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Strategic-Road.com Analysis

On the razor’s edge: The struggle between Washington and Tehran
by Dario Cristiani - Strategic-Road.com Analysis 21/03/07

The debate in the United States about "what to do" with Iran remains open. However, President Bush has not yet taken his decision. During the last few weeks, Bush and many important members of his Administration, such as Robert Gates, the new Defense Secretary who replaced Donald Rumsfeald, and State Secretary Condolezza Rice, accused Tehran of playing a destructive role in Iraq, in Lebanon and in the whole Middle Eastern region.

The Bush Administration accused Iranian Revolutionary Guards to be militarily active in Iraq and blamed Iran for supplying the Shi’a insurgence with lethal weapons, such as the so-called "explosively formed penetrator", a particularly deadly roadside bomb used by Shiite groups in their attacks on American troops. At the same time, however, the United States denied that the preparation of an attack against Iran is on the move and recently Washington has taken some steps in the way of dialogue. The most striking has been the announcement of the American will of talking with Iran and Syria in the context of the conference on Iraq’s security placed in Baghdad on March 10, 2007.

Sean McCormack, the State Department’s spokesman, announced in a press conference on March 7, 2007, that "The Administration will take every possible opportunity that we can take to guarantee that our troops are protected in Iraq. And if that means having a dialogue with the Iranian delegates in the context of this summit yeah, we're going to take that chance". Shortly after the end of the conference, U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad said that he talked "to the Iranian ambassador across the table, and also I shook hands with him and talked a few minutes with him. But most of the exchanges were across the table, dealing with Iraq issues".

These words could be read as an opening for future talks with Tehran, but they could also have other meanings. Such words could mean that the United States has not yet chosen the military option and is attempting to establish a political and diplomatic dialogue with Iran to resolve the Iraqi quagmire and other regional questions. However, this strategy implies that if such a dialogue will not take place or will fail, Bush could blame Iran, supporting the idea that this dialogue has failed for the Iranian intransigence and not the American willing.

U.S. moves and the war dilemma

On January 10, 2007, President Bush, talking about Iran, said that the U.S. will work with other powers in order "to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region". The United States needs to regain leverage toward Iran, with the aim of discouraging Tehran to pursue its suspect nuclear weapons programme and abandoning its ambitions for regional expansion and domination. The U.S. is taking several measures for reaching such goals, but these moves could mean also that an attack against Iran and its nuclear facilities is approaching, which several analysts foresee for the next spring.

Many signs suggest that the context is evolving toward a military attack. At the end of October, U.S. lead a war games in the waters of the Persian Gulf the in the framework of the Proliferation Security Initiative (P.S.I.), launched in 2003. This operation consisted of the interception of a ship carrying nuclear material for a state that wanted to fabricate a nuclear capability and the allusion to Iran was evident. More recently, U.S. reinforced its military presence in the Gulf region. There are many examples of this American posture, such as the sending of many Extra US Patriot missiles, the move of the U.S.S. John C. Stennis aircraft carrier fleet into the Persian Gulf in support of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier group and the arrival of several F16 in a military base in Turkey.

Such a military build-up may signify that the U.S. is trying to deter Tehran – but it could also mean the preparation of military operations.

Moreover, because it’s almost certain that an attack against Iran will worsen the instability in the Persian Gulf region, President Bush ordered that oil reserves must be stockpiled. The region is the "energy lung" of the world economy, and a U.S. attack against Iran will probably have a devastating impact over the oil global market. The "Gulf Cooperation Council-Plus-Two Ministerial Joint Statement", released on January 16, 2007, after a meeting of the foreign ministers of the six countries of the GCC, Jordan, Egypt and U.S. tells it unambiguously: "Agreeing that the peace and security of the Middle East, including the Gulf region, are critical to the health of the global economy and international stability, and its destabilization would threaten the vital national interests of all, the participants resolve to continue their long-standing cooperation against such threats".

Washington wants to stop the Iranian rush to nuclear capability. However, U.S. goals to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear power are probably inspired by much more than the mere concern of nuclear weapons proliferation. Bush knows that an Iranian civil-oriented nuclear programme will also be an instrument to gain power. Currently, Iran is also pursuing the goal of modernizing its economy. The reason is that Iran, in spite of its larger oil reserves, imports about 40% of its refined oil for its domestic energy need. Tehran’s nuclear capability would free oil resources for export and economic development, as Iran struggles to reduce the level of poverty. Successful economic developments could ease ongoing domestic tensions that will likely weaken the regime and its power projection in the mid-term.

Iran is replying harshly against these U.S. moves. The official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported the words of Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, pronounced in a meeting with the commanders of Iranian Air Force on February 8, 2007. Khamenei said that "Iran will give a crushing response to the U.S., if Washington attacks Iran". Moreover, the same day, the "elite Revolutionary Guards" had successfully test-fired a land-to-sea missile with a range of about 350 kilometers (210 miles) during a series of war exercises organized by the Guards' air force and naval divisions. Such developments show how tension is mounting in the whole Gulf region.

The U.S. is trying to place more pressure on Tehran, because President Bush cannot leave the White House with Iran’s influence growing in the Middle East. Such a scenario represents a sort of "nemesis" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The U.S. aim in 2003 was to stabilize the Middle East through the "re-building" of the Middle Eastern societies, starting from Iraq. In the plans of U.S. strategists, the effort of eradicating the roots of terrorism and anti-Americanism would have helped the democratization of the regimes of the area. However, the events of the last three years seem to go in a different direction, as Iran seems to be the main beneficiary of such developments.

