The US-Israeli Symbiosis

The United States recognized the new State of Israel within one hour of its declaration of independence on May 14, 1948. The Soviet Union’s recognition followed shortly after on 17 May. Previously both states supported the United Nations General Assembly’s Partition Plan of November 29, 1947. US support and patronage of Israel during the Cold War for the most part fell within its broader global policy of Containment, anti-communism, and internationalism, exemplified early on by the Truman Doctrine, and support for Iran. In the Middle East, US policy focused on the free flow of (cheap) oil, political stability (not democracy), and support of the state of Israel. 

The precarious position of Israel as a newly independent state surrounded by hostile but weak Arab regimes (some then were still under colonial rule) coincided with an inter-Arab tribal and national rivalry, the Korean hot war (1950-53), and US strategic overt and covert military and intelligence operations (Baghdad Pact, 1955; Iran, 1953; Lebanon 1958). Turkey played its pro-Western stand joined NATO in 1952, and Iran remained a client, dependent state until the 1978-79 revolution. Despite flare-ups in Arab nationalism (Nasser’s Pan-Arabism 1952-70; Syrian (1963) and Iraqi (1968) Baathism and Iranian nationalism (Mossadeq1951-53), the Arab and Iranian regimes remained stable and free from communism. In North Africa, the Algerian Revolution (1962) and Muammar al-Qaddafi’s Libya (1969-2011) proved inadequate to seriously threaten Western interest and influence, despite these countries’ support of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Consequently, communism as a political, ideological, and economic systemic alternative never took hold in the region. Communist-perceived threats in Yemen and Oman were quickly dealt with.  Islam also proved a strong ideological barrier to the appeal and the spread of communism, and even the Soviet Union’s covert intervention and the invasion of Afghanistan (1973-1989) failed to remove the Islamic appeal.

The World Zionist Organization (WZO) since its inception in 1897 envisioned a European Jewish project to address the ‘Jewish question.’ The Jewish Aliyas to Palestine beginning in the late 1800s necessitated the rejuvenation of a ‘Hebrew culture’; the founders were Western and Eastern European and Russian Jewish intellectuals and influencers united by their struggle to create a Jewish a homeland, and later a State. At the 1897 congress, 200 participants from 17 countries voted to adopt as an explicit goal the creation of “a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine” for Jews. As British colonial rule continued, not all Zionist action was peaceful. Paramilitary organizations such as Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Irgun and the Lehi (also known as the “Stern Gang”) conducted bombings and attacks against the colonial British. The 1942 Biltmore Conference during World War II revealed the racism inherent in the Zionist movement when it declared, “The new world order that will follow victory cannot be established on foundations of peace, justice, and equality unless the problem of Jewish homelessness is finally solved. The Conference urges that the gates of Palestine be opened; that the Jewish Agency be vested with control of immigration into Palestine and with the necessary authority for upbuilding the country, including the development of its unoccupied and uncultivated lands; and that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth integrated in the structure of the new democratic world.”

The 1917 Balfour Declaration and the subsequent events in Europe and in Palestine under the British mandate witnessed Jewish migrants flowing into Palestine, Palestinian riots and resistance, the Holocaust in Europe, the end of the British mandate, and the 1947 UN Partition Plan. Despite some opposition by the Jewish public, the Zionist leadership accepted the proposed partition because it represented the first official recognition of a Jewish state, and because it was the most generous proposal that had yet been offered. The Zionist project led to the creation of a proposed Jewish State in control of 55% of Palestine but with a mixed population of roughly 53% Jewish and 47% Palestinians. The UN Partition Plan fulfilled, hitherto, some of the Zionist ambitions since it meant the creation of a Jewish state in the ‘promised land.’

The 1948 war resulted in the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians and the expansion of Israel by 30 percent, including the control of the Western part of the city of Jerusalem, previously a UN-declared international city in the Partition plan. Israel participated in the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt in the 1956 Suez War (October 29) and quickly took over the Sinai Peninsula.  In the intense years of the Cold War, they were aligned with the Zionist impulse, using Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, arms purchase from Czechoslovakia, and flirtation with the Soviet Union as the excuse to punish a major Arab country. This paralleled the British and French interest in reversing Egypt’s nationalization of the Canal. The United States, however, disagreed. The invading armies withdrew upon the United States’ pressure trying to avoid a major confrontation with the Soviet Union while the Hungarian Revolution (October 23) was in full swing. The United States’ concerns over communism and keeping the flow of oil through the Suez Canal eclipsed the Israeli Zionists’ urges for expansionism.  Israel kept its troops in Gaza until March 19, 1957, when the United States finally compelled the Israeli withdrawal. Recall, that some immediate events before the Suez crisis included a hot war in Korea (1950-53), the Iranian (1953) and Guatemalan (1954) coup d’etats, and a close Soviet Union and Chinese relations after 1949.

The humiliation of Arab armies in the 1967 war emboldened Israeli religious Zionists. The Israeli territory expanded by 400 percent after its capture of the West Bank and the Eastern part of the city of Jerusalem, Golan Heights, Gaza, and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.  Israel then found itself within an expanded territory that was difficult to defend.  Fearing the American meddling in its preemptive war plans, Israel attacked the USS Liberty with jet fighters, helicopters, and three torpedo boats for 50 minutes. Israel claimed it mistook Liberty for a hostile Egyptian ship, although the encounter remained suspicious, giving credence to the argument that Israel saw an opportunity to win a war against its Arab rivals. The CIA estimated at the time that Israel would easily win the war, despite the three Arab armies’ preparation to attack Israel.  President Johnson bluntly told Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, “All of our intelligence people are unanimous that if the UAR (Egypt and Syria) attacks, you will whip hell out of them.”  

After the defeat in the war, Pan-Arab nationalism fell into disarray, and the Baathists rose to power in Iraq in 1968. Israel has since defied the 1967 US-supported UN resolution 242 calling for the exchange of captured territories for peace and a two-state solution, regardless of the US geopolitical stand and international law. The ensuing war of attrition with Egypt, the PLO attacks from Jordan, and the threat of losing the the1973 war to Egypt and Syria along with the Arab Oil embargo provided the opportunity to exchange captured lands for a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979.

Israel’s occupation and the conduct of the 1973 war were costly and dangerous to the United States and the West. Recall, the Arab oil embargo led to higher prices of fuel in the West and a massive US  “emergency security assistance of $ 2.2 billion to Israel. Israel’s also considered using a nuclear bomb in the first losing week of the war and the United States went to Defense Condition, DefCon 3.  According to Kissinger and historians who have studied the period, the 1973 war was the closest the US and USSR ever came to a nuclear exchange. Nevertheless, Israel exchanged the Sinai desert for its recognition as a legitimate state with a major foe, Egypt, and continued its control over occupied territories.  Israel ignored the Egyptian lip-service commitment to the Palestinian cause in the Camp David Accords (September 1978) and the final peace treaty in 1979.

The end of the Cold War provided Zionist nationalism with an opportunity to further their goal of an expanded Israeli state in the ‘historical Eretz Yisrael.’  The end of the Cold War occurred on the hills of the defeat and the split of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon in 1983. The PLO’s departure to Tunisia after its expulsion first from Jordan in the early 1970s and then from Lebanon was a major blow to Palestinian nationalism.  The 1987 Arab Leagues’ declaration of Iran, instead of Israel, as the enemy of Arab countries after their failed collective efforts to help Iraq’s Saddam regime counter the ‘Shi’a threat’ revealed the paucity of Arab State’s nationalism.  The rise of Hamas, Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (Islamic Resistance Movement), and the Intifada I movement was in part a response to the failure of Arab regimes to secure credible and accountable independent nation-states supportive of the Palestinian cause. 

Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 led to the American-led and Arab coalition brief but bloody war that saw the restoration of Kuwaiti sovereignty and a truce with Saddam Hussein’s regime.  The following US/UN sanctions of Iraq resulted in hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi children in the 1990s and ultimately ended with the Persian Gulf War II in 2003. Except for Algeria and Libya, the Arab governments, including the PLO, sided with the winning Western coalition against Iraq in exchange for funding and political patronage.  

The Clinton administration used the US hegemonic moment to push for a peace settlement between a defunct, weak Palestinian government under the PLO, demoralized and dependent client Arab governments, and an emboldened Jewish state.  The protagonist Arab states were in their weakest position, with Iraq defeated, American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, Syria compelled and bribed to cooperate and Egypt at peace with Israel. Expectedly, the OSLO ‘peace process’ was destined to fail, since it facilitated only, starting with Jericho, an artificially limited Palestinian control over small areas of historical Palestine. The major issues separating the protagonists were all postponed to the later stages in the negotiation process, including the status of East Jerusalem, Israeli settlements and settlers, the right of return of Palestinians, the territorial boundaries of a future Palestinian state, and the allocation of water resources.  

The OSLO Process led to the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, relegating the responsibility to care for millions of displaced Palestinians to the Hashemite Kingdom, where the King was/is a minority in his domain. During, and contrary to the spirit of the peace talks, the number of Israeli settlers in the occupied territories climbed from 76000 in 1990 to over 123,000 in 2000! The United States also continued with its financial and military support of Israel, including billions of dollars in guaranteed loans, some of which were redirected for settlement activities. Finally, after years of negotiations, the Clinton Parameters proposal asked for the creation of a discontinuous, dysfunctional future Palestinian entity.

The Clinton Parameters soon was criticized by the incoming Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, and the newly elected President G W Bush.  President Clinton, to the satisfaction of the US Christian religious right and ultra-nationalist Zionists, blamed the late Yasir Arafat for its failure. Israeli population and the Palestinians also remained largely skeptical about the terms of the peace plan. The Oslo Process had no chance of success from the beginning, and it only hardened the position of religious right and Israel’s Zionist nationalists.

“Mushroom Cloud,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2024.

The United States’ reckless behavior during its ‘hegemonic moment’ in the 1990s failed to respond to the challenges of a changing global political economy, e.g., the rise of China and India, economic paralysis in the Russian Federation in the 1990s, and the arrival of radical, militant Sunni Muslim movements. The US military presence in Saudi Arabia after the 1990-91 first Persian Gulf war, Islamic militant attacks on US interest in Saudi Arabia (1994, 1996), Kenya and Tanzania (1998), and Yemen (2000), US failure to deal with Somalia’s civil war (1990-92), and the foreseen genocide in Rwanda (1994) signaled an aloof hegemon.  The Bosnia-Herzegovina war (1992-95) ended with some 130,000 dead, and along with the Kosovo war (1998-99) helped ‘justify’ continuing NATO expansion at the expense of Russia’s perceived interest.  The United States’ rash response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks ensued with a declared ‘war on terror’ and with pervasive consequences. 

US declaration of ‘war on terrorism’ in 2001 has since resulted in several million mostly Muslim fatalities across the Middle East and an estimated 38 million people displaced in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and the Philippines. The undeclared and controversial wars and military interventions in Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Libya (2011), Syria (2014), and Yemen (2015) have violated international laws on multiple fronts but have also helped serve to destroy ‘enemies’ of the state of Israel while complicating the regional power relations among its major players.  Meanwhile, the rise of Iran as a regional player, despite the US and the UN’s severe sanctions, encouraged and developed the rise of an ‘Islamic Resistant Front,’ dedicated to a struggle against US and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East and the restoration of Palestinian rights.

The Barack Obama administration’s policy of ‘pivot to Asia’ was to redirect many resources to Asia in countering the rise of China but instead has encouraged closer Russo-Chinese relations.  The outcome has been economic ruin and political uncertainties across multiple regional states in the Middle East, millions of internal and international refugees, a NATO-led war against Russia since 2022, an intimated China lashing out in East Asia to preserve its legitimate rise in power as a regional hegemon, and an embolden Israel led by an age-old Zionist dream of a dominant ‘Jewish state’ hegemony in the historical Eretz Yisrael regardless of the cost.

Israel Unhinged

The Cold War years and the 1990s provided Israel with a great degree of leverage to gain an unprecedented level of Western and particularly American support. The historical British and American support came through support for Jewish migration to Palestine since the 1880s and through the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the British mandate years. The smarts of the Zionist founders throughout such years were their ability to muster political and financial support from governments and financiers in the realization of a Jewish state. The Zionist founders used religion to revitalize the Hebrew culture in their political project. The blending of Hebrew religion with Jewish nationalism (religious and political Zionism) was ‘natural,’ as was the initial cultural domination of the Western Ashkenazi Jews over the native Sephardic Jews in Palestine. Hence, Hertzl wrote in his Jewish State pamphlet, that he envisions the Jewish homeland as ‘a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilisation as opposed to barbarism.’ The victims of 19th Century European nationalism and discrimination, the Zionist European Jews were to use nationalism and racism to build, first, a new Jewish culture, and then a national homeland/state. The Zionist leadership and intellectual disagreements about the treatment of the native Arab population in Palestine in the end did not change the WZO push for the creation of a Jewish Homeland/State. 

The migration of Jews from different regions and countries with varied cultural backgrounds, e.g., Russian, Polish, and German, necessitated the creation of Jewish institutions to organize the task, e.g., the Jewish Agency, Hagana, the Histadrut, and the Knesset. The initial socioeconomic organization, Kibbutzim, served the cause of social solidarity and economic egalitarianism during the early years of nation-building, and it lost complete lackluster over the coming decades after independence. The blending of political Zionism and Judaism during the early nation-state building proved effective. This was an original sin set to haunt the new state forever: a state that is both Jewish and democratic and with a heavy Zionist inspiration among leadership to instigate expansionist impulses to realize the biblical roots of the promised land, Eretz Yisrael.

