Iran’s Support for Non-State Actor Violence – Interests, Goals, and Grievances: ’s Relationship with the West in the 20th Century Adam Yefet

This paper examines Iran’s relationship with the West and how that relationship has led Iran to define its interests as fundamentally opposed to the United States’ interests in the Middle East. Following from this, it examines Iran’s relationships with non- state terror groups, especially in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and examines how the actions of those groups serve Iran’s perceived interests. It concludes with policy recommendations for the United States to pursue post-P5+1 nuclear deal to persuade Iran that its interests lie in further global engagement, not terror.

Introduction

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s relations with the international community were founded on defying international laws and norms. Just months after the new

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 government was formed, the takeover of the U.S. embassy in November 1979 foreshadowed the antagonistic relations between Iran and the West, and asserted that Iranian foreign policy would not follow the West’s rules. Subsequent support for terrorism in the international community has led many policymakers and scholars to label Iran as a “rogue state,” a concept that evolved to describe states that sponsor terrorism, pursue weapons of mass destruction, and intentionally flout the laws and norms of the international community.1

This paper examines the domestic and international goals of the Islamic Republic of Iran that led it to support non-state actor violence across the region and the globe. First, it dissects the narrative ’s relationship with the international community in the 20th century which drives its understanding of its interests with that community. Next it examines the groups that Iran has funded and their corresponding activities, ostensibly at Iran’s behest. Then it analyzes how these varied groups and their actions fit Iran’s interests and goals. It concludes with thoughts on U.S. policy towards Iran after the P5+1 nuclear deal.

The Origin of Animosity

Iranian hostility to foreign influence dates back at least to the middle of the 19th century, when Russia and Great Britain’s Great Game played out across the Middle East and Central Asia.2 In the 1870s, the Iranian people took to the streets to the granting of a monopoly on the nation’s industrial development by the Iranian king to a British corporate interest. Within a year and a half, the concession was rescinded. A similar situation unfolded in the 1890s over the granting of a tobacco monopoly, again to a British entrepreneur. Tobacco was a significant industry in Iran, employing “many thousands of poor farmers...a whole class of middlemen...and countless Iranians [who] smoked it.”3 Again the Iranian people engaged in popular , and again the deal was rescinded. Although Iran was not on par with the great powers of the day, its people demonstrated strong resistance to foreign exploitation of their nation’s wealth and industry.

In 1901, however, a deal was completed with a British businessman that “proved in many ways to de ne twentieth century Iran.”4 William Knox D’Arcy

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 was granted the right to explore for Iranian oil in exchange for a portion of the subsequent profits. When he finally struck black gold a few years later, he founded what would eventually become British Petroleum, still a major player on the global oil market. At the time, the company was christened the Anglo Persian Oil Company (APOC).

As Middle East scholar notes, the presence of APOC and its exploitive influence on the Iranian monarchs’ governments, to name one factor, contributed to a rising hostility to foreign powers in Iran.5 From 1925 to 1926 and again in 1941 the British encouraged or even directed regime changes that crushed democratic movements and leaders that opposed foreign influence.6 is constant interference and Iranian helplessness in the face of its power continued to frustrate Iranians and tilt them against the West.

Mosaddegh and the Beginning of the End

In 1951, the Iranian people elected Dr. Mohammed Mosaddegh as Prime Minster. Among a number of social reforms, one of his central pledges, which he enacted almost immediately, was to nationalize the nation’s oil industry. Besides the significant economic windfall for the country, he asserted it “would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced” by foreign commercial and political interests.7 Mosaddegh stressed that the company would receive just compensation in the form of 25% of the profits, and that the ow of oil to the international market would continue unabated, but in the hands of its “rightful owners,” the people of Iran.8 After decades of foreign powers dictating Iranian domestic politics, Mosaddegh thought he had taken a revolutionary step for the country’s future. Unfortunately, like several Iranian rulers before him, Mosaddegh found that he too was still but a pawn in the Great Game.

Despite months of negotiations and talks with international leaders, including visits to the White House and the United Nations, Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup at the behest of the British MI-6.9 Codenamed Operation Ajax and known to the Iranian people as the “28 Mordad 1332 coup,” which refers to its date on the Iranian calendar, the operation convinced the Shah to make a highly unpopular move to dismiss

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 Mosaddegh as Prime Minister, replacing him with a pro-Western figure, and use constitutional emergency powers to take greater personal control of the government. The coup also backed staged clashes between pro- and anti- Shah forces and engaged pro-Shah military forces to take control of . Mosaddegh surrendered the next day. He was then tried, convicted, and sent to prison for three years before being transferred to for the remainder of his life, dying in 1967.

Almost immediately, the new government signed a deal granting the United States and Great Britain significant control of the nation’s oil industry. In exchange, the U.S. and Great Britain granted substantial funding to the Iranian government. To the Iranian people, this was yet another instance, though the most significant, of Western interference—another national leader deposed and replaced by the West in a half century for having the gall to assert Iranian independence from colonial machinations. What followed was some 20 years under the Shah, who maintained a close relationship with the United States and the West, repressing his population with the Iranian secret police, the SAVAK. The United States’ overthrow of a democratically elected government in favor of an authoritarian regime permanently colored several generations of Iranians’ views of international relations, giving them a “conspiratorial interpretation of politics,” always suspicious and alert.10 How could an international system be legitimate if it could allow such heinous interventions into their sovereignty?

