Which Path to Persia?- Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran
Brookings institution Press 2009
Extracts
The Trouble with Tehran. U.S. Policy Options toward Iran
What should the United States do about Iran? The question is easily asked, but for nearly 30 years, Washington has had difficulty coming up with a good answer. The Islamic republic presents a particularly confounding series of challenges for the United States. Many Iranian leaders regard the United States as their greatest enemy for ideological, nationalistic, and/or security reasons, while a great many average Iranians evince the most pro-American feelings of any in the Muslim world. Unlike other states that may also fear or loathe the United States, Iran’s leaders have consistently acted on these beliefs, working assiduously to undermine American interests and influence throughout the Middle east, albeit with greater or lesser degrees of success at different times. Moreover, Iranian foreign policy is frequently driven by internal political considerations that are both difficult to discern by the outside world and even harder to influence. More than once, Iran has followed a course that to out- siders appeared self-defeating but galvanized the Iranian people to make far-reaching sacrifices in the name of seemingly quixotic goals.
Despite these frustrating realities,
the United States is not in a position to simply ignore Iran either. Iran is an
important country in a critical part of the world. although Tehran’s role in
creating problems in the Middle east is often exaggerated, it has
unquestionably taken advantage of the growing instability there (itself partly
a result of American missteps) to make important gains, of-ten at Washington’s
expense.
The Iranian Threat to U.S.
Interests
efforts to Subvert U.S. allies.
There is strong, but not incontrovertible, evidence that Iran has aided groups
seeking to overthrow the governments of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain (and
arguably Lebanon and Israel as well) at various times. This, too, appears to be part of Iran’s
efforts to weaken the American position in the Middle east, but it is also
probably a manifestation of the desire of many Iranian leaders to overturn the
regional status quo for both ideological and strategic rea-sons. to the extent
that the United States sees it in its interest to have allies in the Gulf, an Iranian
threat to those governments constitutes a threat to American interests.
Threats and options
to a very great extent,
fashioning a new strategy toward Iran should be driven by Americans’ perception
of the threat that Iran poses. American willingness to tolerate the threat
posed by Iran must be weighed against the price of eliminating the threat. The
less Americans feel threatened by Iran, the less they should be willing to pay
to eliminate the threat; and the more threatened Americans feel, the more they
should be willing to give to eliminate it.
indeed, one reason for the wide
divergences among Americans on Iran policy is that some find Iran far more
threatening to US interests than do others.
Preparing to Bring the hammer
Down
a critical element of the
Persuasion option, and largely what sets it apart from the engagement option,
is the need to secure international agreement on a series of painful sanctions
to be im-posed on Iran if it turns down the package of benefits. The sanctions
need to be made clear to Iran as the punishment for refusing to take the deal
at the same time it is proffered. in addition, the negotiations within the
international community on the sanctions need to be an integral part of working
out the details of the benefits so that the United States and other countries
more willing to sanction Iran (like France) can trade benefits for sanctions
with those states less inclined to penalize Iran for its recalcitrance.
These sanctions need to be more
painful than those imposed on Iran so far, but they probably should be
graduated—meaning that they can start out less painful and grow more onerous
over time if Iran continues to refuse the deal. a graduated approach of
ratcheting up the pressure on Iran will make many countries more comfortable
with the process since it would mean that Iran would have ample opportunity to
reverse course before the most painful measures are imposed.
Weighing oil and Gas Sanctions
Potentially the most devastating
sanctions the international community might levy against Iran would focus on
its hydrocarbon economy. Iran is highly dependent on its oil exports for
revenue and its gasoline imports for transportation. Prohibiting either one could cripple the Iranian
economy and cause massive problems through-out Iranian society.
The ends, Not the Means
Because it will be difficult for
a Persuasion approach to work under any circumstances, it would be preferable
for the United States and its allies to concentrate purely on the outcome of
the process and less (or not at all) on the process itself. What is important
is securing international support and convincing the Iranians to accept the
deal on of-fer; everything else ought to be incidental from an American
perspective.
GOING ALL THE WAY
Invasion
There is little appetite in the
United States for mounting an invasion of Iran. After the frustrations and
costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, few Americans are looking for
another fight in the Middle East. American ground forces are badly
overstretched as it is. Under these circumstances, an invasion of Iran would
require calling up huge numbers of National Guard and military reserve
personnel and keeping them in service for several years. After the strains of
frequent deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan over the past eight years, this
might undermine the foundations of the all-volunteer force.
requirements
The requirements for the invasion
option are complex. in some ways, they are well within American capabilities;
in other ways, they are potentially well beyond our current reach.
