Toppling Tehran

Amir Taheri, The NY Post:

LAST month Iran's new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presented his government's "medium- and long-term strategy" in the form of a 6,000-word document submitted to the Islamic Majlis (parliament) in Tehran.

In it he presented the Islamic Republic as "the core power" in a new Muslim bloc whose chief task is to prevent the United States from imposing its vision on the Middle East.

The document presented the Iran-U.S. duel as "a clash of civilizations" and predicted that the Islamic Republic will emerge victorious. "Leadership is the indisputable right of the Iranian nation," the document asserted.

Ilan Berman, whose "Tehran Rising: Iran's Challenge to the United States" has just been published, could not have read Ahamdinejad's program when writing his own timely essay. And yet, it is as if Berman already knew what was going on in the minds of the new ruling elite in Tehran.

At a time when everyone is obsessed with the issue of Tehran building a nuclear bomb, Berman shows that the real question is the Islamic Republic's desire for domination in a vast region that includes the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Basin, Central Asia and the Middle East. READ MORE

"Will Iran, armed with nuclear weapons, emerge to dominate the Middle East? Or will the Islamic Republic give way to a more benign, pro-Western political order?" Berman asks.

By posing the dilemma this way, Berman clearly rejects a third possibility — one cherished by the Clinton administration — to seek a "grand bargain" with the Islamic Republic under which Iran would be recognized by the United States as the regional "superpower" in exchange for changes in certain aspects of Iranian behavior, especially on such issues as Palestine and sponsoring terrorism.

Berman, who teaches at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., sees the Iran-U.S. duel as a win-lose situation, at least as long as Iran is ruled by a totalitarian Islamist elite.

Berman believes that the present balance of power in the Middle East cannot be sustained for any appreciable length of time. Either Iran succeeds in chasing the Americans out of the Middle East, or the United States, with or without allies, adopts a policy of regime change vis-à-vis Tehran.

Regime change, however, is easier said than done. Even in Iraq, where the U.S.-led coalition won a quick military victory largely because the Iraqi people decided not to fight for Saddam Hussein, regime change has proven more complicated than many had imagined.

This is why Berman devoted less than 3 percent of his short book to ways and means of achieving regime change in Tehran.

Berman suggests the revival of what he labels "The Reagan Doctrine," which, he says, led to the destruction of the Soviet Union. In practical terms, this recommendation amounts to no more than a greater use of public diplomacy and the free flow of information, especially through Persian-language radio and television networks funded by Washington.

He also wants Washington to use the Iranian expatriate community — including some 2 million in the United States — as a channel for relaying democratic ideas into Iran itself.

Berman also wants the United States to find a new alternative leadership for Iran, someone like Lech Walesa in Poland. He suggests two candidates. The first is Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi (eldest son of the late Muhammad Reza Shah), who has called for a referendum to find out what type of government Iranians want for the future.

Berman's other candidate is the Mujahedin Khalq group, which has some 4,000 armed men and women in a camp in Iraq under the protection of the U.S.-led Coalition.

Berman suggests that the United States conduct a series of polls both inside and outside Iran to find out which dissident group is most likely to win the largest measure of support from the Iranian people. Once that is determined, America and its allies could give political, diplomatic and, presumably, financial support to the alternative Iranian leadership.

But even then it is not quite clear how such a leadership would be installed in Tehran.

Through elections?

Through invasion? Or through an internal coup d'etat by anti-mullah elements?

Those with a deeper knowledge of Iran will find Berman's scenario for regime change without military action somewhat unconvincing. But the book's value lies elsewhere.

It is Berman's frank admission that President Bush's dream for a democratic Middle East that would be friendly to the United States may well turn into a nightmare if Iran, under its present leadership, succeeds in imposing its agenda on the region.

And that is not such a far-fetched idea. There is no guarantee that whoever succeeds Bush will share his vision or have his guts, some might say his audacity, to take risks that no other American leader has taken since Harry S. Truman.

The Islamic Republic in Iran has dealt with five American presidents so far. Only one of them, George W. Bush, has so far refused to offer the mullahs some version of the "grand bargain" that President Bill Clinton tried to offer the mullahs — only to be snubbed by them. Even within the Republican Party there are quite a few grandees who dream of a "grand bargain" with the mullahs, among them Sen. Chuck Hagel and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft.

Indeed, there is no reason why the Islamic Republic should not try to wait Bush out and then go for broke in what Ahmadinejad describes as Iran's "natural sphere of leadership" — that is the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Basin and Central Asia.

Berman's book makes it impossible for the policymakers in Washington to ignore the Islamic Republic as a nasty toothache that it is bound to fade away. But it is far from clear whether or not the current administration has the time and, yes, the courage to devise a strategy to meet what is one of the biggest challenges U.S. foreign policy faces at present.

Amir Taheri is former editor-in-chief of Kayhan, the most important Iranian newspaper during the shah's regime. He is a member of Benador Associates.

TEHRAN RISING: IRAN'S CHALLENGE TO THE UNITED STATES BY ILAN BERMAN ROWMAN AND LITTLEFIELD, 218 PAGES, $24.95