The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq has no clear-cut signs of “victory.”  The administration of President Barack Obama tried to negotiate a status of forces agreement (SOFA) with the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.  When that did not work out to the satisfaction of Washington, the United States – contrary to its strong proclivity for having a long-term stay in Iraq – withdrew its forces.

The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq was an ideal development, from the vantage point of Iran’s strategic interests.  Iran’s adversary, the United States, spent billions of dollars and shed the blood of thousands of its own troops and that of the Iraqis to transform Iraq from a staunch adversary of Iran to its strong friend.  In fact, in Prime Minister al-Maliki, Iran has a powerful ally.  One of Iraq’s chief adversaries in the area, Saudi Arabia, has been a strong supporter of al-Maliki’s nemesis, Iyad Allawi, the head of the al-Iraqiya party, a secularist, and a person preferred by the Sunni Iraqis.  Thus, Iran, by ensuring the prolonged existence of the government of al-Maliki, is definitely enjoying the upper-hand in keeping the Saudis at bay.  The unstated aspect of that development is that Iraq has emerged as an arena for the power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and by proxy, the United States, which is very much in the corner of Saudi Arabia in undermining Iran’s growing power and influence, not only inside Iraq, but also in the Middle East.

This gathering storm is unique, in the sense that when the Persian Gulf states sided with the United States in 1991 to end Saddam’s occupation of Kuwait, they were not interested in destroying his regime.  In the case of Iran, there do not seem to be any red lines in the sand drawn by the Arab states that the United States should not cross in taking military action against Iran.

But the preceding is a minor subtext of the growing animosity between the United States and Iran.  The chief subtext is Iran’s continued nuclear research program, which the U.S. categorically depicts as aimed at developing nuclear weapons.  Iran’s denial to the contrary has few takers in the West.  Thus, while the United States is assiduously weaving complex webs of economic sanctions against Iran, Israel prefers military action against it – either of its own or that of the United States – to put an end to Iran’s nuclear research.

Viewing the issue from Israel’s point of view, if Iran indeed develops nuclear weapons, the Jewish state would lose its nuclear veto against any ambitious states in the Middle East – a veto that was strategically developed by the founding fathers of that country.  Even though a nuclear armed Iran would be no match against Israel’s military power, the mere fact that such a development is about to happen is alarming to the leaders in Jerusalem, and they have kept their pressure on the Obama administration for action against Iran.

Considering the fact that the Islamic regime of Iran has been under threat by the United States for the sake of regime survival, the Ayatollahs may be considering having nuclear weapons in the future.  Even though it has been serious about creating the circumstances for regime change in Iran, the United States – even though it denies it – does not think that Iran’s predilections for acquiring nuclear weapons has a legitimate or a rational basis.  Therein lies the rub: what Iran considers as a necessary requirement for regime survival, the United States regards as a threat to regional stability “justifying” waging another war.  Listening to the Republican presidential candidates casually talking about taking military action against Iran, and even the Obama officials’ frequent references to the phrase that George W. Bush and his officials used to iterate – that all options regarding Iran are on the table – it appears that the American political leadership is suffering from a collective sense of amnesia regarding the instability and destruction that resulted from the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In the rising cacophony of claims related to ‘threats’ regarding Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons, the Arab regimes’ siding with the United States, in reality, has an entirely different real reason.  Those states have long considered Iran as a threat to their own aspirations involving the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) capacity to manage regional stability.  For instance, GCC propaganda is trying to persuade the international community that political protests in Shia-dominated Bahrain are sponsored by Iran instead of being a manifestation of the Bahrainis to transform the shape of the tyranny of the Sunni regime.  Saudi Arabia – the dominant state of the GCC – has long regarded Iran as a threat to its own aspirations to dominate the larger Middle East.

Iran has deftly outmaneuvered the Sunni Arab states, but, most importantly, has outsmarted the United States in Iraq and in the Levant by creating a nexus with Syria.  That nexus, in turn, has dominated the distribution of power inside Lebanon in favor Hezbollah.  Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East in the aftermath of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq created a sense of long-term defeat among the Sunni rulers in Riyadh, Cairo, and Amman.  They did not know what countermeasures to take in order to undermine Iran’s enhanced power and influence.  America’s near obsession of “containing” Iran through the pretext of depriving it of nuclear weapons was perceived as a fantastic opportunity to outsmart Iran.

The upside of this American-Arab maneuvering is that Iran is likely to be forced to continue its nuclear research but would stop just short of developing nuclear weapons.  The downside is that political explosion in the Persian Gulf in particular – and in the Middle East in general – happens suddenly and with calamitous consequence.  And the next war, if it comes, promises to be highly explosive and equally catastrophic.

