I love Iran! 

From 1975 to 1979, my wife and I lived in Iran. We spent the first year and a half in Tehran, and lived during the rest of our stay in the magical city of Esfahan – a place that richly inhabits my imagination to this day. We traveled widely throughout Iran, camped with both of the country’s major nomadic tribes, haggled for carpets and copper in expansive bazaars dating back to the 14th century, and developed a love for high desert landscapes that eventually drew us to Boise, Idaho. As a Christian, I also cultivated an abiding respect for Islam as an Abrahamic faith. 

I tell you all this by way of explaining that when it comes to my perspective on current events in Iran, I definitely have a dog in this fight. I love Iran, and I have always maintained a great affection and admiration for its people – a people very aware of their history, and rightfully proud of their culture. 

Like thousands of other Americans who have been frontline witnesses via social media to the demonstrations taking place in Iran, I have colored my Twitter profile photo green in solidarity with those who risk arrest, beatings, and death in order to make their voices heard. It seems an inadequate gesture, but I like to think that it gives some measure of comfort to Iranians to know that, as my generation chanted during the ’60s, “the whole world is watching.” 

Among the watchers is the Obama administration – which has taken some heat from Republicans and Democrats alike for not doing more to vocalize its support of the Iranian demonstrators and their appeals for a more democratic government. Those of us who recall the 2000 election in the U.S. can certainly sympathize with signs on the streets of Tehran saying “Where did my vote go?”  I still wonder about that.

One thing we should have learned from the previous eight years, however, is that our government’s strident calls for grass roots regime change in Iran does not work in the best interests of those actually risking their lives to bring it about; quite the opposite. It serves to legitimize more repression by providing the current regime with the excuse of “Western interference” for their arrests and brutality. It’s an old political dodge that we saw practiced in our own country during the Iraq War: portray legitimate dissent as “aiding and abetting the enemy” in order to marginalize (or demonize) it. 

While I can’t begin to predict the outcome of Iran’s current political upheaval – particularly now that we are seeing evidence of fissures within its outwardly inscrutable political structure – I do think it naïve to suggest that replacing Ahmedinejad with Mousavi will result in an overnight transformation in our relationship with a country that I would argue should be considered the world’s newest superpower. If this claim strikes you as hyperbole, take a moment to consider not only Iran’s status as a major oil producer and its position along the world’s most strategic energy corridor, but also the influence (albeit through proxies such as Hezbollah) that it has extended over the past couple of decades throughout the Middle East.

While much credit is due to General Patreaus and the heroism of our troops for the military success of “The Surge” in Iraq, you’d be gravely mistaken if you thought that Iran had nothing to do with managing the response of that country’s Shia majority. One person who can eloquently argue that perspective is a guy who should know: Robert Baer. Baer, who spent many years as a top CIA operative (the basis for the George Clooney character in the movie Syriana), states the matter bluntly in his recently published book on Iran, The Devil We Know. To quote the opening lines of chapter two of his book, “Iraq is lost. Iran won it.”

In the course of 262 pages, Baer lays out a sobering argument for “dealing with the new Iranian superpower.” The benefit of doing so successfully, Baer submits, is allying with potentially the most stabilizing influence in an otherwise volatile Middle East. The consequence of failure, he counters, is unthinkable. The beginning of this rapprochement, regardless of who bears the title of President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is the simple recognition that Iran has legitimate interests in the affairs of its neighborhood.  Regardless of the sacrifices we have made in blood and treasure in Iraq, we need to be mindful that Iran shares a border with a country with whom the cost of its decades long conflict can be measured in millions of lives – lives lost to an Iraqi regime that the U.S. supported during its eight-year war with Iran.

While Baer’s book doesn’t overtly explore this issue, there is a dimension to America’s relationship with Iran that I believe has deeper, and more global, consequences. I believe that our relationship with Iran represents the first great test of America’s post-Cold War diplomacy. Unless we are able to not only acknowledge but accommodate the ambitions of other countries, whatever the motivations for those ambitions, we can look forward to a long succession of military adventures that will make the “War on Terror” look like a mere skirmish. In the process, we’ll have to summon the courage and honesty to evaluate our own global ambitions, and separate essential issues of true security from a mere knee-jerk defense of a zero sum status quo.

In terms of Iran, we need to engage with a sober understanding of that country’s own global ambitions. Despite much hand wringing in Tel Aviv, Bob Baer will tell you that these ambitions do not include the destruction of Israel. In large part, they hearken back to correcting a historical injustice (from the point-of-view of ruling clerics) over the succession of the Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him). As difficult as it may be for a capitalist democracy to relate to that perspective, Iran’s larger ambition is to become the standard bearer of Islam. Just as Americans have been locked in a debate over the meaning and implications of a Pax Americana since the end of World War II, Iranians are going to have to debate the nature, and costs, of their own emerging role in world. What we see taking place in the streets of Tehran is the insistence that they be allowed to do so through the ballot, not the bullet.

In supporting the nascent democratic urges of an Iranian population whose majority is under the age of 40, the Obama administration would do well to heed a central tenet of the Republican party: people can find better solutions to the fulfillment of their needs than Big Government. Diplomatic outreach at a grass roots level is taking place minute-by-minute between Iranians and Americans. If you have any doubts about that, get on Twitter and type #iranelection and tune into the on going conversation. America is offering its support more loudly and effectively than any congressional fiat could deliver. 

Iran’s government is going to have to find its own accommodation to the desires of its citizens, and American statecraft is going to have to deal with that government as it does so. The stakes are too high to do otherwise. In the meantime, I derive inspiration not only from the courage of a people I grew to love many years ago, but from the words of a Republican who was the President of the United States when I was born. It was, after all, Dwight D. Eisenhower who said (and I paraphrase), “Someday the people of the world are going to want peace badly enough that their governments are going to have to step aside and let them have it.”

Baraye mardom Irani, man migam ‘Iran zendi bash!’  (To the people of Iran, I say ‘long live Iran!’)

NEW! Online only subscription. 24/7 access to premium online subscriber content for only $79.00 a year!
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP TODAY!

Comments are closed.