No More Learning

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? The Iranian Revolution
Khomeini that continuing the war might jeopardize the survival of the Is- lamic Republic itself. Calling the decision "more deadly for me than taking poison," Khomeini finally agreed to a ceasefire on July 18. 108
Like the wars of the French Revolution and the Russo-Polish war, the Iran-Iraq war was a direct consequence of the revolution itself. Both Iran and Iraq saw the other as a potential threat, and each exaggerated its ability to reduce the danger through the use of force. The Iraqi invasion was driven by its fear that the revolution might spread, together with its beliefs that Khomeini's regime was unpopular, its military forces were weak and disor- ganized, and an invasion would spark a sympathetic uprising among the Arabs of Khuzistan. All three beliefs turned out to be erroneous, and the Iraqi offensive soon ground to a halt. Khomeini and company then suc- cumbed to similar delusions, overstating their own ability to export the rev- olution and failing to realize that military success would merely cause other states to oppose them more vigorously. Instead of the swift and easy victory that both sides seem to have expected, the result was a long and bloody war of attrition. The war had helped Khomeini and his supporters consolidate their hold on power, but Khomeini's quest for total victory ultimately left both states far worse off than they had been before.
ContainingtheRevolution:ThePersianGulfandLebanon. AlthoughIran's other Arab neighbors had hoped that the Islamic Republic would be less as- sertive than its predecessor, the revolution was still a serious threat. The Per- sian Gulf states shared Iraq's concern that the revolution would spread, exacerbated by Khomeini's claims that monarchical institutions were "un- Islamic," his accusations that the conservative Arab states were corrupt puppets of the "Great Satan," and repeated Iranian statements confirming their desire to export the revolution. 109 Several gulf states were especially worried about unrest among their own Shiite populations, whom they feared would be susceptible to Khomeini's message. The Saudi royal family was also concerned that the revolution would open a door for Soviet en- croachments in the region; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and reports of growing Soviet influence within Iran did little to assuage their fears. A third
danger was the possibility of direct attack, which became increasingly real as the Iran-Iraq war escalated.
108 Khomeini emphasized that the decision "was made only on the basis of expediency," and he warned that "our nation should not consider the matter closed. " Hiro, Longest War, 243? Useful discussions of the cease-fire process include Chubin, "Iran and the War"; Wright, In the Name ofGod, 173-78, 184-91, 254-55; MECS 1988, 207-18, 476-77; Sigler, "Legacy of the Iran-Iraq War," 149-51; and Gary Sick, "Slouching Toward Settlement: The Internationaliza- tion of the Iran-Iraq War, 1987-1988," in Keddie and Gasiorowski, Neither East Nor West, 22o-22, 2)8.
109 See Jacob Goldberg, "Saudi Arabia and the Iranian Revolution," in Menashri, Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World, 156-57.
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Several subsequent incidents reinforced these underlying tensions. There were serious disturbances among the Shiites in Saudi Arabia's eastern province in November 1979 and February 1980, clearly inspired by events ]n Iran and encouraged by Iranian propaganda. 110 Iran also began to use the annual pilgrimage to Mecca (the hajj) as a means of spreading the revolu- tion, which led to repeated confrontations with Saudi officials. 111 There were pro-Khomeini demonstrations in Kuwait and Bahrain in 1979; Iran attacked three Kuwaiti oil facilities in October 1981; an Iranian agent led an unsuc- cessful coup attempt in Bahrain in December; and a group of Iranian- backed Iraqi exiles conducted a series of terrorist bombings in Kuwait in
1983. 112
The gulf states responded to the threat by arresting or deporting potential
dissidents, providing greater economic benefits to their own Shiite popula- tions, trumpeting their own Islamic credentials, and stressing Arab nation- alism rather than Islamic solidarity. In addition to improving their own defense capabilities through increased arms purchases, the gulf states formed the so-called Gulf Cooperation Council in January 1981 to coordi- nate joint responses to the threat of Iranian subversion. 113 Saudi Arabia andl Kuwait overcame their earlier fears of Iraqi ascendancy and began provid- ing Baghdad with extensive financial support; aid increased as Iraq's plight worsened, and the two monarchies eventually loaned Iraq approximately $40 billion to finance its war effort. n4
Iran initiated a brief detente with Saudi Arabia in the mid-198os, in an at- tempt to persuade the Saudis to reduce their support for Iraq. Rafsanjani in- formed Riyadh that Iran "had no intention of controlling Ka'ba and Mecca,"
110 See Goldberg, "Saudi Arabia," 160, and "The Shi'i Minority in Saudi Arabia," in Shi'isrn and Social Protest, ed. Juan R. I. Cole and Nikki R. Keddie (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 230, 239-44; Zonis and Bromberg, Khorneini, Iran, Arab World, 52; and David Long, "The Impact of the Iranian Revolution on the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf States," in Esposito, Iranian Revolution, 105-106.