Israel as a close ally of the United States has since the end of the Cold War become increasingly emboldened in its defiance of the United States’ regional and global position and concerns. Israel’s national confidence and dominance proved viable, boosted by the end of the Soviet Union, neutralization of Egypt and Jordan through treaties and US support, the destruction of Iraqi and Syrian national viability as a serious threat, the emigration of one million Russian Jews to Israel in the 1990s, and unrivaled American/Western political and financial support. The full-fledged U.S. commitment to aiding Israel has long-standing roots. The United States has given Israel more than $260 billion in combined military and economic aid since World War II, plus about $10 billion more in contributions for missile defense systems like the Iron Dome. That’s the most granted to any country throughout that time frame, and around $100 billion more than Egypt, the second-highest recipient historically. As a “major non-NATO ally,” Israel also receives assistance from the Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program. This program allows the United States to reduce its inventory of outdated equipment by providing friendly countries with necessary supplies at either reduced rates or no charge. From 2010 to 2019, Israel received at least $385 million in EDA deliveries.

Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack has been unusually punishing, leading to widespread global condemnation.   No unbiased, serious scholar of politics and international law can deny Israel’s collective punishment strategy used in Gaza. Israel’s military operations have targeted hospitals, schools, Mosques, and UN shelters, resulting in tens of thousands dead, injured, and maimed, with the final tally yet to emerge. Most victims in Gaza, as well as those in the West Bank, have been women and children non-combatants. There is plenty of evidence, readily available in social media circles, pointing at collective punishment, war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide. The rulings of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court reflect Israel’s grave violations of international humanitarian laws. According to the 2024 ICJ ruling, “it is plausible that Israel’s actions in Gaza Strip could amount to genocide. The Israeli attacks on UN organizations, including the UNWRA and the Office of Human Rights High Commissioner, attacks and threats against UN special repertoire, Georgia Albanese, and the Secretary-General as persona non grata have been unprecedented.

Israel under the mantra of its war on terrorism and after its withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 has  waged wars in Gaza (2008-9, 2012, 2014, 2021), while expanding its settlements in the West Bank. The question is if Israel is lashing out to avenge the killing of almost 1200 of its citizens, or whether the October 7 attacks have provided once again an opportunity for Israeli religious and political Zionists to push for the realization of the biblical ‘Eretz Yisrael?’ In that scenario, Israeli settlers will replace the Palestinian population after their expulsion from Gaza.

Conclusion

The United States’ ‘ironclad’ support of Israel has helped ensure the rise of an increasingly emboldened religious and political Zionism in Israel. Regardless of the power of the Israeli lobby and the reasons behind such support, Israeli nationalism since the beginning manifested itself in religious and political Zionism, envisioning the restoration of the biblical Eretz Yisrael. The 1967 war Israeli victory proved pivotal in strengthening the Zionist dream of a dominant Jewish state in the Middle East. An emboldened Israel in the post-Cold war effectively killed prospects for a viable ‘two-state’ solution during the Oslo Process while neutralizing Jordan through a peace treaty, home to millions of Palestinians.

The United States’ unilateralism since 2001 has wasted its hegemonic moment in the 1990s at the expense of great power diplomacy. The US-declared wars on terror have resulted in the invasion and occupation of several countries with many lives lost and trillions of wasted dollars. US war on terror, the overt military interventions, and the failure of Arab nationalism to check Israel’s power helped strengthen the Zionist political right.  These wars have been detrimental to global stability while depleting the United States’ national military power and eroding its soft powers’ appeal in the Middle East, the wider Islamic world, and the global audience in general.   The erosion of the liberal order since 2001 intensified after the US and Israel’s overreaction to the Hamas October 7, 2023, attacks. Israel has behaved beyond any perceived expectations and has committed widespread killing of mostly innocent civilians. The United States’ unbridled support under the guise of ‘self-defense’ has bolstered Israel to defy all norms of international behavior.

Great power diplomacy and cooperation can go far in settling regional disputes and conflicts and, more importantly, avoiding wars. The US failed in its hegemonic movement in the 1990s to use diplomacy and its soft power to actualize two-state viable solutions and to promote a multilateral approach to the Persian Gulf security that would have included Iran, and a Middle East free from nuclear weapons. US repeated military invasions and a policy of regime change, instead encouraged the Zionist political right in Israel. Israel has used its ‘war on terrorism’ to assault Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, and derail the Iranian nuclear deal.  A year after the October 7, 2023, Hamas assault from occupied Gaza, Israel is engaging in a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide. The unwise and miscalculated NATO expansion has brought the eventual Russian invasion of Ukraine that is now dangerously threatening global peace. The recent North Korean troops deployment to help Russia’s war efforts promises more uncertain, dangerous months ahead. President Putin’s repeatedly expressed redlines should be taken seriously, as are the escalation of direct attacks between Israel and Iran.

Instead of a NATO-Russian partnership, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009 argued that the United States still needed to be a global leader but must lead differently than during the Cold War: “By inducing greater cooperation among a greater number of actors and reducing competition, tilting the balance away from a multipolar world and toward a multiparter world.” However, the multiparter approach has thus far led to NATO partners and Israeli acquiescence and indulgence in, expansionism and mass killing. A return to multilateralism and big power diplomacy in a multipolar world is warranted, should we resolve regional conflicts, promote global human security, and avoid a nuclear war.

Defending itself from Iran’s drones and missiles cost the Israelis alone an estimated 4-5 billion shekels ($1.08-1.35billion). This does not include the cost to US citizens of $1 billion in countering Houthi and Iranian missiles and drones targeted at Israel. Israel’s initial limited response on April 19 through a drone attack on a military base in Isfahan leaves room for de-escalation of tension over a full-scale war.

Iran’s first direct attack on Israel hit the Nevatim airbase, a mere 40 miles south of Jerusalem, practically implying an Iranian credible deterrence capability if the potency of the deterrence is questioned. Prospects for a wider conflict in the region involving Russia and China remain, risking an ultimate nuclear exchange that should remain ‘unthinkable.’ Strategic partners Russia and China have Tehran’s back, and their role in West Asia’s conflict will only grow if the US doesn’t keep Israel in check. Whilst the war in Gaza and the Lebanon-Israel border continues. Israel’s unrelenting assault on Gaza, killing over 34000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, with the vast majority women and children, has turned public opinion against Israel. And, Israel’s attempts to destroy UNRWA — the backbone of relief efforts in Gaza — with its slow, meticulous, and often arbitrary inspection of trucks have further complicated aid delivery.

What indelibly marks these events, aside from the military and political calculations and implications for the region, is that they have occurred in violation of provisions of international law, including, but not exclusively, the breach of sovereignty, international humanitarian laws, laws of war,  crimes against humanity, wars of aggression, and according to a preliminary ICJ ruling, possibly the articles of 1948 genocide convention. Israel’s ‘ironclad’ supporter, the United States, is construed, therefore, as an accomplice in the crime of genocide through its arms transfers to Israel, and vetoes in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to end Israel’s almost seven-month-old military operation in Gaza. 

Al Jazeera English Video: “Nearly 200 bodies found in mass grave at hospital in Gaza’s Khan Younis”

A closer look at the post-Cold war period since 1990 reveals persistent US violations of international law, generally related to the 75-year-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The United States has paid a heavy financial and political, and now explicit moral, price for its protection of the state of Israel. But the biggest victim of this ‘special relation’ has been the very foundation of the liberal international order. The United States’ (along with its Western allies in NATO) double-standard views and application of provisions of international law have been detrimental to an orderly global governance, A major culprit for such liberal/illiberal dichotomy in rhetoric and practice is the US blind commitment to the state of Israel.  

The end of the Cold War promised the End of History and the beginning of a ‘New World Order.’ It promised that globalization of trade and finance and the technological revolution in information technology, transportation, and communication means the falsity of a looming ‘Clash of Civilizations.’ 

The United States experienced almost unprecedented economic prosperity in the 1990s and the European allies celebrated the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. The Eastern European countries abandoned communism and joined the ranks of capitalist countries and the European Union. China continued with its miraculous economic performance welcomed Western investments and traded and cooperated in the Security Council curtailing the Iranian nuclear program. Boris Yeltsin of the Russian Federation similarly welcomed privatization. But,   structural adjustment policies resulted in a defunct privatization of state-owned properties, and with inadequate legal and institutional mechanisms to prevent the rise of the new oligarchs and ‘parasitic capitalism.’ 

Ironically, the new world order was to emerge on the ruins of Iraq after the 1990-91 first Persian Gulf war. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 on 29 November 1990 authorized the first UNSC collective security action against an aggressor since the 1950-53 Korean War. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 triggered the first Persian Gulf war, but we also witnessed 30 scud missiles hitting Israel as Saddam Hussein attempted to expand the war and turn it into another Arab-Palestinian-Israeli war. The Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) was a bloody confrontation between two Muslim countries with opposing views on Islam, power politics, and what constitutes national interest. Yet, the revolutionary state in Iran saw the liberation of al-Quds (Jerusalem) to follow the liberation of Shia holy sites in Kerbala and Najaf in Iraq. Iran’s anti-Israel rhetoric and actions have remained steadfast since the advent of the revolution. 

The US Mideast policy immediately after WWII focused primarily on countering communism and securing the flow of cheap oil from the region which demanded dealing with authoritarian Arab regimes fearful of both the threat of communism and radical ideas that may threaten the status quo on the resource power parameters in the state-society relations. Still, the thorny Palestinian issue was two-pronged, and the Arab states fought against and cooperated with Israel to contain Palestinian nationalism. The Arab Israeli wars have always involved competing Arab, Israeli, and Palestinian nationalisms, compounded with inter-Arab states’ political rivalries, sectarianism, and US (and Israeli) interventions during and after the Cold War. Recall, the Arab-Israel-Palestinian wars with such hallmarks, including 1948, 1956, 1967-70, 1973, and 1982-85 (Lebanon) wars.

Regional wars bearing similar traits and related to the wider Palestinian nationalism include the first Persian Gulf War (1990-91), Intifada I (1987-1990), Intifada II (2000-2005), Lebanon (2006), and 15 wars involving Gaza alone since 1948, including the Gazan wars of 2008-09, 2014, 2018-19, and now the ongoing 2023-24 war. No wonder, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the mother of all wars in the region. The conflict over the years has fed the radicalization of politics in the region. The Islamic movements have rallied around the issue of the liberation of Palestine and al-Quds (Jerusalem) to mobilize popular support in advancing political and religious legitimacy in the absence of a viable democratic rule. The 22 authoritarian Arab states, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Türkiye have also been intimately involved with the Palestinian issue.   

The United States has relied on its hard and soft power to lead a liberal global order since World War II. The Cold War preoccupation with polarity and deterrence based on a doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) complicated the plans for a liberal international system, beginning with the creation of the Bretton-Woods gold-based, fixed-rate exchange system and its institutions—the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). The principle behind the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) eventually developed into the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, as the Europeans’ attempts at integration since 1951 progressed into the creation of the European Union in 1993. Other rule-based regional economic integration also appeared in Asia, Africa, South and North America. Contrary to the unstable interwar period that saw the rise of Nazism and Fascism, the post-WWII ‘peaceful’ international system witnessed 51 founding members of the UN in 1945 increase to 193 countries today. 

The United States’ commitment to the security of the state of Israel has been a dominant theme in its Middle Eastern policy since its creation in 1948 but also at the expense of its advocacy for a liberal-based international law and order. The US has over decades dispensed billions of dollars in economic and military aid premising it on Israel as a strategic ally in countering communism, helping the flow of oil, and keeping Arab radicalism at bay. Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid since its founding, collecting about $300 billion (adjusted for inflation) in total economic and military assistance. The US diplomatic coverage of Israel also is unconstructive; the UN data shows it has vetoed dozens of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions critical of Israel, including at least 53 since 1972.

A review of debates in Congress and data analysis also shows, “Members of Congress have consistently debated and passed resolutions in support of Israel and in repudiation of its foes, showing strong bipartisan support for Israel.” The US’s unequivocal support of Israel has seen it prevent resolutions condemning, among others, violence against protesters, illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank built since 1967. The US meanwhile has obliged its NATO allies, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Qatar, Turkey, and Jordan in its quest to protect Israel and in support of authoritarian Arab states!

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the ‘mother of all conflicts’ in the MENA region that has intimately influenced or been influenced by Arab nationalism, the Islamic movements, the radicalization of politics, and overall governance in the region. To the neglect of elsewhere in Africa, the Sahel region has experienced five military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Niger, and Gabon. Whilst, Tunisia, Chad, and Sudan have experienced constitutional coups and widespread violence in the case of Sudan. The US Africa Command since 2008  has been involved in military training of African states to counter the Russian and Chinese military and economic inroads in the Continent.  

The restoration of a global liberal order necessitates a uniform and unbiased application of the expectations, norms, and laws of international law. Since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel from Gaza, the world has witnessed the continuing degradation of the norms and laws and the expectations of behavior in the so-called international liberal order. The Israeli overreaction to the Hamas attack resembles the United States’ initial response to the terrorist attack on its soil on September 11, 2001. In that instance, the United States, for the sake of revenge, self-defense, or the restoration of international order, took measures that violated the very norms, laws, and expectations of the international system which Washington had championed for decades. The United States in less than a month began bombing Afghanistan and quickly overthrew the ruling Taliban regime and chased al Qaeda fighters across the border into Pakistan and elsewhere in the Middle East and beyond. This story, however, did not end there. The US declared a ‘War on Terror’ resulting in a policy of regime change beginning with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, Moammar Qaddafi in Libya, and unsuccessful attempts in Syria and Yemen.  

