Iran has been winning for over a decade now, and it believes
it will continue to do so.
Over the past 15 years, Iran has established a strong
position in Iraq that allows it to influence the country’s politics as well as
to extract benefits from its economy. Iran has built a strong presence in the
northernmost point of the Middle East, in Syria, linking the region with both
Central Asia and Europe, and at the southernmost part of the Arabian Peninsula,
in Yemen, at its point of connection with Africa and the Indian Ocean.
اضافة اعلان
These successes built on previous ones. Since the victory of
the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has entrenched itself not only politically
but also culturally within Lebanon’s Shitte community and built an extremely
powerful military arm in Lebanon in the shape of Hizbullah.
Through its presence in Syria and Lebanon, Iran has
developed negotiating and deterrence cards with the US, Europe, Turkey, Russia,
Saudi Arabia, and, of course, Israel. Crucially, its presence in Syria and
Lebanon meets a centuries-old Iranian desire – to secure a commanding outpost
overlooking the Mediterranean, an objective that Iran has sought throughout
history from the Persian emperors Cyrus the Great and Xerxes in ancient times
to the former shah of Iran.
Iran’s belief that it can continue to win stems from faith.
Its Islamic Republic is anchored in a theological doctrine built on a belief in
historic victimhood (of the House of the Prophet Mohamed), venerating martyrdom
(a derivative of the killing of the Imam Hussein), and lingering guilt (for the
fate of Hussein after his abandonment by his followers who had invited him into
their midst).
Victimhood, martyrdom and guilt fused over the centuries,
and in the second half of the 20th century coalesced in the teachings of
Ayatollah Khomeini, one of the most charismatic religious leaders of the last
century, into a pent-up missionary force. In this view, Iran’s Islamic Republic
is not so much a country as a divinely sanctioned idea.
But Iran has typically presented this idea in non-religious
terms. In its official narrative, the country is the key node in the “axis of
resistance” fighting the Pax Americana in the Middle East, as well as against
Sunni militant groups wreaking havoc on the Levant. This is both a reflection
of deep convictions of the Iranian regime about the nature of the US empire and
good marketing at a time when many in the region are acutely concerned about
the spread of militancy and radicalism.
Iran’s resistance narrative has also gone far beyond the
Middle East. The country and its arms have woven intricate links to countries
and groups in Africa, Asia and South America that oppose US supremacy. The
objectives of these links transcend moral support; over time, they resulted in
sophisticated networks that transfer various items, from weapons to money, and
by which Iran has widened and deepened its reach in different parts of the
world.
Along with its external successes, the Islamic Republic has
also secured its home front. Not only have the groups that challenged the
regime in 2009 been crushed, but the forces within the institutions of the
Islamic Republic that wanted to effect gradual and controlled reforms have been
sidelined. This has happened exactly before the imminent point of transition
from the 80-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei to a new supreme guide. It is now
almost certain that Khamenei’s successor will come from the assertive camps
that have been leading Iran’s expansion over the past decade.
Iranian conservatives see this last point as a success
vis-à-vis the US. In their view, since the mid-2000s the US has heightened its
pressure on Iran, largely through sticks but also often through carrots, so
that it will acquiesce to a deal by which Iran accommodates US interests in the
Gulf and Middle East. The fact that Iran has continued to negotiate a deal with
the US on its own terms, while having withstood such pressure, is a major
victory in the Iranian calculus and rhetoric.
Success has heightened Iran’s ambitions, and today three aims
are clear.
First, Iran wants to make its presence in the Middle East
and on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean permanent. This is why we are
seeing an insistence on a national-unity government in Iraq and the strong
likelihood of negotiating a new governing structure for Lebanon to replace the
1990 Taif Agreement that ended the country’s civil war.
Second, and linked to the first aim, Iran wants to solidify
its deterrence with regard to Israel, achieved largely through Hizbullah’s
military capabilities. Third, Iran wants to add to its “axis of resistance”
understandings with major countries that border the sphere of influence it has
built in the Levant and eastern Mediterranean. This is the essence of Iran’s
attempts to improve its relations with Turkey and to engage with Egypt.
But as Iran’s greatest poet, Hafiz, taught us, harmonious
relationships relate to what he elegantly described as the “art of presence and
absence”. Iran’s heightened presence in the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East
and the Levant has left major players thinking how to have less Iranian
presence and more of its absence.
Three variables merit attention.
First, for the first time in many centuries, political
Shiism is by far the most powerful political force in the region, extending
from Central Asia to the Eastern Mediterranean. This power is anchored in
demographic weight and changes effected in the past decade, primarily in Syria,
in an increasingly vibrant and confident cultural presence, and in military
might. It has left Sunni Muslims in the countries of this vast geographical
space, as well as many Christians, oscillating between apprehension and
anxiety. It could result in eruptions of anger, examples of which have already
been seen in Lebanon, that could trigger dangerous flare-ups.
Second, Iran’s political Shiism has been a challenge to
Saudi Arabia for almost 40 years. But the country’s successes over the past
decade, anchored in the entrenchment of identity politics in the Gulf, the
Middle East, the Levant and Yemen, formed a complete circle around Saudi Arabia
and are increasingly being seen as a serious threat to it at a time when its
rulers are trying to overhaul the country’s politics and its prevailing
culture.
Saudi Arabia might appear quiet and focused on the lingering
guerrilla war in Yemen, but its combination of a youthful leadership, massive
wealth, and a sense of acute threat closing in makes for a fiery mix.
However, it is the third variable that will likely have the
biggest impact on the Middle East and the Levant, and by extension on North
Africa and Europe, in the near future. It is that Iran’s advanced nuclear
program, and Iran’s and Hizbullah’s missile arsenal in the eastern
Mediterranean are serious challenges to the premises upon which Israeli
national security is founded.
The writer is an Egyptian author, commentator, TV presenter
and documentary producer who specializes in regional politics and political
economy affairs.
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