When the Hezbollah party was created by Iran in the early in 1980s, it was based on the ideology that carried out the Islamic revolution, which had ousted “America’s Shah.”  That ideology was brimming with Shia pride.  The establishment of an Islamic government in Iran was not only a revolutionary idea in its own right, but it also created the possibility that such a major change had also paved the way for creating Islamic governments in other Muslim countries.  As participants of the Islamic revolution, the representatives of Iran went to Lebanon in their zealotry to politicize the Shias of Lebanon, who were disenfranchised and marginalized by an anachronistic Sunni-Christian power system that was ruling Lebanon.  The Mustadafeen (the deprived or dispossessed ones in the vocabulary of Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini) of Lebanon had to be empowered through a process of militant politicization.  Hezbollah was created out of that endeavor.  Iran’s politicization of the Shias of Lebanon gave them a new self image.  They were taught that the Sunni-Christian power arrangement was highly corrupt, and that, in order to acquire what is their right, the Shias of Lebanon had to fight for it.

Consequently, the Shias of Lebanon erupted on the political scene with a vengeance. They had had enough of being pushed around by the corrupt elites of their country.  They were also getting especially tired of becoming victims of Israeli retaliations in response to the attacks launched on the Jewish state by the Palestinian refugees of Lebanon.

Around the same time, the Israeli government invaded Lebanon to “finish off” the Palestinian “terrorist” attacks.  However, in the process of invading Lebanon, the Israeli leaders also decided to become the kingmakers of that country by forging an alliance with the Christian Phalangists.  In fact, according to one source, creating a Christian state in Lebanon has been a long dream of the Israeli leadership.  Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was of the view that Israel “should prepare to go over on the offensive with the aim of smashing Lebanon, Transjordan and Syria. The weak point of the Arab coalition is Lebanon for its regime is artificial and easy to undermine. A Christian state should be established, with its southern border on the Litani River. We will make peace with it.”[1]

It was during the initial phase of the Israeli invasion and the occupation of Lebanon that Hezbollah intensified its activities.  Its shadowy predecessor was blamed for the mass assassination of the U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983.  President Ronald Reagan, as much as he was interested in cooperating with the Israelis about promoting a Christian dominant regime in Lebanon, wisely decided to pull out the American forces from that country.  And Hezbollah continued its presence and dominance of the Lebanese political scenes.

Hezbollah’s finest hour was the 2006 war against Israel.  During that short war, the Jewish state swore to eradicate it, and unleashed a campaign of intense bombing of Lebanon.  However, when the dust settled, Hezbollah was bruised but still standing.  In the Arab world, the outcome of that campaign was interpreted as a “victory” for Hezbollah over Israel.  In the aftermath of that episode, the political popularity of Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, witnessed new heights in the Arab world.  No Arab leader had the reputation of challenging the military might of Israel and surviving it.  In fact, before the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli war, Israel had the reputation of handing a crushing defeat to the Arab armed forces, thanks to its decisive victory in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Along with Hezbollah, Iran’s political reputation as the chief backer of that party also grew in the aftermath of the 2006 war, as the entire Sunni Arab leadership watched with a mixture of envy and frustration. Even the United States, whose occupation forces were then fighting an uphill battle with the Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaida-related Islamists, appeared vulnerable to encountering a defeat in Iraq. While the Arab leaders were attempting to hide their envy of Iran and Hezbollah by coining highly pejorative phrases such as the threat of the rising so-called “Shia crescent,” Hezbollah proceeded to further dominate the internal
power distribution of Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s dominance of Lebanese politics might have lasted for quite awhile, except for the Arab awakening that is currently sweeping through the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. One of the current targets of that movement is the growing revolt inside Syria – one of the chief backers of Hezbollah.  As Bishara Assad has turned loose his killing machine against his citizens, his regime, instead of getting strong, is looking increasingly desperate and weak. That is bad news for Hezbollah and Iran, which had been playing a major role in Lebanon, thanks to the Syrian occupation of that country since 1976. Even though that occupation happily ended in April 2005, Syria remained an influential actor inside Lebanon because of its geographical proximity to that country, and also because of the highly proactive resolve of both Iran and Syria to influence the internal power
dynamics of Lebanon through their support of Hezbollah.

As the future of Bishara Assad’s murderous rule appears bleak in Syria, Hezbollah, and its long-standing nexus with Syria and Iran, looks increasingly anachronistic.  If or when the Assad regime falls, Iran’s influence in Lebanon will also suffer a major setback.

