POLITICS-US: Iran's Regional Dominance Overstated, Report Says

• by Ali Gharib (washington)
• Wednesday, May 20, 2009
• Inter Press Service

'U.S. strategy must recognize Iran's role as an influential, but not omnipotent, player in the Middle East and work to exploit existing barriers to Iran's harmful activities, while simultaneously seeking areas of engagement,' says a release on the report from the Rand Corporation.

RAND, a non-profit research group, released the report Tuesday after a meeting between U.S. and Israeli leaders where Iran was discussed at length in the public part – and one must assume, private parts as well – of the talks.

It also came just as Iran's state news agency announced the successful test launch of a surface-to-surface missile with a range of about 1,900 kilometres – in other words, capable of reaching Israel and U.S. bases in the region.

The 230-page report, 'Dangerous But Not Omnipotent: Exploring the Reach and Limitations of Iranian Power in the Middle East', was commissioned by the U.S. Air Force in order to 'accurately gauge the strategic challenges from Iran over a ten- to fifteen-year horizon.' The report seeks to 'assess the motivations of the Islamic Republic, not just its capabilities.'

The report concludes 'that analogies to the Cold War are mistaken' because Iran does not have the same ideal of exporting their revolution as the Soviet Union despite the fact that they use rhetoric to that effect. Nor does Iran, says the report, desire 'territorial aggrandizement'.

As a result, says RAND, 'Traditional containment options may actually create further opportunities for Tehran to exploit, thereby amplifying the very influence the United States is trying to mitigate.'

During the Cold War, the U.S.’s containment strategy was carried out with the threat of military force as a deterrent and multilateral isolation by the U.S. and allies. The latter pressures today, in the case of Iran, have taken the form of broad-based sanctions, with anti-Iranian forces in the U.S. pushing further 'crippling' sanctions on the country of 60 million people.

'A more useful strategy,' continues the RAND report, 'is one that exploits existing checks on Iran’s power and influence.'

But that does not mean that U.S. President Barack Obama’s strategy of trying meaningful engagement with Iran will work to settle issues between the Islamic Republic and West, either.

'Although more appealing [than Cold War containment tactics], policies relying only on bilateral engagement and/or hopes for some sort of grand bargain are equally unrealistic,' says the report.

Instead, RAND suggest 'a series of unilateral de-escalation measures by Washington and continued muscular multilateral efforts targeted at Iranian behaviors that are at odds with international norms.'

A key of this point is that the efforts are 'targeted' toward specific behaviours: the report calls for 'international sanctions and other financial pressures targeted on the nuclear issue.'

The report warns against 'unilateral punitive measures that are not likely to generate broad support' and calls 'secondary sanctions' – also known as 'extraterritorial' sanctions which are of disputed legality – 'particularly counterproductive' towards broad international consensus.

The report also says that the U.S. should engage bilaterally in areas of mutual interest, make clear indications of its interests in the region, and 'build a multilateral regional security framework that is simultaneously inclusive of Iran and sensitive to the needs of the United States’ Arab friends and allies.'

Iran, says the report, has demonstrated its 'competing tendencies toward adventurism and pragmatism'.

For example, though Iran uses inflammatory rhetoric, it does so only to gain support within the region for very particular goals.

'Many within the current regime appear to view Iran as an indispensable regional power, but not necessarily a revolutionary hegemon,' says the report.

The revolutionary rhetoric is strong, but it is still just rhetoric: '[T]he record of Iranian actions suggests that these views should be more accurately regarded as the vocabulary of Iranian foreign policy rather than its determinant,' says the report. 'Nationalism, sovereignty, and regime survival are more fundamental drives of Iran’s external behavior.'

And even Iran’s support in the region, from proxy groups and Arab publics - though notably not the latter’s leadership regimes, who are allied with the U.S. - is not as robust as alarmists about Iran’s sway have presented it.

'Iran has limited leverage over so-called proxy groups,' such as Lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah militia, says the report.

The report also found that 'popular Arab support for Iran remains a fickle strategic resource. In many cases, Arab opinion can rapidly swing from praise to condemnation based on events that are beyond Iran’s control of because of its own strategic missteps.'

But in terms of any U.S. military attack on Iran, notes the report, both official and popular opinion is largely opposed, due to deep concerns about Iran’s retaliatory options and insufficient U.S. protection.

In a separate study released Tuesday by the East-West Institute, a joint team of U.S. and Russian scientists said that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon in one to three years, and a nuclear warhead for a ballistic missile in six to eight years.

The timeframe has great implications for U.S. talks with Iran. Israel, a close U.S ally, has insisted that an effective Iranian bomb will be online in a period of months, not years, and has urged, as recently as Monday’s meeting between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that the U.S. set a hard deadline for negotiations for as soon as this October.

'The report’s participants warn that European missile defenses will not provide dependable protection against an Iranian threat if and when it emerges,' said a release announcing the study’s results.

It suggests cooperative Russian-U.S. development of a missile shield that will not raise the diplomatic row caused by former U.S. President George W. Bush’s attempt to put a missile defence system in Eastern Europe against Russia’s will.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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