No War With Iran
At the beginning of a new decade, we find ourselves, again, at the brink of war with Iran. This time, the inciting incident was President Trump’s assassination by drone of Major General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
This assassination represents a major escalation in the ongoing conflict between the US and Iran over the future of Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Setting aside the legal questions relating to the assassination—the administration was quick to add the words “imminent threat” to all its press releases in a feeble effort to invoke some notion of self defense after the fact (never mind that the UN Charter allows self defense only when an attack occurs)—the more important question here is yet again a US misreading of the larger dynamics in that part of the world.
Much of the discussion about Iran has been framed with the context of Israeli security. The entire attempt to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program was driven by Israel’s self-proclaimed security needs. The 2015 agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear activities didn’t satisfy the Israeli government, and it has been very vocal in its opposition to the deal. The decision by the Trump administration to abandon that agreement was framed in reference to Israel, which lauded the step.
Missing from this discussion is the equally important conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Many of the recent conflicts the Middle East (a geographically correct label would be West Asia) have born the mark of that conflict. The wars in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq are all conflicts that are significantly driven by Iranian and Saudi attempts to establish regional hegemony. What drives this competition is the anticipation of a post-oil world economy. In such an economy, Iran would be far better positioned than Saudi Arabia.
In many ways, conflict in West Asia is still discussed in the West on the basis of outdated assumptions, that is, access to oil. The US is now producing more fossil fuels than it imports. The Strait of Hormuz, once a genuine choke point for the world economy, now only accounts for twenty percent of global oil trade. That percentage is bound to decrease as the world switches to renewable energy. And yet, we still talk about “No War For Oil.”
The ability of the House of Saud to remain in power depends to a significant degree on its ability to buy off potential opposition forces. Declining oil revenue will expose the fact that the regime stands on clay feet. To combat this looming decline, the Saudi regime has opted to suppress opposition at home and abroad, using both assassinations and interventions with weapons supplied by the US and other western states.
The threatening war in West Asia won’t be about oil. It won’t even be about Israel—notice how the fate of the Palestinians is being ignored by all sides. It will be about the future roles of Iran and Saudi Arabia.
In this future, the US is rather poorly positioned to be an arbiter. A recent piece by Negar Razavi highlights that about half of the self-proclaimed Iran experts in foreign policy think tanks don’t speak or read Farsi (Persian) or have ever been to Iran. Just let that sink in. Half the people who advise the US government on Iran policy don’t know the country, don’t speak the language and can’t read Iranian news or documents.
Think tanks have also become a favorite means for specific interests (domestic and foreign) to influence US foreign policy—they are not required to disclose who funded the creation of their reports. As a result the US is operating in West Asia mostly blind, driven by objectives not necessarily of its own choosing, and repeating platitudes fed to it by so-called experts. A worse foundation for a war could not exist.