Estimates of direct civilians killed due to American military intervention totals stand at least 400,000 since 9/11. The number of people killed indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, including in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, is estimated at 3.6-3.8 million, though the precise figure remains unknown. This brings the estimated total of direct and indirect deaths to 4.5-4.7 million. Similarly, the Israeli overreaction after the tragic events of October 7, 2023, resulting in 1200 Israelis killed, has already led to 34,000 Palestinian dead, with women and children accounting for the majority, not accounting for thousands injured, maimed, traumatized, and remain unaccounted for. The deadly Israeli assault on Gaza has also led to the death of many journalists, members of the NGOs, and the destruction of hospitals and mosques. 

International law today remains incomplete and in need of drastic structural changes, e.g., a reform of the UNSC membership and power structure, a revisiting of the adjudication power of the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) and its ‘compulsory’ jurisdiction, the World Trade’s provisions for labor and environmental protection, and a serious re-commitment to empower UN and its functional agencies with necessary resources. The United States unconditional support for Israel and its lack of attention to the welfare of peoples in the MENA region, as well as elsewhere in the developing world, in pursuit of peace, human security, and good governance, is detrimental to the universal compliance and voluntary adherence to the norms and rules of international law.    

Regardless of whether Hamas fighters or the Israeli leaders ever put on trial before international tribunals, all indications are that the IDF is poised to enter Gaza after its heavy bombardment and the destruction of its remaining buildings and infrastructure. The death of hundreds of innocent Palestinians, a number that will be in the thousands, should IDF proceed with its planned invasion.

The Lebanese Hezbollah’s exchange of fire with Israeli forces along the border has raised the prospect of a wider regional war. Prospects for a Syrian entry into the war increase, should LH enter the war to protect Hamas and the Gazans from an Israeli onslaught. The United States has ordered two aircraft carrier fleets in the Eastern Mediterranean. The White House claims its beefed-up naval presence in the region is a deterrence to Iran and the LH to avert an expanded war, as Iran has warned of the possibility of such a wider regional warfare.

Subsequently, how the Iranian government will act in either instigating anti-Israeli operations by a host of trained militias in the region or directly injecting itself into the conflict remains a matter of speculation. In such a scenario, the United States forces in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere in the region can become a target of opportunity and the political life for Arab allies of the United States will become exceedingly difficult, with real threats of political instability in the conservative Arab monarchies.

A key to avoiding further escalation and the expansion of the conflict may rest in the hands of Saudi Arabia and OPEC+. Today, Saudi Arabia is the undisputed oil producer and exporter of OPEC and has already, in conjunction with Russia, cut back on oil production to boost global oil prices, collecting more revenues and effectively helping with Russia’s war efforts. As The Wall Street Journal reported, the OPEC+ (Saudi Arabia and Russia) raked in billions of dollars in extra oil revenues in recent months (October 2022-23), despite pumping fewer barrels, after their production cuts sent crude prices soaring. The 1973 October or Yom Kippur War witnessed the first such successful Arab states’ use of oil as a weapon to convince the United States and its European supporters of Israel to stop and give diplomacy a chance.

A combination of assertive Arab leaders, a tight global oil market, and limited but respectable military performance by the Arab armies led to the disengagement of Egyptian and Israeli armies, the exchange of prisoners, and, with the U.S. leadership, the Camp David Accord in 1979. However, in the following months and years, the Arab states failed to secure the creation of a Palestinian State and pursued a policy of ‘cold peace’ with Israel. The United States also failed to implement UNSC resolution 338 which reiterated the 1967 UNSC resolution 242, calling for an exchange of occupied territories for peace. Subsequently, all efforts since the 1980s, including OSLO I, OSLO II, and the creation of a self-governing Palestinian entity in the occupied West Bank have led to no permanent peace.

The American-Israeli efforts in the past forty-three years have boiled down to nothing but efforts to ‘manage’ and not ‘resolve’ the conflict. Not only the creation of an independent Palestinian state has not been realized, but the Arab states have also not regained their lost territories—the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Golan Heights, and Gaza! A more assertive Arab state’s leadership can prove instrumental to avert an inevitable avenge killing of innocent Palestinian people if the United States allows the Israeli army to enter Gaza.  

The United States need not repeat its mistakes in responding to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The avenge killing and unnecessary, baseless wars have not made the United States any stronger or legitimate in the international community. Conversely, popular opinion of the United States in the Middle East today remains critical and is seen as a culprit in the miseries inflicted upon peoples in the region. Thus, the 2022 Arab Public Opinion survey in 14 countries (Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Tunisia) based on 33,300 face-to-face interviews indicates that 84.3% of Arab population oppose the recognition of the state of Israel, and 59% considers Israel (38%) and the United States (21%) as the greatest threat to Arab countries. Similarly, people interviewed consider Israel (74%), and the US (62%) as international players whose policies threaten security and stability in the Middle East.  

Muhammad Bin Salman has already made a cold peace with the Islamic Republic of Iran and tacitly expressed an interest in a deal to recognize Israel in return for a U.S. security guarantee and a close nuclear cooperation with the United States. Saudi Arabia’s recent closer cooperation and exchanges with China also shows its pragmatic foreign policy engagement that recognizes the rise of China and an increasingly multipolar world, with complex and overlapping policy issue areas. A stronger, balanced, and assertive Saudi foreign policy can best serve its people and regional political stability and prosperity.

The ill-fated intervention in Yemen’s internal war and years of hostility at containing the supposed ‘Iranian threat’ has only led to more wasteful arms purchases and political conflict with its traditional allies (the United Arab Emirates and Qatar). The political competition among Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and Iran only deprives these countries of great economic and investment opportunities in the service of development and regional cooperation.  

The Saudi leadership can succeed in pressuring the United States and Israel to avert a Gaza onslaught, given the tight energy market, Russia’s prowess in the oil market and the ongoing war in Ukraine, China’s inroads into the Middle East, the quiet down situation in Yemen, a rapprochement with Iran, and the opportunity to lift itself as a leading Arab country helping the Palestinian cause. Time is of the essence if the MBS wishes to turn the tragedy of war and human suffering into an opportunity. It can go far in rehabilitating his image and acceptability as a leader. Let us see if the region and the world can avoid another human calamity before it is too late.   

The country has been engaged in numerous foreign direct and indirect conflicts and wars since the end of WWII, and especially since the end of the cold war. Yet, the United States’ democratic political system and the guaranteed constitutional rights of the people have not translated into engaging the public in a constructive debate over and the conduct of US military interventions abroad.  The First Amendment to the US Constitution partly proclaims that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. The U.S. Supreme Court further ruled on March 3, 1919, that the freedom of speech protection afforded in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment could be restricted if the words spoken or printed represented to society a clear and present danger. Despite this supposed protection, dissident narratives are often sidelined by government spokespersons and a sycophantic corporate news establishment. Public opinion seems unable to have a serious impact on foreign policy in either opposition to or in support of peaceful settlement of conflict with other states.  

Academic research findings demonstrate the American public is overall less interested in foreign policy unless it has an immediate impact on people’s livelihoods. The United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars in its annual national defense budgets, and its military interventions abroad have a drastic impact on people’s lives both here in the homeland and in the targeted countries. Public opinion changes as the extent and the duration of US involvement and the home-front political climate change. Public opinion surveys show support for continued engagement after the initial support, but it declines as military intervention drags on. A decline in public opinion support occurs as the public comes to question the human and financial cost and wisdom of military operations abroad. A ‘Democratic-Republican’ divide over US involvement in Ukraine after prolonged failed interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria reflects the current political divide in America. 

A 2017 CATO study classifies American public opinion on foreign intervention into ‘restraint, ‘interventionist,’ and ‘in-between’ categories. The “restraint constituency” which cuts across party lines and represents roughly 37 percent of the public stands in contrast with an “interventionist constituency,” which only represents about a quarter of the public and supports much more aggressive efforts to promote American interests abroad. Since neither constituency’s core followers represent a majority, the deciding voice between intervention and restraint in foreign policy debates belongs to the 40 percent of the public that falls somewhere between the two camps. Public opinion can shift in either direction, depending on the extent of public awareness and engagement.  

This article contends that a contributing factor in the United States’ bellicose foreign policy is the absence of input into the foreign policy decision-making process by an informed public opinion. The public’s sentiments on war and peace remain vastly reactive and susceptible to opinion shapers and influencers. In 2010, a poll found that 70 percent of Americans believed Iran already had nukes (the CIA assesses that it does not even have a nuclear weapons program, only a civilian enrichment capability). In 2021, 60 percent still believed in the existence of Iranian nukes, with another 23 percent of Americans claiming that they did not know. Only about half of the respondents in the 2021 poll even knew that Israel had nuclear weapons. “In other words, more than four-fifths of the public [did] not know the correct answer to a simple question about a matter of fact on one of the most high-profile foreign policy issues of the last 15 years.” Foreign policy commentator Daniel Larison wrote in 2021, “That is what decades of misinformation and propaganda will get you.”

The demonization of the enemy is a proven strategy used to galvanize public opinion in support of policy. British journalist Louis Allday (Ebb Magazine, 3/15/22), compiled a list of instances where Western journalists and officials have compared foreign leaders to Hitler—with Hitler sometimes coming off better in the comparison. Hitler-like leaders include Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milošević, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and even Cuba’s Fidel Castro. As Farhang Jahanpour argues, there is indeed a long history of demonization of Middle Eastern leaders, before invasion and regime change.

The George H. W. Bush administration claimed its 1991 military campaign against Iraq was in place to protect Saudi Arabia, and not attack Iraq. The administration claimed that Iraq had over 250,000 troops in Kuwait ready to attack the Saudis. The reporting by the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, however, showed there was only a force of about 20% that size in the country. The US-led, UNSC-sanctioned military operation to push Iraqi troops out of Kuwait instead involved the extensive bombing of Iraq itself, destroying key public health infrastructure, the and the deaths of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians. The crippling of water purification plants led to excess infant mortality. Little thought was apparently given by Washington to how it would extricate itself from the turbulent Gulf in the aftermath. The subsequent twelve years of UN and US sanctions had disastrous consequences for the Iraqi civilian population.  Having been drawn into a prolonged military presence in Saudi Arabia, the site of the two holiest Islamic shrines, the United States became a target of increased acts of terrorism on the part of Muslim radicals.

The US public was not informed that the US campaign in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks would result in a twenty-year occupation of that country that would leave thousands of innocent civilians dead and hundreds of billions spent on high-powered bombing runs that proved impotent in defeating the Taliban. Would a reasoned public debate on ways of responding to the small terrorist group, al-Qaeda, that did not involve attempting to rule a country of 34 million for two decades have forestalled the hasty errors of the Bush administration?

The invasion of Iraq came in 2003, resulting in more than 210,000 Iraqi civilians and 4,500 US soldiers killed, and chaos and instability gripping the whole region. The claim that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction or had ties with al-Qaeda proved baseless propaganda. American public was misled throughout the campaign to legitimize the invasion. The security concerns engendered by the 9/11 attacks in 2001 contributed to decision to go to war, though in later years the Bush administration attempted to cover up this exercise in naked aggression as a project of democratization.  The project failed.

The strategic mistake of going to war with Iraq resulted from President George W. Bush’s miscalculation that the transition to a US-dominated stability in the aftermath of the invasion would be relatively easy. The neoconservative vision failed to take account of Iraqi culture and society and underestimated the influence of Iran. The war in Iraq drew resources away from the US attempt to repress radical Sunni fundamentalism. Iraq’s Shi’a domination and Iran’s rising power have given Iran an edge in Iraq. On the 20th anniversary of the US- and British-led invasion of Iraq, the New York Times continued to dedicate itself to a waffling narrative, one that writes out most of history and opts for a message of “it’s complicated” to discuss the disaster it can’t admit that it helped create.

In 2023, the public has come weary of American adventurism abroad in the name of democracy promotion and/or humanitarianism. 2023 survey results defy the liberal, neoconservative narratives in justification of US military interventionism in the name of American unilateralism and “democracy promotion.” The survey shows the public’s strong desire to avoid military intervention in the name of democracy.  When asked to name the top five most important foreign policy issues facing the United States, terrorism was first with 49% mentioning the issue. (This was despite no serious attacks on the homeland since September 2001!) The same survey finds upholding democracy globally was mentioned only 14% of the time in prioritizing public opinion interest in intervention, favoring multilateralism and less US intervention. On the question of multilateralism or stability versus unilateralism in U.S. foreign policy, almost 70% favor multilateralism or stability. Very few, only 17% wanted a unilateral approach.  

Why does the American public continuously support US foreign military interventions while remaining ignorant of or disinterested in foreign relations, and despite the values and principles enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution? Freedom of speech and expression implies access to facts and awareness in making sound judgments. Conversely, constructed narratives based on selective, half-truths and partisan journalism mean narrow views and self-censorship, resulting in false conclusions. The American public is being failed by its smug and manipulative foreign policy elites and by news corporations that act as their echo chamber.

One survey finds that Liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans are more knowledgeable than others. We recognize that public interest in and knowledge of foreign affairs varies according to the level of education, gender, age, party affiliation, and ideology. Still, viewed in its entirety, American public opinion matters and helps justify continuous US military intervention abroad. The role of public opinion makers, including the media, in the formation of public opinion is antithetical to democracy and the 1st amendment rights of informed citizenry enshrined in the US Constitution.    

