Rooholamin Saeidi Informed Comment
The father of and the key figure in Classical Realism, Hans Morgenthau, has some pieces of practical advice for politicians. They include “Never put yourself in a position from which you cannot retreat without losing face and from which you cannot advance without great risks.” He also says: “Never allow a weak ally to make decisions for you.” It seems that both principles have been disregarded by President Donald Trump ever since he decided to start a military operation against Iran. At the moment it can be argued that the President has got caught in a complicated dilemma with no accessible exit option and does not know how to put an end to this war of attrition. Previously, the other American presidents had always said that as regards Iran all options were on the table, which included military operation. None of them, however, dared to attack Iran because they knew for sure that such a decision could be extremely perilous and risky. However, Trump did it in violation of Morgenthau’s first piece of advice. He also violated Morgenthau’s second counsel by letting Prime Minister Netanyahu, as a weak ––and pro-Israel figures in the White House–– make the decision for him. They successfully managed to seduce Trump into waging an unnecessary war against a country which didn’t pose a critical threat to America’s national security.
It is important not to lose sight of the fact that Trump’s decision to launch an assault on Iran was based on false information and miscalculations derived from Mossad’s reports. From the viewpoint of Israeli officials like Netanyahu or intelligence chief David Barnea, it was envisaged that adopting decapitation strategy against Iran would be helpful. They thought that if they assassinated Iran’s Supreme Leader and a number of military and political figures in Tehran, then the Islamic regime would collapse within a few days and there would be political turmoil and unrest and civil war in Iran and the Iranian people would stand against the government and overthrow it. That way, Iran would be eliminated from power equations of the Middle East and Israel would become the uncontested hegemon of the region.
However their predictions soon turned out to be wrong, based on three different levels of analysis. On the national level of analysis, Iran showed remarkable resilience as it absorbed the invaders’ surprising first strike, maintained its survivable second strike retaliatory capability and started to react militarily as swiftly as possible. Iran proved that its political system was so robust and well established that it showed no signs of collapse and malfunction. With the outbreak of war, the Iranians became more united and a new supreme leader was elected within a few days so that no observer could see any signs of power vacuum inside the country. In spite of suffering a lot in terms of military losses and the economy, it was crystal clear that Iran could survive into the future.
On the regional level of analysis we witnessed a transition from the notion of a “weak Iran”, which was prevalent among the politicians all over the Middle East and was deeply embedded in their mindset, to the notion of a “formidable Iran”. Iran managed to expand the scope and the scale of war and make it a regional one, as its previous supreme leader had warned it would do if attacked. It is noteworthy that Iran’s response to the invasion was contrary to its neighbors’ expectations. They thought that Iran would behave in predictable ways and would react moderately and discreetly, but Iran enhanced the tension level on an unprecedented scale and went up the escalation ladder by targeting the US military bases and some of the energy infrastructure throughout the region. Therefore, Iran’s regional rivals soon discovered that Tehran plays a pivotal role in determining the future of the Middle East and that they cannot ensure their security to the detriment of Iran.
In the aftermath of Iran’s war, it seems that the security structure and architecture of the region have undergone a renaissance and the regional circumstances are changing dramatically. Iran’s neighbors have come to the conclusion that they can no longer outsource their security to transregional actors like the USA. The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, which was recently signed between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, is indicative of the fact that they have lost faith in the American security umbrella, and they are willing to create new regional security arrangements based on hedging strategy. Given the current situation of the Middle East it can be argued that Iran should be regarded as one of the security pillars of the region and there can be no new security architecture without taking Iran’s interests and considerations into account.
White House photo. Public Domain. via Picryl .
Finally, on the systemic level of analysis, Iran proved that it has a significant capacity for making decisions with far-reaching global consequences. When it started to use the Strait of Hormuz as a geopolitical and geo-economic leverage over the great powers, Iran was powerful enough to stand firm in the face of two nuclear armies of the world and showed their frailties and vulnerabilities by utilizing methods of asymmetrical warfare. The fact that all of Trump’s efforts to reopen Hormuz and to make Iran capitulate were to no avail signaled America’s helplessness and declining status in the world. Now it seems that the President has no other choice than to make concession to Iran, which can be conceived as a major humiliating defeat.
The Israeli-US war on Iran showed once again that the death knell of US global hegemony has been sounded and a new multipolar world system is on the rise within which medium-sized regional actors such as Iran can play pivotal determining roles. Trump should have listend to Morgenthau’s advice!
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