In 1979, the Islamic Revolution deposed the Shah, and prominent cleric Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to cheering crowds. Just months later, protesters overran the U.S. embassy in Tehran in what was the beginning of the year-plus long Iranian hostage crisis. The hostage-takers claimed they were protecting the Revolution from further American conspiracies, which the U.S. validated when they provided refuge for the deposed Shah.11

From the Iranian point of view, the hostage crisis sent a significant message to western countries that the Shah’s heritage and that of his allies were completely finished. As a consequence, in the early years of the Islamic Revolution, Iran had a radical strategy and ideology for its relationship with international society.12 Of course, the United States did not see it that way. The hostile act engendered immediate American antagonism towards the new regime.

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 The next year, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, believing he had a strategic advantage, invaded Iran. This precipitated a bloody eight-year war that was largely a stalemate. During the war, Saddam directed missile fire at Iranian civilians and used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, killing thousands. Meanwhile, the United States continued to provide material support to the Iraqi army. Many in Iran even believed that the United States had encouraged Iraq to declare war in the first place. Again, the Iranian people saw the U.S. as bent on interference in their domestic politics and the international system as illegitimate for not standing up against Saddam’s behavior. Towards the end of the war, a U.S. naval ship mistakenly shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing more than 200 Iranian civilians. Despite Iranian demands, the U.S. never apologized for the mistake, and the commander of the ship was later awarded a medal for his service, though the citation did not mention the downing of the plane.13 These are just a few significant examples contributing to a pervasive feeling in Iran that U.S. intervention in the Middle East is based in arrogance and colonial economics.

Post 9/11

The U.S.-Iranian relationship changed drastically in the first years of the 21st century, and a grand opportunity was lost just as it appeared. After the events of September 11, 2001 and the Taliban’s refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden, the United States government began planning its invasion of Afghanistan, taking the first step towards rapprochement. The Bush administration quietly began meeting with a group of Iranian diplomats in Geneva who provided a great deal of intelligence on Afghanistan and the Taliban and contacts with the Northern Alliance opposition force. The Taliban was a long-time antagonist of neighboring Iran and the Iranian’s were only too happy to help in their ouster. However, the uneasy alliance was dashed in January 2002 when President George W. Bush gave his State of the Union address and declared Iran as part of the “, arming to threaten the peace of the world.”14 According to the New Yorker, this marked the end of secret meetings and of any hope for rapprochement during the Bush administration. The United States already had troops operating in Afghanistan, on Iran’s eastern border. The push for war in Iraq, on Iran’s western border was beginning. Iran feared it might be next.

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 These fears contributed to the continuation of a confrontational political path with the West that Iran had been on for decades. A 2010 State Department report determined Iran to be the world’s most significant state backer of terrorism. Its funding for violent non-state groups, the report said, “had a direct impact on international efforts to promote peace, threatened economic stability in the Gulf, and undermined the growth of democracy.”15 These may have been the chief goals of the Iranian strategy. Their foreign policy principal of overt and covert support for non-state actor violence will be examined below.

Iranian Support for Non-State Actor Violence

Since the revolution, the Islamic Regime has supported non-state actor violence, directly by providing human resources and training through their elite special Quds Force, and indirectly by providing capital to groups beyond its borders. Iran has engaged a variety of groups in different countries to further its geopolitical goals without being accountable for the deplorable methods the groups use. Iran uses these methods to manipulate international norms that allow countries to avoid direct responsibility for their proxies’ actions to fight Western interests in the Middle East and drive their forces out of the region. It is also able to claim itself as a strong defender of the Palestinian cause by putting pressure on Israel, the United States’ favorite son in the region. A brief analysis on Iran’s actions through non-state actor proxy groups reveal how the accomplishments these groups achieve align with Iranian interests. This section reviews the significant groups and activities Iran supports.

Hezbollah

In 1982, Israeli forces invaded Lebanon, seven years into Lebanon’s communal civil war between Maronite Christians, Sunni Arabs, and Shi’ite Arabs, all of which had a variety of armed militia groups supporting their regional sectarian allies. Iran, a nation led by Shi’ite Muslims, materially supported the Shi’ite groups along with neighboring Syria. The Israeli invasion in the south of the country united several of the Shi’ite militia into what would eventually become Hezbollah. The invasion also united Syria and Iran’s support behind the group. Hezbollah was and continues to be one of the Jewish state’s main adversaries, representing a sizeable faction in the Muslim Middle East that wishes to see

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 the outright destruction of Israel. When the Taif Agreement ended the civil war in 1989-1990, it stipulated that all militia must disarm, with a specific exemption for Hezbollah, which could continue the fight against Israeli occupation in the south of the country as a ‘resistance force’ rather than a militia.16 Hezbollah did so, eventually forcing the withdrawal of Israel in 2000. Since then, the group has continued operations harassing Israeli forces on the tri-border area of Lebanon, Israel, and Syria, firing missiles towards Israeli military and civilian positions, and even brazenly crossing the border to kidnap two Israeli soldiers in 2006, which resulted in a fierce Israeli campaign of destruction in response.