Ali Abootalebi is Professor of Middle Eastern and Global Politics in the Department of Political Science, the University of Wisconsin, UWEC. He is the author of Islam and democracy: State-Society Relations in Developing Countries, 1980-1994 (Garland, 2000), coauthored with Stephen Hill, Introduction to World Politics: Prospects and Challenges for the United States, 2nd ed. (Kendall Hunt, 2018), edited, Global Politics Reader: Themes, Actors, and Issues (Cognella Publishing, 2019), and numerous articles on Iran, Arab Politics, Civil Society and Democracy and U.S. foreign policy.

The new state’s political class after a national referendum declared the founding of an ‘Islamic Republic;’ with popular sovereignty and Islamic justice for all. The early revolutionary zeal and idealism were soon faced with the realities of power politics. The new state, despite its ‘Islamic’ ideological foundation, had to build the foundation of a new state. The ulema with initial popular support created ‘Islamic committees’ and later the Islamic Revolutionary Corps (IRGC), the mobilization (the Basij) force, and the Islamic charity foundations. The traditional Bazarris merchants financial and political support further helped with the mobilization of popular support. The end of the Iran-Iraq war and the Constitutional amendments of 1989 consolidated and secured the place of the Shi’a Ulema at the helm of the power structure in Iran.

Similarly, structural changes in the Iranian society has been significant, including more than doubling of the population since the revolution to 85 million, an increase in the literacy rate to over 96 percent (from 48 percent), urbanization at 76 percent (from 47 percent), and an internet penetration of 70 Percent or 59 million users, social media users of 36 million (43 percent of the population), and with 131 million mobile connection, or 155 percent of the population.

Iran in 2022 has the worst Covid-19 case in the Middle East in terms of the number of fatalities. The country is facing serious socio-economic challenges and has witnessed political upheavals in the past several years. The unrelenting external sanctions have deprived the country of access to the international banking system, SWIFT, oil sales, foreign investment funds, and the import of commodities, including medicine and vaccines. Economic and social pressure on the population is surmountable and the state power structure needs drastic political reforms to reinvigorate the promises of popular sovereignty, economic prosperity, and spiritual fulfillment.

The state legitimacy and the Islamic foundation of the state itself is under severe pressure, given the continuing decline in the standard of living, the widening wealth gap, corruption, and persistent political wrangling and debacle over the nature of the Islamic-Republican relations. The ‘Islamization’ of society has not materialized, as Iranians have been experiencing huge changes in their social mannerism, view on life, religious beliefs, and the place of religion in politics. The parameters of the state-society relations in Iran are in dire need of reform to save what is ‘Islamic’ in the ‘Islamic Republic.’ There are calls for a constitutional amendment to revisit the constitutional authorities and responsibilities of the religious-political leadership.

Iran remains the only Shi’a majority country trying to build an ‘Islamic Republic,’ combining Shi’a jurisprudence, values and principles, and a vision of Islamic society with a republican institutional and legal framework. The state initially constructed a Constitutional structure for the division and the interplay of power among the three branches of government. The Constitutional changes and the creation of the office of the Rahbar, the Guardian Council, and the Expediency Council served predominantly the interest of the clerical outlook and its provocateurs and not the advocates of more ‘republicanism.’

In foreign affairs, the creation of the Supreme National Security Council consolidated power in the hands of the top clerical leadership at the expense of the Majlis and the office of the Presidency. So, the balance of power between Islam and republicanism tilted toward the former. Furthermore, external factors like the Iran-Iraq war, external sanctions, and political pressure strengthened the position of the more conservative forces who saw the West as the perennial enemy with low prospects for coexistence or rapprochement. The slogan, ‘Neither East, nor West’ implied an independent, sovereign Iran free from foreign domination and interference, but in practice, it has brought Iran closer to the East, albeit by default and not by choice.

The historical development in the West demonstrates that the path to national development and democracy is not an easy one, and freedom is not free. The evolution of the modern state and its legal and institutional foundation took at least two centuries. Similarly, today’s western vibrant civil societies are a product of centuries of evolution. The separation of the church and the state since the peace of Westphalia, itself the result of thirty years of religious-political wars, set the tone for future development. The rise of the nation-state as the ultimate source of power and authority since then has witnessed drastic changes in the economic, social, and political arenas in Europe and much of the globe. The arrival of mercantilism, industrial and commercial capitalism, and political democracy also meant the death of absolute monarchism and feudalism in Europe.

What seems central to the success or the failure of national development within an existing international system is the state’s ability to mobilize human and material resources in the service of national interest. Sustained national development may occur only through systemic, planned, organized, deliberate, and institutional attempts within a legitimate (democratic or otherwise) political system. A confident Political system and leadership is instrumental in national development, regardless of historical and cultural ethos and background. The Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea), Brazil, Chile, and China tell the stories of such successes, despite historical subjugation to foreign powers and confronting tremendous odds and barriers during and after the cold war. The successful developing countries since WWI have all set their first goal of development in securing the nation-state from foreign intervention and meddling through building the foundation of a strong military and security establishment. The state incapable of defending itself from foreign interference is detrimental to national sovereignty and development.

The primary successful examples include, among others, China, Cuba, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, and Chile. Some benefited from external military support in the international rivalry during the cold war to better secure their national interest, e.g., South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Cuba. Nevertheless, the burden of development ultimately lies with the state in developing countries. In a recent article, even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acknowledges how the state is crucial in public resource mobilization, stating, “as the Asian examples demonstrate, in less developed economies effective use of state assets, especially property, can be an important driver of economic and institutional development.” It is also noteworthy that these countries’ national development transpired under authoritarian rule, and political democracy only followed some years later.

Successful national leaders recognize the complexities of the international system and the quest for national interest (national defense, domestic cohesion and unity, material prosperity, and sovereignty) requires effective governance. Political ideologies and belief systems can prove instrumental in the mobilization of popular sentiment in support of the state, e.g., nationalism, socialism, liberalism, secularism, or religion—Islam and Judaism in the Middle East. Ultimately, effective governance can mature into good governance when political democracy is inaugurated and the public-private partnership in the management of the economy develops, matures, and consolidates to achieve sustainable development.

The Iranian political economy suffers from serious mismanagement. Political and family cleavages still play a significant role in all levers of power. The weak presence of efficient legal and institutional mechanisms to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of individuals, families, and state agencies is a serious threat to the legitimacy of the state and its domineering ideology. The running of a modern and effective state necessitates complete transparency and accountability. First, there is the dire absence of independent political parties with a well-defined party platform, ideological clarity, and discipline. Instead, personalities loosely place themselves in the reformist–conservative spectrum to vie for power.

This has created an atmosphere of chaos and confusion over who stands for what, with rampant accusations and counteraccusations but without legal and political repercussions! Personal attacks and finger-pointing in the absence of party affiliation and discipline are common, and legal and institutional support for the innocent accused of wrongdoing is haphazard. The conservatives’ hostility toward the creation of independent Political Parties has played a significant role in the political stagnation in the country. Independent political parties are indispensable in interest aggregation of diverging popular interest, with implications for political power, state legitimacy, and governance

Second, inadequate laws to protect political and commercial institutions from abuses of power allow for widespread corruption. Corruption is antithetical to effective governance, rampant corruption can swiftly downgrade popular support for the state, especially when citizens feel victimized by it. Third, the decades-old sanctions have been detrimental to Iran’s economy and have helped delay privatization, when state security and national sovereignty concerns are paramount.

The presence of the ‘security state’ in the face of severe external pressure has meant the creation of a ‘three-tiered foreign exchange rate,’ widespread speculative behavior in the currency market, lower industrial and commodity investment, heavy government borrowing, a multilayered and confusing monetary policy, expansionary money policy and rampant liquidity, little foreign investment, and the overall government domination of the economy. Privatization in such an environment is nearly impossible. Thus, the central problem with Iran’s economy and its mismanagement is political, both in terms of internal weak legal, institutional, and administrative framework and the external sanctions and hostility.

Effective governance demands an effective public-private partnership in the service of the populace. Neither the government nor the market can be left alone to its vices. If properly regulated, privatization can be an effective tool in the efficient management of national resources and economic development. The state can relegate some responsibilities to the private sector in the production and distribution of commodities and services.

The private sector can also partner with state agencies and universities in the development of indigenous technology, research and development, innovation, and a knowledge-based economy. The presence of cooperatives in the national economic scheme also is beneficial in the distribution of necessities of life to the low and lower-middle classes. The cooperatives in Iran can complement and not compete with the private sector. The inefficiencies inherent in the organization and function of coops should be weighed against its practical function as a cushion for the less fortunate in society and as a significant source of the state’s legitimacy.

Despite all its shortcomings, the Iranian state has achieved a great deal in the promotion of national development. Iran can blossom as a burgeoning state and with the potential to become a major player in West Asia. What is lacking are needed internal legal and institutional reforms and continuing with a practical foreign policy but with a smarter, organized, and more conciliatory tone. For this to occur, the state needs to embrace, and not punish, the opposition. The social and economic grievances of Iranians are reasonable and legitimate. A secure and confident state should welcome opposition leaders to explore solutions to national problems, including problems in foreign relations. Reconciliation with the opposition can, for example, expand the popular voice through the creation of private media outlets, professional associations and labor unions, and non-religious political parties that can compete for national development but within its broader view of the Islamic Foundation of the state.

A comparable but uncomfortable example is the state of Israel, where the secular and the divine compete for political power through legal venues, political parties, and institutions. The Islamic Republic need not make the same mistake the former Pahlavi regime committed. Accommodation and not oppression is the answer to widespread legitimate discontent among the populace. The state can secure its legitimate power through an appreciation of what can be secular and avoid mandating if recommending, what is divine. Ultimately, the relations between and within the state and society can secure prosperity and political democracy if the distribution of socioeconomic resources and political power is widespread. So, the concentration of political power and socioeconomic resources prevents the establishment of a thriving national development and political democracy.

The opposition inside and outside of Iran must accept its responsibilities and propose concrete solutions to many of Iran’s problems. Iranian social media and opposition leaders often complain about the situation and quickly finger point whom to blame. Purposeful, nonviolent demonstrations free from harsh sloganeering and with clear demands may prove effective in building bridges between the state authorities and the populace. The Iranian public opinion makers and influencers, and intellectuals can lead the way in instilling a culture of peaceful demonstration and tolerance. The experiences of widespread antiwar movement and civil rights demonstrations in the United States, though at times turning violent, can offer some insights. Civil protests must remain peaceful, organized, persistent, targeted, and nonthreatening to the state, especially when security concerns, real or not, reign overriding. public space can expand through persistence, planned, and organized peaceful demonstrations since the state tends to monopolize political power. It is a lesson from the West and, I believe, can be applied in the East.

The Iranian intellectual and opinionmakers have a central role to play. Iranians have experienced grave sociopolitical and economic turbulences since 1979, overtaxing the society with continuous social anxieties, including the Iran-Iraq war, harsh state laws and directives over social clothing and behavior and gender relations, severe economic hardship, the inflow of millions of refugees and external sanctions. Noam Chomsky contends that “It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.” Ideally, public intellectuals, those without a vested interest in political, social, economic, or career ambitions, everywhere can perform such a task. But Chomsky’s audience mainly resides in the liberal, democratic West. This task carries a great deal of risk for the public intellectual outside the liberal west. The Iranian public intellectual, like its western counterpart, should engage the public to inform and to expose what is propaganda, misinformation, and ‘constructed’ truth.

They must engage the public under the watchful eyes of the state and the historically bound male-governed, traditional social norms and values. The public intellectuals from the 1906 Mashruteh (Constitutional) Revolution to the Mosaddeq era to the present have also dealt with the challenge of the supposed tradition-modern dichotomy in a rapidly changing world. They need to engage the public in discussions of the intricacies of state-society relations and effective(state-dominated, purposeful, and planned development) and Good(state-private partnership and democratic) governance. The public intellectual needs to scrutinize the boundaries of the individual vis-à-vis the state/public responsibility. Citizenship is more than a mere designation; it comes with responsibilities for both the state and society. Above all, the Iranian public intellectuals must be a voice for tolerance and nonviolent social change.

In foreign relations, Iran is militarily secured enough to confidently engage with the rest of the world based on a pragmatic national interest. Iran can rely on its hard and soft power to extend its national influence without a confrontation with the West. Following a Chinese and Russian non-interference policy approach, Iran should establish friendly relations with all countries while quietly using its religious principle/doctrine of justice and the defense of the innocent and its geostrategic location as soft power. The state can focus on political and institutional reforms at home, with fewer external hostilities. Finally, the failure of national leaders to deliver good governance is a failure of the state’s leadership, despite claimed or actual foreign meddling and intervention.

Conclusion

The rise of the Raeisi administration is a manifestation of political contraction in Iran whilst reformists and advocates of a more moderate political Islam are under pressure. The 2nd and the 3rd post-revolution generations care more about the state of the economy and freedom in political and personal expression. Political reformists have declined in power and prestige and the conservatives have fallen short in delivering economic prosperity and virtuous life in the face of ever-worsening economic conditions. The overburdened and unnecessary social restrictions and political pressure have turned most people cynical about political and religious sloganeering, if not Islam itself. The incongruences between what is Islamic and what is Republic remains unresolved. The blending of secular and religious laws, the institutional frameworks, and the constitutional division of power need addressing. Reforms are needed to address the peoples’ democratic rights to correct the imbalance in the structure of power. The rise of the Raeisi administration signifies further Islamization of Iran’s constitutional republicanism while republicanizing what is Islamic is the path to national salvation.

