In any event, in this mental exercise, I consider the example of the United States and China. The United States became a superpower in the aftermath of the Second World War. Retrospectively, it took over the role of a great power from the U.K. and then it progressed to becoming a superpower. China is emerging as a superpower, but there has not been any war to facilitate its transformation into a superpower. Equally important, there is not likely to be a willing transfer of superpowerdom from the United States to China, as was the case in the transfer of British hegemony in the Middle East to the United States in the aftermath of World War II. One scenario that China-watchers may be ignoring is the possibility of the emergence of a bipolar global power arrangement where the two poles are likely to be the United States and the PRC.

The common variable between the United States’ emergence as the superpower and in China’s rise is a high degree of dynamism manifested by their two economies. In the case of America, its economic system did not experience the ravages of two World Wars, a reality that contributed to Great Britain’s demise as a great power. In the 21st Century, Chinese economics exhibit a high degree of resiliency, even while the world economy was experiencing a meltdown.

The record of the United States’ domination of the globe is indeed impressive and cannot be easily emulated, if at all.

The United States became a superpower unintentionally, if not reluctantly. It did not have a great design or a strategy to become one. It had tremendous resources, but President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to drag his country out of a powerful legacy of isolation and get it involved in winning the Second World War. After that victory, the United States was faced with the awesome task of rebuilding Western Europe and Japan.

The Cold War created new tensions between the U.S. and the USSR, which had become communist little over twenty-eight years prior to the end of World War II in 1945. The United States’ leadership of the non-communist world had become a profound reality by then. In that capacity, it played a crucial role in creating the non-communist global economic order by creating global institutions that were to govern world trade and other economic arrangements, in order to create a stable global peace. That order guaranteed that America’s leadership would remain unchallenged as long the global economic institutions worked well to enhance the scope and nature of economic progress and well-being. Because the U.S. economy remained highly vibrant, it could also bankroll its military strength by building a military that could project power to the remotest corners of the world. It also built military alliances in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and established a powerful legacy of treating the Latin American nations as its vassals.

The resilience of the American superpowerdom stemmed, most importantly, from the durability and dynamism of its economy, which could also bankroll its alliance systems. The American-led global economic system also showed a high degree of resilience over the Communist economic arrangements under the leadership of the Soviet Union. In fact, when one examines the entire history of the Cold War, there never was much economic competition between the two superpowers of that era. The superiority of the American-led capitalistic economic arrangement has been proven by the fact that still it exists even today.

The second most crucial reason for the durability of the American-dominated alliance systems is that its members not only remained beneficiaries as a result of their membership, but they were able to pursue their national objectives as sovereign states. There is no suggestion here that U.S. allies were at liberty to undermine the alliance systems by adopting reckless policies. They had the option of disagreeing with the U.S. without any threat of losing membership or other side benefit of the alliance. New Zealand’s decision to deny U.S. ships entry into its ports in 1985 might have been an exception to that rule. The Kiwis insisted that no nuclear-armed ship would be allowed to visit their ports. The United States, whose naval vessels were widely known to be armed with nuclear weapons, did not want to admit or deny that possibility. Consequently, it abrogated its ANZUS security treaty responsibilities toward New Zealand in 1986. However, New Zealand never formally withdrew from that alliance.

China’s emergence as a superpower is a reality, as long as its economy shows its present strength of sustained growth. It has no record of building an alliance system a la the United States, and it has no record of building regional alliance systems, save the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). But it is cashing in on the worldwide publicity given to its awesome “rise” through its deft use of building regional trade and aid systems in Africa and Latin America. It has also been playing a highly visible role, along with the United States, in finding solutions to pull the world economy out of the doldrums created by the economic meltdown of 2008-2009.

Wherever Chinese companies are busy signing up long-term oil contracts in Africa and Latin America, they also are offering highly lucrative contracts to a number of oil states for infrastructure development. As a result of these contracts, Chinese companies will build civilian infrastructures over a period of the next or more decades. Such arrangements will become the chief basis of China’s assiduous endeavors of building spheres of influence on those two continents.

Another Chinese strategy is to do business with countries that are on America’s list of so-called sponsors of terrorism or who have been given other nefarious monikers. That list includes Iran and the Sudan. What is ironic is that the Western states have made an art of doing business with autocrats and dictators of Third World countries throughout the 20th Century. However, a similar type of behavior from Chinese leaders in the 21st Century has generated ample denigration in the West. Still, considering that China’s oil and gas appetite will remain horrendous in the coming decades, it does not seem to be paying much attention to the Western exercise of double standards.

China is using its awesome economic resources in financing its major plans of military modernization. That reality is creating ample apprehension among its East Asian neighbors. China has had a record of militarily challenging the United States during the Korean War. It audaciously backed North Vietnam during its war with the United States in the 1960s, a war that the superpower lost. China, under Mao Zedong, showed a perverse brazenness about pooh-poohing a nuclear conflict in the 1950s and 1960s in his psychological warfare with the United States. That headstrong attitude toward belittling the awesome destructive nature of nuclear power might be one important reason why China’s East Asian neighbors look at its highly discernible military modernization with nervousness. Even though the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan during World War II, it does not generate the same kind of fear anywhere in the world.

The major reason for that lack of fear is that the United States has had a long history of playing a crucial role in building a variety of regimes of international influence, from the World Bank to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). More to the point, it has not coveted the territory of any country in modern times (the purists, I am sure, will remind me of the Mexican territories that the United States incorporated into its boundaries in 1847).

However, that almost unblemished record was tainted when the United States invaded and occupied two countries in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on its territory: Afghanistan and Iraq. At least in the case of Afghanistan, the United States invaded it because it was from there that al-Qaida planned the 9/11 terrorists attacks on its territory. In the case of Iraq, the American invasion was based on an unending series of misstatements, lies, and cherry-picking of the intelligence. Still, there are indications that it will not remain in those countries for long.

