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3 Real US battles with Iran still lie
ahead By Mahan Abedin
and covert institutional
coordination and consensus-building, the Islamic
Republic values stability and wise leadership.
Ahmadinejad has - up to now at least - proved
incapable of rising to the standards set by
previous presidents.
Moreover, his fierce
personality and independent power base unsettles
the conservative power-brokers in the regime who -
more than anyone else - understand the
vulnerabilities of Iran's unique
system of government.
Ahmadinejad supporters, however, come from a very
different tradition, one that holds that the
Islamic Republic - on the basis of its
revolutionary heritage and popular mandate - can
overcome the toughest of challenges. It is this
confidence that underpins the Ahmadinejad
government's defiance in the face of mounting
international pressure.
Khamenei the
supreme There are many Iranian analysts
who believe Ahmadinejad would not have survived
had he not enjoyed the support of Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's supreme leader.
Khamenei - more than anyone else at the
top of the regime - epitomizes the Islamic
Republic's ideal leadership style. He projects the
kind of wisdom and statesmanship that appeals to
the regime's wide socio-economic and ideological
constituency. A brilliant analysis of Khamenei's
stewardship and relationship with the three
presidents since 1989 is provided by Baztab's
Seyed Ammar Kalantari and titled "Rahbareh Enqelab
va een Se Tan: Mororeh Rabeteyeh Ayatollah
Khamenei ba Hashemi, Khatami va Ahmadinejad" ("The
Leader of the Revolution and these Three Figures:
Reviewing Ayatollah Khamenei's Relationship with
Hashemi [Rafsanjani], Khatami and Ahmadinejad").
[6]
While arguing that Khamenei feels
compelled to defend presidents of the Islamic
Republic during times of crisis, Kalantari reasons
that Khamenei's ultimate concern is to ensure that
the Islamic system remains true to its core values
and refrains from extremism in any ideological
direction. Kalantari concludes - somewhat
implicitly - that Khamenei's lack of public
support for Ahmadinejad in recent months may be
due to his government's perceived extremism and
over-ambition.
By indirectly alluding to
last year's Holocaust conference in Tehran,
Kalantari highlights the Ahmadinejad government's
gravest violation of the traditions and etiquette
of the Islamic Republic's executive branch.
Kalantari says Khamenei is decidedly against the
kind of solution proposed by Egypt's Gamal Abdel
Nasser and Iraq's Saddam Hussein (which involved
expelling the Jews from Palestine) and instead
favors a referendum in Palestine that should
settle the future of that country.
In any
case, the expulsion of the Jewish population is
out of the question. This revisiting of the highly
controversial Holocaust conference indicates the
extent to which key power centers were incensed by
the Ahmadinejad's government's puerile gesture
politics. After all, many influential Iranians
argue, what does Iran have to do with a genocide
committed by Western Europeans more than 60 years
ago?
But fortunately for Iran, no single
personality or institution determines foreign
policy. On this basis, it would be unfair to lay
all the blame for recent geopolitical retreats on
Ahmadinejad and his inner circle. It seems that
the entire Iranian national-security
infrastructure is reacting negatively to pervasive
and intense US pressure.
My previous
article on this subject [7] explained how Iran was
acceding to a more aggressive Saudi policy in the
region in the hope of gaining some relief from US
pressure. Since then, Iran has participated in the
US security conference in Baghdad. While it may
have been worthwhile for the Iranians to attend
the conference, there is no doubt that Iran's
participation was more beneficial to US interests
in the region than Iran's. After all, Iran is in a
powerful position in Iraq; for the time being at
least it has no need to discuss Iraq-related
issues with the US on Washington's terms.
In the final analysis, US pressure is
yielding results. The Iranian domestic scene is
becoming increasingly agitated and US
psychological warfare reinforces the aggravation.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic is showing a
greater willingness to accommodate US interests in
the region. But the long-term effect of mounting
US pressure remains unknown.
The country
as a whole is committed to nuclear development and
there is little the Americans can do to curtail
Iran's widespread and natural influence in the
region. In fact, increasing US pressure may lead
to a political configuration that is better suited
to advancing Iran's interests in the region.
Psychological warfare (no matter how intense and
pervasive) has its limits; moreover, it can
backfire. US policymakers ought to bear that in
mind.
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