I contend that the Iranian society has in the past forty years taken a giant leap forward in social change for the better whilst the state has been slow to respond to structural changes. Barring any drastic reversal in Iran’s social development due to wars or widespread social calamities, the future of civil society and good governance is hopeful. This is because of the structural changes in the Iranian society and state-society relations since 1979. Only time will tell what is in store in a future (Islamic) Republic.

The presence of thousands of pressure groups and lobbyists assures their access to the helms of power in the country. The populace with vast, guaranteed civil rights and liberties can also interact and influence politicians and decision-makers through open debates, campaign donations, and the public and social media.

Nevertheless, the public opinion-makers (top three to five percent of the populace) and the abundance of money injection into the political process have a strong sway over the formation of public opinion in domestic and foreign affairs.

The American Middle Eastern policy in the post-Cold War era has hitherto merely replaced its anti-communist rhetoric and policy with ‘the war on terror,’ while maintaining the policy of support for Israel and the authoritarian Arab states and securing effective control over the flow of oil to its allies in Europe and Asia. The Obama administration’s Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA) was a tactical move to allay concerns of Israel and Arab states about Iran’s nuclear activities.

The Trump administration’s ideological leaning and interest lent itself to the motto, ‘America First.’ For the religious conservatives and political right, it promised a return to the more traditional American values to confront the ‘excesses of neoliberalism.’ The liberal drive for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity (EDI) has challenged the traditional conservative values of self-help, family, religion, liberty, and limited government.

Trump’s message of ‘economic nationalism,’ and ‘America First’ resonated well with the religious and political right, albeit there was his questionable personal devotion and dedication to the Evangelicals. Trump owed his rise to power to the Evangelicals, the Christian right, and the neoconservatives. In foreign policy, ‘American exceptionalism’ and its ‘indispensable power’ implied the continuing American leadership on the global stage.

So, U.S. support of Israel became even more pronounced in Washington’s Middle Eastern policy. Trump’s pandering to the oil-rich, authoritarian Arab states also supplemented his and his followers’ stance on Israel that also countered the “Iranian menace.”

Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA fell nicely within his administration’s ideological and sociopolitical vision.

President Biden’s Middle East policy may tactically differ from Trump’s, but the United States’ strategic concerns in the region remain the same. Biden has thus far continued with the general direction of the Trump administration. The protection of Israel as an ally and a strategic military outpost remains a core part of U.S. Middle East policy.

As such, the Biden administration will continue to pursue U.S. strategic interests in the region to take advantage of the ‘threat of a nuclear Iran,’ in order to continue with its historical, post-WWII policy.

The U.S. has successfully exploited the Soviet (and Russian) threat, the Arab-Israeli wars, and now the Iranian threat to facilitate its military buildup, arms sales, and direct and indirect covert and overt interventions in the region.

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria simply implies fewer military personnel on the ground, but not less engagement. True, the Pivot to Asia remains high on the Biden agenda, but carbon-energy-abundant Russia, and energy-dependent-China, as well as their political ambitions beyond their respective regions stretch into the Middle East and are of strategic concern to the United States.

Reprinted with the author’s permission from Iran Daily

The partnership would vastly expand Chinese presence in banking, telecommunications, ports, railways, and dozens of other projects. In exchange, China would receive a regular and discounted supply of Iranian oil over the next 25 years. The document also describes deepening military cooperation, potentially giving China a foothold in a region through joint training and exercises, joint research and weapons development, and intelligence sharing. All this would then undercut the Trump administration’s efforts to isolate the Iranian government because of its nuclear and military aspirations. It has been argued that “even the partial implementation of a Chinese-Iranian strategic partnership would signal a major escalation in the U.S. strategic competition with China and blow a hole in the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran at the same time.”

The reaction to the deal from inside Iran and the outside have been varied, pending on the ideological and political foundations of such opposition. The Iranian groups and individuals opposing the Islamic Republic establishment have been swift to label the deal as one of the sell-outs to the Chinese at the expense of Iran’s national interest but to the benefit of the ruling regime. The U.S. State Department for its part referred to the planned agreement as a “second Turkmenchay”—the infamous Agreement between Persia and the Russian Empire, which concluded the 1826-28 Russo-Persian War, stemming in vast territorial losses to Iran; territories that now make up parts of modern-day Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey.

The Iranian leadership is accused of being afraid to share the details of the pact because “no part of it is beneficial to the Iranian people.” Inside Iran, former President Mahmud Ahmadinejad warned in a speech in late June that a 25-year agreement with “a foreign country” was being discussed “away from the eyes of the Iranian nation,” and former conservative lawmaker Ali Motahari, suggested on Twitter that before signing the pact Iran should elevate the fate of Muslims who are reportedly being persecuted in China. There are also hundreds of touted commentaries and video-clips on social media platforms, harshly condemning Iran’s political leadership of treason for ‘leasing and surrendering its sovereignty’ over the Persian Gulf Kish Island.

The details of the deal are yet to be published and the Iranian Parliament must debate and vote on the matter. President Hassan Rouhani’s chief of staff, Mahmud Vaezi, has reiterated that the framework of the agreement has been defined, adding that the negotiations are likely to be finalized by March 2021. Vaezi has also said the agreement does not include foreign control over any Iranian islands or the deployment of Chinese military forces in the country.

The debate inside Iran over the effect of US sanctions only exposes the divergent interests of the ‘pro-west’ and the ‘pro-east’ camps. The structure, organization and the future direction of Iran’s economy have been vehemently debated since the advent of the revolution. The debate is largely between ‘the private-marketeers’ and those favoring a more ‘state-dominated’ economy. Successive Iranian governments have followed domestic and foreign policies, always coming under attack as being either ‘pro-market’ and ‘pro-west,’ e.g., President Rafsanjani’s tenure, or as dominated by populist ideas and policies conceived as detrimental to sound political economy, e.g., President Ahmadinejad’s tenure. These camps regard themselves as either ‘conservative’ or ‘reformist’ but without clear delineations over policy choices and recommendations in tackling development challenges and social ills.

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BEIJING, CHINA – DECEMBER 31: China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi shakes hands with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during a meeting at the Diaoyutai state guest house on December 31, 2019 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Noel Celis – Pool/Getty Images).

In recent years, this polarization surrounds the debate over whether Iran should, after years of internal debate, sign into the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an Intergovernmental Organization that was created by the G7 in 1989 and whose primary mission is “to set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.” The ‘western camp’ supports JCPOA and hopes for a post-Trump dialogue with the United States, while ‘eastern camp’ sees signing into FATF as a western ruse to get access to Iran’s financial transactions overseas. These include Iran’s financial support of Hamas and Hezbollah and the Syrian government, all of which have national security consequences for the country.

The absence of political parties in Iranian political scene has been a major contributor to the confusion over policy debates and options. The presence of powerful individuals, factions, and power elites have led to political squabbling and finger-pointing and unaccountability in a system that permits genuine political debate over policy options to degenerate into personal attacks and name-calling for policy failures. The failure to systematically implement economic privatization, that is protected in the constitution and supported by the top political leadership, or personal attacks on foreign minister Javad Zarif and his cohorts who negotiated the JCPOA for three years on behalf of the country, are two recent examples of political and ideological pandemonium due to the absence of delineated and structured political parties and platforms. Such political wrangling and uncertainties only diminish the significance and the potential benefits that the new Strategic Partnership with China can create. The new deal is an opportunity for Iran to break through its isolation but it should not mean the end of Iran’s ties with Europe and even the United States, as Iran’s geostrategic location has been and will continue as a bridge between the East and the West.

Iran’s Political Economy of Sanctions

Iran has since the revolution in 1979 experienced widespread economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure and has been portrayed as a pariah state in search of a nuclear bomb, part of an ‘axis of evil,’ a state sponsoring terrorism, and responsible for ‘proxy wars’ in the region and all that ills the region, including disarray in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, and perpetuation of war in Yemen! Iran in 2020 is the most severely sanctioned country in the world. As any keen observer would note, the United States’ primary difficulties are with Iran’s foreign policy doctrine and practice, and not so much its nuclear program. For Iran, the China deal is the result of more than forty years of the implacable US and its allies’ hostility toward the Islamic Republic.

Sanctions are injurious and hinder good governance. Sanctions affect the supply and demand and prices in an economy, causing inflationary pressure, particularly a rentier economy with heavy reliance on imports of manufactured products and the technology associated with it. Sanctions also contribute to misappropriation of resources and increased corruption, rentierism (rant khary), inflation, income and wealth gap, popular discontent, and even social unrest.

Sanctions have disadvantaged American and Western companies of a lucrative market in Iran. Western companies like Peugeot, Renault, Volkswagen, Total, ENI, Samsung, among many others, have, fearing US legal and financial reprisal, abandoned Iran’s mark. The auto industry is a key driver of Iran’s economy, the operation, and prosperity of which keeps more than 60 other industries moving. The industry “is only second to its energy sector, accounting for some 10 percent of the gross domestic product and 4 percent of employment.” Foreign companies that made cars in Iran decided to leave after US President Donald Trump revealed new sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Renewed sanctions led to delays in car deliveries and a shortage of parts and by June 2018, a month after sanctions were renewed, “car production dropped by 29 percent contrasted with the same month a year earlier.”

The dollar has progressively been weaponized to undermine governments opposing US views on global relations, as in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, and a host of other countries. Without access to the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications system), Iran is practically robbed of almost all international transactions, including receiving money for its oil exports. The US Institute of Peace reported in 2012 that Iran was using more than 60 tankers—roughly two-thirds of its tanker fleet–to store up to 40 million barrels of crude oil at sea while it located buyers.

AsBloomberg reported on April 26, 2020, “Denied services by the solitary bank that had been used by Chinese authorities to defy U.S. secondary sanctions for over a decade, Iranian executives have been forced to turn to what they call chamedooni (suitcase) trade, referring to payments made in cash and transported across borders in hand luggage…by using front companies and payments routed through third countries or paid in cash, Iranian firms and their most loyal Chinese partners should be able to ensure that bilateral trade doesn’t hit zero. But the inefficient and opaque methods now required to facilitate payments will put an inherent limit on how much trade can take place.” The International Monetary Fund for its part has given lip service to Iran’s legitimate request for assistance to stave off the coronavirus in defiance of their proclaimed ‘neutral stand’ in the management of international monetary exchanges and development assistance and guidance!

The oil sector exports fell from around 70% of the total export ($68.5 billion) in 2017 to nearly 50% in 2019 ($59.3 billion). By July 2019, Iran’s total oil exports fell to as low as 100,000 bpd, down from around 400,000 bpd in June. Even China changed its buying patterns. It doubled its oil imports from Saudi Arabia from the previous year. Beijing imported 1.8 million bpd from the kingdom in July, up from 921,811 bpd in August 2018.

Iran “was exporting 2.7 million barrels per day—775,000 bpd to China or 29 percent of total sales. By September 2018, the Islamic Republic’s total exports plummeted to 1.3 million bpd.” Eventually, Iran resorted in January 2019, to offer discounts to Asian buyers. It “cut the price of Iranian light crude by $1 per barrel, approximately 30 cents a barrel lower than Saudi Arabia’s light crude. It was the largest discount Iran had offered against Saudi prices in more than a decade.”

The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) monetary policy is also considerably challenged and swayed by the US sanctions. For example, the ongoing volatile currency market in summer 2020 that has seen the further depreciation in Iran’s rial is, separate from domestic wild speculation in the currency and gold markets, partly a result of increased liquidity in the market, itself due to vast government borrowing to finance social welfare and economic policies in the age of COVID-19 pandemic.

President Rouhani’s government has borrowed a vast amount of rial through issuing bonds against the hard-earned foreign currencies in the possession of Central bank for national development projects. Indicating budgetary pressure on the government to fulfill all its obligation, CBI announced on August 5 that domestic bonds issuance that began in early June had earned the government more than $2.1 billion in new resources. These bonds were offered in maturities of one to four years with yields between 16.7 to 19 percent. Given Iran’s complex and polarizing politics and sanctions pressure, the CBI remains helpless in its command over foreign currency holdings and independent monetary policy and thus a supervisory and controlling role over the value of the rial.

The overall damaging impact of sanctions cannot be overlooked, notwithstanding some may argue that sanctions are a blessing as it has compelled the country to become self-reliant in certain sectors of the economy as in the defense and nuclear programs. To Iran’s credit, the country has slowly moved away from a rentier economy over the past forty years toward a ‘welfare state’ with increased reliance on food production, non-crude, petrochemical commodity export, and tax collection revenues.

The Iranian economy has reduced its dependence on the export of crude oil, although the oil sector remains central in the country’s earned foreign currency. The Rouhani government’s proposed 1399 (2020-21) annual budget (570, 000 Billion Tomans) projected an unparalleled 30.7% collection from taxes (175,000 Billion Tomas) and only about 8.4% (48,000 Billion Tomans) from the oil sector while the share of government cash handouts and subsidies set is 23.5% (134,000 Billion Tomans). (These numbers are calculated by this author based on a reported recent interview with Mr. Muhammad B. Nobakht, Head of Iran’s Budget Organization.)

A Deal or A Partnership?

Iran is the most populous, geopolitically positioned, and developed country in West Asia, and it is only natural to seek a long-term trading partnership with the second (and soon to be the first) economy in the world. Iran also is in dire need of foreign investment in its energy and infrastructure projects, estimated at $250 and $150 billion in the coming years. Such projects necessitate long-term foreign direct investment (FDI) and commitment. China today is Iran’s biggest trading partner. Bilateral trade between the two countries rose from almost nothing in the early 1990s to more than $50 billion in 2014; it considerably increased from $400 million in 1990 to $1 billion in 1997, largely due to expanded energy trade. Between 2000 and 2012, China hovered between 9 percent and 14 percent of its oil imports from Iran.

