The dilemma of Iran’s Islamic Revolution
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1979 Islamic Revolution ended Iran’s nearly five centuries of uninterrupted imperial rule. But it continued the Persian tradition of territorial expansionism and regional dominance dating back to Cyrus the Great, whose empire in the sixth century B.C. stretched from North Africa to Central Asia.
Iran’s Islamic revolutionaries pursued their imperial objective under the guise of religious redemption, not brute military conquest, but they expanded the country’s influence nonetheless. Iran’s war with Iraq in the 1980s slowed its penetration of the Arab region. Still, Iraq’s defeat in Desert Storm in 1991 and its occupation by U.S. and allied forces in 2003 opened the way for Tehran to assert its influence in the Middle East. Last year, a former Iranian minister of intelligence bragged that Iran now controls four Arab capitals (Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa).
Yet the U.S. withdrawal in 2018 from the Iran nuclear deal has gradually weakened Iran economically. It also isolated Tehran internationally. Iran is trying to cope with crippling sanctions, the new Sunni-Israeli alliance, frequent Israeli attacks and growing inability to sow discord in the region.
Imperial Nostalgia
Since the rise of the Safavid Empire in 1501, Iranian territorial ambitions stopped at India’s gates in the east. They were also blocked in the north by czarist Russia, leaving the Arab lands in the west as the only outlet for fulfilling Iran’s grandiose plans of becoming a world power. The leaders of the Iranian revolution similarly believe they are entitled to extend their influence throughout the Arab region.
Khomeini and his propaganda machinery implored Arabs to topple their reactionary regimes and install Islamic revolutionary governments. Khomeini especially focused his calls on the Iraqi people, who he hoped would supplant their leaders and help him install a satellite government. He did everything within his capacity to destabilise Iraq, including assassination attempts, planting explosive devices and ordering daily artillery barrages, leading to the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Many Iranians, be they Persians or Azeris, feel they are historically entitled to rule the region, and signing a treaty with them would not change their minds. In 1971, Mohammad Reza Shah ordered an ostentatious celebration in the ancient city of Persepolis commemorating the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire.
Even though it was dubbed the world’s most expensive party and resented by most Iranians, the festivities rekindled Iran’s legendary nationalism. It’s a tradition that current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei continues. In keeping with the Iranian elites’ imperial thinking, Khamenei recently reminded the world that Iran’s regional presence is non-negotiable.
Islam appeared in Mecca in 610 and spread spectacularly fast, overwhelming the worn-out Byzantine and Sasanian empires. In 636, an Arab Muslim army defeated the Persians in the Battle of Qadisiya in southcentral Iraq, and 16 years later, the Sasanian
Empire collapsed. This event stunned Persians who viewed their culture and civilisation as superior to the conquering Arabs.
Thanks to their religion, which permanently Islamised Iran, the Arabs – more than Persia’s glorious past or any other people – have played a decisive role in shaping modern Iranian identity. Even though the Persians embraced Islam, they rejected the Arabic language and never overcame their historic defeat.
The foundations of Islam’s history took shape in the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties between 661 and 1258 in lands that accepted Arabisation, which kept Persia outside the centres of power and deepened the dilemma of injured Persian national consciousness.
Many Arabs developed over the centuries the impression that Iranians are arrogant and condescending. During their 19thcentury awakening, Arabs turned their back on Iranian culture. They chose to emulate Europe, namely France, because it presented itself as a liberal country even after colonialism. Most Iranians, both secular and religious, dislike Arabs; it does not matter if they are Sunnis or Shiites. In the initial stages of the Iran-Iraq War, some 40,000 Iraqi Shiite soldiers defected to Iran, which imprisoned them because they were Arabs. Assuming they could normalise their relations with Tehran, the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council tried to establish friendly relations with Iran.
In December 2007, Qatar invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend the council’s summit in Doha. Saudi King Abdullah walked hand in hand with him as a gesture of friendship. But Arab reconciliation efforts foundered because Iran’s religious leaders behaved as if they were on a divine mission.
U.S. Stranglehold and Israeli Vigilance
U.S. and British cooperation in executing Operation Ajax in 1953 to depose Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and reinstate Mohammad Reza Shah’s rule humiliated the Iranian people and shocked them profoundly. They did not forgive the shah for colluding with foreigners – who always blunted their national aspirations – to return to power.
The CIA-orchestrated coup played a role in making Khomeini’s inspired revolution a success. The Islamic Revolution’s plans for regional hegemony did not sit well with the U.S. and Israel, let alone Arabs, and immediately poisoned their relations. They only worsened with time.