Hezbollah is not, however, constrained to Israeli targets. The group has operated around the world, especially in South America, cooperating with Venezuela’s Chavez regime in the 2000s and in Argentina, where Hezbollah bombed the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center in the early 1990s. The organization was also implicated as cooperating with Iranian forces in the in Saudi Arabia in 1996, which killed 19 U.S. military personnel and injured several hundred Americans and Saudis. Matthew Levitt, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who focuses on counter-terrorism asserts that after 9/11, Hezbollah toned down its international acts and focused on Israel so as “not to be caught in the crosshairs of Washington’s “war on terror.”17 However, by 2010, Quds forces and Hezbollah operatives had begun a new campaign directed at attacking Western interests and targets beyond Israel. They have initiated plots to kill Israeli tourists in Europe and targeted Saudi diplomats abroad, including a foiled plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States.18

Iran has maintained Hezbollah as its proxy for some three decades. Its leaders insist that the ideology of the Revolution, velayat-e faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, or the idea that a theological figure should rule the state), is at the heart of their organization.19 However, its survival as an armed group after the Taif Agreement depended on the influence of Syria and Iran. Indeed, Hezbollah has benefitted from Iran’s immense financial and technical backing ever since. Sources indicate the group receives at least USD 100 million per year and its coordination with Iran gives it access to a wide swath of training and intelligence resources. In return, it has worked for Iranian interests abroad, responding to threats on behalf of the Iranian regime.20, 21

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 Today, at Iran’s behest, Hezbollah supports the Assad regime in the four and a half year civil war in Syria. The group provides hundreds, if not thousands, of well-trained foot soldiers, coordinating with the Iranian covert forces in the country.22 Assad plays a crucial role as Iran’s only ally, and Syria, under his control, is Hezbollah’s lifeline to its Iranian benefactors. Both Hezbollah and Iran understand the importance of keeping this friendly regime in power, and Assad’s regime would not have been able to last as long as it has without the substantial support it receives from Iran and Hezbollah.23

Palestinian Groups

Other crucial groups that receive funding and training from Iran are Palestinian extremists that oppose the existence of the Jewish State of Israel. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) have both received substantial funds from Iran to continue their uncompromising stance towards Israel. Both groups provide interesting cases because they are offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist organization that broadly has an antagonistic relationship with the Iranian Shi’ite theocracy. This demonstrates that Iran prioritizes its geopolitical interests in the region over its ecclesiastic interests. Iran’s legitimacy rests on its claim of defending the Palestinian people, and fulfillment of that goal takes precedence over managing the Sunni-Shi’ite divide. Iran is also competing with Saudi Arabia for this role and cannot let the Saudis monopolize funding. Though Iran’s ties to Hamas and the now nearly defunct PIJ are more tenuous, Iran has provided regular operational funding and training to the two groups for over a decade, and their working relationship stretches back even further.24

Palestinian groups receive funding from all over the Middle East and the broader Muslim world. Their cause engenders sympathy and funding from many sources, and support for Palestinian statehood and against Israel is fundamental to domestic politics across the Middle East. Iran’s desired role in the region and in the world necessitates support for Palestine, but the method and direction by which it wields that support suggests the role it wishes to play in fighting Western influence in the Middle East and the Islamic world. Iran’s actions are designed specifically to undermine the progress of peace by funding and providing arms to Hamas and PIJ, which target civilians and refuse any

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 recognition of Israel. “The Iranian system has viewed this support as an essential part of the Revolution’s responsibilities.”25

Both groups have conducted attacks against Israel with rockets and suicide bombers for years, targeting civilians both physically and psychologically. In 2006, Hamas captured an Israeli soldier and held him for nearly five years, eventually releasing him in a prisoner exchange with Israel in which over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners were released, many of whom had ties to terror.26 Some of those released have rejoined the fight against Israel and again engaged in terror again.27

Hamas, whose political wing won the election in the Gaza strip in Palestine’s first and only elections in 2006, has also engaged in a campaign of violence against the PLO, its older terror organization turned political party counterpart, and the governing body established after the Oslo accords, the Palestinian Authority.28 Even as the international community has condemned Hamas violence and tried to delegitimize these groups relative to the Palestinian Authority, Iran has remained a steadfast backer of Hamas and PIJ.29 It must be noted, however, that the relationship has somewhat frayed since 2011 due to the sectarian conflict in Syria. Hamas’s Sunni leadership is opposed to the Assad regime, which has stood against the Muslim Brotherhood of which Hamas is an affiliate and the Syrian regime has long empowered the minority communities of Syria over the significant Sunni majority in the country.

Militia in Iraq

After 9/11, the U.S.-Iranian relationship stood at a significant crossroads. Iran offered its condolences and as mentioned, Hezbollah essentially abandoned its international terror pro le. In Afghanistan, which rests on Iran’s Eastern border, Iran provided contacts with the opposition parties to the Taliban, and even strategic advice; their cooperation was crucial to the smooth American and NATO operations that quickly swept over the country.30 Their support could have been crucial to the planning and operations of the invasion of Iraq as well, had it not been for the infamous “Axis of Evil” line delivered by President Bush in his second State of the Union address in 2002. That speech stymied collaboration on both fronts. Iranian diplomats who had been secretly meeting