Source: U.N. Comtrade

The discussions over the current strategic partnership proposal go back to President Xi Jinping’s visit to Tehran in 2016. According to Iranian officials, the deal would vastly expand Chinese investments in banking, telecommunications, ports, railways, and dozens of other projects in exchange for Tehran supplying Beijing with discounted oil for the next 25 years. The deal would also possibly include joint military training, exercises, counter-terrorism cooperation, intelligence sharing, and arms transfers to Iran. Iran-China relations is geared to set a roadmap for a multi-faceted strategic partnership.

China and Iran have suffered occupation and humiliation in the hands of the West, are believers in national self-reliance, and hold a ‘non-interference’ view in other countries’ national sovereignty issues. Both countries are chastised for their pursuit of national integrity and sovereignty and fending off Western interference, the roots of which date back to the cold war years, e.g., Taiwan, Tibet, and the Sino-India relations, the 1953 coup d’état and the support of the authoritarian rule in Iran, and sanctions and the overall animosity directed at the Islamic Revolution. Both countries are geostrategically located and can benefit from complementarity in resource possession, potential production capacities, and trade and security.

Iran’s geopolitical realities necessitate playing its role as a vital economic crossroad between the East and the West. The meaning of the deal remains: Persian Gulf can become the next borderline dividing the security and strategic interests of a rising China within an emerging ‘new cold war’ from the historical US interest in support of the conservative Arab States, Israel, and access to energy resources. Iran’s ‘bridging role’ success depends a great deal on the post-Trumpian American foreign policy position towards China in whole and US interest in the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East in specific. At this juncture, a US return to the Iran nuclear deal agreement, JCPOA, is a must, and so is the acknowledgment that Iran is a pivotal state in the Persian Gulf, suggesting its participation in the regional peace and stability is essential. Otherwise, the option for a US political and diplomatic rapprochement with Iran is precipitously vanishing, to the likely detriment of Persian Gulf socio-economic development and security. As New Times reported on July 11, Iran and China were closing on a partnership deal in defiance of the US and that the investment and security pact would greatly extend China’s influence in the Middle East, throwing Iran an economic lifeline and creating new crossroads with the United States.

In security and military matters, “because Iran, like China, seeks to avoid import dependence, Beijing is a desired partner—willing to transfer knowledge and expertise as well as critical subsystems.” This has enabled Iran to produce its modifications of Chinese cruise and ballistic missile systems. Iran has also over the years “purchased advanced submarines, fighter aircraft, tanks, and surface-to-air missiles from Russia, but after 1995, when Russia pledged that it would not make further arms contracts with Iran, Iran resume looking to China for conventional arms.” Beijing also “recognizes that preventing Iran from improving its military is a U.S. priority, and it may exploit U.S. sensitivity on this issue to attempt to influence U.S. policies in other areas.

For example, after the United States announced it was selling F-16s to Taiwan, China revived a proposed transfer of M-11 missiles to Iran, which had earlier been canceled because of U.S. pressure. Ties to Iran thus provide Beijing with additional leverage in negotiations with the United States.” Similarly, Beijing has played a major role in Pakistan’s nuclear program to counter India and US pressure. In the 1980s, China apparently provided Pakistan with proven nuclear weapon design and enough highly enriched uranium for two weapons…China has also played an active role in Pakistan’s missile program. Furthermore, China, “with its UN seat and desire to reduce U.S. hegemony, was one of the few major powers willing to maintain strong and cordial relations with Tehran during the more radical days of the revolutionary regime.”

The Iranian-Sino partnership entails both a pull and push factor. Iran badly needs foreign investments and China can extend its reach into the Middle East via Iran while achieving its share of the one-road-one-built (BRI) initiative. The BRI that would connect China via land and sea with the rest of the world may be construed as China’s ambition at becoming a global player, but would this be to the disadvantage of countries involved in the project? The answer is a resounding no, given the historical Western colonialism of much of Asia, Africa, and South America that also included victimization of China (recall, a Western colonial expansion that began in the late 1400s, lasted until the end of World War I, resurrected through imperial ambitions, left a trail of plundering of resources, manipulation, slavery, genocide, racism, and even eugenics! The Western colonial and imperial involvement in China itself translated into more than 100 years (1800-1949) of foreign occupation, humiliation, territorial losses, mass starvations, and civil wars.

This is not to argue that China does not have ambitions to project power and influence beyond its region. China’s model of investment in the BRI project shows its investment in accessing minerals, raw materials, and infrastructural projects through leasing and control of resources. China’s investments involve mostly on resource extraction and infrastructural projects and less on the development of human capital in the targeted countries. Still, China is doing what no other private financial sector is willing to do: to invest hundreds of billions of dollars on projects that others dare not to invest, e.g., the Karakoram Highway project in Pakistan, with only the pledge of a return in the future through operational leases and control of ports and facilities for a defined-time-period, e.g., Vietnam, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Pakistan.

The Karakoram Highway project will cut China’s import of oil from the Middle East by two-third from 9000km via sea to 3000km. This will seriously augment China’s access to the oil-rich Middle East but will potentially improve Pakistan’s long-term national development that for decades has experienced poverty and significant income gap, political instability, terrorism, and military rule, factors easily dispiriting to any investors. Pakistan-China trade stood at only $6.2 billion in 2016 but is expected to grow exponentially. The Kashgar to Gwadar Port is part of the BRI project and involves projects in rail, port, energy, and construction development. It is projected to improve Pakistan’s GDP by 2-3% point in the next 15 years. The project is further creating an estimated 500-700 thousand jobs with a projected $3 trillion turnaround in trade and commerce. China in return has a 40-year lease of the Gwadar port.

China is doing what the World Bank has failed to do since the 1950s: to provide a sizable amount of state capital at a lower interest rate for development projects in the developing ‘third world.’ The IBRD has only delivered about $500 billion in loans to alleviate poverty around the world since 1946, with most of its funds collected in the world’s financial private markets with its shareholder governments paying merely about $14 billion in capital. China, on the other hand, relies on its own earned dollars and other hard currencies to finance the BRI projects with an estimated 1-2 trillion dollars over the years to come. This will extend China’s sway beyond Asia and into Africa, Europe, and South America. China is the first non-Western country in modern times challenging the Western path to development and hegemony, and that is an disconcerting proposition to many.

China is a regional power and its power will only grow in the coming years. The repercussions for US-Sino relations and global power politics of a rising China are paramount. China has greatly gained from the liberal international political economy since the 1980s, but it has always been hasty to presume that China will ultimately embrace the Western democratic political system, propagated by neoliberals in the United States and Europe. China may in the future accept a more competitive political system but recall that the path to (liberal) political democracy is grueling and takes decades, indeed centuries before it develops and matures. One only needs to study the experience with democracy and its development in the West. Yet, China is rising.

Conclusion

The signing of the Iran-China Strategic Partnership is only the natural outcome of a rational, calculated approach to foreign policy in the promotion of two country’s respective national interests. Indeed, there are always ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in any such agreement—and any human interactions–as different players within each country may wish to boost their own professed individual, group, elite, political class, and/or national interest. This produces confusion and disputes over what constitutes the national interest of a country in any matter! The state in China and Iran remain the central player in the economy, the polity, and society and the triangular State-business-labor relations.

Ultimately, the responsibility for the long-term national development of any national project lies with the host country. As stated above, there are always winners and losers in any human ventures, notwithstanding the wins and losses are, like anything else in life, relative. As such, major winners in the Iran-China Partnership are the national organizations and businesses associated with the state like the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its affiliated companies and entities and various state-affiliated foundations. Iran is endowed with vast natural resources but, more importantly, it has an impressive human capital. Should the deal decisively end Iran’s Western-imposed isolation, the country can, if ensued with a sound approach to matters of governance, rapidly become a major economic, trade, and commerce powerhouse in West Asia. (It is noteworthy to mention discrepancies in views of government foundations and their role in the Iranian economy, like Bonyade Mostazafan, the Astane Qodse Razavi, or Setade Ejraye Farmane Imam: while the US Treasury claims foundations under the Iranian leadership has tens of billions of dollars in the country’s budget scheme, Iran authorities have always repudiated this. In a recent interview, an Iranian economist claims the foundations’ share of the national (not government’s) budget is 5.4% or under 3% of the country’s economy. This is in sharp contrast with Mostafa Kavakebian, a former parliamentarian and the head of Hizbe Mardomsalari or peoples’ party’s claim that foundations’ budgets are several times larger than that of the government!)

The Iran-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership deal is not one of a choice between the East or the West. Iran’s ‘pivot to Asia’ is not necessarily a pivot away from the West as much as it is a push away by the West. As Majid Reza Hariri, Chairman of Iran-China Chamber of Commerce has asserted, “it is others who refuse to cooperate with us. If we have no economic ties with the US following the 1979 embassy hostage-taking, it was the Americans who cut ties with us. Those who claim that Iran is being colonized by China can come and we will offer to sign similar agreements with them.” As for Europe, Paolo Magri, in Annalisa Perteghella, ed. Iran Looking East: An Alternative to the EU? comments: “the Iranian case powerfully demonstrates; it is the weakening of the transatlantic bond and the EU’s inability to play a leading role in safeguarding engagement with Tehran that ultimately made Tehran look east for alternatives.”

It is only through dialogue that the US and Europe can reach a compromise in their corresponding geostrategic and military/security calculations and priorities. For now, the view from Tehran is that no matter what Iran does, the United States will not stop its antagonism and pressure for regime change. The United States can and must recognize the legitimate role of Iran as a regional power with regional interest. This demands the acknowledgment that along with the rise of China the geostrategic realities in the Persian Gulf, and the wider Middle East, is changing.

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Caspian Report: “China and Iran draft a $400 billion pact”

The ‘peace plan’ essentially asks the Palestinians to surrender; a take it or leave it to offer, refuse the plan, you will be even worse of while Israel will get what it wants. The so-called peace vision would allow Israel to keep the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, and a unified Jerusalem, ensuring that some 700,000 Israeli settlers can remain on lands captured by Israel and under Israeli law. The Palestinians are told to build their capital in the small town of Abu Dais in a poor neighborhood in east Jerusalem, cutting it off from the city by a concrete separation barrier. A new Palestinian state would be demilitarized, relinquishing considerable security control to Israel. Palestinian refugees also must forget their dreams of a return to their homeland. A land swap with Israel with extending Gaza strip’s territory to the south for the loss of land in the West Bank, and Gaza and the West Bank will be connected via a tunnel. A US and Arab and Western allies’ goodwill provides a $50 billion reward to pay for infrastructure and development of the proposed Palestinian State. The will-be disjointed Palestinian State’s internal and external security and sovereignty will be limited by Israel’s. Predictably, the Palestinian leadership has vehemently rejected the ‘deal of the century’ proposal, as have 94 percent of the Palestinians. So, no serious observer of the Middle East could believe the merits of the plan and its chances of success.

The question remains as to why initiate a plan with zero probability of success? Are the architects behind the plan or in the Trump administration so divorced from the realities of the Middle East that they cannot comprehend the plan’s biases and therefore its ultimate demise? Or, is it plausible that the assured Palestinian rejection will legitimize final Israel’s crawling efforts at taking full control of much of historical Palestine? A Palestinian refutation of the plan and the expected divided response from Arab countries will only set the stage for yet another ‘Palestinian rejection’ of a ‘peace plan,’ blaming the Palestinian leadership for ‘another missed opportunity’ to climb on the ‘peace wagon’ while giving Israel the opportunity to strike the final blow to the dream of the ‘two-state solution.’

The reason why all attempts at peace based on the 1967 UNSC Resolution 242 have failed is Israel’s unwillingness to ‘give up’ what is mandated and necessary. Israeli political class has since 1967 operated to ‘manage’ and not to resolve the conflict, giving the appearance of a genuine partner in peace negotiations but never willing to abide by the terms of the UNSC resolution 242. The Israeli narrative has always blamed the Arab States and/or the Palestinian leadership for the lack of success or the failure of peace negotiations while consolidating its physical control of land and resources in the occupied territories. The Israeli Jewish population even today believes ‘settlement’ can best serve Israel instead of recognition of a Palestinian state with its own viable territorial control. In Early 2018, only 39 percent of Israeli Jews favored a strive towards a permanent arrangement, with the vast majority favoring other options like annexation, the status quo, and separation from the Palestinians. Only 45 percent of Israeli Jews agree to a recognition of a Palestinian state (not necessarily the map of it) in a peace plan in January 2020.

Given the disarray in Arab politics, itself a product of the post-cold war era, the September 11, 2001, and the Arab Spring movements in 2011, the timing of the proposed peace plan is suspect and promises its failure. The wider regional and global events have long overshadowed and marginalized the plight of the Palestinian people. These events include, but not limited to, the Iranian Revolution (1979) and the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon (1982–2000, 2006) and the besiege of Gaza (2008, 2014, and ongoing), the first Persian Gulf War (1990-91), the September 11, 2001 terrorists attacks on America, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), the continuing split in the Palestinian leadership (1983 in Lebanon, 1987 Hamas-led Intifada, and 2006 Hamas electoral victory), the Arab Spring movement (2011—present), the U.S. and NATO intervention and regime change in Libya (2011), political change in Egypt (after Muslim Brotherhood electoral victory in 2015 and the consequent military Coup d’état), the Saudi Arabian intervention in Bahrain (2011) and Yemen (2015), and the ongoing and devastating war in Syria since 2011. The latest blow to the Arab States and the Palestinian leadership and people is the destruction of Iraqi and Syrian states and infrastructure and the threat of Daesh and instability to Lebanese and Jordanian national cohesion, and the new wave of Arab and Palestinian refugees.

