AND IRAN’S ruling clergy has probably been reading the Middle East more or less the same way as the Sunni fundamentalists who made bin Laden and al Qaeda paladins in their battle against the West. The perception of the United States as weak and on the run–the jet-fuel behind Osama bin Laden’s holy-warrior call to arms–is not unique to Sunni Arab Muslims. Iran’s clerics, particularly the hard core, who dominate the country’s government, were acutely aware of the Clinton administration’s tendency to scoot in difficult times. They had a ringside seat for America’s hapless flailings against Saddam Hussein throughout the 1990s. They paid close attention to our halfhearted support and quick abandonment of the Iraqi opposition in northern Iraq in 1995 and 1996. They, like everybody else in the Middle East, watched America’s lame coup attempt launched from Jordan go completely awry. They watched the Israelis–whom the Iranians see as inextricably linked to America by culture and conspiracy (the unseen, global Jewish cabal that has America in its hands)–unilaterally withdraw from Lebanon in May 2000, abandoning their Lebanese allies to the tender mercies of Hezbollah. Ali Khamenei and Mohammad Khatami both made breathtaking, inspiring speeches about the Israeli retreat from Lebanon. And they watched Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak’s government absorb, without serious reprisal, hit after hit from Palestinian terrorists, some of whom, like the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, verge on being wholly owned subsidiaries of Tehran. The Iranians know that the Israelis know that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is an appendage of the clerical regime, which has made the Israelis’ “measured” reactions even more damning. The clerics repeatedly saw the Clinton and Bush administrations call upon the Israelis to exercise “restraint.” Perhaps the most watched barometer of American nerve in the Middle East–Will Washington allow Israel to fight?–has indicated for years that America no longer has the loins to maintain its influence in the region. The Americans and Europeans have for decades committed a cardinal strategic sin in de facto trying to separate Israel from the West, denying it the fraternity, association, and security guarantees that are natural, for example, among NATO members. Terrorism, like any covert action, is an acquired taste–a mental and physical reflex that must be exercised to stay fit and vibrant. By allowing Israel to bleed through terrorist attack–by failing to state clearly and unequivocally that the West does not recognize terrorism against Israelis as legitimate, and by not bringing Western arms to bear against Hezbollah and the PLO when they engaged in outrageous acts of terrorism–the West encouraged the Iranian clergy, among others, to view terrorism as a legitimate and successful means of statecraft. More important, Western neglect, the failure of Western Europe and the United States to threaten clerical Iran meaningfully, allowed Iran’s terrorist apparatus in Lebanon–the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Ministry of Intelligence–to stay in training. Winston Churchill once remarked that for a certain number of British officers to be killed in combat each year on the Raj’s Northwest Frontier would keep the ruling class vigilant and serious. The same can be said of Iran’s role among the Lebanese Shiites of Hezbollah and the Palestinian radicals. The clerical regime in Iran has invested an enormous amount of its prestige–even its raison d’ tre–in both Hezbollah and the Palestinians. The members of Hezbollah are truly the only faithful offspring of Iran’s Islamic revolution. They are not, as some Lebanon-saturated journalists still like to say, just “a national liberation movement” (the Shiite Amal, not Hezbollah, properly deserve that title). The Iranians have repeatedly gotten away with murder–in the Middle East, in Europe, and elsewhere–and learned well how “sophisticated” Westerners can waffle in response to terrorism. This perception extends to their efforts to obtain nuclear weapons and, no doubt, to their grand objective to use them as leverage to enhance their security and sphere of influence throughout the Middle East. President Bush’s war in Afghanistan has unquestionably altered this perception. But we should be very wary of believing that the Iranians are now convinced that the Americans will permanently stand and fight. The utility, and certainly the pleasure, of anti-American terrorism probably still has serious appeal in Tehran. And the Afghan war has shaken the already abysmal internal confidence of the clergy. The clerics, especially the ruling hard core, don’t precisely separate domestic and external foes. Terrorism at home and abroad comes naturally to profoundly conspiratorial mullahs elevated in great part through the use of clandestine operations and violence. And the clerics have reason to be scared of their own flock. The Iranian people with increasing frequency and volume remind their overlords why the United States–the whispering, seductive devil that infuriated Khomeini–is by its nature an implacable enemy of the Islamic Republic. Since September 11, Iran has seen an enormous increase in the public display of anticlerical and pro-American emotions. Soccer riots that turn into anticlerical