A regional shift with global implications

Middle East geopolitical balances are being stressed by the emergence of this harsh confrontation within the region between U.S. and Iran and this is a struggle that will have key implications for the world geopolitical system.

The U.S., in spite of its troubled Iraqi campaign, is still the hegemonic external power in the Middle East region, even though it appears weaker than a few years ago. Iran, instead, is emerging as the new rising regional power that will challenge the role of the U.S. in the Broader Middle East. Clearly, Tehran cannot have the ambition to dominate the whole international system but its self-representation as "superpower", rooted in its imperial history and in its strong national identity, pushes Iran to search for a major role in the Middle East and in Islam’s political geography.

This struggle between Washington and Tehran has very important implications both for the Middle East political equilibrium and for global balances. In the region, the two actors are the expression of two opposite fields. In the Middle East, a hard confrontation is emerging between Sunni powers, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan and their political allies like P.N.A. President Abu Mazen or Lebanese P.M. Fuad Siniora, and the Shi’a crescent. The first bloc is lead by the U.S., the second by Iran. Tehran’s main allies are Syria and a fundamental "non-state actor" like Hezbollah in Lebanon. Other Iran’s allies are Hamas in Palestine and factions of the Iraqi Shiites, such as S.C.I.R.I. and Moqtada al-Sadr's group.

However, such confrontation is not merely an intra-religious clash but it represents a wider geopolitical conflict. Iran leads an alliance of those actors who are unsatisfied with the current regional balance of power. The quest for more power and the pursuing of State’s national interests are the key of this alliance, much more than confessional identity or ideology.

This explains why non-Shi’a actors, such as Hamas or Syria (where the majority of population is Sunni although the leadership is formed by the Alawite minority), share common interests with Tehran. But their alliance with Iran is tactical, not strategic. The powers which oppose the "revisionist" coalition are those that want keep the status-quo unchanged, and Washington is strongly supporting them.

The Iranian window of opportunity

In the 1993, the Whitehall Paper on Gulf Security printed by the "Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies" claimed that "Gulf security is hostage to the nature of the (regional) governments involved….None of the parties involved is satisfied with this state of affairs, but none has the combination of will, muscle and breadth of ideological support to prevail". 14 years after, the situation has changed. For the first time, a regional power seems to have as much power and influence as necessary for trying to impose its political will in the wider region. This power is Iran. The turning point has been the launch of the American "global war against terror" and the following invasion of Iraq in 2003.

On one hand, the Afghan war and Iraqi freedom caused Tehran having the American troops near its borders, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. For several reasons, though, such events opened important geopolitical windows of opportunity for Tehran. The fall of Saddam Hussein, who harshly repressed the Iraqi Shiites during its regime, opened the way to a Shi’a return to power in Iraq. As a consequence, is acting to ensure one of its main geopolitical interests, that is, the rise of a friendly government in. Nevertheless, there are other important regional and global developments playing in favour of Tehran. Iran is moving to fill a regional geopolitical vacuum. Regional powers, both in the Gulf area both in the wider Middle East, are in trouble. In the Gulf region, Iraq has been neutralized and, currently, it doesn’t have any weight in the regional balance of power while Saudi Arabia has been weakened by the concomitance of many factors, such as the threat posed to the regnant family by domestic terrorism, the internal struggle for succession and the slackening in the relationship with U.S. after the 11/9, even though currently both actors are searching for a renewed alliance against the Persian threat.

In the Broader Middle East, Egypt is facing a crisis of its regional power status. This clearly appears in its loss of influence over the Palestinian issue, while Israel is in a difficult internal situation because the Olmert government lacks consensus. Furthermore, the rise of Iran as a main regional power is also supported by those external actors that want to play a more relevant role in the Middle East and therefore need to weaken the U.S. position both in this area and in the international system. China and Russia, even though cautiously, are supporting the rise of Iran. In addition, the crisis of the global non-conventional proliferation regime, embodied by the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is yet another element in favour of Tehran’s political and diplomatic attitude.

In this scenario, Tehran is using its allies in a sort of "proxy low-intensity war", with the aim of placing more pressure on the U.S. and its allies. In the three main current point of crisis within the Middle East, there are clear signs of this strategy. In Iraq, Iran is giving military, financial and logistic support to the Shiite groups. In Lebanon, Iran is supporting Hezbollah against the pro-western government lead by Fuad Siniora. Moreover, Hezbollah is Iran’s leverage against Israel, as the "Party of God’s" military capabilities are, in large part, supplied by Iran. Finally, in the Palestinian territories, Iran supports Hamas against Abu Mazen, in order to gain a more effective role in the Israeli-Palestinian issue at the expenses of Arab countries that historically have played a primary role in this question, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Conclusion

The tension between U.S. and Iran is rapidly mounting. Likely, such tension will keep on rising in the next few months. A U.S. air attack against Iran seems to be more likely than the past few months, since Washington needs to stop Iran’s regional rise, as the latter is a direct menace for U.S. and its regional allies.

The manoeuvres in the Gulf area are officially aimed to persuade Tehran that it must stop its nuclear programme and its role in destabilizing Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. However, Washington’s moves seem to be preparing an attack against Iran by the end of Bush presidency.

A "proxy war" in the Middle East has already started. Last summer’s crisis in Lebanon has been the clearest example of this. However, if an air attack against Iranian nuclear facilities will take place, it will be just the first step of a longer confrontation among the United States and Iran. It will only serve to slacken Iran’s nuclear developments and to weaken its regional rise. It is likely that such an attack will be the first step of a wider conflict that Bush’s successor will bring on.

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