A Palestinian dilemma is that they have been victimized for decades by both Israeli occupation and brutal Arab political classes, whose interest is in the preservation of the socioeconomic and political status quo in their respective countries instead of serious efforts in pursuit of a viable Palestinian-Israeli peace plan. The Palestinian issue has been used as a rallying cry for Arab unity and as an expression of the Arab regimes’ sacrifices for the Palestinians, e.g., loss of territories, hosting Palestinian refugees. The Arab world, for the most part, has remained divided and uncertain over domestic and regional ‘security threats,’ only to show frivolous unity in the Arab League meetings while ‘betraying’ the Palestinians in the name of regime and/or national interest, e.g., 1970-71 Jordanian civil war, 1976-1990 civil war in Lebanon, and Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) peace treaties with Israel without concessions for the Palestinians. The rise of Iranian power is the Arab States’ latest excuse to deflect their endemic problems in governance by inflaming a Sunni-Shi’a divide and the fabrication of a security threat to their respective states.

Real Intentions, False Pretenses

The history of Israeli negotiation efforts tells of an approach designed to, (a) neutralize the Arab States and thus leaving the Palestinian leadership at the mercy of its terms of surrender, and (b) to negotiate terms that at best lead not to the creation of a ‘viable’ two-state solution based on the 1967 UNSC Resolution 242 but to an outcome similar to what the ‘deal of the century’ offers—a settlement that is tantamount to a surrender. Meanwhile, Israel’s approach to the conflicts since 1967 has been one of its management of the conflict instead of its resolution.

The Madrid talks and the Oslo process began unsurprisingly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the destruction of Iraq’s military and economy in early 1991, US military presence in Saudi Arabia for the first time, and its rise as the ‘indispensable hegemonic power’. The imbalance in bargaining power between the Palestinian leadership and the Arab states on one side and Israel on the other was astonishing, especially when the lone hegemonic power, the United States, took the center-stage to finally ‘resolve’ the conflict. The Oslo process promised on paper a peace based on UNSC resolution 242, but it only prepared the road for a Palestinian failure in fulfilling its end of the deal. Article 1 of the declaration read:

The aim of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations within the current Middle East peace process is, among other things, to establish a Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority, the elected Council (the “Council”), for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, for a transitional period not exceeding five years, leading to a permanent settlement based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.

Palestinians agreed to the 1993 ‘Declaration of Principle that also forbade Yasir Arafat’s PLO’s participation in the negotiations (Palestine was represented by the Jordanian-Palestinian delegation from only the occupied region when PLO leadership was in exile). PLO’s Yasser Arafat did manage to come back to the West Bank and to establish a headquarter in Ramallah, a small town in the West Bank. However, the agreement provided for the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) municipal—not sovereign— control over Areas A (towns) and B (villages), leaving the vast Area C that connects towns and villages via road under Israeli’s! Yasser Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian National Council in 1996 with 88.1 percent of the popular vote but with little authority and resources. The PNA remained dependent on money and logistical support from the United States, the UN, Arab countries, and Israeli returns of tax funds owed to the PNA. The US supported and encouraged the PNA to ultimately ‘settle for peace’ but not a peace deal based on resolution 242. In the end, the Palestinian leadership denunciation of violence in 1988 that jump-started talks in Madrid and the Oslo process failed after twelve years of diplomacy. Israel, however, gained a peace treaty with Jordan, added an additional one million incoming Russian immigrants throughout the 1990s that further pushed Israeli politics to the right, and doubled the population of settlers in the West Bank and Gaza during the supposed peace talks that was led by the ‘left-leaning’ labor party in violation of a promised freeze in Israeli settlement activities! The number of settlements and settlers has continued to rise since the 1990s under different pretenses and excuses.

Oslo’s legacy read like a litany of promises deferred or unfulfilled. Throughout the 1990s, the Oslo process avoided negotiations over all central issues—the status of East Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital, the right of return of refugees, questions of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, allocation of water resources, and the final map of the Palestinian state—postponing them to the final stage of negotiation! The Oslo peace process achieved what it meant to do: to neutralize Jordan where seventy percent of its population were Palestinians and to blame the Palestinian leadership for its eventual collapse while allowing Israel to expand its settlements in the occupied territories with the US muted support and finance through different military and non-military schemes, including guaranteed loans that has allowed Israel to borrow money and finance its settlement activities at lower interest rates at the expense of American taxpayers! As the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, noted in late 2016 the settler population in the West Bank alone — not including East Jerusalem — had increased by nearly 270,000 since the 1990s-era Oslo peace accords and by 100,000 since President Barack Obama took office in 2009. The failure of Camp David II in 2000 effectively declared the demise of the Oslo Process.

The collapse of negotiations in 2000, with most Palestinians still living in poverty and growing increasingly desperate, led to a new wave of violence. Israel continued to blame Arafat for the violence–even that which was perpetrated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, groups that had probably never been under his control. The collapse of peace talks and the declaration of intifada II by the Palestinians led to the election of a hawkish right-wing government in Israel. Then, Mahmoud Abbas became the new chairman of the PLO and was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in January 2005 but without much power to pursue a final peace deal. Instead, Abbas could not stop Hamas’ electoral victory in Gaza in 2006 that brought more division within the PNA leadership, as well as within the divided Arab world.

Since 2001, the ‘Arab radical camp’ (Iraq, Syria, Libya, Algeria, and Hamas and some Palestinian factions) are all either neutralized through direct military action (Libya, Syria, Iraq) or are rendered ‘tamed’ (Algeria, Egypt, Morocco) or are weak and almost irrelevant (Hamas, Islamic Jihad). As expected, the Persian Gulf Arab States have cautiously welcomed the plan, balancing their concerns over regime survival and the will of their respective populace in an already turbulent region. The United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, has called the plan “a serious initiative that addresses many issues raised over the years,” and Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a muted statement saying that it “appreciates the efforts of President Trump’s administration to develop a comprehensive peace plan.” Kuwait and Morocco have stated that they ‘appreciate’ (Morocco) and ‘highly appreciate’ the peace plan while Jordan and Egypt are juxtaposing their financial and security dependence on the United States and Israel with popular demand from their respective population. The only potential serious threat to the plan comes from the ‘Resistance Front’ consisting of Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and much weakened Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and what is left of Syria.

Israeli settlement activities without US financial and political support would have remained limited. Israel remains the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. To date, the United States has provided Israel $142.3 billion (current, or non-inflation-adjusted, dollars) in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding. Almost all U.S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance, although from 1971 to 2007 Israel also received significant economic assistance. According to Congressional Research Service, as of 2019, Israel has issued $4.1 billion in U.S.-backed bonds, and might still be authorized to issue up to $3.814 billion in U.S.-backed bonds. Although Israel must not spend the money for settlement activities, “U.S. officials have noted that since Israel’s national budget is fungible, proceeds from the issuance of U.S.-guaranteed debt that are used to refinance Israeli government debt-free up domestic Israeli funds for other uses” (p. 29). Israel unlike any other recipient of US financial aid receive its aid in a lump sum during the first month of the fiscal year, allowing it to invest the funds in the U.S. and earn interest on them. The foreign assistance appropriation bill signed on November 5, 1990, provided this special treatment for Israel.

According to the Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now, more than 3 million people live in the West Bank and 86% of them are Palestinians. There are 132 settlements and 113 outposts – settlements built without official authorization – in the West Bank. The group says more than 413,000 settlers live there, with numbers increasing year on year. (Out of 126 outposts established: 2 outposts were evicted (Migron and Amona); 15 outposts were legalized (three as independent settlements and 12 as “neighborhoods” of existing settlements); at least 35 outposts are in the process of being legalized. The outposts phenomenon started mainly under Netanyahu as Prime Minister in 1996 (during the Oslo), and it was stopped only in 2005. In 2012 the government of Netanyahu started to establish illegal outposts again. The rise of Hamas and the split in leadership since 2006 has eroded the Palestinian position. Today, the Palestinian Authority (PA) oversees merely 18% (Area A) of the West Bank, where it can control internal security but not complete sovereign control. Areas B (21%) where PA controls education, health, and the economy, and Area C (60%) is outside PA’s sovereign control, where Israel has the ultimate say in matters of security and all that falls within its security parameters, including, communication, transportation, and governance in general. The Palestinian people remain divided between those living in the West Bank under the PA rules and those living under Hamas control in the Gaza Strip.

Under the Trump Administration, U.S. policy toward the Palestinians has revealed its true partial bias favoring Israel. In 2018, the Administration significantly cut U.S. funding for the Palestinians, closed the PLO’s representative office in Washington, DC, and merged the U.S. consulate general in Jerusalem (which had dealt independently with the Palestinians for decades) into a single diplomatic mission with the U.S. embassy to Israel. The U.S. Embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018 has de facto meant the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the entire city of Jerusalem, leaving the small town of Abu Dais on the outskirts of Jerusalem as a future Palestinian State framed within the ‘deal of the century offer.

Conclusion

Israel has always considered the Arab states and not the umbrella Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as its true adversary. That is, the road to a peace settlement must travel to Arab capitals—mainly Cairo, Damascus, Amman, Beirut, Riyadh, Baghdad, and Libya’s Tripoli. The peace treaty with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) left PLO without the support of its two major allies and made sure of the defunct 2000 Camp David II settlement offer’s failure. Israel has over decades managed to neutralize the Arab States while the United States and its Western allies have taken care of the so-called ‘Arab radical’ states–Iraq, Libya, and Syria—through sabotage, invasions and regime overthrow. With the Arab radicals out of the way and the oil-rich, moderate Arab Persian Gulf countries already in the ‘Western Camp,’ the road is now paved for the imposition of the final solution: A Palestinian surrender of all that is relevant to a viable two-state peace deal. The alternative one-state solution has never been contemplated by the Israeli leadership although some in the Palestinian leadership have raised it as a solution to call Israel to account for its declared democratic mantra and values. As democratic and progressive that solution may be, prospects for its realization, given the Israeli politics and the state of world affairs, is none.

I wrote in 2017 that “Arab governments have been too inept and corrupt to effectively negotiate on behalf and in the interest of the Palestinians,” and second, “successive Israeli governments have had the upper hand in power parameters and in negotiations, with the intention to dictate the terms of a Palestinian surrender while neutralizing Arab States’ security threats,” and that “the United States has been far from a neutral third-party mediator, using its hard and soft power in the service of a ‘peace settlement’ or a ‘conflict resolution’ instead of a genuine peace.” The Oslo process only neutralized the Jordanian threat and left the Palestinian leadership at the mercy of the Israeli protagonists and their American supporters. The failure of Camp David II (2000) showed the total weakness and dependence of the Palestinian leadership on their Arab patrons and the United States who in the end blamed Yasser Arafat for its failure. Abandoned by the Arab States, Yasser Arafat in 2000 could not betray the Palestinian people’s trust and agree to the terms of the agreement: to effectively forsake the dream of statehood and control over East Jerusalem and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.

Today, with the Arab world divided and in its weakest point in recent history, the Palestinian leadership remains more vulnerable than ever to the Israeli and American pressure. Israeli settlements have expanded in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where settlers’ population now is about 700,000. Gaza is a vast prison camp surrounded by Israeli and Egyptian soldiers, and at the mercy of political events happening outside its borders. Syria’s Golan Heights and its precious water resources also remain under Israeli control. Palestinian refugees’ number in the millions and there are no signs of hope of a return now or ever!

Far from being a neutral mediator, the United States’ policy preferences have helped perpetuate a dominant Israeli position in its relations with the Arab states and the unresolved Palestinian dilemma. The U.S. policy has also continued with its traditional support for Israel and the defense of authoritarian but friendly Arab regimes, significant arms transfer, and a ‘declared war’ on terrorism that has effectively brought chaos and destruction to much of the region. The U.S. continues to overlook Israeli stockpiles of nuclear weapons and its illegal occupation of Arab lands and settlement activities. The Trump administration has finally revealed the true US defunct declared neutral mediator role in the conflict, boldly offering a deal of the century that simply is ‘the sale of the century’. The deal of the century has, at last, revealed the decades-old-open-secret U.S. partiality as a mediator in the conflict, ensuring Israeli preeminent power superiority over the Palestinian leadership and the Arab States, and tolerating Israeli territorial expansion and annexation of territories in dispute while helping with its management of the conflict. Now that the two-state solution is practically dead and the one-state solution is extremely unpalatable to Israel, the stage is set for more years of violence and bloodshed ahead. Such an offer is befitting a president who is a ‘real estate deal maker’ in his heart and impervious to the long-term consequences of US policy.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

TRT World Now: “Trump’s Middle East Plan: Mohammad Shtayeh, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister”

With essentially weak and ineffective governments in Kabul, Tehran, Baghdad, and Damascus, terrorism will reign rampant and more violent than before, with inevitable spillover into Europe, and Northern America. Millions of new refugees will push their way Westward toward Europe, destabilizing Turkey along the way. The United States, in turn, will be bogged down in a state of hostility for years to come and with trillions of dollars wasted. The US presence in the region will be extremely costly, hastening its hegemonic decline. Moreover, the inevitable rise in the price of oil and natural gas will have a wider global impact: It will weaken European economies’ already fragile state and will slow down the economies of China and India as major importers of oil. In the long term, Iran will further distance itself from the West and will accelerate its nuclear program. The consensus, therefore, should be that such a war of choice must be inconceivable.