One option for Hezbollah is to revise its strategy of dependence on Syria and Iran.  But there is no alternate strategy for Hezbollah to fall back on.  As a Shia entity, it was heavily reliant on Shia Iran and on the Alawite-ruled regime of Syria.  Even though the Alawites (a minority Shia sect) comprise no more than 10 percent of the Syrian population, they have been ruling that country for several decades.  Hezbollah has no other friendly state supporting it.  In fact, some rare good news for the Sunni Arab leaders — who have been highly wary about Iran’s rising influence in Lebanon and Iraq, and who were also manifesting their antipathy toward Iran by airing their concern through muttering the phrase “Shia crescent” — is that the future of Hezbollah’s continued dominance of Lebanon’s  internal politics also appears shaky and highly questionable.

The Arab awakening is the revolutionary movement of today.  How it will change the political face of the Middle East is not yet known or understood. But, like the aging monarchs and dictators of the Middle East, Hezbollah has little reason to be optimistic. The march of history in the Middle East promises to throw Hezbollah — the revolutionary of yesteryear — into the dustbin of history.

The Islamic Revolution brought an end to the rule of “America’s Shah.”  Even President Jimmy Carter, who has evolved as America’s best ex-president, attempted to encourage the Iranian Army to bring an end to the revolution.  Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, openly sided with Iraq in its aggression against the Islamic Republic.[1]  Iran has long been depicted as a “pariah” or a “rogue” state by Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.  Bush’s Secretary of State, Condy Rice, in her quest for new phrases of affront, once characterized it an “outpost of tyranny.” 

When President Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009, he famously offered an “unclenched” America’s fist to Iran (which was more of a PR job than a promise of a substantive change in America’s policy toward that country), but for a price.  He wanted Iran to abandon its nuclear research program.  The United States is not wrong in its estimation that Iran ultimately wishes to develop its own nuclear weapons, which Israel already possesses since the late 1960s.  When Iran refused to comply with Obama’s demands, he came up with his own phrase to deriding it.  He called Iran “an outlier” state.

One can imagine how little the United States has learned from its unilateral invasion of Iraq and its deleterious implications for regional stability and for its own economy, the U.S. officials are still parroting the line in their public statements: “All options regarding Iran are on the table.”  That is a not-so-cryptic threat about the option of taking military actions against that country. 

The Atlantic magazine, in its September 2010 issue, has a “screaming” headline on its cover page: “Israel is getting ready to Bomb Iran.” The latest issue of Foreign Affairs has an article entitled, “Legitimizing Israel’s bomb.”  The authors foolishly (or may be naively) argue that Israel should get its nuclear weapons out of the closet.  Why should Israel do that?  It is having its cake and eating it too: it is a nuclear state, yet it pretends not to be one and no one seems to be bothered about it.  The byline of that essay asks: “Has nuclear ambiguity outlived its shelf life?” The conventional thinking in the West has gotten so used to discussing the unmentioned nuclear weapons of Israel in a conceptual vacuum, as if they have no relevance to the thinking of Iranian leaders in their own attempt to develop nuclear weapons.

The motivation underlying Iran’s nuclear program is a highly rational one.  It is based on deterring the United States and Israel from using the military options aimed at bringing about regime change, as the United States did against Iraq in 2003.  Given the frequently uttered Israeli threats to deprive Iran of its nuclear option, leaders in Tehran envision having nuclear weapons of their own as an ultimate deterrence. 

At the same time, Iran also would like to end the double-standards that the United States exercises by giving a wink-and-a-nod to Israel’s growing nuclear arsenal, while denying that very same right to Iran.  India and Pakistan caused a major dent in that regime of supporting double-standards, when they brought their respective nuclear weapons programs out of the basement in 1998.  India is the only country that is enjoying the fruits of that audacious decision.  Today it is America’s strategic partner.  Pakistan has not been able to achieve that status.  However, it has been persistent about expressing its own aspirations of persuading the United States to grant a similar strategic partnership sometimes in the future.  

The greatest enemy of the nuclear weapons-related double standards is the fact that the nuclear genie is out of the bottle.  The knowledge of how to make a bomb is no longer a Western monopoly.  North Korea has emerged as the latest gatecrasher into the nuclear club.  Iran is likely to be next regardless of what Israel threatens to do.  That fact seems to bother and annoy Washington and Jerusalem most.

When Iran witnesses a nuclear India being rewarded by the United States with cooperation in nuclear technology and becoming a recipient of the cutting-edge technology and weapons from Nuclear Supplier Group as a “reward” for acquiring nuclear weapons, it concludes that becoming a nuclear power might not be a bad thing, if not now, then, to be sure, sometime in the not-too-distant future. 

Iran has been motivated in the direction of continuing its nuclear research program because of the fact that the United States, even under Obama, has not stopped threatening it with endless sanction regimes, while also winking at Israel into periodically threatening Iran that it would attack its nuclear facilities.   