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 with the State Department’s Ryan Crocker for months declared they were done. The intelligence sharing stopped immediately. The United States, already bogged down in Afghanistan, decided to open a new front in Iraq. After a quick, decisive victory the U.S. designated provisional government of Iraq deconstructs the bureaucratic infrastructure of the Iraqi state already crippled by two decades of war and sanctions. When the threat of invasion of Iran receded and the American quagmire in Iraq became apparent, the Iranians became an antagonizing force for American occupation troops.31 New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins reported “recalling that time, Crocker shook his head. “We were just that close,” he said. “One word in one speech changed history.”32 Scholar Stephen Kinzer notes that the invasion of the two countries was a “huge favor” to Iran, as the regimes toppled in both countries were deeply hostile to the Iranians.33 It strengthened their geopolitical position and provided them a critical expansion in influence, not only eliminating two adversaries, but replacing them with friendly governments inclined to working with their powerful neighbor. The vacuum created by American intervention in Iraq was a chasm-sized opening for Iran. The coalition government led by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer disbanded Saddam’s Baath party, the only legal political party in Iraq for decades, and also disbanded the largest, most powerful organization in the country, the Iraqi Army. Without this key security and management infrastructure, coalition troops, mostly Americans, were entirely responsible for public safety in Iraq, filling the position of not only peacekeeper, but police force as well, a role the U.S. armed forces are ill-equipped to play. Iranian unconventional forces were easily able to step in and create chaos for coalition groups.

Iran and Saddam’s Iraq had an adversarial relationship, stemming from their eight-year war in the 1980s. As such, each spent the post-war period seeking to undermine the other’s power, including through the heightening of ethno- sectarian tensions. Iraq’s majority Shi’ite Arab population had been ruled by its Sunni minority for decades, well before Saddam Hussein, and attempted political uprisings had been crushed many a time, often brutally. Revolutionary Iran had often sheltered Shi’ite opposition figures on the run from Saddam and provided material support to dissidents and resistance groups operating in Iraq, including the Daawa party and one of its leaders, Nouri al-Maliki, who became Prime Minister of Iraq from 2006 to 2014.34 While the relationship between

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 Iran’s government and Iraq’s Shi’ites was not always smooth, their joint history and Iran’s influence in Iraq would prove to be very important.

Two militant Iraqi Shi’ite groups were the Badr Brigade, and the Mahdi Army. The Badr Brigade had historical ties to the Iraqi Daawa party of which al- Maliki had been a part, and the group fought on the Iranian side during the Iran-, something very few Arab Shi’ites did.35 After the war, they maintained their ties with the Iranian army and after the coalition invasion they fought against Sunni insurgents and former Baathists, generally staying out of conflict with American forces.36

On the other hand, Filkins reports that the Mahdi army, also backed by Iran and led by a firebrand Shi’ite cleric whose father had been executed by the Saddam regime in 1980, quickly engaged against the Americans. The Iranians found him difficult and unpredictable to work with, so they extended their support to other groups.37 This demonstrates that Iran wanted to have close coordination and control of those it funded. Fighters were trained in Iran by the Iranian military or in Lebanon and Syria by Hezbollah militants. Filkins notes that the control the Iranian Quds Force general had over the Iraqi militias “at times appeared to be total.”38

Iranian support was not limited to Shi’ite groups. Sunni groups that wished to fight the Americans were encouraged and enabled by the Iranian command, including al-Qaeda elements operating out of Iran: they struck not only in Iraq, but also in Saudi Arabia, which was providing critical logistical support to American forces.39 The Kurdish groups in the North of the country, who spent years fighting Saddam’s regime in a bid for independence and who sometimes took refuge in Iran, have also worked in collaboration with Iranian forces, even as they received substantial support from the American government. However, they expressed dismay at the pressure that Quds force operatives had put on them to cooperate. Iran’s power and reach in the region meant they were difficult to deny.40 The Iranian regime’s tactics are not limited to solely engaging their ideological fellow travelers. Support for any faction is about accomplishing strategic goals. The Iranians will work with, and forcefully encourage if necessary, groups who they think will further those goals.41

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 For some time leading up to the American withdrawal from Iraq, the Maliki government in Iraq was able to gain some independence from Iran and its proxy militias, but with the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq’s Sunni areas and the conflict in neighboring Syria, the militias became crucial to the survival of the fledgling regime. At the same time, Iranian influence was endangering the stability of the government because the armed sectarian groups further alienated the Sunni populations they were supposed to be liberating.

Ali Khedary noted in Foreign Affairs that Iraqi Shi’ite militias, “now likely outnumber the official Iraqi security forces.”42 It is also likely that many of these militias have direct or indirect ties to Iran as the country has expanded its involvement. A 2014 tweet by an Iranian journalist showed a picture of the Quds force commander General Qassem Suleimani in Iraq with the leader of the Badr Brigade.43 Iranian influence in Iraq will continue, as it will across the Middle East, wherever they seek advantage with strategic violence and terror. But how does all of this investment, and all this violence, pay off for Iran?

Power and Reputation

Iran has given substantial aid to violent non-state groups, sending personnel, money, and arms to support factions in intense conflicts and terror operations against civilians. Why is Iran doing this? What are the strategic goals being pursued? rough examining Iran’s support for these groups, this section attempts to glean Iran’s goals and interests, both regionally and globally.

It should be clear that Iran’s leaders, and its people, view Western influence in the Middle East as corrupt, arrogant, violent, and antagonistic to both its interests and those of the entire region. After all, their experiences of resource exploitation and regime change are not unique to the Persian country. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire after , France and England cut up the map as they saw fit, and the region is still suffering from the countries formed by the Sykes-Picot agreement, lacking cohesion and national identities. The states created pushed divisive sectarian groups together, often with one in power over the others, and installed leaders who owed their position to colonial influences and the sale of their nations’ resources for personal fortunes and power. The same ills befell Iran.

