Geopolitics is fraught with misperceptions, as it leads to rapid changes that make even those who assert they can easily manipulate strategic repositioning feel outdated by. Much has been written about the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran.
However, one cannot find a reading that truly takes stock of the situation without sinking into conjecture. They seem to be at the whim of the speed with which social media fuels the imagination and nurtures fake news, which can distort public perception and influence political narratives surrounding the conflict.
The state of international affairs resonates like an eternal recurrence, a kind of déjà vu show. The geopolitics of the situation unfolds in a series of seemingly obvious truths that the state and non-state actors either assimilate or ignore. They do it on purpose or by shallow daily behavior. It brings together the same actors who currently occupy the stage. It also recalls the role of other actors who are brought back to finish the business they failed to complete more than five decades ago.
The first evidence is the fact that Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003 because of his grip on power. Over the years Saddam’s behavior became unbearable domestically and unacceptable regionally and internationally.
The second piece of evidence flows directly from the first. It means that the rise of Iraq was designed (and perceived, in the process) to create cognitive dissonance among its neighbors. It resulted in some sort of scarecrow to wave whenever the need becomes urgent to get all concerned actors to cool down.
The third piece of evidence demonstrates that the rise of Iran has followed the same tactical pattern among its promoters. On the one hand, the move aimed to make Iran a scarecrow, as was the case under Shah Reza Pahlavi, and on the other, to use the “national pride” of the Iranians as a weapon against the system itself in the long run.
The fourth piece of evidence stems from the feeling of betrayal that both Iraq and Iran experienced for being co-opted in a wave of enthusiasm and then thrown away without further notice at the moment they believed they could act without accountability in the neighborhood—and be rewarded for so doing.
Stunning evidence for novices
The fifth piece of evidence consists of the transformation of national pride into a kind of hegemonic arrogance. The same hegemonic arrogance that swept away Gamal Abdel Nasser (1967), belittled Hafez El-Assad (1967 and 1973), brought down Saddam Hussein (2003), and overthrew Muammar Gaddafi (2011).
This strategy worked well in that, on the eve of Saddam Hussein’s overthrow, American policymakers and strategists knew that establishing a viable security complex with vulnerable state actors would be impossible. They had arguments, but they kept them in the inner circle of the decision-making system.
One: The American policymakers shared the fear of seeing Iran replace Iraq to create the same conditions of regional instability as they perceived it. They would wait for the right time to get into business without further notice.
Two: The American policymakers were concerned by the scenario of seeing the Iranian intranational political landscape produce a situation in which neither the conservatives nor the reformists emerge victorious. American political planners and military strategists believed they could use the hermetic nature of the Iranian institutional system to their advantage.
Three: American political planners and military strategists felt uncomfortable with the risk of seeing other countries in the region resist the strategic fait accompli that would allow Iran to take its historically religious revenge. This, would happen, while knowing that over time, the religious argument would not serve the ambitions of the Iranians, nor those of their Sunni neighbors.
Moreover, American political planners and military strategists were fully aware that: One, Iran would continue its efforts to acquire nuclear technology, enter the exclusive club of threshold states, and subsequently surpass them to possess nuclear weapons.
Two, the pretext of fighting extremism and terrorism would turn out to be a trap. These planners relied on the complicity of proxy movements in cahoots with Western interests to obfuscate and blackmail the countries in the region that end up in a state of acute vulnerability.
Three: Iran would exploit this breach to activate its proxies in the region. Agents other than those already known such as Hezbollah (initially), the Houthis, Hashd al-Chaabi, and Hamas (in the wake). These are actors within the decision-making systems of certain countries in the region and beyond who succumbed to Shia proselytism.
American political planners and military strategists thought they could ease the burden on the national budget by entrusting the management of regional security to a country that was vengeful and yet weakened by ten years of war against Iraq (1980-1988).
American political planners and military strategists were cornered into favoring this option to respond to the pressures from neoconservatives and evangelicals. Both were traumatized by the September 11, 2001 attacks, who wove an enticing narrative about conspiracy theories and transnational complicities.
The United States has not changed its strategic goals. On the one hand, they have adopted a flexible approach that combines bilateral military and security cooperation, and on the other hand, they have worked to achieve a minimum level of support for the global fight against terrorism.
However, this ambitious strategy has been undermined by the difficulty of implementing some handy paradigms. This notably includes the failure of the paradigm called “the new generation of Arab leaders” due to overrating the role of Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Out of the blue, he becomes part of a tricky equation, strengthening the Iran axis and its proxies in the region.
Bashar remains faithful to his father’s vision while going even further, precisely to take his revenge against neighboring countries, particularly Iraq. He quietly accepts that Iran will take control of this country and, at the same time, help Tehran realize its dream of having access to the Mediterranean.
Yet, a question arises: do Iran and Israel really despise each other? And why, then? Only one answer confirms the obvious: the two countries separately nurture the dream of creating an empire beyond the current geographical reality. To make it work, they need to neutralize each other.
