Dealing with Iran

A recent poll done by Fox News shows that 69% of Americans feel that President Obama has not dealt strongly enough with Iran. 61% feel that force is needed to be used against Iran in order to stop the country from developing nuclear potential. While I agree that Obama should take a stronger stance against Iran, I think that launching an attack against Iran would be a terrible mistake. Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, which do not have strong nationalist pasts, Iranians have a proud history that dates back to ancient Persia. Afghanistan and Iraq are both ethnically diverse and lacked a real national identity and thus felt little loyalty to the state. Iranians, however, who have strong ties to the Iranian state, would be enraged if the US or a US-backed Israel attacked Iran. People with a strong national identity detest any violation of national sovereignty.

The problem with much of American foreign policy is that it emphasizes too much on the present. It doesn’t look back far of enough in the past and doesn’t look far forward enough into the future. The best long term solution to stabilizing Iran is to have the ruling theocracy overthrown by a reform movement and a pro-Western (or at least not anti-Western) government to take power. Attacking Iran would almost certainly ensure that the Iranian people (who have shown strong support to introduce reform) would rally around the government against foreign military action. A good story to keep in mind is what happened with the SPD in Germany at the start of World War I. The SPD (Social Democratic Party) was extremely critical of the German monarchy and intense German nationalism. Yet, with the start of the First World War the patriotic members of SPD rallied around the German flag (at least initially) and approved funds to mobilize Germany for war. Even the most critical opposition can be driven to support of an unpopular government if they feel threatened by foreigners.

Thus the long term solution is to support and aid reformist Iranians within Iran. Force should not be used except as the most desperate course of action. This is because the best hope for removing Iran from the so-called “Axis of Evil” is to support regime change from within Iran by the reformers and the people. If Americans work closely with these people we can secure their friendship. To put pressure on the current Iranian regime the US should enforce harsher sanctions against Iran to deteriorate the economic situation. The biggest complain that reformist have against Ahmadinejad is his poor handling of the economy. If a connection is made by Iranians between Ahmadinejad nuclear ambitions and the deteriorating economy, Iranians at the very least will put pressure on him to end this ambition in order to have embargos lifted. I do not think that the Iranians believe that nuclear weapons are worth the price of a poor economy. Finally, American should pursue alternative fuels and expand domestic drilling which would tremendously hurt the Iranian economy and cause greater unrest. This is a less direct form of economic pressure and may bode better to Iranians so that anti-Western propaganda (in the case of greater sanctions) won’t be handed to the Iranian regime.

Some things to remember:
*51% of Iran’s population is Persian and 58% speak Persian. 89% are Shia Muslim. Thus there is a strong national identity through ethnicity, language, and religion.
*Iran’s revenues: $51 billion, Expenditures: $103 billion.
*80% of Iran’s exports are petroleum.
*Unemployment: 12.5%