First Draft White Paper No. 4 What Makes Tehran Tick? Options for Israel and the USA to Prevent a Nuclear-Armed Iran 9 May 2006 Iran Policy Committee 1001 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, 6th Floor, Washington, DC 20004 202-742-6517 (o); 202 742-6501 (f), Email: [email protected] www.iranpolicy.org Iran Policy Committee What Makes Tehran Tick Table of Contents Introduction................................................................................................................................... 3 The Nature of the Regime ............................................................................................................ 3 Nature of the Regime: Shaped in the Crucible of the Iran-Iraq War...................................... 8 Velayat-e Faqih—Ideology of the Revolution............................................................................. 9 Iran’s Quest for Leadership of Islamic World......................................................................... 12 Iranian Regional Hegemonic Behavior..................................................................................... 13 The Domestic Ideological Revolution........................................................................................ 20 Iranian Regime Threat to U.S. National Security Interests.................................................... 22 Iranian Perception of Threat and Expression of Hostility...................................................... 29 Principal Queries ........................................................................................................................ 30 Scholarly Literature.................................................................................................................... 31 Data Collection............................................................................................................................ 31 Sources ......................................................................................................................................... 31 Coding .......................................................................................................................................... 33 Hypotheses................................................................................................................................... 34 Iran’s Attitudes toward the United States................................................................................ 35 Iranian Perception of Threat From the United States ............................................................ 36 Iranian Expression of Hostility Towards the United States.................................................... 40 Iran’s Attitude towards Israel ................................................................................................... 43 Iran’s Use of Rhetoric to Prop up its Government.................................................................. 50 Iran’s Battle against the United States and the West .............................................................. 53 Policy Considerations and Options ........................................................................................... 54 Policy 1: The Diplomatic Option ............................................................................................... 57 Coercive Diplomacy.................................................................................................................... 59 Policy 2: The Military Options .................................................................................................. 60 Israeli Military Options: Conventional Methods..................................................................... 61 Israeli Nuclear Options............................................................................................................... 63 Iranian Military Options: Iranian Military Force Structure ................................................. 65 Iranian Nuclear Options............................................................................................................. 68 United States Military Options.................................................................................................. 68 U.S. Nuclear Options .................................................................................................................. 69 U.S. Regional Defensive Capability........................................................................................... 69 Option 3: Regime Change .......................................................................................................... 69 Destabilization............................................................................................................................. 72 Delisting the MEK Serves U.S. National Security Interests ................................................... 74 Conclusions.................................................................................................................................. 76 Appendix A.................................................................................................................................. 78 Appendix B................................................................................................................................... 91 Iran Policy Committee 1 Iran Policy Committee What Makes Tehran Tick Charts, Graphs, and Maps Persian Empire, Map, 550-330 BC…………………………………...………………………….15 Figure 1: Iran's Perception of Threat and...................................................................................... 36 Figure 2: Polynomial Regression of Iran's Perception of Threat and Expression of Hostility toward the United States and Israel .............................................................................................. 38 Figure 3: Iran's Expression of Hostility toward Israel over Time................................................. 46 Figure 4: Percentage of Iranian Statements Expressing Hostility toward the United States and Israel.............................................................................................................................................. 46 Figure 5: Percentage of Iranian Statements Expressing Hostility toward the United States and Israel.............................................................................................................................................. 47 Figure 6: Percentage of Iranian Statements Perceiving Threat to Iranian Areas of Interest......... 50 Figure 7: Average Intensity of Perception of Threat to Iranian Areas of Interest ........................ 51 Figure 8: Average Iranian Expression of Hostility toward the United States and Israel.............. 52 Iran Policy Committee 2 Iran Policy Committee FIRST DRAFT What Makes Tehran Tick— Options for Israel, the United States, and the World Community Introduction The title, “What makes Tehran tick,” arises from Iran’s puzzling behavior: As Tehran moves closer to confrontation with the international community, rather than seeking to avoid a clash, Iran becomes even more aggressive in its rhetoric and its actions. Three questions flow from this puzzle and guide the analysis that follows: 1) What is the nature of the Iranian regime? 2) What difference does the regime’s character make as it travels down the road to a nuclear-armed Iran? 3) And what is the international community prepared to do about the Iranian regime, given its nature, capability, and intent to acquire the bomb? The Nature of the Regime An Islamo-Fascist State Seeking to Lead the Muslim World and to Confront the West Regarding the character of the Iranian regime, it presides over an Islamo-fascist state, which attempts to survive by exporting its radical (Islamist) conception of Islam throughout the world. While extreme Islam derives from the first centuries of the religion, modern Islamism surfaces following Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ascent to power in Iran during 1979. The Khomeini regime attempted to transform the dream of re-creating a global Islamic rule from an unattainable ideal to an achievable goal by Islamist groups. Moreover, Tehran gave these groups worldwide political-military support. In this regard, the Iranian Revolution attempted to turn Tehran into the global capital of Islamists—similar to the historic relationship between Moscow and Marxism.1 While Moscow acted as the fountainhead of communism, Tehran seeks to be the wellspring of Islamism. Even for groups that ostensibly rejected Iranian leadership, they nevertheless benefited from Tehran’s largesse and prominence. Although Iran was not directly involved in the 9-11 attacks, on September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush correctly described the perpetrators as radical Muslims and extremists who stood on the shoulders of fascists, Nazis, and tyrants.2 And in an October 2005 National Endowment for Democracy address, President Bush portrayed the ideology motivating terrorists as Islamo-fascism.3 1 Mohammad Mohaddessin, Islamic Fundamentalism: The New Global Threat, Washington DC: Seven Locks Press, 1993 and 2001. 2 Bush, George W. Address of the President to the Join Session of Congress and the American People. Washington, DC: White House, 20 September 2001; available from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html 3 President George W. Bush Discusses War on Terror at National Endowment for Democracy. Washington, DC: White House, 6 October 2005; although Bush uses the term Islamo-fascism in the context of individual terrorists, such as Osama bin Laden,