Alarming the ayatollahs

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

Want to scare the turbans off the heads of Iran's ayatollahs? Don't threaten to bomb them, which will only give them greater popular support. Instead make plans to open a U.S. Embassy in Tehran. A very large embassy.

A veteran U.S. diplomat well familiar with the Middle East and particularly the Gulf and Iran, and who requested anonymity, told me over dinner this weekend that if the Bush administration wanted to really upset the apple cart in a greater Middle East it would go ahead with plans to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. This in turn would rally the vast majority of Iranians behind their government, much as many of them dislike the Islamist regime of the ayatollahs and frown upon Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's antics.

Indeed, several reports from Iran indicate many Iranians do not associate themselves with their government, nor see it as the true representative of the people. More than 70 percent of Iran's 65 million people happen to be under 30 years of age. Observers and travelers who have been to Iran recently will attest to the great curiosity and desire by Iran's youth to explore all things Western. Indeed many, including government officials, never miss a chance to ask visiting Westerners about the possibilities of immigrating to Europe, or what is needed to acquire a Green Card to open the magic door to settling in the United States.

Despite all superficial signs of obedience to the ayatollah's regime, such as women covering their hair with scarves and wearing modest dresses tucked beneath the obligatory chador, one should not be fooled by these outward signs of modesty. In private, the women shed the veils, chadors and long skirts, revealing their inner selves with clothes that would make more than one ayatollah blush, or redden with rage. Those women are a mirror of Iranian society. What is beneath the surface, under the chadors, is very different from the little that is outwardly visible. The same goes for the country: What you see is not what you get.

These outward signs tend to confuse both Iran's rulers and the U.S. administration. Iran's leaders might think they enjoy the people's support, which in many ways they do. Should the United States decide to attack Iran it will find the millions of young people wishing to look to the West for their future will rally around the government in a show of nationalism, a feeling very deep in Iranian society. By the same token the United States will wrongly assume that the majority of the Iranians are opposed to the United States. In truth, they are not.

However, here is the challenge and the innovative idea for the Bush administration. Instead of dispatching bombs and rockets and missiles, which would only accentuate the crisis around the greater Middle East with Iran trying to reciprocate by attacking — albeit by proxy — American forces in Iraq or European forces serving in South Lebanon with the United Nations interim force, Washington should consider launching a charm offensive on Iran. This could start with opening an embassy and a major U.S. cultural center, accessible to Iran's youth.

Such a move is bound to frighten the ayatollahs far more and bombs. Indeed, bombs would play in their favor, supporting their rhetoric that the United States is the "the Great Satan."

After the Iranian people have been fed anti-U.S. propaganda for nearly 30 years, a U.S. raid on Iranian targets, undoubtedly causing numerous civilian casualties, would play into the hands of the regime. But if the United States established an embassy in Tehran that would debunk the legends propagated since the fall of the shah to the 1979 Islamic revolution of the many "evils of America," the long-term psychological damage to the regime would be far greater.

This is without a doubt where charm far more than brawn would yield positive results — in other words diplomacy rather than military intervention is likely to be the answer.

The dilemma, both in Washington and Tehran, is that many of those in a position to influence major policy decisions tend to favor confrontation over the diplomatic track. It is quite understandable that the ayatollahs would prefer conflict over resolution, seeing that continued strife will keep them in power. Slipping into greater democracy would only have them sanctioned by voters and eventually pushed out of power by the ballots.

It is hard to understand what Washington stands to gain from launching into another misadventure in the Middle East that is bound to yield negative results

Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times.