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 Additionally, the Muslim Middle East saw the change of hands of Jerusalem to the West, a potent symbol of their religious history that had been under Muslim rule since the time of the Crusades. The establishment of the state of Israel and the treatment of Palestinians were significant signs of their lost power. us, to the Iranians, the conflict with Israel is only a battle, albeit a significant and highly symbolic one, of the larger war against Western influence in the Middle East. At the end of the 20th century, the sharp domestic and intra-regional divisions in the Middle East had kept it weak, divided, and under the thumb of Western power. Regimes from Israel to Saudi Arabia to Kuwait remained afloat thanks largely to Western influence, and they repressed their people’s will with Western aid.

The post-revolution Islamic Republic of Iran perceives itself as the regional bulwark against Western tyranny, and wants others to maintain the same stance. It views the dependent regimes, especially Saudi Arabia and Israel, as tokens of Western power that need to be removed for the sake of the broader Muslim Middle East. Iran, as the largest and most populous country in the region, holding dear to its memories of past empire, wants to take its ‘rightful place’ as the regional hegemon.

The Iranian regime’s priorities are to push the West out of the Middle East and to be the leader of the Muslim world in the region. However, Iran knows it cannot challenge Western military power on its own, and it does not want to invite a more powerful actor to act on its behalf, as that would just be another foreign influence. While it views the international system’s laws and norms as illegitimate because of its failure to protect Iran’s sovereignty in the 20th century, it is exploiting the same rules to fight the West through non-state groups from which the state can technically separate its responsibility. If this is Iran’s larger goal, and these are the rules they must play by, the overall strategy can begin to be understood.

Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah has allowed it to build up a professional fighting force and international terrorist operation outside of its borders with proximity to Israel and Western Europe, while maintaining a position that allows it to disavow responsibility. Though Iran may support a Hezbollah operation with money, arms, and intelligence, Hezbollah must bear the

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 consequences of its actions. Iran would rather pass responsibility to a non-state actor in a country with a government in paralysis and a civilian infrastructure that has been repeatedly destroyed by its civil sectarian conflict and Hezbollah’s own clash with Israel. This allows Iran to take advantage of international laws and norms, wherein nations are not held responsible for their proxies. Matthew Levitt notes that operations of the renewed Hezbollah-Iran strategy include “retaliating for attacks on Iran’s nuclear program and convincing Western powers that an attack on Iran would result in—among other things— asymmetric terrorist attacks worldwide.”44 By setting up a proxy organization that could independently develop a terror network around the world, but undertake operations at its behest, Iran gained a useful offensive and deterrent capability that can strike without reprisals targeting Iran.

The five and a half year civil war in Syria today highlights another payoff of Iranian investment in Hezbollah. As President Assad’s forces have weakened under the strain of war and defections, Hezbollah has picked up the slack, deploying soldiers thus far crucial to the regime’s survival. Hezbollah’s well- trained cadre of fighters, experienced from the long-running conflict with Israel on Lebanon’s Southern border, have flowed across the border to back up Iran’s Arab ally.

A final strategic goal Hezbollah fulfills is in remaining Israel’s most effective enemy. The organization came into being in its role staving off the Israeli invasion and survived the Taif Agreement to continue fighting the Israeli occupation.45 Its operations eventually pushed Israel out of Lebanese territory in 2000, and it was able to portray this as a major victory.46 Ever since then, it has continued to use aggressive rhetoric and strikes against Israel, engaging in tit-for-tat combat strategy. Today, with an enormous stockpile of missiles pointed at the Jewish State, the group has been able to constrain Israeli action on the tri-border area.47 Maintaining pressure on Israel heightens Iran’s position as a defender of the Palestine and attacker of the most symbolic institution of Western influence in the Middle East.

Another key strategic positioning against Israel is Iran’s support for the uncompromising terror groups Hamas and PIJ. Both groups have been critical in undermining the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority’s control and the progress of the peace process. Their defiant attacks on Israel have often

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 succeeded in pushing Israel into short destructive conflicts, three in Gaza in the last eight years. These maneuvers are tactically designed to result in Israel inflicting high rates of civilian casualties, destroying civilian infrastructure, and driving Israelis and Palestinians further from the negotiating table. This helps Iran maintain its strong rhetorical position against Israel and hinders the finalization of a two-state resolution which would be a major victory for the West and the United States, ensuring the permanence and stability of a Western-oriented democracy in the Middle East.

In Iraq, Iran’s interests are clear. The U.S.-led coalition did the dirty work of overthrowing Saddam’s regime, but they could not rebuild Iraq in the West’s image. The poor post-war planning and the difficulty of occupying the country as it devolved into communal civil war gave Iran ample opportunity to leverage its ties with Iraqi Shi’ite opposition forces. Iran was able to use its influence and Iraqi supply lines to make life very difficult for the Americans by, for example, supplying insurgents with high-tech armor piercing IEDs.48

In 2008 President Bush signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SFA) with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that agreed to the withdrawal of American combat troops in 2011. New Yorker reporter Dexter Filkins reports that Iran was heavily involved in both the formation of the Maliki governing coalition and the refusal of an SFA that allowed Western coalition forces to stay.49 is was a major victory for Iran. It demonstrated the folly of long-term American military interventions in a region that is tired of America’s presence and tremendously weakened the primary purveyor of Western intervention in the Middle East. The denial pushed coalition forces out of the region and ensured that Iraq will remain in Iran’s sphere of influence for the foreseeable future.