What is also driving the lone superpower and the Jewish state together on the issue of Iran is that the latter is the last confrontational state of the Middle East, now that Saddam Hussein and his regime have entered the dustbin of history.  Syria never was much of a challenge to Israel or the U.S, since its military power does not even pose a minimal threat to nuclear-armed Israel.  Iran, on the contrary, remains a state that has not accepted America’s dominance in the Middle East.  At the same time, it has remained highly proactive in expanding its own sphere of influence in the region, in direct competition with the United States.  Iran’s inventory and knowledge of ballistic missiles is also increasing, while it is proceeding ahead with its nuclear research program. 

Iran’s leaders have always pooh-poohed America’s pretensions that any type of a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian conflict would emerge.  In that capacity, Iran enjoys considerable sympathy inside the Arab world.  To the embarrassment of a number of leading Arab states, Iran has emerged as the major supporter of Hamas’ ostensibly permanent defiance of Israel, while the Arab rulers are still jockeying either for gaining or securing a favorite spot on America’s list of “friends” in the Middle East.

At the same time, Iran seeks an anti-Taliban nexus with Russia and India, states that are scared out of their wits about the potential of the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan.  Afghanistan offers Iran a great potential of escalating its clout, because Russia and India remain wary of the readiness of the United States to withdraw from that country by July 2011.  The Obama administration’s and President Hamid Karzai’s willingness of having a dialogue with Taliban sends palpable shudders through Tehran, Moscow, and New Delhi for different reasons.  Iran is worried about the acutely anti-Shia posture of the Taliban; India is determined not to allow Pakistan an upper-hand in Afghanistan under a potential Taliban’s return to power; while Russia is also fearful of the promotion of regional Jihads under a Taliban rule.  Thus, Iran, Russia, and India are very much interested in developing the modalities of their own options of dealing with the post-American Afghanistan.

Iran has been enjoying a lot of support in the Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, where the United States has also lately demonstrated some sway.  The U.S. influence is likely to sustain only if Lebanon does not undergo another round war with Israel.  However, if there is another war in Lebanon, one can pretty much guarantee further escalation in the clout of Hezbollah and Iran.  Most important, Iran remains the major supporter in the Muslim world of the defiance of Hamas toward Israel.  It dismisses the latter’s overtures toward negotiations with Palestinians as mere pretensions of conducting peace talks with politically impotent (thus) a diffident Mahmoud Abbas, President of PLA, while continuing with its policy of building additional Jewish settlements on the occupied territories. 

As much as Iran has emerged as a major player in the Middle East for the past thirty years or so, the worst threat to its security—which remains its Achilles’ heel—might be coming from within since June of 2009, when the regime was allegedly involved in election fraud that lead to the “victory” of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  As the rulers of Iran appear confused and even divided about dealing with the protest movement, as Iran remains cutoff from global trade stemming from the U.S.-sponsored sanctions, its regime is likely to become more chauvinistic and even more repressive, thereby escalating the chances of further upheaval and even regime change. 

However, in the context of the power game that is being played in the Middle East in general, Iran remains powerful only if it can survive—or better yet, reaches a rapprochement with—the growing domestic dissent, which can be exploited by the intelligence agencies of the West, as was done in 1953.  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s sustained diatribe about the “fictitious” nature of the holocaust is not at all helpful to Iran.  Indeed it has created considerable resentment in the West toward that country.  Under such circumstances, it has been easier for the EU to show its antipathy toward the Islamic Republic by remaining in the forefront of opposition to Iran’s recalcitrance to abandon its nuclear research program.

The U.N. imposed economic sanctions of June 2010 was a major jolt to Iran’s expectations that China and Russia would be shielding its interests in the world body (UNSC).  In order to undermine the Western-backed sanctions, Iran worked up an agreement with Turkey and Brazil, whereby it was to let Turkey as the storage point of its enriched uranium stockpile.  However, that agreement was rejected by Washington as Iran’s “stalling tactic.”  When it became clear that neither Beijing nor Moscow would return on its side, Iran agreed to restart its negotiations with the EU on the nuclear issue. What is still not clear is whether Iran would agree to send the stockpile of enriched uranium to a country that is acceptable to the U.S.

Washington is also taking full advantage of the fact that China and Russia are supporting the economic sanctions on Iran.  The United States and the EU have hardened their previous negotiating stance by insisting on higher proportion of Iranian uranium be sent abroad.  Iran on its part is, quite deftly, insisting on including Israeli nuclear weapons to be included in the negotiations with the EU.  Such a measure would give Iran an excuse for backing out of the talks if that issue is not included in the agenda.

Iran is not in an enviable position in its dealings with the West.  Under Barack Obama, the United States has drastically altered its approach toward Russia and China.  A selected use of multilateralism by Washington and the abandoning of the shrilled rhetoric of George W. Bush of remaining as the most powerful nation of the world, the Obama administration has made it easier for the United States to seek a rapprochement with Beijing and Moscow.  Unfortunately for Iran, it does not enjoy a very high spot on the strategic agendas of China and Russia in comparison to their desire to seek common grounds with the United States.

