During the Cold War, Iran was important not only because of its oil but also of its strategic location. As a key perimeter in the containment policy of the United States, it sat intrusively at the southern tip of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the Strait of Hormuz situated south of the Iranian coast was a major access route for petroleum shipping to the Indian Ocean and into international waters. It was a vital artery for Middle Eastern oil that fuelled post-war capitalism of Western economies. It still is today.
Next to Saudi Arabia, Iran holds the second largest reserves of crude and natural gas in the world. Since the discovery of virgin oil fields in 2003, its reserves have grown to almost 20 billion tons, which account for 13 percent of the total global oil stash; while Iranian gas is estimated to be more than 15 percent of the world’s natural gas. With virtually limitless fossil fuel resource to power the whole continent of Africa, it would be ludicrous to believe that Tehran is primarily intent to build nuclear capability for alternative energy use that it evidently does not need.
While not yet considered a pariah state in the same way North Korea is perceived to be, Iran is already experiencing the heat of international condemnation when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that Israel should be “wiped off the map.” As if this was not enough, irritating the traditionally unflappable International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with Tehran’s defiance to observe its responsibilities under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to open its nuclear program to inspection could very well be considered a self-inflicted coup de grace upon itself.
At the heart of these seemingly strange antics, there is a certain cogency that can be read in Tehran’s present behavior and it is one of desperation and insecurity – desperation to reach out to the world from which it has intentionally alienated itself since 1979; and insecurity to preserve what the cleric-dominated establishment sees as puritanical gains of the Islamic Revolution in a country lodged at the center of an international security regime profoundly shaped by the US-led war on terrorism, and the rising discontent within the Iranian society itself.
There are three main motivations in Tehran’s current bold attitude in its nuclear quest: (1) “the specter of Kermit”; (2) US policy of regime change; and (3) Israel’s nuclear weapons program.
If there is one man who stills haunts the collective psyche of Iran like a ghost of its vassal past, it is Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. Roosevelt was a grandson of United States President Theodore Roosevelt and scion from one of America’s politically influential families. As a covert officer in the Near East Division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Tehran in the early 1950s, he planned and undertook one of the riskiest clandestine operations in the history of the Cold War.
The CIA-directed Operation AJAX aimed to topple the Mossadegh government and install a West-friendly regime under Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The flirtation of the fiercely nationalist but democratically elected Muhammad Mossadegh with the Soviet Union and the local communist party Tudeh had touched an anxious chord in Washington and London, aggravated further by the Tehran’s nationalization of the highly profitable Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951.
By August of 1953, after the underhanded machination of the CIA that involved fragmenting the military, financing series of violent protests and propagating black propaganda, the Mossadegh government fell. Operation AJAX was deemed a roaring success in Washington and would later serve as the template for succeeding US-backed covert interventions in countries such as Guatemala and Chile. However, the perceived brazenness of the plot had produced in the minds of the Iranian people a latent indignation against and distrust of the West particularly the United States.
This anger would later erupt twenty-six years hence with the revolution of 1979. The US-sponsored manipulation of Tehran’s politics would be paid in kind with the hostage of 53 Americans and Iran’s support for proxy militias and jihadist groups notably Hizballah in Lebanon (internationally regarded as the most successful extremist network) and the Badr Brigade in Iraq . The ghost of Kermit Roosevelt thus remains as a painful reminder of Tehran’s vulnerabilities to foreign interference, which, through the country’s current attempt to be a nuclear-capable state, the ruling Shiite clerics want to shield.
The suspicion of Iran is only heightened by the collapse of the Taliban regime under US military firepower in neighboring Afghanistan in 2001 and the invasion of Tehran’s traditional rival Iraq in 2003. While Tehran has certainly profited politically with the removal of Saddam Hussein and the Sunni-dominated Baathist regime, the US policy of regime transformation is a Damoclean sword precariously suspended upon the heads of the ruling clerics, especially that Iran has been tagged by US President George W Bush as part of the “axis of evil.”
Hinged on the Kantian “democratic peace” thesis that democracies are unlikely to go to war against one another, the Bush Administration’s policy of democracy promotion daringly envisions the end of “tyranny” in the world through the outright use of punitive military options, or the employment of political, economic and diplomatic sanctions to pressure a government to thread the democratic path.