U.S. Policy Going Forward

The United States needs to engage Iran diplomatically while fighting Iran’s offensive strategies in other theaters around the world. U.S. strategy needs to take into account Iran’s history and interests to effectively counter their efforts. From the Iranian perspective, Western influence has had a corrosive effect on its own state as well as the broader Middle East. Therefore, it has sought to degrade and remove Western capacity wherever it can. Iran’s support for violent

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 non-state groups seems to have been markedly successful in the strategic weakening of American and Western influence in the Middle East. The concerted effort to develop a terrorist and fighter network in Lebanon, the stymieing of the peace process between Israel and Palestine, and the disruption of coalition efforts in Iraq are all potent examples of the Iranian strategy. Looking forward, how should the United States craft its Middle East policy?

The United States needs to make a careful strategic analysis of its interests in the Middle East. It must assess that wanton interventions in the development of nations and intraregional politics have left the Middle East a flaming wreck. From the overthrow of Mosaddegh, to the propping up of the Gulf monarchies and dictators from Saddam to Mubarak; from recruiting and training the Arab world in irregular warfare tactics to fight the Soviet Union, to playing Iran and Iraq o of each other in the 80s; from overthrowing Saddam in 2003 to its decades long failure to accomplish a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine, each intervention has warped and disfigured the political economy of the Middle East. The United States must come to terms with this history and reconcile its role there. The Middle Eastern states and their domestic institutions as well as the region’s bilateral and multilateral institutions developed since World War II have rested on foundations of preventing a regional hegemon and keeping the flow of oil stable. Those foundations may broadly continue, but the strategy and tactics used in the last 70 years will have to be reevaluated and changed sharply if shaping a peaceful Middle Eastern order remains a high priority for U.S. policymakers going forward.

These interventions served two primary purposes: preventing the spread of Soviet and ensuring the global supply of oil that comes from the Middle East. For all the folly that both purposes have sown in American foreign policy, the United States can now safely dismiss the worries of communism. However, the worries over stable oil supplies can also be questioned. As David Stockman points out in a 2015 op-ed in the Huffington Post, events have proven in spades that it doesn’t matter who controls the oil fields:

Every tin pot dictatorship from Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela to Saddam Hussein, to the bloody-minded chieftains of Nigeria, to the purportedly medieval Mullahs and fanatical Republican Guards of Iran has produced oil- and all they could because they desperately needed the revenue.50

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 The continued interventions have served only the interests of the shortest- term thinking, damaging America’s long-term interests by supporting brutally repressive dictators and fanatical religious zealots, and directly or indirectly helping crush efforts at democratic reforms.

The United States should move forward with engaging Iran diplomatically and economically, while continuing effective global anti-terror policies, especially partnering with other nations to increase funding for multilateral information sharing and policing efforts. The nuclear deal is just the first step in a long process of forcing Iran to rebalance its economic, political, and ideological interests. Diplomatic engagement will not work unless Iran continues to feel international pressure against its non-state terror tactics. It is of prime importance that all parties to the nuclear deal hold up their ends of the bargain. Iran has already shipped off most of its nuclear fuels for disposal and in exchange has received monies held from it internationally as sanctions have begun to be lifted.51 The P5+1 countries must use the mechanisms of the deal to their fullest extent to monitor Iranian activity and the proscribed consequences for violations must be followed through with. Likewise, the same countries must do as they promised, ending international sanctions that were put in place specifically because of the nuclear program. If one or more of the P5+1 countries fails to follow through on its commitments, it will not only result in Iran crying foul and likely returning to its pre-deal push for nuclear weapons, and therefore possibly war, but it will weaken global faith in the western countries and weaken resolve for future multilateral efforts.

Another goal the United States cannot abandon in this context is the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a two-state solution. Continued efforts on the part of the United States are crucial to changing perceptions in the region, but the efforts need to turn into a permanent solution. The conflict carries with it enormous symbolic weight across the Middle East. The renewal of the Arab Peace Initiative multiple times since 2002 demonstrates the resolve of the Arab countries to reach a final agreement. It also represents an attempt to isolate Iran by the Sunni gulf countries led by Saudi Arabia, because the group that is able to reach peace first will hold a large banner of victory for the Palestinian cause and will reap an immediate boom of trading with the region’s most tech-savvy and developed neighbor, Israel. It is beyond the scope of this paper to delve into strategies and tactics to reach peace in this historic conflict,

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 but the specific mechanics of a peace deal will carry immense strategic weight in either delegitimizing Iran’s signature cause or crafting a deal in which Iran is a strategic partner and guarantor of security and development. Either will aid in forcing Iran to re-evaluate the costs and benefits of its non-state actor terror offensive policies. No matter what, a peace deal must remain a high priority for any U.S. strategy in the region.