The Question of a Provocation
as noted above, in the section on
the time frame for an invasion, whether the United States decides to invade Iran
with or without a provocation is a critical consideration. With provocation,
the international diplomatic and domestic political requirements of an invasion
would be mitigated, and the more outrageous the Iranian provocation (and the
less that the United States is seen to be goading Iran), the more these
challenges would be diminished. in the absence of a sufficiently horrific
provocation, meeting these requirements would be daunting.
Leave it to BiBi
allowing or encouraging an
Israeli Military strike
crisis after crisis has arisen
between Iran and the United States but Iran has never been and almost certainly
never will be an existential threat to the United States. it harbors no
territorial designs on the United States, has never conducted a terrorist
operation aimed at the American homeland, and even should it acquire nuclear
weapons, lacks the delivery systems to threaten the United States directly.
Further, its economy is anemic, and even if substantially reformed, will
probably never provide the base for Iran to make itself a challenger to the United States on par with Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, the Soviet Union, or
communist China.
TOPPLING TEHRA N
Regime Change
The clerical regime in Iran is
brutal and corrupt, and its leaders oppose U.S. interests throughout the Middle
east. Thus, it is not surprising that some Americans have examined the regime
for cracks that could be widened to bring about its downfall. The surprising
ascendance of a reform movement with the 1997 election of Muhammad Khatami made
a change in regime seem possible, even imminent: not only did Khatami’s
wide-spread support suggest considerable disenchantment with the clerical
regime, but his election indicated that peaceful means might lead to its
replacement under the leadership of a man calling for a “dialogue of
civilizations.” Over ten years later,
however, Khatami’s conservative opponents have consolidated power. While many Iranians
are cynical toward or even hostile to the regime, the reform movement is in
disarray.
The reform movement, however, is
not the only means for changing the regime, and in theory the United States has
several options if it seeks a new Iranian government. in the past, the United States engineered a coup to restore a government of its liking there and in
recent years, Washing-ton has supported programs designed to bolster a
democratic movement in Iran. Prominent voices have also called for helping Iranian
oppositionists overthrow the regime and for using Iran’s minority groups to
undermine the government.
There are several ways in which
the United States could change the regime or undermine it: supporting a popular
revolution, stirring up Iran’s ethnic groups, or promoting a coup. in
practice, these options could be pursued simultaneously and overlap in some
of their elements, but it is worth considering each separately to
understand their nature and requirements. That is the task of the next three
chapters.
THE VELVET REVOLUTION
Supporting a Popular Uprising
Because the Iranian regime is
widely disliked by many Iranians, the most obvious and palatable method of
bringing about its demise would be to help foster a popular revolution along
the lines of the “velvet revolutions” that toppled many communist governments
in Eastern Europe beginning in 1989.
For many proponents of regime
change, it seems self-evident that the United States should encourage the Iranian
people to take pow-er in their own name, and that this would be the most
legitimate method of regime change. after all, what Iranian or foreigner could
object to helping the Iranian people fulfill their own desires?
There is evidence that the Islamic
regime has antagonized many (perhaps all) of these same factions to the point
where they again might be willing to support a change if they feel that it
could succeed. This is the foundational
belief of those Americans who support regime change, and their hope is that the United States can provide whatever the Iranian people need to believe that
another revolution is feasible.
.....of course, popular revolutions
are incredibly complex and rare events. There is little scholarly consensus on
what causes a popular revolution, or even the conditions that facilitate them.
even factors often associated with revolutions, such as military defeat,
neglect of the military, economic crises, and splits within the elite have all
been regular events across the world and throughout his-tory, but only a very
few have resulted in a popular revolution. consequently, all of the literature
on how best to promote a popular revolution—in Iran or anywhere else—is highly
speculative. Nevertheless, it is the one
policy option that holds out the prospect that the United States might
eliminate all of the problems it faces from Iran, do so at a bearable cost, and
do so in a manner that is acceptable to the Iranian people and most of the rest
of the world.
The true objective of this
policy option is to over-throw the clerical regime in Tehran and see it replaced,
hopefully, by one whose views would be more compatible with U.S.
interests in the region.
