BOLOGNA CENTER JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Why Not? !e Case for an American-Iranian Alliance Renad Mansour and Ben Hartley In an age of global uncertainty, allies and enemies must be scrutinized, and we must question why we choose to be in con#ict. Iran, as it pursues a nuclear weapon as a security guarantee, is perhaps the most important case to re-examine. "is paper argues that the United States should not only prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, it should try to make Iran an American ally. What this would look like in practice is di$cult to say. "is paper merely initiates discussion of a scenario long considered impossible, and shows that there is signi%cant mutual interest in pursuing it. While shared trust cannot occur in the current situation, o!ers of cooperation from both sides o!er the only recourse to a future without a prolonged nuclear stando! akin to that with North Korea. "e scope of this paper is con%ned to laying the groundwork for establishing potential areas of cooperation and identifying the mutual bene%ts that would arise as a result. “"e only di!erence between me and these of sanctions, the rial has depreciated people is my place of birth, and this is not a by over 75 percent.2 !e government’s big di!erence.” 1 subsidy program, although moderately — Howard Baskerville e"ective for segments of the population such as the extreme poor, has squeezed Howard Baskerville fought for the middle class. Prices for bread, rice, constitutional democracy in Iran during vegetables, and milk doubled in 2012, the 1930s, dying at the age of 24 while leaving Iranians without money for food leading revolutionary forces against and shelter.3 Unemployment is believed the Qajar royalists. Baskerville’s legacy to be up to three times the government’s among Iranians serves as a reminder that o:cial #gure of 12 percent.4 Continued what separates the United States and Iran losses in oil revenues exacerbate this dire is less than what brings them together. economic situation. Although Iran has managed to trade with China, the Central Tehran in a Bind Asian republics, and India, the burden of sanctions on its population is undeniable. Tehran has pressing economic, domestic, To end the su"ering, Iran will eventually and geopolitical reasons to engage need to return to its former position in in dialogue with the United States. the global economy. Looking #rst at Iran’s economy, there is no doubt that the sanctions regime !e second indicator of Iranian anxieties has had a crippling e"ect. As a result is the domestic political situation. !e 10 VOLUME 16 | REVISIONS “Green Revolution” that followed the than in Syria. !e Assad regime has 2009 elections came too early to harness long been a strong ally that has carried the momentum of the Arab Spring. Iranian in9uence across the desert to However, there is no doubt that with the the Levant. Losing Syria could prove 2013 Iranian general election coming up, decisive for Iran and its proxies, especially the elite worries about the precedent set Hezbollah. In desperation, Iran is trying by Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. Iranians to make inroads with alternative forces feel cut o" by a retreating state unable inside Syria to prepare for the possible to solve their economic woes. !e regime emergence of a threatening Sunni-led, has isolated members from the Green anti-Shi’i government. Movement, and in many prominent cases, has placed them under house arrest in !e growing in9uence of Turkey as a fear of a doomsday scenario of civil unrest direct challenger to Iranian regional or revolution. Some experts have even hegemony, with U.S. and NATO backing reported that the reformists no longer it, exacerbates the threat of changing have a platform for organization and regional power dynamics. Ankara’s are unlikely to be a real threat in 2013.5 role, not only in Syria but also in Iraqi Nevertheless, the population continues to Kurdistan and other disputed Iraqi harbor memories, if disorganized ones, of territories, is threatening the stability the successful populist agitation in North of the Iran-backed Maliki government Africa. !is threatens the elite.6 In the in Iraq.7 Talks of establishing an oil coming elections, the Ahmadinejad camp pipeline between Iraqi Kurdistan and is likely to #eld a candidate who will Turkey, which would bypass Iraq, have challenge the regime’s hold on power. At antagonized Baghdad. Adding fuel to the very least, Tehran will be anxious about the #re, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan demonstrations. American acquiescence, called Maliki a ‘dictator’ in April 2012 rather than outright support for a protest and continues to harbor Iraqi fugitive against the status quo, can therefore act as Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi.8 a carrot at the bargaining