East Asian nations have no idea about the real purpose underlying China’s military modernization and the blue water capabilities of its navy. They know that it will not create an alliance system emulating the Warsaw Pact. They also know that the era of implementing another Brezhnev Doctrine – whereby the Warsaw Pact countries were neither allowed to abandon that alliance during the Cold War years, nor did they have any option to leave the Socialist camp – has gone forever. Still, they want to know how benign a superpower China is likely to be in the coming years. This is a very important issue, because it will determine whether China’s superpowerdom would be welcomed by its East Asian neighbors, or would at some point be “ganged up” on in order to bring an end to its hegemony and, indeed, its superpowerdom.

In this brief conceptual exercise, the primacy and durability of economic power emerges as probably the most crucial precondition for a country’s emergence as a superpower. Needless to say, the term “economic power” is an umbrella phrase that also includes excellence in education, primacy of technological research and development, topnotch civilian infrastructural development, good governance, and transparency in trade, to mention just a few other characteristics. Of these traits, China’s record regarding transparency is shabby. If good governance were to mean responsiveness to its citizens’ needs and demands, the government in Beijing is highly sensitive. However, that sensitiveness revolves around keeping citizen dissatisfaction and dissent at manageable levels. From the perspective of Democratic theory, that type of governmental performance is far from satisfactory. But then, China is not a democracy.

Second, the exercise of creating numerous spheres of influence in different regions of the globe emerges as the next most critical precondition because, by playing a visible role in creating such arrangements, an emerging superpower enhances its international prestige and clout. Moreover, such institutions and regimes are vital for implementing the kind of trade and other important policies that a superpower wishes to establish.
The third significant precondition is the willingness of a superpower to follow the American model of hegemony, which covets no country’s territory or threatens its sovereignty. That is a very important ingredient of creating viable regional as well global alliances.

As the old saying goes, “No one can argue with success.” It seems that the United States has proven itself to be the most successful and equally resilient superpower. The next superpower – even if America were not to lose its superpowerdom – will have little choice but to by-and-large emulate the American blueprint. If that is true, then the greatest challenge that China will face as a superpower is to persuade its weaker and smaller neighbors in East Asia that its continuing rise will be nothing but peaceful. That persuasion would require the PRC to create unending streams of policies and international regimes and institutions that would palpably lower, if not totally eliminate, any apprehensions on the part of smaller nations related to its rise.

1. Leonid Brezhnev spelled out this doctrine following the crushing of the “Prague Spring” of 1968 as follows: “…each Communist party is responsible not only to its own people, but also to all the socialist countries, to the entire Communist movement. Whoever forgets this, in stressing only the independence of the Communist party, becomes one-sided. He deviates from his international duty…Discharging their internationalist duty toward the fraternal peoples of Czechoslovakia and defending their own socialist gains, the U.S.S.R. and the other socialist states had to act decisively and they did act against the antisocialist forces in Czechoslovakia.”

http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/glossary/g/glbrezhnevdoct.htm

The mounting protest against the Islamic Republic in Iran is in the process of becoming a social movement. Sidney Tarrow, a specialist on the subject, defines a social movement as collective challenges (to elites and authorities) by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interactions with elites, opponents, and authorities. He specifically distinguishes social movements from political parties and interest groups; and that is an important distinction. Social movements in the context of this essay are not known for bringing about incremental political changes in the existing political system. More often than not, they result in radical changes leading to regime change. If the Iranian government is facing a rising tide of social movement, then that can be the best news for the United States, which has always despised the Islamic Republic for humiliating it through the “Iranian hostage crisis” in 1979. The ties between these two countries have remained tense since then. Iran, under the Ayatollahs, has consistently and virulently opposed the U.S. hegemony of its region. It has viewed that strategic affair as threatening to its stability and, indeed, to its very survival. The most recent cause of conflict between the two antagonistic countries is Iran’s nuclear research program. A regime change brought about through a social movement might also be the best news for Israel, who wishes to maintain its own nuclear monopoly, which has remained an ignored reality. However, that reality has created an ostensibly permanent military asymmetry between the states of that region and Israel. The Arab states have remained silently resentful of it. Iran, on the contrary, has decided to challenge it by staring its own nuclear research program.

It takes awhile for social movements to build momentum. However, once that momentum is built, there is no stopping them. Their strength stems from the fact that the disparate groups who have nothing in common but opposition to the existing regime, pitch in to build the strength of such movements. However, once they achieve their aim by overthrowing the existing regime, they turn against each other, thereby creating the aforementioned violence, instability, and mayhem. Political changes brought about as a result of a social movement are of a radical nature. As such, they result in a period of instability, which may last from a few months to a few years.

The Iranian revolution of 1978-1979 was the outcome of a social movement, which as a general principle, was opposed to monarchy. Ayatollah Khomeini became a leading voice of that revolution, especially during the last two-to-three years of the Shah’s rule. As that movement was developing, there was certainty that the revolution would result in the establishment of an Islamic government. When the revolution swept through Iran, the monarchy was thrown into the dustbin of history. But it was only fortuitously that the Islamic forces gained an upper hand in that social movement. That is also another idiosyncratic effect of a social movement: the ultimate outcome might not have been a planned or an anticipated one.

Since the regime of Mohammad Reza was acutely pro-Western and was accused of neglecting the Islamic heritage of Iran, the religious forces, as a vanguard of the social movement, decided to transform the country into an Islamic Republic. There is no conclusive evidence that emergence of a theocratic regime was what the majority of those who shed their blood in Iran really wanted. However, once the Islamic Republic emerged, it was hoped that some sort of moderation would eventually surface, whereby Iran would emerge as a country where there would be a reasonable balance between the forces of moderation, modernization, and Islamic identity. Alternatively, it was hoped that, once the dust of the revolutionary turbulence settled, Iran would become a democracy. There was every reason to believe that democracy—even some sort of Islamic democracy—would come to Iran. The Shia clergy, unlike their Sunni counterparts, always maintained a social distance with the powers-that-be of Iran. In that capacity, they sustained their role as an anti-regime force. The powerful tradition of quietism– whereby the religious establishment was not supposed to be part of the governance, only its silent critics—was the intellectual and theological basis for that. However, when the principle of the Vilayat-e-Faqih (rule of the cleric) took roots in Iran, all hopes of moderation and democracy dissipated.