While the ultimate goal is to
remove the regime, working with the internal opposition also could be a form of
coercive pressure on the Iranian regime, giving the United States leverage on
other issues. Iran under the shah, for
example, backed a Kurdish insurgency in Iraq and helped make the rebels quite
potent. The shah then abruptly sold out the Kurds in exchange for Iraqi
concessions on demarcating the Iran Iraq border. in theory, the United States could create coercive leverage by threatening the regime with instability or
even overthrow and, after having done so, use this leverage to force
concessions on other issues such as Iran’s nuclear program or support for
militants in Iraq.
in addition, these observers note
that some Iranians opposed to the clerical regime are pro-American, and even
those who are more skeptical of the United States are not as aggressively
hostile as the current clerical regime, which is one of the most anti-American
governments in the world. Iran is one of the rare Muslim countries where much
of the population wants closer ties to the United States, so promoting a
democratic change might make more sense there than it would in a country like Saudi
Arabia, where popular hostility to the United States is high. This suggests
that at least a few of those willing or desirous of moving against the current
regime might look to the United States for support in their effort.
The United States could play
multiple roles in facilitating a revolution. By funding and helping organize
domestic rivals of the regime, the United States could create an alternative
leadership to seize power. as Raymond Tanter of the Iran Policy committee
argues, students and other groups “need covert backing for their
demonstrations. They need fax machines.
They need internet access, funds to duplicate materials, and funds to keep
vigilantes from beating them up.”52 Beyond this, U.S-backed media outlets could
highlight regime shortcomings and make otherwise obscure critics more
prominent. The United States already supports Persian-language satellite
television (Voice of America Persian) and radio (radio Farda) that bring
unfiltered news to Iranians (in recent years, these have taken the lion’s share
of overt US funding for promoting democracy in Iran).53 US economic pressure
(and perhaps military pressure as well) can discredit the regime, making the
population hungry for a rival leadership.
… promoting antiregime media and
backing civil society and human rights organizations were appropriate uses
of the funding, but it stipulated that the funds were not to be used to support
the use of force or for entities that are designated as foreign terrorist organizations. The press has also reported a host of
covert programs designed to promote regime change or bolster antiregime
officials.
Finding the right Proxies
one of the hardest tasks in
fomenting a revolution, or even just unrest, is finding the right local
partners. Resisting an authoritarian regime like Tehran’s is a dangerous game:
failure can mean not only arrest or execution for the rebels, but also severe
punishment for their families. in addition, a regime has huge advantages in
organization and unity in general: its forces work together (for the most
part), magnifying their strength. The
opposition, in contrast, often begins as disorganized idealists and has
difficulty communicating effectively. A quick look at some of the more
plausible candidates for a revolution illustrates the difficulty of finding the
proper local channels for effecting a revolution.
The reformists
Iran’s reform movement would
appear to be the most obvious vehicle for popular revolution.
Intellectuals
The questioning of the underlying
legitimacy of a regime by intellectuals is often and correctly seen as a
serious threat: having the regime
discredited among key “opinion shapers” is a critical precondition for its
collapse. Iran has a significant intellectual class, consisting not only of academicsand reformist journalists but also, and perhaps more important, dissident
clerics. time and again these voices have criticized the regime, with some
going so far as to question the legitimacy of the velayate faqih system itself.
These criticisms appeared to reach a high point under the presidency speak
directly to regime legitimacy, which rests on religious credentials. Not
surprisingly, the regime has tried to use both formal and informal means to
sideline these people. in addition, these clerics are limited in part by their
own message: because they push for the
clergy to be more apolitical, their own political involvement tends to be
limited.
Student, Labor, and Civil
Society organizations
...students and workers are often
the shock troops of revolutionary movements. students typically are willing to
take considerable risks and, in so doing, expose holes in the regime’s coercive
apparatus or create divisions within the existing elite.
Reza Pahlavi
another name pointed to as a
potential leader of Iran is Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah. in the United States, Pahlavi has emerged as a leading critic of the clerical regime,
calling for it to be con fronted politically and economically.
Money
a significant program to promote
democracy in Iran would require far more money than Washington has currently
allocated. if the United States is to go beyond its current modest effort to
pro-mote democracy, it would have to spend tens of millions of dollars a year,
if not more. This requirement would grow if the programs were successful: more
people would have to be supported, and they would require more equipment to
communicate and travel.
excellent Intelligence
Meddling in the internal politics of another country requires excellent intelligence if the efforts are to succeed. indeed, a lack of intelligence can even lead a program to backfire, as the regime manipulates it to its advantage. to support democratic oppositionists, the United States needs to help them organize and be sure that their message is getting across. in addition, Washington needs to support leaders who are effective and who can-not be co-opted by the regime. Without this in-formation, the United States may back the wrong people or be beguiled by figures who are secretly controlled by Iranian intelligence.