Still, given the fact that strategic ties between Washington and Beijing, on the one hand, and between Washington and Moscow on the other, are likely to experience their usual upward and downward swings, Iran expects to exploit them to its advantage in the future.  All in all, if Iran can improve its regime stability from within, its chances of remaining a highly influential actor of the Middle East remain bright.

The United States is manifesting a similar amount of eagerness about imposing economic sanctions on Iran, which has remained much more defiant than Saddam Hussein ever was in terms of challenging the America’s dominance of the Middle East. It is important to ask whether Iran will meet a similar fate as Iraq, perhaps not a direct military invasion, but other actions whose purpose would still be to bring about regime change. President Obama has already stated that his administration would consider aggressive sanctions on Iran.

Iran remains the last major state that consistently rejects any proposition of kowtowing to American diktat or its hegemony in the Middle East. It has accumulated ample clout in that region in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The United States, either for propaganda reasons or merely in order to underscore the nature of Iran’s anti-Americanism, consistently harped on the growing Iranian influence in post-Saddam Iraq. Indeed, if the U.S. assertion of Iran’s role in the political turbulence in Iraq between 2005 and 2007 was true, it can be safely concluded that Iran played a crucial role in America’s decision to actively seek an exit strategy. After all, it was largely as a result of intense political instability emanating from the violent role played by the Iraqi insurgents and Islamists groups that forced Washington to calculate that it could not stay in Iraq for long. Iran had strong ties with a number of those insurgents. That was a coup de grace from the perspective of Iran’s interests in Iraq, because the neoconservatives – working as the brains of the Bush administration – had an elaborate plan to make the entire Middle East a part of pax-Americana.

Iran’s military and material support of Hezbollah was very crucial in that organization’s ability to withstand the punishing Israeli attack on Lebanon during the short war of July-August 2006. The resultant general perception in the Arab world was that Hezbollah won that round of the battle against the Jewish state. Iran’s strategic dominance in that region was emerging as a new phenomenon regarding which neither Washington nor Jerusalem could produce effective countermeasures. Consequently, U.S.-Iran ties became even more antagonistic than before.

A major strategic shift from the Bush administration to the Obama administration in the Middle East and South Asia is that, in terms of conducting military operations, the U.S. would rely on a multilateral approach. The military operations conducted under the auspices of NATO in Afghanistan emerged as the best multilateral vehicle. However, the constraining aspect of the role of NATO is that it cannot be used anywhere without the approval of the entire Alliance; and that approval is very hard to secure. That fact ties the hands of any future American president who would develop any notion of adventurism a la George W. Bush in Iraq. That reality also prevents the United States from taking any military action against Iran, even in the wake of its intransigence about abandoning its nuclear research program.

The preceding constraint might be a major reason why the United States would heavily rely on the use of covert operations. President Obama has become the most prolific user of such operations by regularly ordering drone attacks against Islamist groups in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. One can only guess how many other covert operations involving U.S. Special Forces are being carried out presently in South Asia, the Horn of Africa, Yemen, and other Middle Eastern countries.

Because of an inordinate technological gap between the United States and the Islamist forces in the aforementioned countries, the use of covert operations has emerged as the most convenient weapon of the strong. As long as American soldiers are not returning home in body bags, U.S. public opinion remains highly supportive of such operations. That is why the United States is likely – if it hasn’t already been doing so – to use covert tactics in Iran in order to destabilize the Islamic Republic.

According to a report prepared in July 2008 by the muckraking journalist, Seymour Hersh, the United States secretly allocated up to $400 million to underwrite covert operations against the Islamic Republic. Such operations “involved ‘working with opposition groups and passing money.’ The Finding provided a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong.”

The chief problem that President Barack Obama faced when he first became president is that there is no proven record of diplomatic encounters between the United States and Iran since the days of President Jimmy Carter. Even Carter – one of the most ardent promoters of justice and constitutionalism in the Middle East and the most successful former president – did his best to oust the fledgling Islamic Republic in 1980, while he was still in office. All American presidents who followed him spent a lot time and capital in their attempts to overthrow the Islamic Republic, even by going to the extreme of cooperating with Saddam Hussein during his brutal aggression against Iran in 1981.

In the wake of Iran’s refusal to buckle under the pressure of the United States to abandon its nuclear research program, Obama could have made a courageous decision to abandon the covert operations that Bush had started. However, the United States’ heavy reliance on covert operations in Pakistan tells us that Obama envisions such operations as safe alternatives to any bold new measures, which still might not persuade Iran to cooperate with the United States. In the meantime, the hyperactive Israeli lobby has made sure that any actions other than imposition of harsh economic sanctions are unfailingly condemned as “appeasement” of the Ayatollahs.