The leaders of Islamic Republic never opted for moderation. The notion of the Vilayat-e-Faqih was more suited to the personality of the late Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, who never really manifested moderation in his thinking. Still, the notion of Vilayat itself was revolutionary for three additional reasons. First, it rejected the conventional notion of quietism among the Shia clerics. That very fact created a permanent schism within the ranks of the grand Ayatollahs or Iran and Iraq. Second, given the revolutionary aura of Khomeini, his successors were not going to enjoy the kind of legitimacy that he himself enjoyed. The chief strength of Khomeini was that he provided a kind of charismatic leadership whose basis was both religious and revolutionary. Even a grand Ayatollah or a marja-e-taqleed—which is the highest religious title assigned to a Shia cleric—could not have been as well-versed in leading a revolutionary movement as Khomeini proved himself to be when he entered triumphantly in the streets of Tehran in 1979.

His successor, Ali Khameini, was not only a religious lightweight, when compared to Khomeini, but he could never prove himself to be a deft political leader of any substance. That very fact necessitated that he disallow the forces of moderation and reform to gain an upper-hand. The hardline Islamic rule became the order of the day and the Islamic revolution continued to lose its legitimacy. Third, as the Iranian population grew younger, the revolution itself continued to grow older, archaic and outdated, not just in the fact that its leaders had gotten old, but also because their thinking about governance in an increasingly globalized world had also became similarly obsolete. In that capacity, the only way that the leaders of the Iranian government knew to respond was through increased control, and by brutally trampling on the aspirations of the young Iranian to be governed by a legitimate government. That need, while it is being suppressed by the paramilitary Basij and the Revolutionary Guards, is evolving steadily into a social movement, which promises not only to overthrow the hardline rulers of Iran, but it also threatens the very continuance of the Islamic form of government in that country. As the protest movement is being suppressed, the brutality of the suppression itself is very much a reminder of the days of the Mohammad Reza’s rule. What is even more remarkable is that Khameini and his ilk are demonstrating a collective sense of dementia. They had forgotten how the quickly the powerful the regime of Mohammad Reza collapsed under the mounting pressure of the forces of the Islamic revolution.

The Iranian social movement is operating in an era when the flow of information is unstoppable. Even the communist rulers of China are finding out the hard way that the “great firewall” of China cannot stop the spread of information and the yearning of the masses to be free sooner or later. If anything, the worldwide coverage given to the brutality committed against the forces of freedom in Iran is only further rejuvenating those forces. YouTube website and Twitter messages are working in full force, spreading the potent images of the craving for freedom. Millions of people all over the world saw the murder of Nida Soltan, a young Iranian female, at the hand of a security person. No other evidence was damning enough to make a case of what the Iranian protestors are facing in that country. Her face has become as powerful a symbol of the Iranian social movement just as the image of the lone hooded prisoner became an emblem of the brutal face of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

There appears to be a contest between the tyrannical forces of the regime to brutalize the protestors and the resolve of the latter to absorb pain, yet come back with even more force to overthrow the regime, while spreading the pictures of brutality to all corners of the world. The information revolution was in the days of its infancy helped the explosion related to the Khomeini revolution in the 1970s, when his sermons and calls for overthrowing “America’s Shah” was heard by everyone who yearned for freedom even in the remote regions of Iran. Now the shoe is on the other foot as when the same information revolution in its primacy is transmitting pictures of the brutality of Islamic regime via cell phones and YouTube to far off corners of the world.

How secure is the regime?

The uppermost question now is how secure is the Islamic regime in Iran. While its downfall does not seem imminent, even that indication should not be a source of comfort for the Supreme Leader Khameini and his ilk. The upcoming month of February might be of significant import for the government as well as for the protestors. The government forces are likely to use it to do their utmost to reestablish the legitimacy of the Revolution, as they did by orchestrating pro-government demonstration during Ashura observance. The protestors are likely to use the February occasion to make a case that the Revolution was hijacked by the Khameini, Ahmadinejad and their paramilitary thugs, who are solely concerned about regime survival and without any regard to the Iranian populace.

The language of the protest movement—the constant chants of “death to dictators” and even damaging the posters bearing the image of Khomeini—is already becoming dangerously anti-Islamic Republic in nature. Still, its chief weakness stems from the fact that it has not yet found an alternate leader. There is no other Khomeini to lead the masses. The late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri was perceived as such a force. However, even while alive, he was too old and frail to lead another revolutionary movement. Mir Hussein Moussavi has been too tainted for his past ties with the Islamic Republic. Besides, he has not shown the kind of risk-taking that made Khomeini such an ominous force in the eyes of the pro-monarchy forces as far back as in the early 1960s. Besides, Moussavi, like the former president Ali Khatami, wants continuity of the Islamic Republic, but with a change in leadership. The social movement might no longer be willing to be satisfied with that kind of a change.

However, the Iranian political milieu is much too fertile to allow a leadership gap for too long. Another leader of the charisma of Khomeini, but one who is armed with radically different ideas, has to emerge soon enough. Otherwise, the social movement will lose its revolutionary spirit. That is how social movements—i.e., those who carry the flames of revolutionary change—operate.

Is there a foreign hand in the internal turbulence in Iran?

As much as the Middle East is famous for its conspiracy theories, one has to wonder whether the United States or other foreign powers are indeed involved in the current protest movement. If history teaches us anything about America’s involvement in that country, one cannot cavalierly or categorically dismiss the possibility of America’s non-involvement in fomenting Iran’s social movement. After all, the democratically elected government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq was overthrown by a combined operation carried out by the CIA and the British spy service in 1953.

