A discussion of Pollack's Persia book, including a brief description of the "two clocks" he describes--one ticking towards Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons, the other towards a liberalization of its polity. I think I know which will ring its bell first:
news.scotsman.com
LAST year I heard a pudgy Iranian cleric tell an audience at the hawkish American Enterprise Institute that the "establishment of freedom and democracy in Islamic countries is the guarantee of international peace. It is the guarantee of the security of the world. The best way is for the United States to help the movement towards democracy in Iran. They should look at this issue very seriously." Furthermore, he avowed, the invasion of Iraq was a "blessing" for the Iraqi people.
The speaker was Hossein Khomeini, grandson of the late Ayatollah whose life was lit by the twin fires of radical Islam and a hatred of all things American. Not only was his grandson repudiating, in the politest fashion, the old man, but he was embracing the ‘Great Satan’ itself. America could, for once, be the solution, not the cause, of Iran’s problems.
If nothing else, this should remind us to question our assumptions when it comes to Iran (and the entire Middle East, for that matter) and be prepared to be surprised.
Ken Pollack’s last book, The Threatening Storm, laid out perhaps the most persuasive case for liberating Iraq from Saddam’s bloody fist. It was required reading for anyone interested in Iraq. Now he has turned to Iran to produce an equally timely, prescient and important book.
Currently director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Pollack previously served as Director for Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council and as a Persian Gulf Military Affairs analyst at the CIA. Pollack represents the middle-of-the-road view in Washington these days. Tougher than the doves, he’s still softer than the hawks.
The Persian Puzzle is a larger canvas than The Threatening Storm. Rather than just an analysis of the policy options the United States faces vis-à-vis Iran today, Pollack traces the whole tortured, bungled relationship between these two proud, wilful and much misunderstood nations.
Three key moments dominate: the 1953 coup sponsored by America (and Britain); the fall of the Shah in 1979; and the ensuing hostage crisis at the American Embassy in Tehran.
The 1953 coup that removed Mohammad Mossadegh from power confirmed to many Iranians that their country was still a pawn in the game played by the great powers. "The Iranian version of history portrays Mossadegh as a wildly popular prime minister forging a new, democratic Iran fully in command of its own destiny, who was overthrown by American agents to prevent Iran from achieving political and economic freedom," says Pollack, admitting that though this is an exaggerated version of events, there is a "kernel" of truth to it.
That episode doomed the United States in Persia. From that moment on, the US could only be associated with the Shah’s regime. The more repressive it became, the worse America seemed to Persian eyes.
Pollack believes that "the Shah brought the Iranian revolution on himself", and America erred, "not in failing to prevent his fall but in following policies that made his fall so injurious to our interests".
Just as damagingly, the American response to the hostage crisis made the United States look weak in the eyes of the world. "Weakness invites challenge. It seems fairly certain that this impression of weakness contributed to Iran’s decision to challenge the United States in Lebanon in the 1980s and throughout the Persian Gulf in the 1980s and early 1990s."
Much of this is familiar territory. But it is still useful to find it recorded in a single volume that brings the story up to date and peers cautiously into the future. Pollack’s prose is more serviceable than thrilling - the dry hand of the CIA analyst is much in evidence - but this is not a book you will read for kicks.
Iran’s status as a member of President George W Bush’s "Axis of Evil" is entirely merited. As Pollack puts it: "With the demise of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, Iran is probably the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism." Its pursuit of nuclear weapons is "the problem from hell" that "embodies the new realities of the post-Cold War world... There are problems that we simply cannot handle by ourselves. The problem of Iran today is one of them."
Pollack notes that western policy towards Iran is determined by two clocks: one measuring Iran’s progress towards building a nuclear bomb; the other towards a new, more liberal and properly democratic regime in Iran. How to ensure that the latter occurs before the former is the key question.
THE MILITARY options for dealing with the Iranian threat are poor. Invasion would be disastrous, and it’s hard to imagine even Tony Blair supporting the idea. The US military is over-stretched as it is; but Iran is four times the size of Iraq and mountainous to boot. No, the Marine Corps will not be in Tehran any time soon.
If Iran fails to comply with its obligation to cease its nuclear weapons programme, the other military option is to launch air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, as the Israelis did against Saddam’s nuclear plant at Ozirack in 1981. That raid provoked international outrage but was instrumental in preventing Saddam from achieving his nuclear ambitions. Any repeat in Iran would be no less controversial. The more important consideration, however, is effectiveness. It is unlikely that the US could knock out Iran’s dispersed nuclear programme in one strike. There is not, therefore, much to be gained from this option either.
If nothing else, any military action might succeed in setting the nuclear clock back at the cost of stopping the regime change clock entirely. Despite the rigged elections to the Iranian parliament this year, internal reform remains the West’s best hope. It’s Iran’s best hope too: the absence of any organised internal opposition to Saddam was one reason why external military action was needed to remove his regime.
All this means carrots will need to be found, no matter how distasteful that may seem to some in Washington. But if Iran is to be rewarded for good behaviour, it must also face penalties for bad behaviour. That means Europe needs to be serious and put principle before profits (Pollack is nicely sharp on this, even cutting) and must continue to put pressure on Iran to come into line in its dealings with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Sanctions will not work if they are only American sanctions.
The Persian Puzzle is aptly named. That gloomy thought ought to concentrate minds in western capitals.Washington alone cannot solve this conundrum. How the west approaches Iran will demonstrate whether all the talk of healing transatlantic wounds and working together on common problems means anything or not. |