President Donald Trump so far remains the only president in recent memory to not have led the U.S. in an invasion of a foreign land under some pretext. President Trump’s preoccupation with domestic politics and a brazen confrontation with US economic partners, be it China, Canada, Mexico, or the European Union, leaves little incentives for yet another US military involvement in the Middle East. This is particularly true for a president whose rise to power and hopes for a second term owes something to the promise of ‘No Endless Wars.’ The question, therefore, remains as to how the U.S. should deal with Iran and its, so-called, ‘mischiefs?’ Iran has been accused of sponsoring terrorism, pursuing nuclear weapons, meddling into affairs of other countries, and suppressing its citizens in violation of basic human rights. Despite such highly exaggerated and misconstrued claims, the rise of Iran as a regional power is positive for the U.S. long term interest in the region. The hastened assassination of the second most powerful and popular man in Iran, the head of Iran’s revolutionary guard’s Quds force, Qassim Soleimani, and his Iraqi associates, can only telltale, at best, of a badly miscalculated advice or, at worst, an ideologically driven move colored with personal score boarding.

The rise in Iranian power can be funneled toward regional peace, stability, and cooperation; Iran’s wider regional participation can serve the cause of Persian Gulf security and reduce U.S. military presence in the region in line with a ‘Trumpian America First’ slogan. Given the increasing Russian footprint in the region and fast-paced regional development, a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement can be instrumental in serving the cause of peace and cooperation and prosperity in the Persian Gulf region and beyond. For a successful rapprochement between the United States and Iran, however, the United States needs to remain true to the fundamental principles of Realpolitik in dealing with Iran in pursuit of its longer-term national interest. Such an approach would require the U.S. reverting to its cold war policy of political realism that relied on regional

cooperation in countering threats to the region. The neoliberal and neoconservative driven U.S. Mideast policies have led to wars, instability, and uncertainties and at the expense of its national interest. To this end, several factors are vital to consider.

First, it is paramount for the United States to acknowledge Iran as a ‘pivotal state’ with legitimate interests in regional politics. Iran shares national characteristics with countries designated as ‘pivotal states;’ countries with important national characteristics, pivotal in the management of regional affairs, e.g. Mexico, Brazil, Algeria, Egypt, South Africa, Turkey, India, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Pivotal states share certain characteristics in common, including, large population, important geographical location, economic potential, and physical size, and their fate is vital to the United States’ overall global policy. What really defines a pivotal state is its capacity to affect regional and international stability. A pivotal state is so important regionally that its collapse would spell transboundary mayhem: migration, communal violence, pollution, disease, and so on. A pivotal state’s steady economic progress and stability, on the other hand, would bolster its region’s economic vitality and political soundness and benefit American trade and investment (p. 37).

Iran’s cultural heritage and history, human capital and natural resources and geostrategic location stand out in West Asia and as a corridor to Europe, the Persian Gulf, and Africa. Iran is a country of 83.75 million and has the longest shoreline in the Persian Gulf and the sea of Oman. It sits on 7% of world minerals, including copper, iron ore, uranium, gold, and zinc, and lead, and is ranked among 15 mineral-rich countries. Iran’s proven oil reserves are the 4th largest in the world and its natural gas’ rank second (perhaps even first after reports of some new discoveries) in the world, just behind Russia. Iran’s economy has been under strain since the revolution and yet it is ranked the 18th largest in the world, with a GDP (PPP) of more than $1,627 trillion dollars in 2019, and a per capita of $19,541, 1.14% of the world economy.

According to the United Nations, Iran’s Human Development Index (HDI) value for 2017 was 0.798— which put the country in the high human development category— positioning it at 60 out of 189 countries and territories. Between 1990 and 2017, Iran’s HDI value increased from 0.577 to 0.798, an increase of 38.3 percent: Iran’s life expectancy at birth increased by 12.4 years, mean years of schooling increased by 5.6 years and expected years of schooling increased by 5.7 years, and its GNI per capita increased by about 67.5 percent between 1990 and 2017. Iran has slowly moved away from a rentier state, dependent on the export of crude oil into a welfare state with a diversified economy. Iran’s military also is ranked 14 in the world in 2019 by Global firepower or as the 13th most powerful military in 2018 by the Business Insider.

Second, the United States must accept that Iran has legitimate national concerns over its domestic and regional security and developmental issues, and not be viewed simply as a pariah state. Iran shares a long border with Afghanistan and is vulnerable to the presence of ‘hostile’ US and NATO troops so close to its border. It has also lost thousands of its border guards and soldiers in countering narcotrafficking, terrorism, human trafficking, and smuggling. While Iran had nothing to do with the events that inspired the September 11, 2001 attacks on America, it was labeled as a member of the ‘axis of evil’ by the neoconservative-dominated administration of President G W. Bush and it has paid dearly for the U.S. declared war on terrorism.

Iran has experienced the sociopolitical and economic turmoil of the 1978-79 revolution, terrorism and insurgency since the1980s, a devastating and costly war with the invading Iraqi army, two major U.S. invasions of its neighboring Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) with consequent instability and flood of refugees into its territory, forty years of uninterrupted UN and/or US and European economic sanctions and political pressure, and the hostility of much of the Arab world, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia. This is while the government has since the revolution tried building the foundations of a Shi’a-based Islamic Republic by a process of ‘trial and error,’ resulting in ideological and political factionalism, mismanagement of the economy, and political corruption. Iran’s experimentation with Islamic Republicanism has raised many questions and concerns about the nature of the state-society relations. The future shape and nature of democracy in modern Iran must be determined by the country’s historical, cultural, and modern indigenous sociopolitical and economic experiences.

Whether the experimentation with Islamic Republicanism can succeed or not, it is a matter for the Iranian populace to decide. Regardless, Iran has gone through drastic national changes, making it a much more dynamic and exuberant country with tremendous potential for national development. Structural changes in Iran since the revolution has led to a dynamic and inquisitive population and society who has proven persistent in its quest for more social freedoms and good governance. The population of the country is relatively young, very educated and technologically savvy. More importantly, the populace and civil society in Iran today gravitate towards the West in intellectualism and societal needs and expectations. The United States’ conflict with the government’s foreign policy orientation must not isolate and punish its populace. In the end, whether Iran’s future embraces an ‘Islami constitutionalism’ or liberal constitutionalism, or a different political makeup, the post-revolution generation has embraced causes of national development and peace and regional cooperation and integration. A policy of engagement with Iran is much more efficient and promising in the long run. Iran’s potential for rapid growth and development is very bright, should its economy and polity be integrated into the regional political economy.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II coined in 2004 the phrase ‘Shia crescent’ that supposedly implied a ‘Shi’a unity’ that went from Damascus to Tehran, passing through Baghdad. The Shia crescent tag was an unfortunate statement, presuming the root of anxieties, worries, and conflicts in the region is sectarian and not political. As Ian Black of BBC commented, the narrative simply was simplistic, “smoothing over local factors of ethnicity and nationalism to provide a single, overarching explanation. In a region where political discourse is often coded, it was highly unusual to hear such blunt language.” Iran’s support for its ‘proxy’ allies is a calculated policy to empower forces beyond its borders that are ideologically and/or politically are potential allies. Iran does not control or direct its ‘proxy’ forces: Tehran has never been interested in cultivating a network of completely dependent proxies. Instead, it has tried to help these groups become more self-sufficient by allowing them to integrate into their countries’ political processes and economic activities and helping them build their own defense industries—including by giving them the capability to build weapons and military equipment in their own countries rather than rely on Iran supplying them. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/16/irans-proxies-hezbollah-houthis-trump-maximum-pressure/ Lebanon’s Hezbollah (Party of God) and Iraq’s Hash al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces, PMF) are primary examples of such groups.

Iranian leadership believes the US-back attempt at regime change in Syria was a prelude to the downgrading and the destruction of Lebanese Hezbollah and military action against Iran itself. That is, regime change in Iraq, Libya, and then in Syria would sniff out Iran’s regional influence, making it a much softer military target. The United States is thus viewed as hostile and interventionist, with intention to topple the regime, proven by not only its historical role in the 1953 coup d’état of the legal Iranian government of Muhammad Mosaddeq, but by the vehement rejection of the Islamic Revolution, disregard for Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War, the 1988 shooting down of its passenger plane, the imposition of decades-long sanctions, freezing of Iranian financial assets, rejection of Iranian civilian nuclear progress for clean energy, withdrawal from the UNSC sponsored nuclear agreement, JCPOA, repeated threats to attack Iran, and now the assassination of the head of Iran’s revolutionary guard’s Quds force, Qassim Soleimani. Iran has for most of the past forty years has been a subject of repeated US and Israeli threats of military attack and regime change, with even hints of Israeli nuclear strike against Tehran!

Third, U.S. Mideast policy since the advent of September 11, 2001, terrorist attack has been dominated by the hawkish neoconservative ideologues of the GW Bush years (2001-08); the interventionist neoliberalism of the Clinton (1992-2000) and the Obama (2008-2016) years, and now the haphazard policy of ‘neomercantilism’ of Donald Trump presidency. In spite of its declared policy of a ‘war on terror,’ U.S. actions have contributed to the spread of terrorism across the region and onto Europe, the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, or the Daesh), continuing support of Arab authoritarian rulers despite their horrendous human rights records, and emboldening Israeli political rights to avoid any serious attempt at resolving, not merely managing, the Palestinian issue. Billions of dollars have been spent in the US invasion of Afghanistan (war of necessity) and Iraq (war of choice). The Arab Spring movements also prompted US-led NATO operation in Libya (another war of choice but under the guise of neoliberal idealism of ‘Responsibility to Protect’) and in Syria (another war of choice instigated by U.S. allies’ proponents of regime change in Syria, namely Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel). The United States’ support for the Saudi Arabia-led supposed coalition to intervene in Yemen’s civil war since 2015 has meant the perpetuation of Yemeni conflict and unimaginable sufferings for its people.

The changing dynamics of regional politics demands a more pragmatic U.S. policy. Instead, U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq opened the way for increased Iranian influence in both countries. Iran has used its Shi’a doctrine’s soft power to recruit Afghan and Iraqi fighters to join the Syrian forces fighting radical foreign-supported militants. Furthermore, the US and its regional allies’ intervention in Syria only incited Iran’s fear of a US-backed attempt at regime change after Syria. The power vacuum created by the US and its Arab allies’ policy of regime change compelled the Assad regime to ask for a more entrenched Iranian participation. Iran’s involvement in Syria would have remained limited to military and economic cooperation, short of its current (and future) military presence and foreign-fighters recruitment and sponsorship. Iran, however, is not the only external military force in Syria, as foreign fighters from Europe, Africa, Central Asia, and the Arab world have been fighting on opposite sides in the Syrian war theatre.

Some observers consider the Islamic Republic’s regional policies as diametrically opposed to the United States’. There are, however, some shared regional issues that are of mutual interest requiring Iran’s cooperation to secure the Persian Gulf and a more ‘tranquil’ U.S. presence in the region. Among other issues of mutual concerns are drug and human trafficking, combating terrorism, stability and national integrity of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and the end of the war in Yemen. The U.S. can help strengthen ties among regional actors, including Iran, in settling their differences in the service of peace, prosperity, and shared interest, while taking confidence-building measures to ease tensions with Iran. The United States’ return to the nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, can lead to further negotiations over Iran’s role as an instigator of regional cooperation and development. A policy of engagement is far more fruitful than the current policy of mistrust, punishment, and isolation.

The assassination of Qassim Soleimani has seriously undermined the voice of reason on both sides, with threats and counter-threats coming out of Tehran and Washington. President Trump’s administration almost certainly consulted the Israeli government before the strike on Soleimani and his Iraqi associates, and without any Iraqi input into the matter. Such hasten actions defy thoughtful and strategic principles of realpolitik and only serve voices of radicalism in both administrations in Tehran and Washington.

Conclusion

Iran’s foreign policy doctrine and behavior is fundamentally defensive in nature, reflecting its lesser military capabilities and the state insecurity in the face of persistent external hostility and threats at regime change. Iran utilizes anti-Americanism and Islamic revolutionary rhetoric as ‘soft power’ to mobilize transnational popular support and militia groups in the neighboring countries, where the U.S. and Israel are perceived as enemies and the source of instability and discord. The Islamic Republic remains steadfast in its ‘Neither East, Nor West’ slogan, instigating national self-reliance and development while maintaining an independent foreign policy. Iran’s closer ties with China and Russia is as much a strategy of necessity as it is a strategic choice, given the U.S.-led hostility of the West. Iran has had a long historical tie with Europe and still can benefit from Western technical and technological expertise. A policy of isolation is only bound to further push Iran into the bosom of Russia and China, with long term economic and political consequences for the Persian Gulf and wider regional security and commercial activities.

Iran’s involvement in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen is defensive against serious threats from radical Salafi militants and aims to extend its strategic depth to further (along with the help of Hezbollah in Lebanon) deter them and to counter an American or Israeli preemptive attacks on its nuclear and strategic assets without fear of reprisal. Iran has legitimate national and regional interests. The removal of serious external threats can leave wider room for diplomacy and rapprochement with the West and the United States. The inclusion of Iran in any Persian Gulf security arrangement is indispensable and that itself is contingent upon recognizing Iran as a pivotal state whose regional role can be instrumental in peace and security that can also safeguard a better, more balanced U.S. Mideastern policy.

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Related video added by Informed Comment:

NBC News: “Engel: Strike On Soleimani Unites Iran After Years Of Internal Division | Meet The Press | NBC News”