Extrapolating that tradition to contemporary politics, the United States has a lot of reasons to see the demise of the Iranian government. Iran is the only remaining “confrontational” country of the Middle East. In that capacity, it has constantly challenged the strategic dominance of the United States and its proxy, Israel. It has never accepted the proposition that the Arab-Israeli conflict can be resolved peacefully. Iran has backed up its confrontational stance against the U.S. and Israel by regularly supporting the Hamas position of “no negotiations.” In Lebanon, Iran has played a crucial role in thwarting the hegemonic designs of the Menachem Begin-Ariel Sharon axis in the 1980s by creating the Hezbollah as a paramilitary force. That party played a crucial role in the Israeli decision to finally pull out of Lebanon in 2000. That very same Hezbollah has enjoyed a new prestige in the Arab world by challenging Israel in July-August war of 2006 and surviving the intense Israeli air campaign that was aimed at destroying it. Consequently, the political clout of Hezbollah and Iran skyrocketed in the Middle East.

Iran has also played a crucial role in destabilizing Iraq between 2004 and 2008 in order to make sure that the U.S. forces do not decide to stay in that country permanently. Even as Iraq is experiencing political stability in 2010, Iran’s clout in Iraq has remained high, something that is the least welcomed reality for the U.S. occupation authorities.

In addition, by refusing to give up its nuclear research program, the Iranian government has given all the reasons for the United States to think that it aims to develop nuclear weapons. While insisting that it has no intention of developing nuclear weapons, Iran has manifested an attitude of least flexibility. However, neither U.S. nor Israel believes the Iranian assurances.

The United States, on its part, has also maintained a sustained posture of confrontation and vitriolic rhetoric of condemnation of Iran. As far back as during the Iran-Iraq war, the Reagan administration blatantly sided with the regime of Saddam Hussein. The operating rationale for such an approach was Iraq was perceived as a “lesser of the two evils.” Thus, it was the policy of the U.S. government to do all it could to ensure the defeat of Iran in that war, hoping that such a defeat would bring about an end to the Islamic Republic. When that did not happen, the United States remained a leading force of imposing economic sanctions on Iran hoping, once again, that the long-term effects of those sanctions would lead to regime change.

In view of the preceding, it is very hard to accept that the U.S. government may be a totally uninterested or an uninvolved party in the current Iranian political instability. Viewing strictly as an option, it behooves Washington that the current Iranian government is overthrown. That would remove a major thorn from the side of the lone superpower. It would also resolve the issue of Iranian commitment to nuclear research program without a military action. More to the point, Washington can live with the instability stemming in Iran stemming from the overthrow of the government through the apparent activities of a social movement than through a military action taken by a foreign power. The clandestine involvement of the U.S. or any other government can be talked about, but, as long as it cannot be proven, it is not likely to harm the U.S. interests in the Middle East, or so calculate the powers-that-be in Washington.

A potential overthrowing of the Islamic government in Iran provides no guarantee that the succeeding government will be pro-American. America’s prestige in the Middle East has remained all time low in the aftermath of its invasion and occupation of Iraq. Even the most pro-American governments of the Persian Gulf prefer not to show their support of the lone superpower either volubly or frequently. It is bad for the regime stability to be seen as a staunch supporter of the United States in the Persian Gulf region at a time when even the Saudi government is beginning to feel the rising flames ignited by the pro-al-Qaida forces in the neighboring Yemen. The speculations regarding a potential Iranian involvement in Yemen (in support of the Shia forces that are fighting the Saudis) abound. If that is true, then Iran might have found another way to sustain an upper hand over the alleged or potential American shenanigans related to support the social movement to bring about regime change in that country.

What happens if the regime falls?

The best answer to this question can be provided by examining the geographical environment of Iran. Pakistan, Afghanistan—Iran two neighbors—are already places where the Islamist forces are confronting the existing governments and the United States. Consequently, these neighbors of Iran are experiencing different degrees of instability. Two of these—Afghanistan to the East of Iran and Iraq to its West—are also occupied by the United States. That very fact continues to fuel the activities of al-Qaida and its cohorts. Across the Persian Gulf Iran is the Arabian Peninsula where al-Qaida is gathering strength in Yemen. The Islamist insurgency has already spilled over in neighboring Saudi Arabia, where Saudi Arabia, where its forces have intensified the conflict by conducting a number of bombing raids in northern Yemen, areas that is contiguous to Saudi Arabia. The southern part of Yemen is facing the secessionist forces.

Across the Gulf of Aden is the highly unstable Horn of Africa, where Somalia has emerged as the “poster child” of a failed state. Two western neighbors of Somalia, Ethiopia and Eretria, are well on their way of becoming failed states.

Given this gloomy, but a realistic description of Iran’s immediate geographical environment, the last thing the international community wishes to see is the downfall of Iranian government. However, the Middle East is famous (or infamous) for surprising the predictions and expectations of even those who reside in the region. So, one should not be surprised if the government in Iran falls. If that were to happen, the only winner will be al-Qaida and its supporters who have an established record of demonstrating their effectiveness for violence and mayhem under political turbulence and chaos.

What can the regime do to survive?

An obvious answer to this question is that the regime should think about compromising with Moussavi. However, that compromise can only be meaningful if the results of the June 2009 elections are nullified. No one expects that to happen. Besides, Iran is also known for one more brutal tradition: if an existing regime starts to offer concessions to the forces of change, that measure is seen by the opposition as a sign of weakness and a perfect opportunity to ratchet up violence and turbulence with a view to ousting the regime. That was precisely what happened to the regime of Mohammad Reza in the last few months it was in power. Given that reality, the Ali Khameini is not likely to offer any concessions along the lines suggested above. Another option for it to sit tight and show some willingness for reform on its own and hope that such a measure would not create a tsunami for regime change. In fact, Iran seems to have already adopted that option.

In the meantime, the United States and its Western allies would continue to increase pressure on Iran by slapping harsh economic sanctions. Iran’s best hope is that Russia and/or China would come to its rescue. That is a possibility; however, those two countries are also busy studying the situation and calculating how far they should go in supporting Iran’s intransigence related to the conflict with the United States involving its nuclear research program.

