The Iran nuclear deal led many to think that Iran was opening up to the world, including the West, especially the US. Theocracy would give way to reform. This, it would appear, was a false hope.
Americans have been detained and convicted under unclear circumstances. Iranian troops have deployed to Syria and may be acting as ground troops in the ongoing Russian-backed offensive. Iranian media have become sharply more aggressive in their coverage, making improbable claims of success against ISIL and other foes. Anti-American mummery has never lost favor since the shah had to leave, but it seems more common and fiercer now.
Why is Tehran closing the door to the US, and what will this bring?
Sunni danger
Just as World War Two shaped American outlooks for decades, and the Holocaust continues to shape Israel’s, the Iraq War lives on in Iran. Backed by Saudi Arabia, that war lasted eight years, subjected many cities to devastating attacks, and cost Iran hundreds of thousands of lives. Sunni powers, from the Iranian perspective, are coalescing into a new threat.
Insurgencies are underway in the Kurdish northwest and the Baluch southeast. Iranian views of foreign support are not unfounded. Saudi checks are thought to underwrite both conflicts in the expectation that the fragmentation of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Yemen will also take place in the Shia world’s strongest power. The smaller ones will then be vulnerable to the Saudis and their increasingly obliging fellow Gulf states.
The Sunni world is engulfed in a war with radical Islam – a conflict that will last years or decades and may leave Sunni countries broken, almost insignificant statelets. Iran sees greater potential for coalescence of these movements and statelets into a federation funded by and directed from Riyadh. Iran’s government, then, in the rulers’ tendentious and self-serving estimation, must be vigilant, avoid divisiveness and paralyzing debate, and steel the country for another Sunni onslaught.
Militarism and legitimacy
The Iranian government has sustained itself over the years in large part from the legitimacy it garnered by repelling Iraq. That was the case with the Soviet Union after the German invasion of 1941. With each case, as well as others, questions of incompetent generals and thoughtless tactics were pushed aside once the danger passed.
Today the Iranian government – mullahs and the increasingly prominent generals – once again present themselves as defending the realm. They are also defending the Shia faith and playing a prominent role in the ISIL war.
The urban middle classes of the reform movement were ebullient when the nuclear deal was inked. The easing of sanctions would bring back prosperity, harsh rule would give way to liberalization.
Disaffection is setting in and thought of emigration must be crossing many minds. Elections slated for the spring of 2017 will tell them, and us, much. Will the guardians allow a reformer president as in 2013, or will the election follow the fraudulent pattern of 2009? Will a Revolutionary Guard general, fresh from battlefields to the west, win support from traditional rural dwellers and urban middle classes alike, and become the new president?
Relations with the US
Trade with the US would of course be most welcome to the urban middle classes, for its materialistic benefits as well as its cultural impact. The oil sector is in need of American technology to extract more from mature fields and bring new ones on line. Iran seems to be closing the door, but more than a few western states are eagerly knocking at it with trade deals.
Antagonizing the US entails serious risks. It may push Washington closer to Saudi Arabia. Washington prefers influence in both Tehran and Riyadh with which it can balance sectarian conflict and trade with both regional powers. With the Iranian door closed, and with harsh words shouted from behind it, the US will naturally, if uncomfortably, side with the Saudis.
Tehran should recognize that better relations with Washington today will make war from Saudi Arabia and the next US administration significantly less likely.
©2015 Brian M Downing
Again, you deliberately ignore the U.S. role in Saddam’s war against Iran and in standing behind Saudi Arabia in suppressing democracy in Bahrain and Yemen!!
Thanks for your comment. I can’t write the history of the Gulf region in a short essay! Furthermore, the US sold weapons (TOW anti-tank missiles and Hawk anti-aircraft missiles) to Iran, and sold no weapons to Iraq. I’d say the US tried to win influence with both sides during the war and came up with nothing.