Ahmadinejad and Russian Roulette

by Amir Taheri
Asharq Alawsat

On a sunny day, its cannons shining and its colors flying high, the gunboat
slips into the waterway, with awe-struck natives watching from a safe
distance. In the evening, the captain entertains the native chiefs at a
sumptuous banquet onboard. He shows them the cannons, and describes how
their firepower can wipe a native town off the map. The chiefs absorb the
implicit message, and declare readiness to do what is required to keep the
cannons silent.

This is how "gunboat diplomacy" worked for decades in the 19th and 20th
century. The gunboat was a medium of communication, a semiological prop,
used by powerful nations to persuade weaker ones not to transcend red lines.
In a sense, it was an instrument of peace insofar as it persuaded putative
adversaries to moderate their defiance.

Watching a second American battle group sail into the Gulf of Oman the other
day, one could not help recall the days of gunboat diplomacy. Accompanied by
its flotilla of warships, the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, was sailing towards
the Strait of Homuz to join its sister aircraft carrier, the USS Stennis.

What is the message that the aircraft carriers are supposed to convey?

And, to whom is it addressed?

The answer to the second question, relayed by the media ad nauseum, is
clear: the American "gunboat" message is destined for the Khomeinist
leadership in Tehran.

The answer to the first question, however, is less clear.

For, so far no one has clearly drawn the red lines that the "natives", in
this case the Khomeinists, are required to respect.

On the one hand, US officials, including President George W Bush, claim that
Tehran is arming Iraqi insurgents who kill GIs. On the other, it is implied
that unless there is Perry Mason style evidence, no action would be taken
against Tehran.

Then there is the controversy over Iran's alleged plans to build a nuclear
arsenal. We are told that a Khomeinist regime armed with the bomb would be
"intolerable". But it is never clear at what point the red line is reached.

So far, the natives, watching the gunboats' ballet on television, have
reacted with a mixture of boredom and derision.

The ambiguity of the American message is not the only reason why this
attempt at gunboat diplomacy might not succeed.

The Khomeinist leadership is convinced that the United States' domestic
political feuds would not allow Bush to cry: fire!

The Khomeinist analysis is based on two assumptions.

First, the US is in the midst of a political civil war in which the new
Democrat majority would do all it can to frustrate Bush's attempt at
reshaping the Middle East. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praises Democrat
leaders as "wise men", and counts on them to force a premature withdrawal of
American troops from the region. It is assumed that those ready do all to
ensure that the US is defeated in Iraq, would not help Bush restrain the
mullahs.

Ahmadinejad's second assumption is that Bush is an atypical American leader
who, if slapped, would not turn the other cheek. However, Bush is already a
lame duck, forced to spend more energy countering domestic foes than
promoting pax Americana. All that Tehran has to do is wait another year or
so, in the hope that whoever succeeds Bush will be another Jimmy Carter,
Bush the father, or Bill Clinton.

In the old times, gunboat diplomacy worked because the man who sent the
flotilla could use it without being second-guessed at every step. The
gunboat was a symbol of power that was real because those who possessed it
had the will and the courage to use it. In most cases, it was not actually
used because those targeted knew that it could be used.

Today, however, the US has all the power in the world but lacks the will and
courage to use it.

History is full of examples of regimes that will not, indeed cannot, be
restrained until they hit something hard.

These regimes resemble rebellious teen-agers caught between childhood and
maturity. They are strong enough to try bullying, but not strong enough to
be restrained by the weight of power. As dictatorships, such regimes lack
the domestic mechanisms of restraint available in democracies.

Most such regimes, if not all, are eventually restrained and/or destroyed by
war.

The Nazi regime in Germany and its sister Fascist rule in Italy are the most
notorious examples, along with the militarist shogunate in Japan.

There was also the Peronist dictatorship in Argentina that saw itself as the
"second superpower" after the United States. It hit something hard when it
lost a mini border war against Chile, its smaller neighbor, and never
recovered.

Another example was the Nasserist regime in Egypt that would not, could not,
be restrained until it hit something hard, and defeated in a war that
spelled its end.

Maoism was another example. Its slow death started when China suffered an
ignominious defeat at the hands of the Soviets in border clashes along the
Usuri in the 1960s.

In the 1980s, Libya, which had been on the rampage helping terror
organisations across the globe for two decades, was eventually restrained
when it lost the war, over the Aouzou strip against Chad, and was later
bombarded by the Americans.

The Falklands defeat ended a generation of military rule in Argentina,
because a bullying regime had hit something hard.

The Taliban regime in Kabul also lacked internal self-restraint mechanisms.
In 2001, its leaders saw the firepower arrayed against them, but failed to
get the message. What hit them was harder than what was necessary for
restraint; it shattered their regime.

Saddam Hussein's regime was another example, perhaps the worst. Having hit
something hard in its war against Iran and then in its attempt at annexing
Kuwait, the Saddamite regime refused to be restrained, It had to be
overthrown in a third war.

Over the past quarter of a century, the Khomeinist regime has had the
prudence not to behave like suicidal adolescents. When faced with the risk
of hitting something hard, it has always retreated. In 1988, Khomeini
accepted a humiliating ceasefire with Iraq when he realized that the
Americans would punish him if he refused. Ten years later, Khamenehi,
decided to eat humble pie when the Taliban killed dozens of Iranians,
including eight diplomats. He had no stomach for a fight against elements
even madder than the mullahs.

The key question now is whether the Khomeinist regime, which has always
played chess, has decided to play Russian roulette.

The perceived political weakness of the United States, and the expectation
that the Democrats would seek a strategic retreat, may have persuaded the
Khomeinist leadership that Ahmadinejad may be right after all: the Islamic
Republic can pursue a hegemonic strategy with no fear of hitting something
hard.

Ahmadinejad, reported to watch a lot of CNN, has seen the gunboats sail in.
But he has also seen Nancy Pelosi, Jack Murtha, Barrack Obama, and other
American luminaries such as Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky and Jane Fonda who
would rather see Bush destroyed than the mullahs restrained. The American
gunboat ballet does not impress the radicals in the ascendancy in Tehran.
And that is bad news for all concerned, above all the people of the region.

http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/source/021196.html

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