Iran is Key

The long troubled relationship with Iran spawned today's war, but it also opens up the road to peace

Tomorrow is Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday. Yes, the man who was president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 is still with us. He presided over the very period the Shah of Iran fell, the taking of the American hostages in Tehran as well as the dramatic and failed attempt to rescue them. The Americans have always had a troubled relationship with Iran and the roots of it go back to the early 1950s when the CIA collaborated with the British secret services to depose then prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of the Shah. These actions were largely driven by the west’s loss of access to Iran’s oil reserves and this conflict in turn seeded the hate of Americans that ayatollah Khomeini used so effectively during his ascent to power in 1979.

It is important to understand these past dramas as they, together with the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003, have informed US policy vis-à-vis Iran. It created the framework that became the foundation for Barack Obama to have less direct involvement in the Middle East and in particularly in Iran. The first evidence of that appeared during the 2009 ‘Green Movement’ when domestic resistance against the mullah regime flared up all over Iran. Despite many calls from pro-democracy activists all over the world to intervene and support the potential for regime change, the US then specifically decided to stay out of Iran’s domestic turmoil. Other than Hillary Clinton who as the then Secretary of State asked Twitter to postpone scheduled app maintenance as the platform had become the go-to source for the protestors. It all ended in blood and repression and the world was introduced to the street violence of the ayatollah’s regime affiliated Basij militia.

Why am I recycling all this? Very simple: Obama’s term in office marked the journey towards engagement with the Iranian regime with the goal of containing rather than changing it and finding common ground that would delay the regime’s journey to become a nuclear power. Integral to this approach was to ‘manage’ Israel and restrain it from moving against the Iranian nuclear plans while signalling to Tehran that the US would be less closer to Israel than it had previously been. A more impartial US foreign policy would then also, in theory, foster the sort of environment in which a Palestinian state could be back on the table. This approach of course created extreme friction with Israel, which by then was under Nethanyahu’s leadership, something which has lasted under Democratic leaders until this very day. Trump played a short but decisive role in the interim by terminating the nuclear agreement with Iran.

But under the cover of a steady normalization of relations and a nuclear deal, Iran built up its military resources all over the region. Its power and ambitions were unchecked. Thankfully filling the void in Iraq after the US decamped, and accelerating the build-up of Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas and the Assad regime in Syria. And that put the ‘ring of fire’ in place which effectively took Israel hostage: any Western military action against Iran to thwart its nuclear capabilities could result in a devastating counter-attack on Israel. The resources for that were now ready and available, in particular in Lebanon where Nasrallah’s Hezbollah was armed to the teeth. That’s how we got here.

Well not quite maybe, as it was Hamas that jumped the gun on October 7th last year and more or less forced Hezbollah to join a major attack on Israel. And while it took Israel a year to progress in Gaza and be able to utilize the political room to go decisively and lethally after Hezbollah, it now has the initiative. Nethanyahu today addressed Iranians directly in this video message while the IDF is starting to move into Southern Lebanon to create a safety buffer.

It may be a stretch to link the suffering of the hostages in Gaza to America’s decade long failed Iran policy, but when you connect the dots and note how the appeasement of Iran emboldened the most radical elements in the Middle East, it is not. And as we are going into a week of remembering that dreadful day now almost a year ago it may be worthwhile that many have been doing this on a weekly basis for the past 52 weeks. Yesterday in Vancouver Iranians with their national flags turned out for the weekly downtown event for the Israeli hostages. Indeed some at the rally even carried photos of the late Shah’s son and current heir to the Persian throne, Reza Pahlavi. Israelis and Iranians have a common interest here.

Is this the dawn of a new Middle East? Is peace on the horizon? Not quite as we remain in a brutal and extremely violent regional multi-party conflict. Peace does not emerge because the fighting parties are exhausted and all of a sudden realize that there are better ways to engage with each other. Opportunities for peace emerge only if the larger regional, even global, power balance changes so that the forces that can facilitate peace can be unleashed in a more effective and constructive way. For that to be possible it is necessary to isolate and confront a deeply evil regime in a decisive way. This was long anathema in Washington, but based on the events of the past few days it may now be possible.

Photos: on December 31, 1977 Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter celebrated New Year’s Eve in Tehran in an effort to shore up the Shah. It failed as twelve months later the Shah went into exile and Khomeini took over power in Iran.

And: the weekly hostage and pro-Israel really at the Vancouver Art Gallery on September 29, 2024.