Gulf Security and the Iranian Challenge

1 Stephen C. Pelletiere, The Iran-Iraq War: Chaos in a Vacuum (New York: Praeger, 1992) provides a detailed account of Iranian political activism and adventurism within several Arab Gulf states, including specifically Bahrain, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait in the years immediately after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and continuing throughout the 1980s. The 1996 civil unrest in Bahrain was linked to Shi'ite activists supported by Iran.

2 As James Piscatori explains, `Rarely has there been a day in the past decade when Iran has escaped the attention of the world's foreign offices, press, and academic experts on the Middle East and Islam. Turbulent shifts of power within the revolutionary regime; the headstrong anathematizing of the great powers; the presence of Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon, and, in general, the export of the revolution; seemingly interminable war with Iraq; secret arms deals with Israel and the US; shadowy relations with Middle Eastern groups that hold Westerners hostage, and unambiguous threats of death against a British novelist - these have been the issues which have kept Iran at the centre of international attention and concern.' Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Manshour Varasteh, eds, Iran and the International Community (London: Routledge, 1991), p. ix.

3 See, for instance, Mahmood Sariolghalam, `Conceptual Sources of Post-Revolutionary Iranian Behavior toward the Arab World', in Hooshang Amirahmadi and Nader Entessar Iran and the Arab World (London: The Macmillan Press, 1993), pp. 19-41; and Shireen T. Hunter, Iran after Khomeini (New York: Praeger, 1992), pp. 101ff.

4 For further details on the role of nationalism in Iranian culture, see Mehrdad Mashayekhi, `The Politics of Nationalism and Political Culture,' in Samih K. Farsoun and Mehrdad Mashayekhi, eds, Iran: Political Culture in the Islamic Republic (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 82-115.

5 See Mohammad Borghei, `Iran's Religious Establishment: The Dialectics of Politicization', in Farsoun and Mashayekhi, Iran: Political Culture, pp. 57-81.

6 Edward G. Shirley, `The Iran Policy Trap', Foreign Policy, vol. 96 (Fall 1994): pp. 80-87; Edward G. Shirley, `Is Iran's Present Algeria's Future?' Foreign Affairs, vol. 74, no. 99, (May-June 1995), p. 39.

7 Kambiz Foroohar and Tahsin Akti, `Khamenei Didn't Make It', The Middle East (February 1995): pp. 12-13; Colin Barraclough, `The Marja' and the Man on the Street', Middle East Insight 11 (March-April 1995), p. 20; Geraldine Brooks, `Teen-Age Infidels Hanging Out', The New York Times Magazine, 30 April 1995; Lara Marlowe, `Revolutionary Disintegration', Time, 26 June 1995, p. 50-51.

8 Shirley, `The Iran Policy Trap', p. 82.

9 The Iranian perspective was ably articulated by Bahman Fouzoni at the first annual conference of the ECSSR held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, 8-12 January 1995. Fouzoni noted: `The end of the Cold War has laid bare the imperialist intentions of the great powers: their primary foreign policy motivation for militarily supporting the status quo regimes and promoting stability is, as always, economic imperialism.'

10 The occasional hostilities between the US Navy and Iranian forces that occurred during the re-flagging of Kuwaiti oil tankers as US vessels during the latter stage of the Iran-Iraq War, and most importantly the shooting down of an Iranian civil aircraft by the Gulf-based US Navy Warship Vincennes in mid-1986.

11 Lecture by Ambassador Richard Murphy, `US policy towards the Gulf Region', delivered at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), Abu Dhabi, UAE, on 4 November 1995. Ambassador Murphy acknowledged the ideological component of the hostile relationship between Washington DC and Tehran. Murphy argued, however, that Washington's chief complaints with Tehran were objective, not ideological, and specifically addressed three `problem areas': (1) Iran is seeking a capability to produce nuclear weapons; (2) As part of its policy in support of international terrorism, Iran works to undermine moderate Arab governments; and (3) Iran is working to destroy the Arab-Israeli peace process. It is doubtful that every analyst would agree that these `problem areas' are objective complaints.

12 `Iran Oil Exports Could Stop by 2000, Says Officials', Reuters, 3 July 1995, 19:19 GMT: William Dawkins, `Japan under Pressure on Iranian Dam', Financial Times, 19 October 1994.

