hazrat-e Imam Khomeini (Tehran: 1991), 543.
30. Al-Jazeera, July 7, 2005; Keyhan, July 7, 2005.
31. New York Times, December 15, 2005.
32. International Crisis Group, “Iran in Iraq: How Much Influence?” (March 21, 2005); Kayhan Barzegar, “Understanding the Roots of Iranian Foreign Policy in the New Iraq,” Middle East Policy (Summer 2005); Anoushiravan Ehteshami, “Iran’s International Posture after the Fall of Baghdad,” Middle East Journal (Spring 2004) and “Iran-Iraq Relations After Saddam,” The Washington Quarterly (Autumn 2003).
33. International Crisis Group, “Iran in Iraq: How Much Influence?”, 1.
34. Prince Saud al-Faisal, “The Fight against Extremism and the Search for Peace,” speech presented at the Council on Foreign Relations, September 7, 2005.
35. Al-Sharq al-Awsat, February 28, 2005.
36. Washington Post, February 16, 2005.
37. IRNA, February 3, 2005.
38. Ray Takeyh, “Iranian Options: Pragmatic Mullahs and American Interests,” The National Interest (Fall 2003): 53.
39. Dubai Al-Arabiya Television, February 6, 2005.
40. Sharq, July 18, 2005.
41. Sharq, July 8, 2005; Shoma, July 23, 2005.
42. IRNA, February 7, 2005.
43. Fars News, October 14, 2004.
8. ISRAEL AND THE POLITICS OF TERRORISM
1. IRNA, December 8, 2005.
2. Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion: A Biography (New York: Delacorte Press, 1978), 200–45; Michael Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel: Setting, Images, Process (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1972).
3. Trita Parsi, “Israel-Iranian Relations Assessed: Strategic Competition from the Power Cycle Perspective,” Iranian Studies (June 2005); Sohrab Sobhani, The Pragmatic Entente: Israeli-Iranian Relations, 1948–1988 (New York: Praeger Press, 1989).
4. Baqer Moin, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 99.
5. Ibid.
6. Ruhollah Khomeini, Al-Hukuma al-Islamiyya (1970).
7. Hamid Algar, Islam and Revolution: The Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (Berkeley, Calif.: Mizan Press, 1981), 127.
8. David Menashri, Post-Revolutionary Politics in Iran: Religion, Society and Power (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 270.
9. Shireen Hunter, Iran and the World: Continuity in a Revolutionary Decade (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 98–131; Graham Fuller, The Center of the Universe: The Geopolitics of Iran (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991), 119–36.
10. A representative sample of Khomeini’s views on Israel and Jews can be found in Felestin va Sahionism (Tehran: 1984); Azadi-ye Aqalliyatha-ye Mazhabi (Tehran: 1984–85); Felestin Az Didegah-e Imam Khomeini (Tehran: 1998).
11. Emmanuel Sivan, “The Mythologies of Religious Radicalism: Judaism and Islam,” Terrorism and Political Violence (Autumn 1991); Raphael Israeli, Fundamentalist Islam and Israel: Essays in Interpretation (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1993).
12. Jomhuri-ye Islami, September 25, 1979.
13. Hashemi Rafsanjani, Esra’il va Qods-e Aziz (Qom: 1984), 45.
14. Yvonne Haddad, “Islamist and the ‘Problem of Israel’: The 1967 Awakening,” Middle East Journal (Spring 1992).
15. Moin, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah, 265.
16. Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran va Mas’aleh-ye Felestin (Tehran: 1997), 183–84.
17. Menashri, Post-Revolutionary Politics in Iran, 272.
18. IRNA, April 21, 2001.
19. Behrouz Souresrafil, Khomeini and Israel (London: C.C. Press, 1989), 60.
20. Christian Science Monitor, August 6, 1981.
21. Ziad Abu-Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 90–128; Gawdat Bahgat, “Iran, the United States, and the War on Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (March–April 2003).