By conducting a fraudulent election, the current government in Iran has dealt a very severe blow to its own already shaky legitimacy. If it were to plummet—even with alleged support for the social movement from abroad—it, first and foremost, should blame itself. After all, it has been doing everything to make itself vulnerable to foreign shenanigans and plots for its overthrow.

1. Sidney Tarrow,

Power in Movement: Social Movement, Collective Action, and Politics

, (Cambridge University Press, 1998)
2. James A. Bill,

The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations

(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988)
3. Vali Nasr,

The Shia Revival:
How Conflicts within Islam will Shape the Future

The real test of President Barack Obama’s dealing with China and Russia will be whether he can persuade them to support U.S. pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear weapons aspirations. Obama is reported to have lobbied China on that issue during his recent visit. He also broached the topic with Russia in the recent past for the same purpose, but with little success. Iran denies wanting to join the nuclear club, but Washington has no faith in those denials.

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.

The United States, as a quid pro quo, would like Russia’s consent for imposing harsh sanctions against Iran in the wake of its non-compliance with the IAEA’s demands for inspections and increased transparency.  There is no clear picture yet that the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev would go along with the U.S. expectations about Russia’s foregoing the use of the veto if the United States pushes a harsh sanction through the U.N. Security Council.  Russia also has the twin leadership of Medvedev and Premier Vladimir Putin.  The latter is almost gleeful about making things harder for the U.S. by not agreeing to have any strict sanctions on Iran for non-compliance.

Then there is the People’s Republic of China (PRC), another actor that maintains strong ties with Iran, and a country that has also been— besides Russia—helping Iran in nuclear and missile technology.  There is no indication that China would agree to American proposals of making it hard for Iran’s non-compliance even if Russia were to support that measure.

Why did the United States, the U.K., and France decide to raise the decibel level of their criticism of Iran at this point?  The first reason is because of the latest U.S. intelligence disclosure that Iran is secretly developing uranium enrichment facilities at Qom, in addition to the previously known facility at Natanz.  It is also understood that the new facility will be used to develop weapons-grade uranium.  Iran publicly admitted the existence of the facility near Qom, but only after finding out that the United States had known about it and was about to publicize it. 

Secondly, the Perm-5 of the U.N. plus Germany are about to start negotiations with Iran.  By dramatizing Iran’s alleged intentions to develop nuclear weapons, especially when the Russian and Chinese leaders were also present during the G-20 summit, the Western leaders choreographed their statements—along with somber faces while making their respective announcements—to escalate pressure on Iran and its two major supporters—Russia and China.

In response, China remained unfazed and neutral, while Medvedev sounded only a bit obliging, when he asked Iran to be forthcoming in the upcoming rounds of negotiations.

The most important missing variable in this convoluted narrative is that there has not been a change of posturing between the United States and Iran, even after the election of Obama.  Only the U.S. rhetoric regarding Iran has mellowed a bit.  Another important development is that, due to allegations of fraud in the recently-held presidential election in Iran, the United States felt obligated to issue statements critical of Iran—though they were mild in rhetoric compared to the ones used by Obama’s predecessor regarding Iran.

Consequently, as much as the Iranian government has been facing internal protests related to the election, it found no reason to be cooperative with the United States.  The best thing going for Iran is that the United States and the U.K. had a shameful history of destabilizing an elected government in Iran in 1953. 

So every time the United States criticizes Iran for not conducting fair elections, the hardliners blow off that disparagement merely as the 21^st Century version of meddling in Iran’s internal affairs.

All of this antagonism on both sides—Iran as well as the West—minimizes the chances of a significant breakthrough when Iran sits down at the negotiating table with the representatives of the Perm-5+1.  Such a reality suits Iran just fine, because it is not really interested in giving up its nuclear program.

Under these circumstances, the United States might be faced with giving a serious look at the military option.  The hardliners in Iran would welcome it.  If the U.S. or Israel were to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, both Afghanistan and Iraq would turn into hellish places for Western troops.  Iran would do all it could to promote such a scenario.  Iran knows well how unpopular “Obama’s war” in Afghanistan really is inside the United States.  The more pressure the lone superpower comes under with the prospects of increased violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the more welcome news that would be for Iran’s current rulers.

As President Obama acquires more experience in the White House, he will realize that there are no easy options for the United States when dealing with the Middle East, only more bloody or less bloody ones.

The administration of President Barack H. Obama has started the highly intricate process of developing its own strategy with a bang in different regions of the world.  Here are the ingredients of that strategy: multilateralism, looking for a fresh start—which promises to be substantially different from the preceding administration—search for common ground involving Russia, invitation of negotiations with America’s traditional adversaries like Iran and North Korea, and at least the initial hope that approaches toward Palestine, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are likely to be radically different than the one the Bush administration pursued unsuccessfully.  This is a huge agenda.  But Obama’s administration has the enormous characteristic of freshness, metaphorically as well as substantively, in the sense that it is not carrying any baggage that had so infamously bogged down George W. Bush in an ostensibly endless inertia.

President Obama has insisted in talking to everyone, especially to America’s traditional adversaries.  Talking is better than not talking, he uncomplicatedly observed during the presidential campaign.  America’s strict observance of this principle promises to open a lot of doors.  It will also lower the feeling of fear and paranoia on the part of Iran and North Korea, who were simplistically and wrongly depicted by the Bush administration as members of an imaginary “axis of evil.”

Multilateralism has served America’s interest in its entire post-World War II history.  The United States led the Herculean task of rebuilding global economic institutions and regimes like the United Nations, the Bretton Woods Agreement, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.  America had the required economic prowess while other global actors—the Soviet Union, the U.K. and France—were simply exhausted with their economies devastated by the ravages of war.  But it was the frame of mind and global vision of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt more than America’s economic power that enabled the United States to become the leader of the so-called “free world,” a position it has never really relinquished, even today.

America’s leadership position was seriously—and hopefully not permanently—damaged in the post-9/11 era, when unilateralism and the hubris of the Bush administration acted like termites,  voraciously eating up most of the goodwill that the United states had created all over the world.

