Q UARTERLY MIDDLE EAST – PERSIAN GULF The impact of iran’s rising power status on the relations in middle east and persian gulf Diego Baliani 5 SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE YEAR V WINTER 2007 New year in the balkans starts with century old problem Paolo Quercia 17 COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES – EASTERN EUROPE Russia, crossing the river Centro Militare Andrea Grazioso 23 di Studi Strategici TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS CeMiSS Quarterly is a review The Atlantic Alliance in 2008 supervised by CeMiSS director, Rear Lucio Martino 31 Admiral Luciano Callini. It provides a forum to promote the AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN knowledge and understanding of Afghanistan 2008 / Pakistan 2008 international security affairs, military Fausto Biloslavo 35 strategy and other topics of significant interest. AFRICA The opinions and conclusions Africa 2008: a transitional year expressed in the articles are those of Maria Egizia Gattamorta 43 the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the EUROPIAN DEFENCE INITIATIVES Italian Ministry of Defence. Perspective 2008European Defence Giovanni Gasparini 51 Military Center for Strategic Studies Department of International Relations CINA E INDIA Palazzo Salviati The year of Chen Piazza della Rovere, 83 00165 – Nunziante Mastrolia 55 ROME - ITALY tel. 00 39 06 4691 3204 fax 00 39 06 6879779 LATIN AMERICA e-mail [email protected] Trends and prospects Riccardo Gefter Wondrich 61 ENERGY SECTOR The 2007 perspective energy Nicola Pedde 69 INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION The United Nations Between 2007 And 2008 Valerio Bosco 71 EMINAR IFTY EARS AFTER THE OME REATY TATUS AND S : “F Y R T : S PROSPECTS OF EUROPEAN DEFENCE” NATO Defense College - Centro Alti Studi Difesa - Istituto Affari Internazionali. 79 Roma, Palazzo Salviati 15 November 2007 Quarterly Year V N°4 - Winter 2007 Middle East - Persian Gulf THE IMPACT OF IRAN’S RISING POWER STATUS ON THE RELATIONS IN MIDDLE EAST AND PERSIAN GULF Diego Baliani Irrespective of the controversy over Iran nuclear program, the perception of a growing Iranian power status in the Persian Gulf and Middle East is spreading. Iranian strength is not a new factor per se. What is new is the perception of it by the Arab, Israeli and US leaderships. The strength of Iran is based on internal political, economical and social factors and is not linked to the aggressiveness of the current Iranian presidency. Iran’s political landscape is complex and is made of many different and sometime competing actors, even inside the so called “conservatives”. There are neither relevant anti-regime political forces nor non-state armed groups currently capable to effectively threaten the security and the unity of the state. Nonetheless, the Iranian political system is a theocratic regime subject to strict control by the Shia religious leaders. Current Iran’s population is over 65 million and its soil is rich of natural resources, mostly oil and gas. Finally, Iran is developing a national nuclear program officially aimed at generating energy for civilian purposes. The publication in December 2007 of the US National Intelligence Estimate, coupled with the US-Iranian meetings over Iraq’s security occurred during 2007, may represent early indicators of a change in the US foreign policy toward dialogue with Iran. The possible start of a dialogue between U.S. and Iran would imply the recognition of the importance of the Iranian role in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, confirming that the security and stability of that area requires Iran’s cooperation. The growing perception among Arab leaderships of the rise of Iran’s regional power – testified by the conciliatory gestures recently made by Saudi Arabia and Egypt toward Iran – could change their foreign policies in the area. Arab states may need to establish and maintain friendly relations with Iran due to its geographical proximity and its rising importance in the region. At the same time, they may decide to counterbalance the growing power and influence of Iran in the region by both adopting a policy of slow rapprochement toward Israel and supporting the US-led effort aimed at containing Iran. The factors of Iran’s power: the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq defeated the regime of Saddam Hussein, thus removing the main counterbalance to Iran’s power and influence in the region. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had been confronting Iran both ideologically and militarily. On the ideological level, the Iraqi secular Ba’ath regime was confronting the Iranian Shia theocracy emerged following the 1979 Khomeini’s revolution. On the military level, Iraq’s role in containing Iran was evident during the bloody war that involved the two countries between 1980 and 1988, resulted in over 1 million people dead, heavy damage on Iran’s infrastructure and a drop in Iranian oil production and export. Even the Iranian secular organization called “People’s Mujahiddeen of Iran” (MeK), which opposes the Iranian Islamic regime, moved its military infrastructure to Iraq after Khomeini’s regime launched a crackdown against MeK’s supporters in the early 1980s. At the end of the 1980s, the MeK also moved to Iraq its headquarters and its military wing began conducting guerrilla and terrorist attacks against Iranian targets inside the Iran’s territory and abroad. 