The P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran is an important accomplishment and the first successful engagement with Iran since the revolution, following an unfathomable number of missed and squandered opportunities. The deal must be seen as a building block towards further engagement. One area to build on may be security cooperation with Iran in fighting the Islamic State, or Daesh, which reports indicates may already be occurring on a military to military level. Economic development will be another area for improvement, which alone will force difficult choices on the Iranian government. For example Iranian financial institutions which are mostly state-backed will need to get into compliance with international banking standards if they wish to interact with global markets.52 The nuclear deal opens up many opportunities for Iran to trade with the world, but any increase in trade will need to be accompanied by dramatic changes in government economic policy. This is exactly what the deal was designed to facilitate. American foreign policy can no longer afford the arrogance and belligerence of the last few decades, and morally, it should turn away from these stances. If it wishes to end Iranian support for terror, the United States must evolve its positions in the Middle East to accommodate the military and diplomatic realities of Iranian capabilities, interests, and behavior, engage diplomatically, find common ground where they can work together, and resolve problem areas through a balance of force and diplomacy. Current policies that ignore these realities play right into Iranian hard-liners’ hands. By engaging with Iran diplomatically and using targeted military and economic tools, the United States will empower Iran’s domestic factions that desire friendly relations with the United States, forcing a complicated conversation between the regime and unfriendly parties.

Iran is a regional powerhouse with a society unhappy with its theocratic leaders, primed for democratic reforms. It is a far more secular, pluralistic, and educated state than any in the Muslim Middle East today and has a recent history of democracy, one subverted by the United States.53 As Edward G. Shirley argued

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 in 1994, economic engagement with Iran will pivot the country towards the United States in ways no military intervention can. President ’s efforts at détente with China provide an interesting parallel. After years of complete shut-off from the West, engagement with China opened the doors to economic liberalization and stymied China’s ideological commitment to universalist and expansionist communism. Since then China has developed tremendously, the fastest in the world, and lifted millions out of poverty through vast manufacturing development and trade. Today China is a major figure in the international system and a crucial partner in global trade. Though it is still sometimes antagonistic to Western interests, war with China is almost unthinkable as China and the United States’ economic fortunes are tied so tightly together.54 Through enticing Iran into the international economic and political system while fighting its proxy offensives, Iran’s rulers will be forced to face difficult choices between continuing diplomatic engagement and economic development or continuing its ideologically-based geopolitical offensive.55 Kinzer advises in his foreword to the 2008 edition of All the Shah’s Men that the democratic reformers in Iran see an American military strike as their worst nightmare because it would rally the Iranian people to the regime and push them even further from the West.56

In regards to the nuclear deal, all signatories must be unwavering in their commitment to close observation and enforcement. The U.S. must firmly communicate that if Iran violates the deal, it will suffer the consequences agreed to. Likewise, the United States must demonstrate its honesty and trustworthiness in holding up its end of the bargain. With careful monitoring, the United States should lift the sanctions as the deal calls for them. This deal is a trust-building exercise for both sides and is the key to future engagement. It is also a trust-building exercise for U.S. allies in the Middle East, the Gulf monarchies led by Saudi Arabia, and Israel. The U.S. must make clear its support for their post-deal security through public assurances, the increase of military and economic aid, and joint military exercises.

The United States must recognize that it is has not acted as an honest broker in the past, and it must end its policy of explicitly supporting regime change and violent intervention. These policies are not only inherently immoral, they are also ineffective at accomplishing American goals and run counter to long- term American interests. It cannot continue to deal only with the elites of these

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 countries and ignore or aid in the repression of their peoples. The United States must develop diplomatic relations with these countries through engagement and economic trade. These same policies eased tensions with the Soviet Union and China in the past, bringing about significant changes in those countries and economic boon for the world. If the United States desires the same for the Middle East and the ensured existence of Israel, it must recognize and abandon its past corrosive role and change paths going forward, lest more blood and treasure be spilt only to further fan the flames of hatred.

Endnotes

1 McLaughlin Mitchell, Sara, and Peter F. Trumbore, “Rogue states and territorial disputes,” Conflict Management and Peace, July 2014, 31 (3) 323-339, 323-324.

2 Peter Hopkirk, “The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia,” (1992), Kodansha International.

3 Stephen Kizner, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. Hoboken, N.J..: John Wiley and Sons, 2008 edition, pg 32.

4 Amir Mokri, Cyrus, and Hamid Biglari, “A Windfall for Iran?” Foreign A airs, 2015, 94 (6). 28-29.

5 Kinzer. All the Shah’s Men, 2004. 2008 edition 38-53.

6 Ibid, 43-46.

7 Giambruno, Nick, “It was the first time the CIA overthrew a government,” Casey Research, International Man, 2015, http://www.internationalman.com/articles/it-was-the-first-time-the-cia- overthrew-a-government (Accessed December 2, 2015).

8 Ibid.

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 9 Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men, 2004, 3-4.

10 Quoted in Suzanne Maloney, “Iran’s Long Reach.” Washington, D.C. United States Institute of Peace, 2008, Chapter 4: “U.S. Policy toward Iran,” 128.

11 Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men, 2004, 2008 edition, 202-204.

12 Amin, Zana Tofiq Kaka, “Analyze Iran’s behavior since the Revolution in 1979. Is its behavior rational or that of a rogue state?” Global Security Studies, 2015 (6) 1. 26.

13 Moore, Molly, “2 Vincennes Officers Get Medals; Citations Do Not Mention Downing of Iranian Airliner at Killed 290”. The Washington Post, 23 April 1990.

14 Raymond Hinnbusch, and Rick Fawn (editor). The Iraq War: Causes and Consequences. US: Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc., 2006. 1-17. Print. George Bush, 2002 State of the Union Address.

15 Quoted in Manni, Nathaniel F. 2012. “Iran’s Proxies: State Sponsored Terrorism in the Middle East.” Global Security Studies 3, no. 3: 34-45. International Security & Counter Terrorism Reference Center. Pg. 34.