Obama is off to a good start.  He already has spoken to the world of Islam, stating that America will deal with it respectfully and on the basis of pragmatism; he has invited Iran to unclench its fist and initiate an era of negotiations on the basis of mutual respect; and he has appointed George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke as special envoys for Middle East and South Asia, respectively.  He has sent his Vice President, Joe Biden, to talk to the Europeans and to the Russians. 

Cumulatively speaking, this is a radical departure from the Bush administration.   Now, an intricate series of negotiations must start.  What the Obama administration must keep in mind is the fact that although it is approaching a number of actors with an open mind and unclenched fist, it may not get an immediate enthusiastic response or positive results.

In the case of Russia, the United States is faced with a country that has decided to become significant by taking the wrong route of unilateralism and hubris, which were hallmarks of the Communist superpower.  Russia cannot assert itself in that manner toward its neighbors, who have the bitter experience of being the captives of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) throughout the Cold War years, and then wonder why they so eagerly seek the shield of NATO.  Russia’s neighbors are watching warily, and with dismay, the incessant de-democratization of that country.   They do not know what to make of Russia’s energy-related assertiveness, which has taken the form of neo-mercantilism.  They watched in horror Russia’s clear over-reaction to the stupid decision of Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia to confront it militarily.

While Vice President Joe Biden is suggesting that the United States wants to “press the reset button” of ties with Moscow, Russia was busy working up a deal with Kyrgyzstan, whereby its President, Kurmanbek Bakiev, invited the United States to get out of the Manas air base, a development that will complicate America’s logistical problems of keeping the supply lines open to its forces in Afghanistan.  However, the stateship of Russia also works like an aircraft carrier: it changes its direction rather slowly.  Thus, it will be awhile before positive responses to the U.S. overtures might emerge.  While it does not pay to be overly pessimistic about Russia’s response, one does not have to hold ones breath for a long time to envisage such a development.  The signals regarding Russia’s willingness to cooperate, or not, will come soon enough.

The U.S.-Iran ties have mammoth complications of their own.  The first hurdle is the bad blood related to America’s support for Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi from 1953 through 1978.  That era has the same legacy of shame and bitterness for Iran as China’s memories related to the “decades of humiliations” at the hands of the West and Japan.  At the same time, the United States has not forgotten the ignominy it had suffered during the “hostage crisis” of the late 1970s.  That crisis also played a dominant role in making Jimmy Carter a one-term President. 

The second hurdle is America’s Iran-Libya Sanction Legislation, which Iran envisions (quite correctly) as aimed at bringing about “regime change.”  All such legislation has to be categorically nullified before any serious negotiations take place between Washington and Tehran.  The United States has to accept the legitimacy of the Iranian government if it wishes to give real meaning to negotiating with it from the position of “mutual respect.”

The third hurdle is Iran’s nuclear research program, which the United States regards as aimed at developing nuclear weapons.  While it is hard to categorize America’s concerns as baseless, one must also fully understand Iran’s security concerns.  Iran has the same sense of insecurity that drove India to seek nuclear weapons.  At least India had the tacit support of, and some semblance of security guarantees from, the FSU while it was around.  Iran had no such support or guarantees from any major power.  What country would come to its assistance if the United States were to decide to bring about regime change in Iran?  What great power came to Iraq’s rescue when Iraq was similarly threatened by the Bush administration?  Could Iraq have gone through the bloody process of regime change if it had had nuclear weapons?  These questions are uppermost in the minds of the Ayatollahs, who are cavalierly and regularly demonized in America’s press and academic journals.

The negotiations between the United States and Iran have to seriously address Iran’s security concerns.  Given the nature of hostile attitudes that have prevailed between the two actors, it is hard to imagine a scenario when the lone superpower can believably guarantee Iran’s security and foreswear all actions aimed at regime change.  Even some European countries’ attempts to give verbal security guarantees to Iran will not do.  Thus, the nuclear issue remains a very obdurate problem between the two.  The Obama administration must summon all its creativity to resolve this aspect of U.S.-Iran conflict before any semblance of “normalcy” is restored between the two.

If one were to believe North Korea, it is already a nuclear power.  It has had a legacy of confronting a number of U.S. presidents who have threatened it with the use of nuclear weapons.  About the only realistic possibility under which Pyongyang might unravel its nuclear weapons is if it is protected under the nuclear umbrella of the People’s Republic of China.  That angle has not been pursued either by the U.S., the Chinese, or the North Koreans, at least in their unclassified diplomatic meetings.  In the absence of a nuclear umbrella, it is well-nigh impossible to imagine a circumstance under which Kim Jong Il would give up his nuclear weapons.   It might not be a bad idea for the Obama administration to consider pursuing that angle in future negotiations with the North Koreans and the Chinese.

The Palestinian-Israeli issue is a hostage to the upcoming Israeli elections.  If Benjamin Netanyahu is elected, then all bets are off about any resolution that is acceptable to the Likud and Hamas.  These two parties are equally fundamentalist and bull-headed about pursuing their respective version of the solution.  George Mitchell is likely to forget how complicated the Irish conflict was while he will tries to find common ground between the inflexible positions of Hamas and Likud.  On this issue, the U.S. strategy is likely to face frequent impasses. 

Regarding Pakistan and Afghanistan, the challenge for the Obama administration is no less daunting than the preceding issues.  Those two countries are places where al-Qaida has emerged as a major force.  The question is how to deal with the rising tide of religious extremism and problems of failing and weak governments.  President Obama wrongly considers that the immediate solution is in increasing the number of troops, since that approach supposedly helped lower the spiral of violence in stabilizing Iraq.  The fact is that it is much more complicated than that.  It was the fortuitous confluence of the decision of the “Sons of Iraq” to cooperate with the U.S. military against al-Qaida, along with the U.S. military’s decision not only to strengthen its number, but also to implement the “clear, hold, and build” strategy that helped stabilize Iraq.  The question is whether the Obama administration has correctly understood what actually transpired in Iraq, or is it merely repeating the process of raising the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan as a panacea for stabilizing that country.  The burden of evidence thus far is that it has not understood the intricacies of Afghanistan and is about to commit itself with the wrong-minded approach of using the military tool of America’s national power to resolve an enormously complicated situation.

