The Journal for Interdisciplinary Middle Eastern Studies Volume 5, Fall 2019, pp. 33-54 DOI: https://doi.org/10.26351/JIMES/5/2 ISSN: 2522-347X (print); 2522-6959 (online) Iran’s Empire Strikes Back: Lessons from the Soviet Union Ofira Seliktar and Farhad Rezaei Abstract This article argues that in the process of spreading its Islamist revolution, the Iranian regime created a Shiite empire based on a string of proxies from Lebanon to Yemen. However, like in the Soviet empire, this ideologically- driven project required a tremendous investment of resources. This imperial outreach had to be balanced with another mission of the regime, to provide a decent existence to its citizens, notably the impoverished lower classes. The imposition of sanctions sharpened the inherent contradiction between the regime’s dual commitments, leaving the country ill-prepared to tackle a series of crises ranging from a dysfunctional banking system to water shortage and environmental degradation. Based on the lessons from the Soviet Union, the Islamic Republic overreach would contribute to its demise. Keywords: Iran, Soviet Union, exporting revolution, crisis of legitimacy, Shiite Empire Prof. Ofira Selktar – Gratz College; [email protected] Dr. Farhad Rezaei – The Center for International Policy Studies (CIPS) at the University of Ottawa; [email protected] 33 34 Ofira Seliktar and Farhad Rezaei Introduction When announcing the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini vowed to fulfill the “sacred mission” of spreading the Islamist revolution in the region and beyond. Over the next decades, Khomeini’s vision created the so-called Shiite crescent, a de facto Iranian empire based on a chain of proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. This impressive Shiite empire has required an enormous investment to keep it viable. Most recently, however, cracks appeared in the Iranian built edifice. Massive civil protest rocked Lebanon and Iraq, and the Iranian infrastructure in Syria was devastated by raids of the Israeli Air Force. More to the point, during the periodic waves of domestic unrest, protesters voiced their anger at the fact that the cost of the empire’s upkeep condemned them to penury. In many respects, the Iranian experience resembles the fate of the Soviet empire. Dedicated to the export of communism in the wake of WWII, the Soviet Union created its own empire in Eastern Europe and encouraged communist insurgencies all over the globe. However, in an inversion of the economic model of the colonial empires of Great Britain and Spain, it was the Soviet Union that bore the cost of its domain. Coupled with a highly inefficient economic system, maintaining the empire took a considerable toll on the regime. By the 1980s, the country was plagued by food shortages, a collapsing health system, and unprecedented ecological degradation. Soviet-style communism became a by- word for corruption, dysfunctionality, and behavioral malaise known as anomie. First to rebel were Moscow’s satellites in Eastern Europe, followed by unrest in the Baltic republics. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, tried to reform the system only to trigger the collapse of the communist empire. The present work attempts to analyze the domestic crisis in Iran through the methodology developed to study the collapse of the Soviet Union. The underlying assumption is that the stressors of reverse colonialism compounded by the neo- patrimonial political-economic system and the sanctions regimen would eventually force a regime change in Iran. Iran’s Empire Strikes Back: Lessons from the Soviet Union 35 The paper has three parts. Part One will provide an overview of the tensions between revolutionary export and the effort to fulfill the regime’s commitment to improving the wellbeing of the population. Part Two will discuss the legitimacy crisis posed by the sanction regimen. Part Three will analyze the so-called externalities, which are consequences of neglecting crucial functions of the state, such as banking and the environment. The concluding section will assess the capacity of the regime to overcome these problems without giving up most, if not all, of its revolutionary export project. Improving the Wellbeing of the Mustazafeen and Revolutionary Export: The Fundamental Contradiction of the Islamist Regime There was nothing in traditional Shiite theology to indicate an inclination to partake in political activism. To the contrary, most of the ayatollahs, including Grand Ayatollah Hossein Borujerdi, were strong advocates of clerical quietism. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, however, broke with tradition by insisting that a proper Islamic political order should be based on the principle of velayat-e faqih, the rule of a capable jurist. Once in power, Khomeini introduced two additional theological innovations that have shaped the character of the regime. In his view, Islam should be dedicated to redeeming the mustazafeen (Refahe Mustazafeen), the oppressed lower classes of Iran. Ali Shariati, the Islamist sociologist, was the first one to elaborate on this principle in his work on “Third Way” socialism. Shariati contended that Islamic economics should adopt a middle way between Western capitalism and communism. In one of his earliest statements, Khomeini vowed to create an economic system that would improve the lives of the poorest members of society. However, eschewing both the free market and Marxist egalitarianism forced the new regime to pick a variant of the economic system known as neopatrimonialism. In a neo-patrimonial system the ruling elite used public resources to pay off its clients, mostly the poorer sections of the population. 