Brian M Downing
The Iranian nuclear talks ended without agreement, except to extend the deadline on negotiations until next July. Over the next few months, world events may change the positions of the powers involved. The pause also offers time to better understand each power’s viewpoint.
Each country, including Iran, approaches the talks with outlooks based on interests, beliefs, and national experiences. This does not mean that the United States or any other power should give in to Iran’s outlooks or even believe them or alter its negotiating position. The point is only to understand Iran’s position and perhaps then know what goals are attainable and what ones are not.
Historically under siege
Iranians view their nation’s history as replete with meddling, disrespect, and threats. This is as widely and deeply believed as Americans believe in their nation’s might and mission in the world, as widely and deeply as colonial powers believed they were spreading civilization to darker parts of the world, as widely and deeply as the Chinese believe their nation is destined to become the dominant world power.
Shi’ite adherents have long held that they are an aggrieved minority in Islam and have been scorned and occasionally put to the sword for diverging from the Sunni majority. The belief has been underscored countless times since Ali’s defeat near Karbala in 680.
Events of the 20th century resonated with Shi’ite outlooks. Britain gained undue influence with the feckless Qajar monarchs (1785 to 1925) and, in conjunction with Russia, occupied Iran during both world wars. Eight years after the end of World War II, Britain and the United States overthrew the Mosaddegh government and installed the Pahlavis, who embarked on a rapid modernization program that created a great deal of ill-will. These events are not irrelevancies drawn from the pages of dusty history books.
In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran with the support of several Sunni powers. Eight years of war followed, leaving hundreds of thousands of Iranians dead. Though exact casualty numbers are unknown, they are almost certainly higher than what the US suffered in World War II. Few Iranian families were untouched by the toll.
Recent events
The 2003 US invasion of Iraq sought to fundamentally change the region, breaking down old regimes and introducing Western ones. It also demonstrated the US’s overwhelming military power. The Iran-Iraq war lasted eight years and ended in stalemate. The US shattered the Iraqi army in a matter of days, as it had 12 years earlier. Iran felt it was next. The George W Bush administration increased its ominous rhetoric aimed at Iran.
Tehran sent an overture for an open dialog, including its nuclear program. The then secretary of state, Colin Powell, wished to pursue it; the neoconservatives rejected it out of hand. Iran then directed the Shia militias in Iraq to wear down US troops. When US talk of attacking Iran ended, so did the militia attacks.
The 2003 Iraq war, paradoxically, led to a Shia-majority government that leaned toward Tehran. Elsewhere, Shia governments in Lebanon and Syria came under attack, and Shia populations in Gulf monarchies were increasingly marginalized and oppressed.
Sunni militancy is on the rise, with increasingly murderous anti-Shia groups operating around Iran and its allies. The al Nusrah Front, the Islamic State, various al-Qaeda franchises, the Afghan Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and more are all supported by Sunni donors. Some are supported by the Pakistani army and state.
Sunni militancy is more likely to break down Sunni states than to pose a threat to Iran, but routine massacres of fellow Shi’ites are a matter of concern, and the coalescence of various militant groups will not be ruled out in any country’s security calculus, even Washington’s.
Israel and the ex-pat Mujahideen-e-Khalq group have assassinated a number of Iranian nuclear scientists, though incidents have diminished owing either to increased security or fewer targets. In October 2014, the nuclear research site at Parchin was rocked by a powerful explosion. Outsiders see these acts simply as efforts to slow down the nuclear program. Iran sees them as a sign of general hostility from outside powers.
Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq are fragmenting into antagonistic regions. Foreign powers wish to see the process begin in Iran. Saudi Arabia, with intermittent Pakistani assistance, has supported separatist groups in the Baloch region of southeastern Iran. Israel and the Gulf states encourage the same among the Kurds, Azeris, and Arabs of Iran’s west.
The international community has imposed harsh sanctions on Iran, causing considerable hardship on most people. Government expenditures have fallen, as has the rial. Inflation is high, even on basic foods. Most see the hardships as part and parcel of centuries of political and sectarian oppression and as tests of both national will and religious devotion.
Cooperation with the US
When US intelligence and special forces officers entered northern Afghanistan following 9/11, they learned that Iranian officers had been there since the Russian war in the 1980s and that they had stayed with Northern Alliance militias long after the US quit the region. Iran helped the US with intelligence and offered to help downed US pilots.
Today, Iran and the US are on the same side in the war against Islamic State. Iran has placed advisers with Iraqi and Kurdish troops. The Shia militias have also gone into battle. Recently, Iran has begun tactical air support. American forces perform the same missions but diligently avoid any appearance or mention of cooperating with Iran, though young officers from both countries are only miles apart. If an Iranian jeep collided with an American one, the two drivers might have to contact their capitals before exchanging insurance cards.
The US, on the other hand, trumpets the help of Sunni air forces, even though their paltry numbers caused a three-star Pentagon briefer to smile in an unguarded moment. The US has provided arms to Sunni tribesmen – a move that sets the stage for sectarian fighting, again. Iran, then, sees a decided Sunni tilt in the war, despite its much greater effort.
Political trends inside the US do not favor Iran. President Barack Obama’s party was pummeled in the elections last November, in part because of a less than muscular foreign policy, and the White House could well be back in Republican hands in two years. Neoconservative influence is not silent in the foreign policy teams of many likely Republican candidates. Lack of such influence will be a burden for an independent-minded candidate.
The nuclear program in geopolitical context
Iran has halted and reversed its uranium-enrichment program, with stockpiles being diluted to 5%. It will, however, seek or maintain the ability to develop nuclear weapons within a short lead time, as security realities require. That is, it will retain the centrifuge capacity for making weapons-grade uranium – standing on a hazy middle ground with uncertain acceptability with most world powers.
The program serves three purposes. It is a source of pride and national achievement. This offers a measure of legitimacy in a besieged and fissiparous nation. Greater nuclear energy production in the future allows for more oil exports and state revenues with which Tehran can garner more domestic support. And even at present levels, the program serves as a deterrent to invasion in an increasingly threatening environment.
Analysts often warn that if Iran builds nuclear weapons other powers in the region will build them. Iranians wonder why the same wasn’t said of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and why Islamabad didn’t suffer the same harsh and lasting sanctions. Furthermore, they note, that the Pakistani bomb was made with ample Saudi funding, giving credence to the concern that Riyadh can call on such weapons or that Pakistan may some day sell them to Riyadh. Pakistan continues to build nuclear weapons at a puzzling rate.
Iran sees itself once again in danger. Sunni militancy is on the march, Israeli politicians want it gravely weakened, insurgencies simmer in tribal lands, and neoconservatism is poised to reassert itself in American foreign policy. Iran’s position on the country’s nuclear program will be based on its security assessments, not on the pressures of the international community, parts of which are seeking to weaken it – or which will be in 2017.
Brian M Downing is a political-military analyst, author of The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam, and co-author with Danny Rittman of The Samson Heuristic.
(Copyright 2014 Brian M Downing)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-02-151214.html