111 ClashesbetweenIranianpilgrimsandSaudisecurityforcestookplacein1979,1980,and 1981, and Iranian officials repeatedly denounced Saudi control over the holy places in Mecca and Medina. The two states reached a partial compromise that permitted Iran to send a greater number of pilgrims after 1983, but the 1987 hajj ended in violent disturbances be- tween the Iranian pilgrims and Saudi security forces that left over four hundred dead. When the Saudis limited Iran to forty-five thousand pilgrims in 1988, Iran chose to boycott the hajj entirely. See Goldberg, "Saudi Arabia and the Iranian Revolution," 164-65; Zonis and Brom- berg, Khorneini, Iran, Arab World, 53-54; Menashri, Iran, 209-10, 252, 293, 333, 366-67; and MECS 1986 (Boulder, Colo. : Westview, 1988), 149-51; 1987, 172-76, 41&-17; 1988, 177-85; 1989, 182-87; 1990 (Boulder, Colo. : Westview, 1992), 189-91.
112 See Zonis and Brumberg, Khorneini, Iran, Arab World, 42-50; and Hunter, Iran and the World, 115.
? 1 1 3 See Mahnaz Z. Ispahani, "Alone Together: Regional Security Arrangements in Southern Africa and the Arabian Gulf," International Security 8, no. 4 (1984); and Ramazani, The Gulf Co- operation Council: Record and Analysis (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1988).
114 See Karsh and Rautsi, "Why Saddam Hussein Invaded Kuwait," 19 and n. 3?
? ? The Iranian Revolution
and the Saudis responded by inviting Rafsanjani to visit Mecca during the hajj, Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud visited Iran in May 1985, and Iran- ian foreign minister Velayati made a return visit to Riyadh in December. But the period of detente did not last long. 115
The gulf states increased their aid to Iraq after Iran captured the Fao Peninsula in 1986, and clashes between Iranian pilgrims and Saudi security forces during the 1987 hajj led Rafsanjani to proclaim that Iran must "uproot the Saudi rulers . . . and divest the control of the holy shrines from [them]. "116 The Saudis responded by denouncing the "insane fascist regime" that had made Iran a "slaughterhouse. " Iran remained bitterly hostile to
Kuwait as well, owing to the sheikdom's support for Iraq and its reliance on U. S. and other Western backing. Kuwait expelled six Iranian diplomats after a Iranian missile attack in 1987, and the Saudis later executed sixteen Kuwaitis accused of terrorist activities "inspired by Tehran. " Neither the end of the war with Iraq nor Khomeini's death ended their mutual suspi- cions; although the smaller gulf states moved back to a more neutral posi- tion when the Iran-Iraq war ended, Iran and Saudi Arabia stayed estranged until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. 117
For the most part, Iran's initial efforts to export its revolution failed to ig- nite a wave of sympathetic uprisings in other Muslim countries. The princi- pal exception to this conclusion was the rise of Islamic fundamentalism among the Slhiite population of Lebanon, where groups such as Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad embraced Iran's anti-Western, pan-Islamic ideology and acknowledged Khomeini as their inspiration and leader. 118 Iran sent ap- proximately one thousand Revolutionary Guards to Lebanon in 1982, to support the Shiite fundamentalists there, and gave nearly $500 million in fi- nancial subsidies to its Shiite clients. Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad began to
? 115 See Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran, 96-98. There are also reports of secret Saudi-Iranian negotiations on possible scenarios for ending the Iran-Iraq war in 1984, but the talks appar- ently accomplished little. Gerd Nonneman, "The GCC and the Islamic Republic," in Ehte- shami and Varasteh, Iran and the International Community, 107.
116 Rafsanjanilaterdeclared,"IftheworldofIslamanditsscholarsdecideso,weareready to fight under any circumstances for [the] liberation of Mecca. " Quoted in MECS 1 987, 417.