Pakistan is a larger challenge than Afghanistan, in the sense that it not only negatively affects the stability of Afghanistan but also similarly affects the internal stability of India.  The Mumbai terrorist attacks have proven that fact.  The most ignored—and an extremely important—fact of South Asia is that neither India nor Afghanistan will be stable or peaceful places as long as highly visible measures are taken to soothe the security-related concerns of Pakistan involving India.  An important aspect of that concern is the lowering of India’s presence in Afghanistan, which Pakistan (rightly or wrongly) perceives as foreboding to its own security.  The Bush administration ignored that fact; and the Obama administration will ignore it at the risk of damaging its own interests in South Asia.

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President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have emphasized America’s resolve to use pragmatism, cordiality, realism, and firmness in its foreign policy toward the troubled regions of the world and about soothing the security-related concerns of America’s friends and especially its competitors and adversaries.  The coming months will be crucial to test their authenticity of purpose.

President Obama has already captured the world’s attention for his youthful pragmatism, his attention to detail, his fervor to take on highly intricate conflicts, and his zeal to resolve them.  One only has to recall how the world leaders were eagerly positioning themselves to be close to him during the photo-op of the G-20.  President Obama, while enjoying his moments of popularity, appeared cheerfully gracious and humble.

The Western pundits are making too much of the fact that, despite his star-like popularity, Obama did not get much from the world leaders in the form of concessions. Such criticism minimizes the fact that only the interests of nations determine whether or how its leaders will cooperate or not cooperate with their counterparts.  However, in the final analysis, the kind of mutual affinity these leaders were developing toward each other during the G-20 Summit would only maximize the chances for cooperation and the search for common ground on issues of enormous intricacy.

Obama definitely created a positive impression on President Hu Jintao of China, Dr. Manmohan Singh of India (who requested an autographed picture of the President for his daughter), and a slew of other world leaders.  The initiation of the U.S.-China strategic dialogue was a momentous decision both for China and for the U.S.  It was important for China to be recognized by the lone superpower as a fledgling superpower not out of sheer good-will, but because of the fact that China will have a large say in the modalities of future solutions to pull the world out of its global economic meltdown.

European leaders who were watching that development were figuring out, in their own collective minds, the implications of the U.S.-China strategic dialogue for the EU, which until now has been regarded as a mega entity that will co-facilitate, with the U.S., the managing of global economic and trade order.  

Aside from China, the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) were also jockeying for their own advantage with a U.S. President who was not hamstrung by the psychological baggage that most (if not all) of his predecessors carried as “builders” and “managers” of a global order.  

The G-20 was the beginning of an era when brown and black leaders will take charge of creating and recreating the destinies of their nations and the white leaders would only share that process with them.   Thus, that Summit will be remembered, not for failing to pass high-minded resolutions which are usually ignored anyway, but for creating the precedence of leveling the global economic playing field and for creating precious moments from whence a new hierarchy of global order will emerge to make the world a more governable place.  President Obama’s frame of reference played a major role in it by accepting peer competitors (China, India, and Russia) as such, and still by remaining resolute about developing multilateral solutions to the problems of the globalized world.

President Obama’s decision to approach Iran with an “unclenched fist” was a major change.  Even if Iran were not to show major signs for imminent compromise—which it may not because it is genuinely concerned for its security—it definitely sees America in a far better light than it did when Bush appeared to “concoct” plans for attacks on Iran.

Opening toward Cuba is another radical change.  Then, President Obama shook hands during the recent Summit of the Americas with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a man who envisions himself as Castro of the 21^st Century.  However, when Castro is made irrelevant—not by illness but by the antiquated nature of his ideas—Obama is clearly signaling the Cuban and Venezuelan governments to change their ways and to join the quest for economic productivity that is on in all corners of the world.  By shaking hands with Chavez, Obama has signaled, “let’s not quibble over the ‘injustices’ of the past, and let’s break new paths of progress, productivity, and prosperity for our respective peoples.”  At the same time, Chavez is increasingly hearing the chant from the protestors:  Chavez no se va (“Chavez is going nowhere”).

It is only in Afghanistan that Obama will have to be very careful about not personalizing that war, as his predecessor did in the case of the war in Iraq.  Afghanistan and Iraq are two places where Obama might come face to face with his Waterloo, if he is not careful.  His PakAf approach is a good one, but it has to rely less on using the military tool of national power and more on nation-building.  Pakistan and Afghanistan are two ticking time bombs.  Defusing them will take enormous amounts of skill and a high degree of pragmatism.  There are no military solutions for those two countries.  The tide of Islamism has to be lowered by indigenous leaders, not by American or Western ones.  Thus far, there has not been a credible solution to Islamic radicalism from within the world of Islam.  Unless that happens, the U.S. or the West certainly cannot impose one.  In the meantime, President Obama has started the process of a “dialogue” with the world of Islam.  That, indeed, is a good start.  Results are slow in coming.  But they are most likely to be positive ones.

The global economic meltdown has only intensified talk of the U.S. decline as the lone superpower—the chief player in the world’s military and economic affairs and the presiding actor in the unipolar global power arrangement.  There might be more than a fair chance that the United States will at least safeguard most of its prestige and clout in the coming years.  But there is little doubt that China will emerge, perhaps in the next ten to fifteen years, as the rough equivalent of the United States.

China surprised the global soothsayers by escalating its status as the world’s third largest economy.  Germany became number four, while Japan still remains number two. 

Considering the fact that the Japanese economy has long been in a state of slump, China is likely to become the number two economic power within a matter of five or more years.  When that happens, it will, indeed, be one of the earth-shattering events of our time.

During the G-20 meeting, the United States agreed to establish a strategic dialogue with the PRC.  That is a major breakthrough.  The history of strategic dialogues involving the United States and another major power, led to the increase in the regional and global power of that other actor.  That was what happened to India, starting 1998.  Today, the U.S.-India strategic partnership is the reason why India could sign a nuclear deal with the lone superpower as a result of which it is guaranteed access to cutting-edge military and civilian technology.