13 Pelletiere, The Iran-Iraq War.

14 See two important works by Anthony H. Cordesman: After the Storm: The Changing Military Balance in the Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993) and Iran and Iraq: The Threat from the Northern Gulf (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994). See also M.H. Ahrari and James H. Noye, eds, The Persian Gulf After the Cold War (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1993), 93. For a detailed account of Iran's chemical weapons capability, to include associated delivery system present and future, and organizational alignment of these systems to Pasdaran within the Iranian defense structure, see Shahram Chubin, Iran's National Security Policy (Washington, DC: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1994).

15 There is a very wide range of opinion on the topic of Iranian pragmatism, i.e. whether the modern-day Iranian government is capable of responding to a rational concept of deterrence. The dual containment policy of the United States seems to regard Iran as incapable of assessments of this sort. One analyst recently suggested that Iranian military resurgence could well result in the practice of military adventurism in the Gulf to `keep the (Iranian) populace politically mobilized and unfocused on socioeconomic decay, while validating the revolutionary government.' See Philip L. Ritcheson, `Iranian Military Resurgence: Scope, Motivations, and Implications for Regional Security', Armed Forces and Society, vol. 21, no. 4 (Summer 1995), pp. 573-92. The arguments of Gary Sick may be more persuasive. Sick believes that the current Iranian leadership is quite capable of understanding the folly of provoking a highscale conflict with the United States and GCC partners. See Gary Sick, `Iran: The Adolescent Revolution', Journal of International Affairs, vol. 49, no. 1 (Summer 1995): pp. 145-66, particularly p. 165.

16 A member of the international community does not normally attract foreign investment from another member through hegemonic behavior, particularly when the hegemony specifically includes a military threat. However, foreign investments, or at least foreign transfers of capital, have often been exacted as an informal tax or tribute from hegemonic powers. For an interesting account which establishes that many influential Iranians accept the concept of Iranian hegemony in the Gulf as a historical imperative, see Pirouz Mojtahedzadeh, The Changing World Order and Geopolitical Regions of Caspian-Central Asia and the Persian Gulf (London: Urosevic Foundation Monographs, 1992).

17 Iran is the ultimate Gulf residual oil producer and deals extensively on the spot market.

18 Data from by The Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Report, Fourth Quarter, 1995.

19 Ibid.

20 Correlating Islamic fundamentalism with economics speak of a `materialist bias' in Western analysis. See, `It's Not the Economy, Stupid,' Washington Post, 2 July 1995.

21 Business Monitor International, pp. 52-53, 63; APS Diplomat: News Service 24-31 October 1994, p. 2.

22 Business Monitor International, p. 70; Chris Kutschera, `Iran's Peeling Veneer', The Middle East (September 1994): p. 21.

23 E.g., the 500,000 barrels of oil previously destined for US clients have been quickly absorbed by other customers, while the French oil firm Total SA clinched the contract originally awarded to the US company Conoco for the extraction of Iranian oil and residual gas, see Youssef M. Ibrahim, `Iran Shrugs Off Sanctions', International Herald Tribune, 22 June 1995, p. 15; `Total Takes the Bait', Middle East Monitor, 5 (August 1995), p. 9; John Lancaster, `Despite Trade Ban, US Goods Still Find Their Way to Iran', Washington Post, 26 June 1995.

24 Much has been written about the role of the Clinton administration in canceling the USD 1 billion agreement reached by the Conoco Company and the Iranian Government with respect to the development of oil reserves within Iran. Little has been written which discusses the inconsistency of the government of Iran by, on the one hand entering into agreements with a US firm, and on the other, by engaging in continuous and official foreign policy rhetoric which condemns the Western, particularly the US role in the production and delivery of oil in other Gulf states.

25 The Nunn-Lugar Amendment to the US Defense Authorization Act of 1993 specifically `conditions' the provision of US economic assistance to Russia and other former Soviet Union states on the dismantlement of nuclear systems, a process that is proceeding apace.

26 See, for instance, Mahmood Sariolghalam, `Conceptual Sources...'. Also see Gary Sick, `Iran: The Adolscent Revolution', Journal of International Affairs, vol. 49, no. 1 (Summer 1995) pp. 145-166.

27 John Calabrese, Revolutionary Horizons: Regional Foreign Policy in Post-Khomeini Iran (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994), p. 73.