table. Finally, uncertainty about the future of !e past decade was promising for Iran, Afghanistan, which has continued to leading to Jordanian King Abdullah’s house a strong Taliban foothold, is also infamous warning of a ‘Shi’i Crescent’. worrying Iran. Although relations and !e American-sponsored regime changes bilateral trade between Kabul and Tehran in Afghanistan and Iraq allowed Iran to have improved, the latter remains anxious extend its in9uence and export the ideals about the former’s ability to maintain of its revolution (vilayet-e-faqih). But stability along their shared border. the tide is changing. Sunni-led protests as part of the Arab Spring have been As a result of this regional equation, upsetting the status quo in recent years. the Iranian elite is growing uneasy. On Nowhere is this more troubling for Iran the surface, resolving the multi-faceted 11 BOLOGNA CENTER JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS geopolitical and economic crisis is not in Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Across the the best interest of these leaders, many region, American in9uence has waned as of whom would lose their hold in a regional powers like Turkey have pushed democratic, peaceful society integrated for leadership roles, bringing former into the world economy. !e #nancial, American stalwarts, such as Egypt, under political, and security interests of Iran’s their in9uence. As a result of growing elite depend on the idea of a constant uncertainty with respect to U.S. allies, the crisis.9 Nonetheless, the elite’s anxiety nature of American commitments to the may open doors to explicit or implicit region has changed. collaboration with Washington, which itself is facing similar geostrategic !e United States can a"ord neither a dilemmas, and cannot rely on the nuclear arms race in the region, nor the sanctions regime as a long-term solution. requisite commitment to security against Tehran’s tightrope walk, while seemingly asymmetric terrorism. In a return to the bene#cial to its ruling class, means that Nixon-era doctrine of ‘Vietnamization,’ any error or miscalculation can have the United States has ‘led from behind’ immense consequences. !e fragility of in the Arab Spring. !is policy seems the current course can prove too di:cult #tting for a time of austerity and limited to bear. At the very least, American liability, when political objectives are not cooperation and sympathy, in the form of necessarily supported by the military select carrots, will have the veiled e"ect of means needed to achieve them.10 Fresh giving voice to the moderate leadership from the costs of two prolonged wars, the currently con#ned to the margins. United States has no capacity to maintain control unilaterally—something that Maintaining Hard-Fought American Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon Gains would require. Since the end of World War II, the United States has sustained a Although the Arab Spring helped prevent nuclear umbrella that came at enormous the emergence of a Shi’i Crescent, U.S. #nancial cost but can now be maintained gains in the region are far from solidi#ed, with explicit guarantees, such as the and the loyalties of new regimes are still American commitment to the security of unde#ned. !e constitutional crisis in Iraq Israel. An Iranian weapon would require now threatens to result in another civil a signi#cant investment of #nancial and war. Meanwhile, stability in Afghanistan political capital to provide the necessary is far from guaranteed after American security commitment for preventing a withdrawal, despite the weakening of the regional arms race and the dissolution of Taliban’s leadership since 2001. Indeed, the Non-Proliferation Treaty. the neglectful governance of U.S. ‘ally’ Pakistan ensures a continued security President Nixon preferred to support threat from the Federally Administered allies that were able to maintain American Tribal Regions (FATA) on the interests in their regions. Indeed, to 12 VOLUME 16 | REVISIONS implement Nixon’s ‘Twin Pillars’ strategy, Moreover, the United States is not as the United States sold sophisticated reliant on its allies as it once was. A weapons systems to Saudi Arabia and domestic natural-gas revolution will Iran, thereby building up these countries bring about U.S. energy self-su:ciency as regional guarantors of U.S. interests.11 by 2030, diminishing the value of a Saudi Outside the context of the current regime gradually challenged by popular nuclear stando", Iran would #t the same resistance.14 !e U.S. government has bill perfectly today.12 Tehran would be long been uneasy about the House of ideally situated to use its relations with Saud’s repression of popular dissent. Iraqi and Afghan elite to prevent a civil !e Iranian regime, by contrast, has war in Iraq and block Taliban resurgence in the past bent to liberal demands in in Afghanistan.