demonstrations have resumed; the first major one, in February 1990, terrified the clergy, leading to the creation of special anti-riot units within the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij, an increasingly thuggish paramilitary force. Universities have again become arenas for rallies and open dissension. Soccer riots and university demonstrations are particularly unnerving since they threaten the integrity of the regime’s security forces, which are composed largely of young men not so dissimilar in cultural background and upbringing from the young men yelling the anticlerical chants and lighting candles to show sympathy for America’s loss. Nostalgia for the last shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, who lives in Virginia, has again risen (this has happened periodically since the revolution; in the late 1980s Iranian women were smuggling photos of “baby shah” into Iran taped to their bosoms). By being ever more vocal in his calls for secular democracy in his homeland, Pahlavi has reinforced his appeal among Iranians, who, even if they are old enough to remember his father, no longer always spit when they hear the word “shah.” Behind all the discontent released since September 11 is the hope that somehow America can make it right. With no meaningful leader on the horizon and the cult of Khatami fading fast, many Iranians are looking outside the country for a force that the clerics cannot imprison or kill. As a professor at Tehran university put it, “If the Americans could destroy the Taliban, inshallah, they might do the same to our religious despots.” GIVEN the situation inside Iran, President Bush’s “axis of evil” address was exceptionally timely, perhaps the equal of Churchill’s Fulton speech. But what exactly does the State of the Union address mean for Iran policy? If the administration is confident that al Qaeda members are in Iran, then our course of action ought to be clear. We should immediately threaten the clerics’ regime militarily where it would hurt them and help us most: the Tehran-to-Damascus military transport planes that supply Hezbollah in Lebanon. These flights sustain the “Party of God,” making them a force to be reckoned with in southern Lebanon and increasingly and clandestinely a key arms-supplier to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. These flights are easily monitored by surveillance aircraft and spy satellites. Tehran should be notified that no future flights will be permitted–that any aircraft seen or suspected of carrying military materiel will be forcibly diverted to Israel, shot down, or destroyed on the tarmac. Washington should also inform the Assad regime in Damascus–a key partner in the Iran-Hezbollah terrorist network–that these flights must cease and that any ground and naval resupply effort detected through Syrian territory or waters will lead to the swift destruction of the Syrian air force. Without a Soviet sugar daddy behind it, the Assad regime in Syria has become careful about husbanding its expensive, hard-to-replace military hardware. Without aircraft and tanks to intimidate its own citizenry, the Assad family might well fall. The clerics in Tehran have for years largely defined their westward-looking foreign policy in terms of what they and Hezbollah could do to strike Israel. The “loss” of Hezbollah would be an enormous and embarrassing blow to the mullahs, shaking the regime to its foundations. The clerics would likely cease any major effort to resupply Hezbollah once it was clear that Washington was serious; they would of course test to see whether we were serious. But the good thing about the clerical regime is that it clearly understands power politics; the Iranian reflex is to back down when the opposing force demonstrates that it is willing and able to fight. We must be prepared, however, to take the battle more directly to the mullahs if they continue to resupply Hezbollah by other means or to pursue a liaison with al Qaeda. Washington must be ready to target Revolutionary Guard Corps units in Lebanon and inside Iran, along with Ministry of Intelligence facilities and personnel. We should also put out feelers–and let the clerics know that we are doing so–to Iranians, especially officials and military officers, who are interested in a change of government in Tehran. Washington’s ultimate objective must be to create circumstances inside the Islamic Republic that leave Iranians themselves sensing that the clerical regime no longer has a future. The Bush administration ought to want to unnerve the ruling clerics, and embolden Iran’s people, by letting all know that America, as President Bush declared in his State of the Union address, favors real popular government in Iran. The administration must not, under any circumstances, reach out to “moderate” and “pragmatic” mullahs to the detriment of the Iranian people. This strategy is fool’s gold. All we would be doing in reality is reaching out to the head of the powerful Expediency Council, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is indeed a moderate, pragmatic, and powerful cleric. And if Rafsanjani reaches back, he will most certainly beat us black and blue. What if Washington doesn’t have complete confidence in the information connecting al Qaeda to Iran? Should its course of action be different? Fundamentally, no. Washington doesn’t have, as