Strangely, though, before the nuclear stalemate became a full-blown crisis that it is now, there have been telling signs that Iran was a constructive factor by default in the war on terror and the democratic promotion project by the United States. For one, US nemesis Al-Qaeda is dominated by fundamentalist, Sunni fanatics with a grudge against Shiites. In fact, by present indications such as the very public derision of Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi of Iraqi Shiites as “rejectionists” and “collaborationists”, there is hardly any evidence to suspect that Iran is assisting Al-Qaeda operationally in Iraq or elsewhere. Besides, Tehran more than any other Middle Eastern country would benefit in the success of the new Iraqi government mainly because of the sheer number of the voting Shiite majority upon which, reportedly, Iran has great influence over.
So the question to ask is what is now haunting Iran. Military threat has never really rattled Tehran in the past as it is now primarily because it has fairly sophisticated military machinery. Despite the revelation of veteran journalist Seymour Hersh in the April 17, 2006 issue of the New Yorker about the planning of the Pentagon for possible preemptive air strikes on selected facilities in Iran and the resurgent activities by US intelligence operatives to liaise with minority groups in the country such as the Azeris, Baluchis and Kurds for target mapping operations, there has been hardly any denunciation issued by the usually vitriolic Ahmadinejad.
All told, it is a little noted development in the policy shift of Washington that has worried Tehran more than any threat of a military invasion. In her February 15, 2006 testimony before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, State Secretary Condoleezza Rice has revealed a shift in US policy over Iran with the $85 million program that would fund independent radio and television, sponsor pro-democracy groups and support cultural exchanges and educational fellowships. The present budget is an exponential increase from last year’s reported funding of $3.5 million. Previously, the United States favored isolating and sanctioning the theocratic regime than constructively engaging it. This only goes to show that indeed among enemies, there is little comfort in good deeds than in bad.
This policy is worrisome essentially because there is real discontent in Iranian society. Maverick strategist Edward Luttwak mentions about the widespread corruption in government that, in his assessment, surpasses the degree and depth of those committed by family and cronies of the Shah. Anti-clericalism is high and prevalent, and by putting money into it is like pouring gasoline into the fire. This new policy also refreshes the memory of past clandestine intervention in Iranian politics – a story that remains as a bogeyman’s tale that is repeatedly being told from one generation to the next, inspiring Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to coin the moniker “Great Satan” to describe the US and its manipulative ways.
And then there is Israel, the only country in the Middle East possessing nuclear weapons (sources are also pointing to Egypt as another potential nuclear state). Despite the whistle-blowing of Mordechai Vanunu in 1986 confirming the long-suspected existence of nukes in the Jewish state, Israeli nuclear weapons program remains as a dirty little secret in the international community, much like an adulterous relation that is known to everyone but never really talked about in the open. Started in the early 1950s with US, French and British assistance, Israel’s nuclear program reportedly yielded its first warhead in 1968 and peaked at one time to more than 200.
Since then, many Arab countries and Iran sought strategic parity by developing their own nuclear projects. But while Iran’s present conduct is very much motivated by Israel’s nuclear capabilities, there is doubt whether Tehran’s motivation is reciprocated by the necessary material capacity to really complete a deliverable nuclear bomb.
In the final analysis, Tehran’s unsatisfactory transparency on its centrifuge activities and its indulgent brinkmanship are natural cause for alarm. The international community should accordingly respond as appropriate to put across the message that such behavior of a sovereign state is unacceptable. But the West’s unwillingness to vicariously put themselves in the shoes of the Iranians and understand where they are coming from is equally appalling as well, especially if there is a preordained plan waiting to be carried out inspired by a messianic vision of a Pax Americana. Common sense is then lost and gives way to unrestrained dogma. Further, the stalemate has also brought to the fore of public opinion the need for accountability from nuclear merchants and technological mercenaries like A.Q. Khan who profit financially from the spread of a military know-how whose sole purpose is destruction.
But for all theatrics of the US and Iran, the current crisis has constructively put the spotlight back on the issue of non-proliferation and the need of a nuclear-free Middle East in a time when the war on terrorism has muted much of the debate on arms control and disarmament. It certainly proves as a test case for the world and its leaders to reconsider and step back from the uncertain precipice of threats and posturing that neither enhances collective global security or offers sustainable solution to the dangers of the unchecked spread of weapons of mass destruction.