Prisoner’s Dilemma, Time running out
For Israel, the argument consists of the realization of Greater Israel according to a biblical vision contested by part of Jewish orthodoxy. The project gained momentum starting in 1990, although, according to some Israeli linguists, the interpretation of the expression is confusing.
Israel uses all possible means, including the horrific memories of the Holocaust, to play the role of the victim. Whoever would oppose or challenge such a project is accused of being antisemitic.
For Iran, the argument is about the reconstruction of a geographical space it lost in the past by signing agreements while in a position of resignation and capitulation. These very facts are felt as an endless nightmare. Iran also uses the status of victim to recover and implement its regional geopolitical vision.
Current Iran is nostalgic for territorial expansions, particularly under the Safavid dynasty (1501-1736), which established Twelver Shiism, and under the Qajar dynasty (1786-1925).
The commissioned studies on the history of Iran overlook the religious dimension that caused the weakening of these two great dynasties. The Safavids fell, in part, due to the persecution of Sunnis, particularly the Afghans, who eventually revolted against them.
Just as the war between Imperial Russia and Persia (1804-1813) led to the signing of the Treaty of Golestān in 1812 and the Treaty of Turkmanchai in 1828. Two treaties that sound like a painful capitulation and a humiliation. This painful perception is also found in the signing of other agreements.
First of all, the 1907 convention divided the spheres of influence between the United Kingdom (the south) and Imperial Russia (the north) and a neutral zone (the center). It was signed without further notice, and Iran was kept out of the process in its first inception.
Next, the 1913-1914 protocol established the western borders between Iran and the Ottoman Empire. Nowadays, this protocol is used by Iran to contest the territorial claims of certain countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Iran also upholds the principle of the continuity of certain agreements with Russia, the successor of the USSR, when it comes to the dispute over the Caspian Sea.
Finally, the Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919 placed Iran under a de facto protectorate through financial control. It is, in part, the result of the occupation of the country by the United Kingdom, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
The nightmare of humiliation has been witnessed in Mohammad Ghalibaf’s statement. Indeed, the speaker of the parliament and the head of the Iranian delegation to the negotiations in Islamabad stated, during the negotiations for the second round of talks, that the American president, Donald Trump, wants Iran to surrender and not to find a fair solution to the conflict.
To this, Iran, with all due proportions, adds another dimension, namely the genocide that Saddam Hussein allegedly ordered through the use of chemical weapons against Kurdish populations during the war between the two countries (1980-1988). In doing so, Iran joins Israel’s narrative of defending itself by all means, recalling the suffering of Jews under the Nazis.
The United States would have underestimated the impact of the humiliation felt by Iranians and other peoples of the region, regardless of their ethnic origins and affiliations to separate nation-states.
The prism of regime change has curiously ignored the continuity and impact of political culture throughout the region. The religious factor plays a fundamental role in this configuration. Attachment to religion goes beyond attachment to political regimes and individual leaders. Iran and certain countries in the region have skillfully played on this sensitive chord in the Muslim populations’ minds.
That is why imposed secularization has failed across the region. And the same reasoning applies to attempts to impose a one-sided vision of radical Islam through a biased reading of orthodoxy and reform of the religious field, perceived as heresy.
Similarly, the establishment of a policy in favor of the new Arab Gulf countries, while ignoring historical perspective and certain unavoidable patronages, has raised existential issues for all the countries in the region.
By pushing these countries to play an obstructionist role to perform ambivalence’s scheme with respect to Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, the United States has rendered the idea of a controlled regional security complex irrelevant. It even has limited the scope of its implementation in the future. The initial plan conceived during the 1970s was meant to use these so-called minor actors to deter both Iraq and Iran. However, the plans did not work as planned.
Strengthening the power of these minor actors has, in fact, been a deadly gift. Instead of developing their military capabilities, they remained in a blatant state of dependence on the United States and other regional and international powers, such as Russia, the United Kingdom, and Turkey.
The regional configuration since the inception of the Islamic Revolution in Iran is based on a three-tiered security structure. The first level consists of a two-headed pivot: Iran and Saudi Arabia, with a slight advantage for Iran.
The second level is occupied by Turkey and Israel. Turkey plays the role of an accordion between the first and third levels. The third level includes the actors in limbo who don’t really know which group they belong to.
This configuration fails to take three factors into consideration. The first factor is the role of the former powers that have shaped the history of the region, namely Russia and the United Kingdom.
The second factor is the exaggeration of Turkey’s role and the neglect of Russia’s. This started long before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989.
A wobbly regional configuration
The third factor is the shortsightedness regarding China’s infiltration into the Middle Eastern space. China’s involvement awakened India’s interests. In the process, it undermined the main objective, namely the integration of Afghanistan and Central Asia into the overall strategic vision. However, the idea of targeting the South Caucasus countries to some extent was considered. It would become inevitable if Russia and Turkey had shown signs of weakness.