Military Intervention
consequently, if the United States ever succeeds in sparking a revolt against the clerical regime,
Washington may have to consider whether to pro-vide it with some form of
military support to pre-vent Tehran from crushing it.
Inspiring An Insurgency
supporting Iranian Minority
and opposition Groups
As much as many Americans might
like to help the Iranian people rise up and take their destiny in their own
hands, the evidence suggests that its likelihood is low—and that American
assistance could well make it less likely rather than more.
…consequently, some who favor
fomenting regime change in Iran argue that it is utopian to hold out hope for a
velvet revolution; instead, they contend that the United States should turn to Iranian
opposition groups that already exist, that already have demonstrated a desire
to fight the regime, and who appear willing to accept U.S. assistance. The hope
behind this course of action is that these various opposition groups could
transform themselves into more potent movements that might be able to overturn
the regime.
For instance, the United States could opt to work primarily with various unhappy Iranian ethnic groups (Kurds,
Baluch, Arabs, and so on) who have fought the regime at various periods since
the revolution. a coalition of ethnic opposition movements, particularly if
combined with dissident Persians, would pose a serious threat to regime
stability. in addition, the unrest the groups themselves create could weaken
the regime at home. at the least, the regime would have to divert resources to
putting down the rebellions, at most, the unrest might discredit the regime
over time, weakening its position vis-à-vis its rivals.
The United States could also
attempt to promote external Iranian opposition groups, providing them with the
support to turn themselves into full-fledged insurgencies and even helping them
militarily defeat the forces of the clerical regime. The United States could work with groups like
the Iraq-based National council of resistance of Iran (Nori) and its military
wing, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK), helping the thousands of its members who,
under Saddam Husain’s regime, were armed and had conducted guerrilla and terrorist
operations against the clerical regime. Although the Nori is supposedly
disarmed today, that could quickly be changed.
Goal
supporting an insurgency could
have two different potential goals, with one effectively a fallback position of
the other. Like supporting a popular revolution, one goal of supporting an
insurgency would be to try to overthrow the Iranian regime altogether, in the
expectation that doing so would alleviate America’s problems with Iran.
Time Frame
Insurgencies take a long time to succeed
when they succeed at all. It takes time for insurgents to identify leaders and
recruit personnel, establish bases and gather equipment, and learn tactics and
proficiency with weapons. It takes even longer to win popular support, erode the morale of the government’s armed
forces, and then undermine the government’s legitimacy. There are often
crippling setbacks along the way, during which even an ultimately successful
insurgency may need to spend months or years regrouping and rebuilding.
For all of these reasons,
insurgencies typically take decades to overthrow a government.
Overview of the Policy
The core concept lying at the
heart of this option would be for the United States to identify one or more Iranian
opposition groups and support them as it did other insurgencies in Afghanistan,
Nicaragua, Kurdistan, Angola, and dozens of other locales since the second
World War. The Unit-ed states would provide arms, money, training, and
organizational assistance to help the groups develop and extend their reach. U.S.
media and propaganda outlets could highlight group grievances and showcase
rival leaders. The United States would help the groups identify a base in a
neighboring country, secure the host nation’s support for the groups, and help
them develop an infrastructure to support operations in Iran.
a key question that the United States would have to address would be the extent of its direct military support
to the groups. The central intelligence agency (CIA) could take care of most of
the supplies and training for these groups, as it has for decades all over the
world. However, Washington would need to decide whether to provide the groups
with direct military assistance under three scenarios:
....as general support to allow the groups a much greater chance of success and a much more rapid pace of victory. As noted above, massive external conventional military assistance can greatly assist an insurgency to prevent a massacre of the insurgents. Not all insurgencies succeed, and some fail disastrously.
to protect neighboring countries
providing sanctuary to the insurgents. any insurgency against the Iranian
regime would need a safe haven and conduit for arms and other supplies through
one or more of Iran’s neighbors.
it seems unlikely that any American
administration would be willing to provide the kind of military support
envisioned in the first of these scenarios operation enduring Freedom in Afghanistan
was closer to an invasion than an insurgency, and mounting a similar campaign
against Iran would give up all of the advantages of an insurgency in terms of
plausible deniability, thereby undercutting the willingness of neighboring
states to support it. Unfortunately, the
second situation is a very real possibility that the United States has faced on
other occasions. The third situation could also occur and so Washington would
have to be ready to come to the defense of the neighboring states supporting
the guerrillas, or else face the prospect of losing their support in the bid to
overthrow the regime.