16 Manni, Nathaniel F., “Iran’s Proxies: State Sponsored Terrorism in the Middle East,” Global Security Studies, 2012 (3) 3, 30.

17 Levitt, Matthew Hizballah and the Quds Force in Iran’s Shadow War with the West,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2013, (123). 2.

18 Ibid, 2-3.

19 Ibid, 2.

20 Manni, “Iran Proxies,” 2013, 37.

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21 Amin, “Analyze Iran’s behavior since the Revolution in 1979.”

22 Sullivan, Marisa, “Hezbollah in Syria,” Middle East Security Report 19, April 2014, Institute for the Study of War, Washington, D.C. 26.

23 Ospina, Grey, “Strategic Alliance” 32-33.

24 Manni “Iran’s Proxies” 2012, 36-40.

25 Amin, “Iran’s Behavior Since the Revolution” 2015, 27.

26 Pileggi, Tamar, “Palestinians freed in Shalit deal killed 6 Israelis since 2014,” Times of Israel, July 20, 2015, http://www.timeso srael.com/palestinians-freed-in-shalit-deal-killed-6-israelis-since-2014/ (accessed December 2, 2015).

27 Ibid.

28 Melhem, Ahmad, “The Deepening Rift Between Fatah, Hamas” Al- Monitor, March 20, 2015, http://www.al- monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/03/palestine-hamas-fatah-plo- accusations.html# (accessed December 3, 2015).

29 Manni “Iran’s Proxies” 2012, 36-40.

30 Filkins, “The Shadow Commander,” 2013.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men, XVI, preface to the 2008 edition.

34 Larry Kaplow, “Iran Iraq,” Newsweek; June 15, 2009, Vol. 153 Issue 24,

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 p58-60.

35 Filkins, “The Shadow Commander,” 2013.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Khedary, Foreign Affairs, 36.

43 Shahid Ahmed, Akbar, and Ryan Grim, “What’s Wrong With This Picture? For U.S. Fight Against ISIS, Everything,” Huffington Post, November 23, 2014. http://www.hu ngtonpost.com/2014/11/23/ obama- isis-iran_n_6165352.html (accessed December 5, 2015).

44 Levitt, Shadow War, 3.

45 Ospina and Gray, “Strategic Alliance”, 29-30.

46 Goldberg, Suzanne, “Chaos and humiliation as Israel pulls out of Lebanon,” The Guardian, http:// www.theguardian.com/world/2000/may/24/israelandthepalestinians.leba non (accessed December 6, 2015).

47 Harel, Amos, “With Iran Out of the Picture, Hezbollah Tops Israel’s Threat List” Haaretz, April 26, 2015 http://www.haaretz.com/israel- news/.premium-1.653478 (accessed December 6, 2015).

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 48 Filkins, “The Shadow Commander,” 2013: “In 2004, the Quds Force began flooding Iraq with lethal roadside bombs that the Americans referred to as E.F.P.s, for “explosively formed projectiles.” The E.F.P.s, which fire a molten copper slug able to penetrate armor, began to wreak havoc on American troops, accounting for nearly twenty per cent of combat deaths. E.F.P.s could be made only by skilled technicians, and they were often triggered by sophisticated motion sensors. “There was zero question where they were coming from,” General Stanley McChrystal, who at the time was the head of the Joint Special Operations Command, told me. “We knew where all the factories were in Iran. The E.F.P.s killed hundreds of Americans.”

49 Ibid.

50 Stockman, David “ -- the Washington War Party’s Folly Comes Home to Roost,” Huffington Post, November 17, 2015 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-stockman/blowback-the- washington-w_b_8582296.html?utm_hp_ref=homepage (accessed December 6, 2015).

51 Morello, Carol “Iran ships uranium to Russia, fulfilling a key provision of nuclear deal” Washington Post, December 28, 2016.

52 Bozorgmehr, Najmeh, “Iran’s ‘outdated’ banks hamper efforts to rejoin global economy,” Washington Post, January 19, 2016.

53 Amir Mokri, Cyrus, and Hamid Biglari, “A Windfall for Iran?” Foreign Affairs, 2015, 94 (6). “But the most promising indicator of Iran’s economic potential is its human capital. Iran has a population of 80 million, comparable to Germany and Turkey. About 64 percent of Iranians are below the age of 35. The population is 73 percent urban, a percentage similar to those of most industrialized countries. And that urban population is well educated. Iran’s literacy rate is 87 percent overall and 98 percent for those between the ages of 15 and 24. Of the roughly 4.4 million students enrolled in universities, 60 percent were women as of the 2012–13 school year, and some 44 percent are majoring in one of the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). After Russia and the United States, Iran is the world’s fifth largest producer of graduates in engineering (reliable statistics for China and India are not available, but it is likely that they occupy slots one and two)—although

International Affairs Review / Winter 2017 the education they receive in Iran is not always of the highest quality. Still, some 7.5 million Iranians, or about 13.3 percent of the country’s working age population, have completed a university level education, making Iran the most educated country in the Middle East. For the sake of comparison, Mexico’s university graduates make up 12.5 percent of its working age population; Brazil’s, 11.7 percent; and Indonesia’s, 6.9 percent.”

54 Hudson, Michael and Mimi Kirk Gulf Politics and Economics in a Changing World, 2014.

55 Edward G. Shirley, “The Iran Policy Trap,” Foreign Policy, no.96 (Fall 1994). 13.

56 Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men, xvi, preface to the 2008 edition.

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