Iran's strong hand in power game with America

Iran's strong hand in power game with America

By Amin Saikal
April 17, 2006


Iran's official declaration that it has successfully enriched uranium for peaceful purposes is a further indication that Tehran is not concerned by the United States threat of military action. The Iranian leadership remains confident of US limitations to deter it from acting against Iran. Has Tehran become too complacent?

Tehran has made a calculated decision to press on with its nuclear program. It feels certain that it can cope with the consequences. It has been fully aware of the Bush Administration's resolve to stop it becoming a nuclear power and, if possible, to cause regime change. But it has been able to take comfort from a number of favourable significant factors.

Despite all American attempts to weaken Iran's position in the region, the Iraq situation has increasingly worked to the contrary. Iraq has opened a theatre of conflict that has enormously benefited Iran. While the US is struggling to find an honourable way out of the conflict, the Iranians are well-positioned to help or frustrate American efforts.

The Sunni-dominated Iraqi insurgency and its sectarian affiliation with the Arab world have driven the Iraqi Shiite majority, despite its Arabness, to look increasingly to Shiite Iran as its ultimate regional backer.

The Bush Administration's recent decision to authorise the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, to open talk with the Iranian regime on the Iraqi situation underscores Washington's recognition of this fact.

In the event of an American attack on Iran over its nuclear program, Tehran has the ability to increase the Iraq conflict to engulf the whole region and make American losses unbearable. Tehran can activate a regional Shiite strategic entity, stretching from Iran to Lebanon, against the US and its allies.

Tehran could also stretch this entity to include Afghanistan, where the Shiites constitute about 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the population and in which the US and its allies operate in an increasingly fragile and hostile environment.

Further, contrary to all their agitation and criticism of Iran through the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN Security Council, the US's European allies, as well as Russia and China, stand to lose a great deal in a military conflict with Iran.

While the European powers, especially Britain, France and Germany, which have been negotiating with Tehran for peaceful resolution of the nuclear row, have very lucrative trade deals with the country, Russia has benefited enormously from flourishing economic and military ties with Iran and building the country's nuclear reactors. Similarly, China has had growing commercial relations with Iran, including importing 11 per cent of its oil from the country.

Besides this, Moscow and Beijing would not find it in their interests to legitimise any American action that could widen a US hegemonic presence in Middle East. No wonder all these countries have persistently played down an American use of force as an option.

Iran has also made sure that its nuclear facilities are as secure and dispersed as possible. Some of them are not only buried deep under the ground, but also scattered widely to safeguard them against surgical strikes. Tehran has been conscious of the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi Osirak reactor in 1981 and must have done everything possible not to be vulnerable to similar action.

If Washington decides on a military option, it will have to entail a long campaign that could easily entangle it in another vicious and possibly unwinnable conflict in the region. In addition, Tehran has counted on the obvious: the use of its oil as a political weapon, and its military capability to block the Strait of Homuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean and through which 87 per cent of the region's oil is exported to the outside world, and to target the interests of the US and its allies anywhere in the region.

In all this, it can count on the backing of a great majority of the Iranian people, who have historically been very independent in spirit and have closed ranks in the face of an outside threat, irrespective of their political differences.

These are the considerations that have importantly underpinned Tehran's calculations. Whether they will buy it enough time to persuade the US and its allies that its acquisition of nuclear technology is for peaceful purposes remains to be seen. Whatever the outcome, Tehran has now certainly engaged in a high-stakes game.

Amin Saikal is professor of political science and director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at ANU.

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