36 Ofira Seliktar and Farhad Rezaei Khomeini was equally dedicated to exporting the Islamist revolution to the Middle East and beyond. Velayat-e faqih asserted that the mandate of the religious ruler extends beyond Iran to include the entire ummah, the universe of Muslim countries. According to Khomeini, the nation-state was a Western construct and part of the imperial-colonial design, which he considered to be heretical (kufr) in Islam. Liberating the non-Iranian mustazafeen thus required propagating Islam (tabligh-e eslam) and exporting the revolution (sudur engilab). For instance, on January 14, 1980, Ayatollah Khomeini stated: “We are at war against the infidels […] I ask all Islamic nations, all Muslims, to join the holy war. There are many enemies to be killed or destroyed. Jihad must triumph.” In a New Year message on March 21, 1980, he announced that “we must strive to export our revolution throughout the world and must abandon all ideas of not doing so.”1 Among the enemies to be destroyed, Israel was high on the list. Indeed, the Supreme Leader postulated that the Islamist revolution could not be completed without the liberation of Jerusalem. The United States, “the Great Satan,” was not far behind, because it supported the Jewish state. Although there was considerable opposition in the provisional government, Khomeini and his then heir apparent, Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, the so-called “Iranian Trotsky,” pushed for an immediate implementation of sodure enghilab. To get around the government, on April 22, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini announced the foundation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), known popularly as the Revolutionary Guards. Ostensibly, the IRGC was limited to domestic operations, but it was quite clear that spreading the revolution was also on the agenda. As Montazeri put it in a talk to IRGC commanders, “You Guardian brothers should protect Islam and the Islamic Revolution, and with your efforts, our Islamic revolution will be exported to other countries.”2 He added, “We want people of the region, affected by the essence of our revolution, to wake up and 1 Yossef Bodansky, Target America & the West: Terrorism Today (New York: S.P.I. Books, 1993), p. 167; Richard J. Leitner and Peter M. Leitner (eds.), Unheeded Warnings: The Lost Reports of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare (Washington: Crossbow Books, 2007), p. 193; Shmuel Bar, Iranian Terrorist Policy and Export of Revolution, Institute for Policy and Strategy, Working Paper, 2009. 2 Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, The Memoir (Iran: KETAB Corp, 2001), p. 565. Iran’s Empire Strikes Back: Lessons from the Soviet Union 37 start their revolutionary movement.” In due time, the IRGC described its mission in transnational terms: “The Islamic Revolution does not have any borders […] The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps does not have the word ‘Iran’ in its title. This means that it seeks to defend the Islamic Revolution and its achievements without regard to particular borders.”3 In due time, the Guards created a dedicated foreign operation wing, the Quds Force (QF), which was charged with revolutionary export. In what amounted to a brilliant strategy, the QF sponsored a series of Shiite proxies, starting with Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the early 1990s, the QF encouraged the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Hamas to launch devastating suicide bombings to undermine the Oslo peace process. After Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, Iran armed the two groups to create a southern front against Israel. The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 provided the IRGG-QF an opportunity to form new militias under the umbrella of Popular Mobilization Forces [al-Ḥashd ash-Shaʿbī]. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who inherited the Trotskyite mandate from Khomeini, called the American decision “a gift of God.” According to recently leaked documents, the Iranians managed to penetrate every corner of the Iraqi state. So much so that Major General Qassem Suleimani, the legendary head of the QF, became known as the “viceroy of Iraq.”4 The Arab Spring gave the IRGC-QF leverage in the Gulf area. Ansar Allah, known as the Houthis, a group within the Zaidi-Shiite community in Yemen, challenged the elected government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Having adopted the Anti-Access, Area Denial (A2/AD) plan to block naval traffic in strategic naval passages such as Bab al Mandab, the IRGC-QF decided to back the Houthis.