Among the less inspired readings of the Middle Eastern strategic space, there is the determination of NATO’s role if a serious crisis occurs. From the outset, the strategic reconfiguration aimed at ruling out the idea of establishing a regional military structure remotely guided in the image of NATO, but the absence of such a scenario meant that the project as a whole was not taken seriously.
At that time a few countries in the Middle East resorted to a time management approach regarding calls for regime change. They feared that they would be targeted in the process. Similarly, the establishment of a substitute collective security system faced the dilemma of the hierarchy of state actors and their proxies.
Additional misperceptions have been noticed. Thus, independent or assigned channels of communication among regional state actors, notably between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Iran, were ruled out.
In short, some interpretations raise questions. First of all, the belief that the United States went to war against Iran because Israel manipulated them. Those who sustain this hypothesis do not understand how the decision-making system works in the United States.
Secondly, the fact of neglecting that the promotion of political Islam during the 1990s and 2000s aimed to give an acceptable face to Iranian Islam. The bet seemed workable since, within orthodox Islam, the debate on dichotomous interpretation of the exegesis and its relations to innovative trends of Islamic thought was raging.
To sustain this very fact, it is worth telling an anecdotal story that took place in December 1997 on the occasion of the 8th Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) held in Tehran. It consisted of crafting a scenario whose execution relied on the ambiguity of the Iranian political system.
The system is bicameral with two heads: a civil one and a religious one. It was planned that at the opening session presided over by the Iranian president, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would emerge unexpectedly, and a carefully orchestrated wave of applause from the Iranian audience would spread through the conference hall.
The Supreme Leader would raise his hand in greeting the Islamic heads of states (kings, emirs, and presidents) from the top of the conference hall. The latter would not have time to react and would be forced to accept the fait accompli. By this gesture, apparently innocent, Shiite Iran would impose its leadership over the Muslim nation, both Shiites and Sunnis included.
Thirdly, the task of separating security requirements from economic ambitions seems unlikely to be fulfilled. An integrated approach would be unavoidable. It would be based on inclusion and not exclusion. This would not be possible without a cleansing effort within the various decision-making centers of the protagonists in the spotlight.
Fourthly, the recovery of real power by the nation-state in fragile countries in the Middle East is a non-negotiable condition to avoid the erosion of power and general chaos.
Fifthly, the question about the willingness of diffuse forces within the concerned countries to play the game. In any case, the latter no longer have a choice. Relying on the weariness of successive governments or the potential change of the rules of the game is no longer a viable option.
Sixthly, this observation also applies to the Arab countries that are members of the GCC, which benefited from the fall of Saddam Hussein. Currently, they find themselves in an uncomfortable situation.
Some Middle-Eastern experts already share the view that the model of wealth islands in the Gulf will go through difficult times and may even become a distant memory.
Seventhly, geographical logic surpasses the logic of domestic politics of states – or at least, it exerts a predominant influence on the course of events in the case of prolonged diplomatic crises.
No Exit Strategy on the Horizon
Additional reading might be added in this regard. One, the impact of the sanctions imposed on Iran and the disguised bargaining against the Gulf Arab countries exercised by various interests in the region and beyond have not produced the expected results in terms of creative chaos and zigzag instability.
Two, China and Russia could have been penalized by a continuous war in which they cannot directly participate, but, in fact, they are currently benefiting from it. The alternative financial system they have set up to circumvent sanctions seems to be working in a strategic context that keeps intriguing experts in Middle Eastern affairs.
Will this alternative system withstand the new sanctions and the blockade imposed by the United States at the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz? No one can tell. The psychological war between all parties is in full swing and will cause direct and collateral damages.
Three, the United States and their Western allies are now convinced that their assumption that the Iranian political system could be reformed from within was wrong. In the current state of affairs, no one knows who really runs Iran.
Fourth, the neutralization of Iranian proxies can work and be carried out—even laboriously—but the risk, for Western countries and their allies, remains the idea that Iran would pursue its first aim to export the Islamic revolution in its radical version through the same acquired networks that were disappointed by the failed experience of the Muslim Brotherhood.
For the Iranian doctrinarians, the means don’t matter; it’s the result that counts to wash away the affront of their stolen history, which must be reclaimed and reinvented to survive.
The process presents a long-term work of indoctrination that throws a spanner in the works for planners with multiple perquisites. However, this time, the misjudgment is widespread and reignites the prisoner’s dilemma, a key element in game theory.
Indeed, geopolitics is intriguing if the perception of international politics is not guided by flexibility, adaptation, and the pursuit of compromises that endure over time. The tripartite war between the United States, Israel, and Iran was inevitable.
Yet, the limits of strategic tolerance had been crossed. Indeed, planners from all sides focused on the hypothesis of regime change and overlooked the obstructive factors represented by societal projects that no longer work in the West and the East.