Iran Stands at a Dangerous Crossroad | M.R. Narayan Swamy

BOOK REVIEW

Iran’s Rise and Rivalry with the US in the Middle East
by Mohsen M. Milani

Oneworld Publications/London (Harper Collins India)
Pages: 354; Price: Rs 599

This book could not have come out at a more opportune time.

The Islamic Republic is now at the heart of the conflicts ravaging a perennially troubled Middle East. Both Israel, the predominant military power in the region, and the United States, its unabashed backer, consider Tehran to be the nerve centre of the proxy wars being waged against Tel Aviv. How did this state of affairs come about? What does the future hold for Iran? Mohsen M. Milani, a professor of comparative politics in the University of South Florida, has come out with findings which the Iranian rulers may well pay heed to.

This book tells the intriguing story of revolutionary Iran’s gradual rise in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and the Gaza Strip, against the backdrop of its cold war with the US, its shadow war with Israel and its intense regional rivalry with Saudi Arabia. In the process, Iran, once a US satellite and a key Israel ally, has emerged as a formidable anti-American power in three strategic locations: the Persian Gulf, the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula.

Without doubt, the Islamic Revolution of 1979 stands as one of the most transformative evens in the second half of the 20th century. The epoch-making event fundamentally transformed Iran’s foreign policy and reshaped the geopolitical dynamics of the Middle East. But these by themselves could not have guided Tehran to where it is today.

According to the book, which is the outcome of extensive research, it was the eight-year war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that helped the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to become Iran’s foremost and most potent military and security force. The next two events that shaped Iran’s present trajectory were the US invasion of Iraq and the rise of the Islamic State or ISIS.

The first did away with Iran’s most resolute foe, Saddam, and brought the marginalised Shias to power in Baghdad. Both developments were America’s unintended gifts to Tehran. The ISIS threat provided Iran another opportunity to expand its power in Iraq, reinforce its relations with its militias, and strengthen its ties to Iraqi politicians and military leaders. In the process, Iraq became the worst quagmire for Washington after Vietnam.

The one man who gave Iran the over-arching punch it badly needed was General Qasem Soleimani, who oversaw the country’s overseas military and security operations. By the time American drones assassinated him at Baghdad in 2020, he unleashed more damage on Israel and the US that anyone could have even dreamt of doing.

It was Soleimani who transformed the once neglected Shias in Lebanon into the powerful Hezbollah, armed the Sunni Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad in Gaza into powerful military machines (thus Islamizing the until then secular Palestinian resistance), built an enduring relationship with Syria, and bankrolled the menacing Houthis in Yemen, crafting what Iran’s detractors came to dub as the Axis of Evil (Axis of Resistance, for Iran.)

It was Soleimani who egged the Palestinians and the Hezbollah to build the extensive underground tunnels that caused so much damage to Israel. Everything he did was to encircle Israel, which for long has authored a clandestine intelligence-driven operation to dent and derail Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Iran has paid a heavy price for its decision to build a strategic depth in a broader region – much like, though on a smaller scale, what Pakistan tried to do vis-à-vis Afghanistan. Support for the Houthis indirectly harmed the Iranian economy and escalated tensions with Saudi Arabia, other Arab countries and the US, resulting in more Western sanctions. Iran’s equally troubling engagement in the Syrian civil war was its most expensive and costly military expedition beyond its immediate borders.

The asymmetric military actions of the Iran-led Axis of Resistance against the US and Israel after the latter launched a brutal war on Gaza in October 2023 are the manifestations of a new landscape Iran has helped to shape in the Middle East. No wonder, Iran now stands at the nexus of the most daunting challenges facing the US in the region.

Milani, however, warns that Iran’s rise and its reliance on non-state actors to achieve strategic aims are unreliable. Tehran’s military expenditures are also too high for a country under unending economic sanctions. Presumably with the Hezbollah and Houthis in mind, Milani wants Iran to incentivise its non-state partners and proxies to integrate into the state apparatuses.

The book also argues that the power disparity between the US and Iran has eroded the effectiveness of Tehran’s deterrence strategy. Iran’s cold war with the US and its entanglement in civil and sectarian conflicts have proved very costly, leading in part to widespread alienation, anger and mistrust of the government by vast sections of its people. Tehran’s tilt towards Russia and China are unlikely to prove remedies for the various problems it faces. Milani wants Iran to give up its unrealistic policy of trying to push the US out of the Middle East and abandon the illusion of destroying Israel. “Iran cannot win its cold war with the United States, a conflict it should not have started.”

Iran may consider itself the greatest champion of the Palestinian cause but its uncompromising stand on the conflict is not winning it any friends. Nor is it going to benefit the Hamas in Gaza. Much of the international community – the Arab world included — has come to accept Israel and favours a two-state solution to end the Palestine conflict. In the process, Tehran has tied itself in knots, particularly since the ongoing Gaza war began. It may be tempting to exaggerate Iran’s power but it is no new superpower of the Middle East. If Milani is to be believed, it has behaved more like a “spoiler power”.

What Mialni does not say is what could be the likely repercussions if Iran does not mend its ways. With hardliners firmly in command in Tehran, there is little likelihood of its foreign and domestic policies changing, Trump or no Trump. What then? Must we brace for a new volcanic disaster in the region? The book doesn’t answer.