The past few years of U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran have revealed its military weakness and incapacity to retaliate, especially since its ability to use its regional proxies and get away with it is diminishing. On the first anniversary of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Brigade, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah announced that avenging his death is the responsibility of all free people. He assured Shiites that the axis of resistance (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Houthi Yemen and Lebanon) emerged stronger from Soleimani’s death.
Nasrallah falsely claimed that the assassination established a military situation that jeopardised the American presence in Iraq, which forced Donald Trump’s administration to withdraw U.S. troops from the country.
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he said that Iran does not ask its allies to carry out military operations on its behalf. He said Iran knows when, how and where to answer Soleimani’s killing. Nasrallah even praised Iran’s self-restraint in not falling into the trap of retaliation, saying that the alliance it leads has an authentic and responsible leadership that made victories possible. He eventually laid the matter to rest, saying: “Killing our leaders makes us more determined to persevere to achieve our goals.”
The Iranians have come to understand that U.S. President-elect Joe Biden will not lift the sanctions on Iran gratuitously, and instead will largely uphold the far-reaching expectations laid out for Tehran by his predecessor. Frustrated Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif rejected Biden’s preconditions for lifting the sanctions and demanded that the U.S. abide by its commitments to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Zarif said the U.S. is not in a position to stipulate conditions to renegotiate the deal from which Trump unilaterally withdrew in 2018.
Iran also accused Israel of killing Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, its top nuclear scientist, last November, but did not answer it, revealing Tehran’s military weakness and lack of options. Israel, whose air force continues to target Iranian assets in Syria, is carefully scrutinising Iranian activity throughout the region and progress in its nuclear program.
There is little doubt that Iran’s Arab policy is expansionist, combining religion with Persian imperial ambitions. Since 1979, the Islamic Revolution and Iran’s governments have continued the territorial policy of Persia’s ancient and medieval empires and the Pahlavis between 1925 and 1979. The 41st Gulf Cooperation Council summit, recently held in Saudi Arabia, issued the al-Ula Declaration, which ended Qatar’s blockade and reached a unified foreign policy. This turnaround is not welcome news in Tehran.
Iran’s frequent military exercises are intended to signal to the U.S. that its freedom of action is beyond subjugation and that it will retaliate massively against any attack. Iran disclosed an underground missile base on the Persian Gulf coast during an unscheduled tour by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, Hussein Salami. But Tehran’s ostentatious military parades are nothing more than a charade because the balance of military power tilts grossly toward its adversaries.
When the new commander of the Quds Brigade, Ismail Qaani, visited Baghdad last year, the pro-Iranian Iraqi militias thought he would distribute cash handouts as his predecessor had. Much to their disappointment, he gave them nothing. The Iraqi authorities required him to apply for an entry visa before his second visit, where he gave out silver rings.
Qaani told the militias’ commanders not to expect money from Iran and, instead, rely on the Iraqi government’s $2 billion handout. Divisions plagued the Iran-backed Iraqi militias after the death of their deputy chief, who died in the same attack that killed Soleimani.
The umbrella movement failed twice to reach a prime minister’s consensus to succeed Haidar al-Abadi before agreeing on Mustafa al-Kadhimi in May 2020. Unlike bureaucratically rigid Qaani, the two are charismatic and influential enough to keep the militias together.
Iran avoids confrontation with its adversaries and usually uses its regional proxies in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen to set the region on fire. Iran is much less likely to use its regional proxies to launch an attack similar to the one carried out against Saudi Aramco oil installations in September 2019.
The U.S. and Israel warned Iran that any attack against them by Tehran’s proxies would invite an overwhelming reaction against Iran itself. Iran’s conservatives have condemned reformist President Hassan Rouhani’s policy of strategic patience in the face of gruelling U.S. sanctions.
Still, Ahmadinejad warned Iranian leaders against escalation and urged them to avoid any measures that could lead to war.
Iran does not bend under foreign pressure; fulfilling its national objectives outweighs any consideration, and its pride is more important than economic interests. However, Iranian leadership will eschew escalation, even as it proceeds with its nuclear program, which could only be stopped by an all-out U.S. attack that is not forthcoming.
Iran boasts lively and diverse schools of thought that attest to its immense cultural richness, even though their ideological differences complicate its ability to project a consensual domestic and foreign policy. Only the Iranian people can extricate the country from its perennial dilemma.