Iran has constructed a strategy that poses a serious dilemma for
the United States and the West in general. Imposing sanctions
against Tehran may cause economic pain, but is, as George Friedman
has written for STRATFOR, “…a pretext not to undertake the military
action Iran really fears and that the United States does not want
to take.”
The failure of North Korea’s supposedly improved long-range
missile that was to have carried a satellite into orbit is not an
error that Iran will make in its own missile development. The
Iranian defense scientific team has been very careful not to rush
its own long-range missile development and has benefited to a far
greater extent from the past failures of their friendly Asian
counterpart. It is just this comparatively more careful, less
rushed weapon development program of Tehran that keeps the Pentagon
planners focused.
The Israelis have planned against missile attacks from the east
since their experience with Iraq during Desert Storm. The Israel
Defense Force (IDF) war-gamed against Iranian missiles even before
the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Any encouragement the Israeli Defense
Ministry gave to the U.S. plans to invade Iraq had to be
accompanied by an awareness that America’s ultimate withdrawal from
Iraq would place Iran as a principal confrontation state.
Of course there supposedly was going to be a continued American
presence in Iraq to counter the ability of Iran to join forces with
Syria. It didn’t happen. The Shia-dominated post-war Iraqi
government and the Iran/Syria alliance, linked with the
increasingly powerful Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, has
created an anti-Israeli Shia front all the way west to the
Mediterranean.
While the Shia connection between Iran and Syria depends on the
Assad family’s remaining in power with their Shia-related Alawite
tribal following, there is no reason to believe that the majority
Sunni anti-Assad forces will have a different sense of enmity
regarding Israel. Iran’s easily adjusted foreign policy certainly
can accommodate an anti-Israel position of a new Sunni-ruled Syria.
Iranian financial assistance would go far to prolong its existing
friendly relationship with a new non-Assad Damascus. This is, after
all, the Middle East and Iran’s skill at adjusting to new realities
is historically proven.
Becoming a regional power is a clear ambition of Iran’s
leadership, even if the focal point of its nuclear weapon
development is Israel. While holding itself out as the leading
Islamic foe of Israel, Iran’s greatest advantage in “going nuclear”
may be in advancing itself ultimately in terms of global influence
and thus, effectively, international power. In more simple terms
the Iranian clerical leadership desires the same international role
sought by the Pahlevi dynasty. The difference is that the Shah was
encouraged by American foreign policy to take on this larger role
as a regional power.
This irony has not been lost on the sector within Iran’s older
clerical community who view Iranian nuclear development as carrying
at least as much danger to their own nation as posing a threat to
Israel. It wasn’t until after the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988
that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini allowed reconsideration of
proceeding with the nuclear power program begun by the ousted Shah.
What began as a power-generating project not unexpectedly morphed
into a weapons project encouraged by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
with the technical assistance of Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan. But even
that evolution was not inconsistent with the Shah’s own dreams.
The Iranian leadership of today is not unmindful of the fact
that the Saudis and Turks will quickly move to duplicate Tehran’s
nuclear weaponry as soon as any such project is operational. That’s
been a given in regional and global defense scenarios for years.
Similarly accepted by Iranian defense strategists is that a future
nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia is as dangerous potentially as Israel in
that the Saudis have always feared Iran’s ambitions in the Persian
Gulf — and are not inhibited by distance. Whether or not the fear
is realistic matters less than the fact that it exists.
The mutual fear shared by Tehran and Riyadh was made manifest
with the creation of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s military wing
in 1984. Saudi and Pakistani official cooperation on nuclear
matters has been in effect for many years, giving rise to
speculation regarding secret plans of Islamabad and Riyadh to
expand nuclear weapon liaison as Iran’s advanced armament comes
into existence.
It is sometimes overlooked that Iran fears the development of a
nuclear weapon capability among its Gulf neighbors. This anxiety
was expressed privately years ago by the Iranian ambassador to the
U.N. seeking to justify his own country’s claim that they had
legitimate reason to fear the capability and intent of the
monarchies on the other coast of their shared Persian Gulf. “The
weaker party can be counted on to strike first in order to overcome
the advantages of the stronger opponent,” the diplomat said. The
question exists as to who now is the weaker party? In a potential
of nuclear-armed conflict no one wants to wait around to find out
the answer.