It should also be noted that the Iranian leaders did nothing to make their own case in the court of the world’s public opinion when they seem to have fraudulently stolen the election from the reformist candidate, Hussein Moussavi, last June. In the aftermath of those elections, it was interesting to watch how adamant the anti-Iranian forces inside the U.S. Congress were in their insistence that the President strongly condemn the Iranian leaders for allegedly stealing the elections. One should contrast that eagerness with the deafening silence inside the U.S. government following the murder of the Hamas leader, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, allegedly perpetrated by Mossad in Dubai.

Given the strategic environment that is marked with a high degree of hostilities and intense distrust on both sides, the chances of the resolution of the nuclear program-related crisis through peaceful means are slim, at best. The United States has even attempted to go to the extent of creating Arab endorsements for its harsh economic sanctions on Iran. The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, went to Riyadh asking the government to persuade China to agree to sanctions on Iran, which Saudi Arabia wisely rejected. However, Gates was not about to give up. He proceeded on the same mission to the UAE. His chances of gaining a somewhat favorable reception from that country are pretty decent, given its long-term tensed relations with Iran. But the UAE is not Saudi Arabia. Even its endorsement of U.S. sanctions on Iran would not sway any other major Arab state.

As the United States’ diplomatic choices regarding Iran narrow, Israeli pressure for military action against that country is likely to intensify. The question is whether or how long Obama is likely to withstand it. A lot depends on whether he becomes politically stronger as a result of a potential passage of the healthcare bill in the next few weeks.

At least for now, the government of Benyamin Netanyahu has been digging a diplomatic hole for itself by allegedly orchestrating the murder of the Hamas leader in Dubai. To further deteriorate its case, Israel, during a visit of the U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, announced the building of new housing projects in East Jerusalem. However, no one should underestimate the Israeli hubris concerning its strong support inside the U.S. Congress. The Jewish state has long understood the nature of its political support inside the U.S. and has assiduously worked through its tool, AIPAC, to solidify that support. Just based on that fact, chances are high that it would push President Obama hard to take military action against Iran. How wise is such an action likely to be from the viewpoint of American strategic interests in the Middle East? It would be very foolish, indeed. However, Israel has not been known to waste time thinking about what is best for America in the Middle East. Friends of Israel inside the United States incessantly, and without even giving it a second thought, confuse Israeli interests with American interests. So, the world should not rule out the high probability of U.S. military action against Iran in the coming months, which would create another hell for American strategic interests in that region.

By the same token, the United States has to think long and hard about taking military action again Iran while it is about to increase its troop deployment in Afghanistan. At the present time, American forces can become easy targets of Iranian asymmetric-war-related activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, at a time when the political tide in Afghanistan is already heavily favoring the Taliban, and when internal violence in Iraq appears to be escalating.  For a predominantly Shia country, Iran has shown remarkable pragmatism in cooperating with intensely anti-American Sunni Islamist groups in the past to make matters worse for American forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Under these circumstances, a potentially effective option for the U.S. is to heavily lobby China and Russia to support U.N. sanctions on Iran. However, in this regard, both of those countries have major strategic agendas of their own related to Iran. First, Iran is a major source of energy supplies for China. Second, it serves as a major source of hard currency for Russian nuclear technology and other military weapons at a time when Russia’s economy remains heavily reliant on income from energy sources. Third, Iran looms large in both Chinese and Russian maneuvers for the evolution of a multipolar global order. As a state that has never accepted America’s dominant role in the Middle East, and as a country that retains major clout in Iraq and Lebanon and high popularity in Gaza for its support of Hamas, Iran has been indirectly promoting the Sino-Russian agenda of challenging America’s dominance in the Arab world and multipolarity.

At least for now, the Obama administration has scored a victory when it received the backing of Beijing and Moscow for an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution that censured Iran and ordered it to halt construction of a secret uranium enrichment plant near the city of Qom. China’s support for this resolution was the result of Iran’s backtracking on a deal with the five-plus-one countries (Perm-5 of the UNSC plus Germany) for removing most of its nuclear fuel stocks abroad for the import of material needed for its medical research reactor.

The vote also came at a time when the American President, during his recent trip, was more than forthcoming in assuring China that the lone superpower has no intention of containing China. On the contrary, Obama stated that his administration is fully focused on engaging it. The overall tone of the global coverage of President Obama’s trip to China had all the ingredients to boost the self-confidence of the Chinese leadership that their country has indeed arrived on the global platform as the next candidate for superpowerdom.