Requirements
The United States should expect
to provide an array of assistance to insurgents, depending on their military
skill and their degree of popular support.
The more competent and popular the insurgents are, the less they would
need American aid.
consequently, the United States would have to expect to invest a fair amount of money, weaponry, and other
resources in the insurgencies it chose to back. However, especially when compared
to the cost of conventional military operations, insurgencies are a
bargain.
Finding a Proxy
The first—and potentially most
problematic—requirement to implement this option is to identify a potential
insurgent group that is willing and able to play this role with American
assistance. The best candidate for such
a role would be a broad-based opposition group with cohesiveness, some history
of armed resistance, clear leadership, and widespread popular support. Unfortunately,
none of the current candidates can claim to meet all of those criteria.
consequently, the United States would have to opt either for ethnic groups that
possess the cohesiveness, leadership, and popular support from a segment of Iranian
society, or for the MeK—which arguably has the leadership and cohesiveness but
has little popular support at present.
Potential ethnic Proxies
although Persians dominate Iran,
they represent only half of the population. at least to some out-side
observers, Iran appears rife with ethnic un-rest, and these cleavages could
become the means by which the United States could try to mobilize one or more
insurgencies against the Islamic regime. Tehran has often been harsh in its
crackdowns on minority groups, many of which are concentrated away from the
capital and thus are hidden from media attention. Iran’s Arab and Baluch
populations both are poor and suffer from discrimination. as a result, Arab
separatists in the southwestern province of Khuzestan have conducted a number
of terrorist bombings in the regional capital of Ahvaz in recent years. in addition, Iran’s Kurdish population is large
and, after the 1979 revolution, sustained a bloody rebellion that lasted
several years and led to the deaths of thousands of Kurds. The anger and strife continue to this day: in
2005, after Iranian police killed a Kurdish leader, 20 Kurds died in demonstrations.
….although these groups are more
organized than students and workers and, in the Kurdish case, represent a
sizeable entity, their ability to mobilize beyond their communities is limited.
Persians tend to be highly nationalistic and would have to be expected to unite
over any perceived attempt to fragment the country. Nor are there strong ties
among the non-Persian groups, and in the past, these divisions have allowed
them to be contained and defeated piecemeal. some large ethnic groups also have
no desire to oppose the regime. For
instance, Iran’s Azari population, which represents roughly a quarter of the
country’s overall population are well integrated (supreme Leader Khamene’i is
of Azari origin) and have worked closely with Persian elites.
....as the above discussion suggests,
the Kurds are the most likely proxy given their size, cohesive identity, and
ambitions. The Kurds, however, are divided internally, and many of their
leaders have been co-opted by the state, while those who have not are often
subject to brutal intimidation. Iranian
intelligence aggressively targets Kurdish leaders abroad, whether in Iraq or Europe—even
to the point of assassination. The Kurds are also justifiably suspicious of
outside promises, having been used and discarded in the past. Finally, stirring
Kurdish separatism in Iran would not play well in either Baghdad or Ankara, two
key American allies whose aid would be
needed for any insurgent campaign against Iran.
National Council of Resistance
Mujahedin-e Khalq
Perhaps the most prominent (and
certainly the most controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention
as a potential US proxy is the Nori (National council of resistance of Iran),
the political movement established by the MeK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). critics
believe the group to be undemocratic and unpopular, and indeed anti-American. in contrast, the group’s champions contend that
the movement’s long-standing opposition to the Iranian regime and record of
successful attacks on and intelligence-gathering operations against the regime
make it worthy of U.S. support. They also argue that the group is no longer anti-American
and question the merit of earlier accusations.
Raymond Tanter, one of the group’s supporters in the United States,
contends that the MeK and the Nori are allies for regime change in Tehran and
also act as a useful proxy for gathering intelligence.68 The MeK’s greatest
intelligence coup was the provision of intelligence in 2002 that led to the
discovery of a secret site in Iran for enriching uranium.
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