But China still has to convince the United States that the real purpose of its emergence as a world power is nothing but peaceful.  Considering the enormous economic advantage that China enjoys while the global economy suffers from recession, it might be able to persuade the United States after all.  It already has made significant strides toward that reality.  It has agreed to increase its contributions to the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), with the promise of increased clout, of course.  It will not insist, for now, that the U.S. dollar be replaced by another global currency.  The reason for that is more technical than political.  Any arrangement of that magnitude has to be agreed upon my major powers.  Especially now that the world economy is topsy-turvy, the prospect of replacing the dollar by some other currency is not high.  However, China now has ample clout to keep that dialogue alive, or not press for it, if the price of its entry into the echelon of top global powers is right.

There are some other heady issues on which the United States and the PRC must find common ground.  The first one is the purpose of China’s military modernization.  The Pentagon keeps issuing papers, year after year, consistently raising doubts that China’s rise is likely to be peaceful.  Every new edition of that publication keeps updating the number of ballistic missiles that the PRC has been stationing across the Taiwan Strait, and the fact that China remains opaque about the size of its defense expenditures.

The question now is whether the goodwill stemming from its accession into the ranks of the leading nation-states in the G-20 meeting will lower the U.S. rhetoric of concern and criticism related to China’s military modernization.  The answer to that question has to wait for another year or more.  China’s continued enthusiasm in helping the U.S. in the Six-Party Talks is definitely making a case for China’s peaceful intent.  But its refusal to rule out the use of power to bring about reunification with Taiwan is not.

The second critical issue is whether the United States and China will cooperate in their continuing global race for secure energy sources.  Washington has been accusing the PRC of neo-mercantilism on this issue.  China is driven by the ever-escalating need of its factories and populace.  In this race, China has not paid much attention to the politics of dealing with such states as Iran and the Sudan.  In the coming years, it is likely to continue its trade deals with those two countries.  Besides, considering how directly related the security of energy sources are to a country’s military prowess, China is not likely to let up on its activities merely to soften America’s criticism of its quest for energy.

The Sino-American global agenda has issues of conflict as well as cooperation.  Under the administration of President Barack Obama, the chances of bilateral cooperation between Washington and Beijing are bright.  The United States seems to be ready to accept China’s accession to superpowerdom.  Now, China must demonstrate to the U.S. and other countries that the underlying intent of its accession to global power is nothing but peaceful. 

So, the question is where is the threat to the U.S. security coming from?  There is no more USSR, no more Cold War, and no more “peer competitors.”  There is only one country that even comes close to being called a peer competitor, save the People’s Republic of China.  Even that country is not interested in militarily challenging the lone superpower.

Nuclear deterrence—the doctrine that stated that only a potential use of nuclear weapons would deter both the US and the USSR against attacking each other during the Cold War years—is not relevant anymore.  The USSR has imploded and its chief successor, Russia, is not a threat of any significance to the United States.  Under these circumstances, the lone superpower is using nuclear deterrence merely as a symbol of its awesome power.  There is no country left that could challenge it by using conventional power.  And the use of nuclear power against the United States by any nation-state will surely result in massive retaliation, which no nation-state wishes to experience.

However, for countries like North Korea and Iran, the concept of nuclear deterrence carries the same meaning as it did to deter the two superpowers during the Cold War years.  Both Pyongyang and Tehran feel that if they acquire it by developing nuclear weapons of their own, their regime survival is guaranteed.  They have seen what the United States did to Iraq under Saddam Hussein, knowing full well that it had no nuclear weapons.

Consequently, Pyongyang has already become a country with nuclear weapons.  A general understanding is that it possesses somewhere between 6-10 nuclear weapons.  Thus, the United States has proven the truth underlying the doctrine of nuclear deterrence: a nuclear-armed nation-state is not likely to be attacked even by the lone superpower.

Iran, on the contrary, falls into a different category.  It has not yet developed nuclear weapons of its own, but seems to be heading in that direction, its denials to the contrary notwithstanding.  Iran seems to be operating on the same unstated premise that its regime survival will only be guaranteed if it acquires nuclear weapons.

For Iran, the fear of American intention to bring about regime change is not the result of any paranoia.  It had experienced it in 1953, when the United States and the U.K. cooperated to overthrow a constitutionally elected government of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq.  When the presidential election of June 2009 came under global scrutiny and controversy, the top leaders of Iran reacted harshly to protestors.  The fact that the CIA and British Intelligence spent a lot of money organizing street protests in 1953–which became the chief source of overthrowing the government of Dr. Mosaddeq–was very much on the minds of the current Iranian rulers when they ruthlessly put down protestors in the streets of urban Iran.  

Even though in 2009, Iran is a power of considerably higher significance than it was in 1953, its military power is totally insignificant when compared to the United States.  Moreover, in is made in Washington to take on Iran, at least purely from the perspective of the use of military power, Iran will be a sure loser. 

Iran’s considerable power stems from what its resistance forces can do to any invading forces once the main military operation comes to an end, very much like what happened in Iraq after the fall of Saddam’s regime.

In 2009, in the aftermath of the election-related instability, if anything, the rulers of Iran are likely to be even more determined than ever before to develop nuclear weapons.  Despite President Barack H. Obama’s overtures towards Iran, the fear of potential military action by United States against their country looms large among current Iranian rulers.

As they examine the whole spectrum of options at their disposal, the idea of developing nuclear weapons still appears attractive, despite the risks of an Israeli attack or even a U.S. military action.  The only question is not whether Iran would develop its own nuclear weapons, but exactly when it would do it. 

The only way the Iranian regime’s survival is guaranteed is if the regime acquires nuclear deterrence capabilities of its own.  That seems to be the dominant thinking, especially among Iran’s hardliners.  For Iran, the acquisition of nuclear deterrence means creating a “permanent” constraint or an obstacle in the way of the United States’ desire to bring about regime change.