Under these circumstances, China has no intention of ruining its moment of glory by refusing to cooperate with the United States just to please Iran. The most understated fact of Sino-Iranian relations is that Iran needs China more than the other way around. As much as China is in need of foreign energy sources, it also knows that, given the international sanction-ridden environment, Iran is quite eager to sell its oil and gas to China. Iran has also become an observer in the Sino-Russian-dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is steadily acquiring a heightened global visibility. So, China can afford to play the seesaw version of first siding with Iran, then with the United States, and then calculating the ebb-and-flow of events before decding its next move.

The support of the aforementioned IAEA resolution by the dual-headed leadership in Russia—between President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin—was somewhat surprising, because, while Medvedev appears flexible in dealing with the United States, Putin is not. The latter is more resolute in asserting Russia’s role as a wannabe superpower. In a recent speech during the United Russia Party’s 11^th Congress, Medvedev criticized its “conservative” stance on a number of issues faced by Russia, and accentuated the urgent need for political modernization. He also stated that the United Russia “needs to step up and reform itself and put a halt to ‘administrative excesses’ within.” Those comments were given global coverage because Putin is the Chairman of that party. At least for now, there have been reports of evident friction between Medvedev and Putin.

It is hard to conclude whether Russia’s support of the IAEA resolution was an outcome of the split between Medvedev and Putin (who is known for his strong support of providing assistance to Iran as an integral aspect of his policy of Russia’s assertiveness), or whether that country is merely signaling Iran to be more forthcoming on the nuclear issue toward Perm-5-plus-one countries.

Iran’s behavior regarding the nuclear issue has become even more complicated as a result of its June 2009 presidential election, which has raised serious questions about the current nature of domestic support for that issue.

It is a well-known fact that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the “decider” on that issue, the Supreme Leader Ali Khameini is. But why is it that the Iranian representative was authorized to negotiate with the representatives of the Perm-5 plus one, and then Iran decided to backtrack on the deal that he made at the conclusion of those negotiations? The Janus-faced foreign policy of the Islamic Republic has always been a confusing variable for Western diplomats. It has become even more confusing as Iran is facing rising domestic tensions and the usual slogans of “death to America” are increasingly interspersed with slogans of “death to dictators” (the latter being Khameini and Ahmadinejad).  The Iranian leadership may very well be afraid to offer concessions to the Perm-5-plus-one countries that might be misconstrued, both inside and outside of Iran, as a sign of its wobbliness.

To add further perplexity to an already confused situation, the world is told that Iranian authorities confiscated the Nobel medal from its Nobel Laureate, Shirin Ebadi, one of the very faces of Iran that are recognized as reasons for hope and moderation in that country. Her husband was reportedly arrested and severely beaten by Iranian authorities. Iran has denied the report about the medal, but not about Ebadi’s husband.

As Iran is steadily heading on the road to even more confusion and chaos, President Obama’s task of negotiating with that country is becoming progressively more difficult. His strategy of developing a great power consensus on denuclearizing Iran emerges as a highly thoughtful and potentially most constructive one. However, what is not clear at this point is how far China and Russia are willing to go to cooperate with the United States regarding Iran, which remains a major actor in the strategic maneuvers of both Beijing and Moscow in the evolution of a multipolar global power arrangement.

I read Roy’s first two books when they first came out.  While reading The Failure of Political Islam, I felt then, as I do now, that Roy’s conclusion about the alleged failure of that movement was premature.  Movements—especially ideological or religious-based ones—have a long duration and a variety of phases through which they pass over a long period of time before a somewhat meaningful—but still premature—judgment can be passed regarding their success or failure.  Social scientists, to the contrary, are like judges in an Olympic competition–too much in a hurry to measure the performance of the participants in order to declare winners and losers.  One of the most interesting studies of the phases of a movement is Crane Brinton’s, The Anatomy of Revolution.[1]  An interesting approach for the study of Roy’s thesis on political Islam is to examine it through an application of Brinton’s framework.

The title of Roy’s book, Globalized Islam, as Professor Hroub also notes, “contradicts…[Olivier’s] own failure thesis” of his previous book.  How can a failed movement become globalized and still be depicted as “failed”?  My own explanation is similar to the one that Hroub touches on, but is elaborately discussed in the Islamist literature under the rubric of fighting the “far enemy” (i.e., the “infidel-in-chief,” meaning the United States) versus the “near enemies” (Arab and Muslim governments) among many Islamist groups.  That debate was settled temporarily between 1999 and 2001.  As a result of which the audacious decision of attacking the lone superpower on its own homeland was taken.  As one tracks the “global” rhetoric of today’s “Jihadists,” one gets the sense that they are driven by the goals of fighting the U.S. as well as destabilizing the “near enemies.”