22. IRNA, April 20, 2004.
23. Shimon Shapira, “The Origins of Hizballah,” Jerusalem Quarterly (Spring 1988); Martin Kramer, “The Moral Logic of Hizballah,” in Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theories, States of Mind, ed. Walter Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Also Martin Kramer, “Hizbullah: The Calculus of Jihad,” in Fundamentalism and the State, ed. Martin Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993); Meir Hatina, Islam and Salvation in Palestine (Tel Aviv: Moishe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, 2001), 107–17; Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States and the Sponsor of Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 79–117; R. K. Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran: Challenge and Response in the Middle East (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 175–94.
24. International Crisis Group, “Hezbollah: Rebels without a Cause?” July 30, 2003; Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbu’llah, Politics and Religion (Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, 2002), 20–68; Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, “Declawing the ‘Party of God’: Toward Normalizing in Lebanon,” World Policy Journal (Summer 2001); Richard Augustus Norton, “Hizbullah and the Israeli Withdrawal from Southern Lebanon,” Journal of Palestinian Studies (Autumn 2000).
25. Abdollah Nuri, Showkaran-e Eslah (Tehran: 1999), 140–50.
26. Bonyan, March 6, 2002.
27. Aftab-e Yazd, May 9, 2002.
28. IRNA, September 21, 1998.
29. IRNA, January 8, 1998.
30. AFP, October, 17, 2002.
31. IRNA, March 13, 2002.
32. AFP, March 19, 2002.
33. E’temad, October 28, 2005.
34. IRNA, October 29, 2005.
35. Sharq, October 29, 2005.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I began this project once I joined the Council on Foreign Relations, which has proven the most hospitable place to work. The Council’s president, Richard Haass, has been an enormous source of support and constructive suggestions for how to improve this book. James Lindsay, in his role as the director of Studies, similarly proved generous with his time, and at critical junctures pressed me to further assess my assumptions. The insights and keen editorial eyes of both Richard and Jim made an important contribution to the completion of this project.
A number of colleagues and friends read through this manuscript with care and offered important comments and ideas. I feel a special debt of gratitude to Ervand Abrahamian, Daniel Brumberg, Daniel Byman, Farideh Farhi, Ali Gheissari, Nikki R. Keddie, Nikolas Gvosdev, Vali Nasr, Andrew Parasiliti, Kenneth Pollack, Rick Russell, and Hadi Semati. Throughout her year at the Council, Sanam Vakil gently challenged my views
and pushed me to delve deeper into the conundrum of Iran. The insight and wisdom of such valued colleagues helped immeasurably in honing my arguments and developing a more incisive narrative.
My literary agent, Larry Weissman, proved a patient source of support and assistance, with an enthusiasm and persistence on behalf of this project that went far beyond the call of duty. I have come away from this project intuitively trusting the judgment of my editor, Paul Golob. On many occasions Paul pressed me to reorganize the chapters and rewrite sections of this book. After ample complaining I realized that his ideas were uniformly correct and his perceptions uncannily on the mark.
Through the process of writing this book, I took much time away from my family during successive transitions. My wife, Suzanne, juggled the many aspects of our lives with her typical care and humor. Her devotion and love have sustained me through many frustrating evenings locked in my study. I started working on this book when my son, Alex, was born. It is to him that I dedicated this book, for he has proved a remarkable source of joy and delight for me.
INDEX
Abadgaran (political party), 35
Abdullah (crown prince of Saudi Arabia), 211
Abdullah (king of Jordan), 178
Achaemenid Empire, 61
Additional Protocol, 156
Afghanistan
interim government of, 123, 224
Iranian foreign policy and, 53, 76, 79–80
national security and, 140–41
Pakistan and, 144
Soviet invasion of, 76
U.S. invasion of, 118, 122–24
Aftab-e Yazd (newspaper), 145
Ahmad, Jalal Al-e, 194
Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud. See also conservative faction
anti-Western ideology and, 1, 18
economic policy and, 133, 134
election of, 9–10, 14
foreign policy and, 5–6, 69–70, 75
Iran-Iraq War and, 175
Israel and, 189–90, 196, 198, 211–15
nuclear program and, 135–36, 139, 148–49, 150, 152
political factions and, 29, 35, 54
revolutionary ideology and, 22
U.S. Embassy crisis and, 95