national security adviser Condoleezza Rice suggested, “a multiplicity of means” to deal with the clerical regime. In fact, we have only two meaningful options: Confront clerical Iran and its proxies militarily or ring it with an oil embargo. We have tried everything else before. U.S. sanctions against Iran have certainly had an effect upon the country’s economy and its ability to obtain easily certain military technologies; they have had no visible effect upon the clerical regime’s behavior. Sanctions simply don’t have the painful immediacy needed to dissuade the clerical regime from engaging in nefarious actions it deems in its essential interests. Minus an oil embargo, the Iranian economy is much too black and elastic to react helpfully–with riots and demonstrations on cue–to boycotts. Sanctions haven’t worked against Saddam Hussein; they will not work against Khamenei. And the Bush administration is puffing if it thinks the Europeans and Russians will aid us by tying a tighter economic knot around the clerical regime. When the French company Total replaced Conoco in 1995, the French prime minister Lionel Jospin exclaimed, “Je me r jouis!” (“I am delighted!”). And the prime minister doesn’t appear any less delighted today. The repercussions of September 11 simply aren’t enough in Europe and Russia for effective multilateralism to be an option against the Islamic Republic. Nor is covert action a choice. The clerical regime has repeatedly made mincemeat of the Central Intelligence Agency’s best efforts. Covert action is a mental muscle that must be in constant training. A senior American official cannot wake up one day and call out the covert-action brigades. They simply don’t exist at Langley. Though one can morally applaud the idea of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich–give $20 million to the clandestine service to use against the clerics–operationally it is a pipe dream. The Iranian people certainly deserve the same type of support we gave the Poles in the 1980s, but the odds are very high that any large-scale, covert-action effort by Langley, still a profoundly dysfunctional institution, would put brave Iranians into harm’s way for no meaningful result. It is a good litmus test of administration seriousness: The more we hear Washington talking about covert action against the clerics and Saddam Hussein, the more we can be sure that the “war on terrorism” is becoming a listless, phony campaign. If Washington wants to dissuade and punish the clerical regime, it will have to use force, the only currency the clerics truly respect. An oil embargo would be immensely convulsive (not necessarily a bad thing); military actions far less so. Starting at the periphery of the Iranian world–Lebanon and possibly Afghanistan–probably makes the most tactical and strategic sense. Lebanon, in particular, offers the United States the option of hitting three targets–Hezbollah, the clerics, and the Assad regime–at once. However, if al Qaeda’s liaison with Iran is active, then Washington should probably take the gloves off and hit the clerical regime with enormous force. If we turn a blind eye toward Iranian support of al Qaeda, we are asking for it. The “axis of evil” speech was the logical follow-through on the president’s equally historic declaration that the United States would henceforth treat states that harbor terrorists as terrorists themselves. This elevated to the level of statecraft the ancient common-law understanding that he who abets murder is a murderer. It also eliminated the self-defeating distinction between Israelis dying and Americans. Many diplomats in the Near East bureau at State found the new policy distasteful, correctly discerning that it deprives U.S. diplomacy of its accustomed wiggle-room around Middle Eastern terrorism. Yasser Arafat and Syria will have to go to the doghouse. Which is one reason why State absurdly tried to get Syria to join the antiterrorist coalition. Arafat’s young-jackal prot g s–the so-called “new generation” of Palestinian leadership–will also have to go, further complicating the Near East bureau’s back-up plans if it can’t resuscitate Arafat as a viable negotiating partner. By the president’s logic, if not Secretary Powell’s, the Karine A should be the last nail in Arafat’s coffin. The same relentless logic leads to confrontations with rogue states. The president understands a basic truth about tyrannies that employ terrorism and seek weapons of mass destruction: They are systemically evil. Their leaders are amoral dictators, with an acute appreciation of power politics and their enemy’s jugular. They inevitably corrupt and destroy their own civil societies. You negotiate with them at your peril. If President Bush follows his own logic and compels his administration to follow him against Iraq and Iran, then he will sow the seeds for a new, safer, more liberal order in the Middle East. If America can hold its ground, two Muslim peoples who were badly burned by the twentieth century just might lead the way for their religious brethren to a more civil society, where the basic human decency their countries knew a century ago could return. That would be the proper and just end to America’s war on terrorism. When it happens, God willing, the State Department will finally be able to send signals to Tehran and have a moderate cleric warmly answer.