I lean toward the proposition that al-Qaida and other pan-Islamist groups were shocked about the scope and intensity of the U.S. response, which was also accompanied by George W. Bush’s ominous caveat that was especially aimed at the Arab leaders:  “either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”

In the aftermath of America’s global war on terrorism (GWOT), in order to survive, al-Qaida was forced to transform itself into a movement.  There also ensued the decision of regional and sub-regional Islamist groups to develop their own campaigns of terror in agreement with Mus’ab al-Suri’s operational slogan: Nizam la Tanzim.  That, in my estimation, is the beginning of the making of global Jihad.[2]

To argue that there is such a thing called globalized Islam is belaboring the obvious.  “Islamic internationalism” is an old idea.  In today’s parlance, that very idea is repackaged as “globalized Islam.”  The notion of nationalism and citizenship has always been alien to Islam.  The global promotion of that idea, especially starting in the 1990s, was easy because it was very much in harmony with the theological concept that states: “Islam is a religion of all ages.”  The global reach of the Internet has turned out to be a perfect tool for the globalization of a notion that was intrinsically global to start with.

Political Islam’s temporary failure—temporary because, as I stated earlier, it is a premature judgment on the part of Roy—stems from two very important variables.  The first one—as only touched upon by Professor Hroub but not fully developed—is that it has failed to offer nuanced and comprehensive solutions to what ails Muslim polities.  Answers to that question are hard to develop even in a whole book.  Even Bernard Lewis, after asking the right question in his book, What Went Wrong?, desolately failed to provide  persuasive answers.[3]

Secondly, because all Muslim polities are non-democratic, there was no chance of Islamists capturing power through an election.  Even in countries where limited electoral practices existed, elections are characterized by the odious practices of ballot-stuffing by the cronies of the regimes in order to ensure that there should be no transfer of power.  We have recently witnessed this phenomenon in the elections of Iran and Afghanistan.

Islamists have long known that merely shouting, “Islam is the solution!” is never enough.  They needed to develop comprehensive programs of political and economic development.  Muslim theologists failed to become experts in contemporary economics, global trade, international politics, or other contemporary disciplines, largely because they rejected them as “failed” and “godless” disciplines, without offering alternatives.  Even now, I am unaware of any theologist who has offered alternatives.   All countries that explicitly call themselves “Islamic”—Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Sudan, or Iran, for instance—are failed and corrupt polities and are characterized by backward economies.  When a Muslim youngster looks for an “Islamic solution” to problems that ail his/her society, he/she finds an immense vacuum.  So, the failure of those states to emerge as stable polities or strong economies becomes a credible indicator that other Islamist groups would also fail, if or when they capture political power.

But, what are the chances of the Islamists capturing power in any country in the coming years?  With the exception of Hamas, I would say none.  Even Hamas, by remaining intransigent about changing its stance regarding Israel, has condemned itself to failure.  The United States, the EU, and other countries, by denying economic assistance to Palestine, have been serving as leading players in ensuring that Hamas does not succeed as a political entity. 

Most importantly, an unspoken aspect of the Western actors’ systematic attempts to ensure that Hamas fails is also related to their fear that, if Hamas succeeds in stabilizing Palestine, other Islamist groups will be encouraged to capture power and then hang on long enough to become victorious.  However, when Hamas’ rule comes to end in Palestine, that development will not necessarily persuade other Islamist groups to stop their endeavors to capture political power in their own countries.  

I was once of the view that, perhaps, the Islamists should be given a chance to come to power through elections, and be allowed to fail.  However, after watching the performance of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon, I have changed my mind.  In the absence of comprehensive programs to stabilize their polities and to strengthen their economies, their chances of success are none. 

A few words about the Islamic Republic of Iran:  that country could have been an example of the success of an Islamic government; Iran has had a reasonable amount of democracy and ample oil and gas reserves to introduce ambitious programs of modernization;  and the Iranian leaders encountered serious problems from the United States in the 1980s, when the US sided with Iraq in the bloody war between the two neighbors. 

Undoubtedly, the United States wanted Iraq to do America’s dirty work by getting rid of the Ayatollahs through that war.  However, both Washington and Baghdad failed miserably in fulfilling their objective of terminating the Islamic government in Iran.  From Iran’s point of view, it was correct to state that their revolution was not given a chance to succeed. 

The Iranian fraudulent election of last June does not bode well for the Islamic Republic.  Iran seems to be steadily edging toward chaos for which the hardline Islamists of that country are substantially responsible.

What does the continuing saga of the Islamic Republic say about the future of political Islam in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world of Islam?[4]  It has not found its niche as a movement, largely because it has not yet developed a comprehensive framework for governance.  However, the concept of eternity that is related to Islam as a religion is one reason why the Islamists (or political Islamists) will continue to try and fail, but will not stop until they have a successful recipe for governance.  When will they succeed?  An answer to that question is not within the realm of Social Science.