Iran's Deadly Ambition
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Authors: Ilan Berman
© 2015 by Ilan Berman
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FIRST AMERICAN EDITION
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Berman, Ilan.
Iran’s deadly ambition: the Islamic republic’s quest for global power / Ilan Berman.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-59403-802-0 (ebook)
1. Iran—Foreign relations—21st century. 2. World politics—21st century. I. Title.
DS318.83.B47 2015
327.55—dc23
2015010955
PRODUCED BY WILSTED & TAYLOR PUBLISHING SERVICES
Copy editor
Lynn Meinhardt
Designer and compositor
Nancy Koerner
Proofreader
Melody Lacina
Indexer
Kevin Milham
For Hillary, with all my love
Contents
CHAPTER
I
Iran’s Manifest Destiny
CHAPTER
II
Subverting the Arab Spring
CHAPTER
III
Iran’s Own “War on Terror”
CHAPTER
IV
Iran’s European Enablers
CHAPTER
VI
Iran’s Asian Lifeline
CHAPTER
VII
A Foothold in Latin America
CHAPTER
VIII
Inroads in Africa
CHAPTER
IX
A New Domain for Conflict
In Washington, they say, policy debates never truly go away. Instead, they come back, time and time again, albeit occasionally in different forms.
That has certainly been the case with Iran. In 2004, when I wrote my first book on the subject,
Tehran Rising
, few government officials—and even fewer ordinary Americans—were familiar with the ideology animating the Islamic Republic or the true scope of the problems the Iranian regime poses for our foreign partners and for us.
A decade later, quite a few more people are. Yet, by and large, America is as divided as ever about how best to address the strategic challenge that Iran represents. In fact, we have in many ways moved further away from a sober assessment of the scale of Iran’s ambitions and its destabilizing potential on the world stage.
So this book is intended, at least in part, to serve as a corrective of sorts. It is not, by any stretch, a comprehensive review of Iran’s history, ideology, and activities. Those topics have been covered in countless books already and will assuredly be the subjects of many more. Instead, this work is my humble attempt to outline the true scope of a problem
that I am convinced the U.S. government will need to deal with in the years ahead.
That I was able to undertake this project at all is a credit to American Foreign Policy Council President Herman Pirchner, Jr. For nearly fifteen years, he has provided me with an intellectual home, indulged my interests, underwritten my projects, and challenged me to think critically about the state of the world and America’s place in it. Through it all, he has been a tireless advocate, a fierce critic, and a true friend.
In putting together this book, I was extremely fortunate to be able to rely on the insights of Michael Doran, Jonathan Schanzer, Joel Rayburn, Matt Levitt, Joseph Humire, Claudia Rosett, Joshua Eisenman, Darin Dutcher, and Larry Haas. They took time out of their busy schedules to provide me with valuable criticism, further refine my thinking, and sharpen my prose. For that, they already have my deepest thanks. But, to the extent that this book helps contribute to the national security debate, they also deserve at least part of the credit. Needless to say, any mistakes that might be contained herein are entirely my own.
As always, I am grateful to Annie Swingen, Jeff Smith, and Rich Harrison, my colleagues at the American Foreign Policy Council, for their support and friendship and for making our work truly a team effort. Thanks go as well to our tireless in-house editor, Liz Wood, for working her magic on this book, the way she has so many times before. Our pool of talented interns, including Cameron Harris, Collin McClure, Jason Czerwiec, and James Williams, also deserves recognition for helping with the research on various aspects of this book, as well as for pitching in on sundry other projects and initiatives.
Most of all, I owe an enormous debt to my family. As any author will tell you, book writing is, by its nature, a lonely and selfish undertaking. It requires the freedom to take long
absences from the outside world and depends on the patience of others. My wife, Hillary, and my children, Mark and Lauren, provided me with all that during the months and months that I was preoccupied with this project. But they also gave—and continue to give—me much more: their love, their support, and a reason to keep fighting the good fight.
ILAN BERMAN
Washington, D.C.
January 2015
I
n November 2013, the countries of the P5+1 (the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, France, and Germany) went public with a landmark announcement. After weeks of feverish backroom diplomacy, Western and Iranian diplomats had come to terms on an interim agreement aimed at resolving the long-running impasse over Iran’s nuclear program.
1
That deal, known as the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), envisioned a process culminating in an interim deal on Iran’s nuclear effort, which would then lead to a final settlement addressing Tehran’s atomic ambitions—and, perhaps, its larger relationship with the West.
For the Obama administration, the agreement marked the realization of a long-sought-after foreign-policy objective. From his time as a presidential candidate, Barack Obama consistently championed the idea of “engagement” with the Islamic Republic of Iran, an approach he viewed as a more constructive counterpoint to the Bush administration’s policy of broad pressure on Iran’s ayatollahs.
2
And with Obama’s election to the presidency, the pivot toward engagement became official U.S. policy. Within his first one hundred days in office, the new commander-in-chief declared publicly to
Iran’s leaders that his administration “will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
3
But the president’s entreaty fell on deaf ears. Iran’s leaders rebuffed Obama’s “new beginning,” citing America’s historic “meddling” in their country’s internal affairs.
4
So the situation would remain throughout Obama’s first term in office. The years that followed saw repeated overtures on the part of the Obama administration toward Iran’s leadership, without much success. It was not until sanctions were ratcheted up by the United States and European Union in 2011–2012 that Iran truly began to feel the economic pain, manifested by a plunging national currency, soaring inflation, and significantly constricted sales of oil abroad. Over time, these conditions brought Iran’s ayatollahs to the nuclear negotiating table.
Their decision paid concrete dividends. In exchange for tactical, and overwhelmingly reversible, concessions regarding the pace and progress of their nuclear effort, Iran’s leaders successfully set in motion a significant rollback of the sanctions regime laboriously erected by the United States and its allies over the preceding decade and a half. Perhaps just as profoundly, the November 2013 deal fanned hopes for a larger and lasting normalization of relations with Tehran in Washington and other Western capitals, effecting a political sea change that has provided the Iranian regime with far greater international opportunities than it has ever had before.