5 Quarterly Year V N°4 - Winter 2007 Middle East - Persian Gulf The demographic and economic size of Iran The removal of the main Iran’s enemy in the region has favoured the Iranian regime in many ways. The political and macroeconomic open source data provided by the CIA World Factbook provide a glimpse of the relative size of Iran in comparison with its neighbours. With a population estimated between 65 and 71 million, Iran is one of the most populated country in the region, second only to Egypt. Compared with its neighbours, Iran’s population is almost equivalent to that of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel altogether, while Iran’s GDP (which in 2006 was about 599,2 billion dollars in real terms) is close to that of Saudi Arabia, Syria and Israel altogether (which is about 620 billion dollars). Compared to that of its declared enemy in the region, i.e. Israel, Iran’s population is about ten times the Israeli one and its real GDP is over three times the Israeli GDP, which in 2006 was around 170,3 billion dollars. On the military side, while Iran has one of the largest Armed Forces in the region (about 538.000 military personnel, of which 393.000 serving in the regular Armed Forces and 145.000 serving in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps), its ratio of military spending to GDP is the lowest in the region (at 2,6 percent against 7 percent of Israel, 5,9 percent of Syria and 10 percent of Saudi Arabia; according to the CIA World Factbook, in 2006 Egypt had 440.000 military personnel in the Armed Forces and a ratio of military spending to GDP of 3,6 percent). Iran is also a country rich of natural resources. According to the Oil and Gas Journal’s 2004 estimates, Iran was the second oil-rich country in the world after Saudi Arabia with proven oil reserves amounting to over 125,8 billion barrels, and held the world’s second-largest gas reserves after Russia with almost 28 tmc (about 15-16 percent of the world’s gas reserves). Finally, Iran is developing endogenous scientific and technological capacities in the defence and nuclear sectors. The above-mentioned data show that Iran’s power and influence in Persian Gulf and Middle East may grow in the next future, in spite of its internal problems like its high unemployment rates or its lack of refining capacity, provided that Iran will neither be involved in another war nor be subjected to wider international economic sanctions for a long period of time. The Iranian political system Iran has the potential to improve also in the political field, in spite of the conservatism of its theocratic regime and the aggressive rhetoric of the current Ahmadinejad’s presidency. The structures of both Iran’s politics and society have a certain degree of inner complexity and variety; furthermore, there are neither armed groups nor politico-religious movements able to challenge the authority and legitimacy of Iran’s Islamic institutions or to effectively threaten Iran’s national security. Iran’s formal Constitution is a mix of elements of popular sovereignty and divine law (shari’a), under the strict control of the Shia religious leaders. The Iranian political system includes some public bodies elected by the Iranian people, like the parliament (the Majlis-e Shora-ye Islami is made of 290 MPs elected for four years by universal adult suffrage, and approves the legislation), the President of the Islamic republic (which lead the government and introduces national policies into the parliament), and the Assembly of Experts (an 86-members body elected for eight years and charged with electing, supervising and eventually dismissing the Supreme Leader; the current chairman of the Assembly is Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani). The 6 Quarterly Year V N°4 - Winter 2007 Middle East - Persian Gulf parliament is not a mere consultative body but has some real power, like the power to veto and impeach cabinet minister. That said, the overall political system is subject to the control of the Shia clergy through the Supreme Leader, the Council of Guardian and the Judiciary. The Supreme Leader, Sayyid Ali Khamenei, appoints the heads of the main Iranian religious and defence institutions, including the Council of Guardians, the Expediency Council, the Judiciary, the Supreme National Security Council and the Armed Forces. The Council of Guardians is made of six Islamic clerics appointed by the Supreme Leader, and six jurists chosen by the High Council of Justice and approved by the parliament.