117 For these incidents and quotations, see Goldberg, "Saudi Arabia and Iran," 163; MECS 1989, 366; 1990, 366-69; Nonneman, "GCC," 116-23.
118 According to Sayyid Ibrahim al-Amin, the official spokesman of Hezbollah: "We in Lebanon do not consider ourselves as separate from the revolution in Iran. . . . We consider ourselves . . . part of the army which the Imam wishes to create in order to liberate Jerusalem. We obey his orders because we do not believe in geography but in the change. " Another lead- ing Hezbollah figure, Sheikh al-Tufayli, declared that "the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the direction of all Muslims of the World," and an open letter from the leaders of Hezbollah in 1985 proclaimed, "We are sons of the nation of Hezbollah, whose vanguard God made victorious in Iran, and who reestablished the nucleus of a central Islamic state in the world. " See Martin Kramer, "Redeeming Jerusalem: The Pan-Islamic Premise of Hizballah," in Menashri, Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World, 113-14; and Zonis and Brumberg, Khomeini, Iran, Arab World, 59?
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challenge the other Shiite groups in Lebanon in the mid-198os, in what was probably the most impressive demonstration of Iran's ideological reach. 119
The impact of the revolution in Lebanon reflected several unusual cir- cumstances. First, the Lebanese Shiites were already disaffected and radi- calized by the late 1970s, and thus were more receptive to Iran's message than other Shiite communities; the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the intervention by the United States and several European countries in 1983 helped make Iran's anti-Western, anti-Israeli policies even more ap- pealing. Second, many of the Lebanese Shiites who founded Hezbollah were part of the same clerical network as the pro-Khomeini forces in Iran. 120 Third, Hezbollah also received active support from Syria during the early 198os, which sought to use the Shiite population of Lebanon to advance its own interests in the country. Finally, the protracted civil war in Lebanon had left the country without a central authority to suppress or coopt the funda- mentalists. 121 Given these conditions-which were largely absent elsewhere in the Arab world-it is not surprising that the Iranian Revolution had a greater impact in Lebanon than anywhere else.
Yet despite these uniquely favorable circumstances, Iran was no more successful in establishing a second Islamic republic in Lebanon than it was in fomenting rebellion in the Persian Gulf. The Lebanese Shiites remained
divided, and Syrian support for Hezbollah began to drop off after 1984. Moreover, Iran's ability to control its Lebanese affiliates declined steadily after the first outburst of revolutionary enthusiasm. Thus, Lebanon offers a strong demonstration of the inherent difficulty of spreading revolution: even when conditions are favorable, efforts to export an ideological move- ment in the absence of military occupation rarely succeed. 122
OtherIslamicMovements. TherevolutioninIranalsoencourageddiverse Islamic groups in Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia, with whom the Islamic Republic eventually forged a variety of links. Iran and Sudan formed a close political alignment after a military coup brought the fundamentalist Na- tional Islamic Front to power in 1989, and Rafsanjani reportedly offered the new regime economic and military aid during a visit to Khartoum in 1991. 123
119 See Augustus Richard Norton, "Lebanon: The Internal Conflict and the Iranian Connec- tion," in Esposito, Iranian Revolution, esp. 126.
? ? ? 120 Interestingly, the most senior Shiite cleric in Lebanon, Ayatollah Said Muhammed Fad- lallah, was not a disciple of Khomeini, and he rejected the latter's concept of velayet-efaqih. See Kramer, "Pan-Islamic Premise," 121-25.
121 The former Iranian ambassador to I. e. banon said in 1984 that "since the Republic of Lebanon does not have much power, there is no serious obstacle in the way" of an Islamic revolution. Quoted in Zonis and Brumberg, Khomeini, . Jran, Arab World, 61.
? 122 See Norton, "Lebanon," 13<r-33; and Hunter, Iran and the World, 126.
123 Accordingtonewsreports,RafsanjanipromisedtosupplySudanwithfreeoil,sellitarms, and send Revolutionary Guards to aid the government's efforts against the rebel movements in
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Iran and Sudan are believed to have aided the election campaign of the Is- lamic Salvation Front in Algeria in 1992, and National Islamic Front leader Hassan al-Turabi repeatedly referred to a global Islamic resurgence based on "the experiences of Iran in heart of Asia, Sudan in the heart of Africa, and Al- geria which is very near to the European continent. " 124 Together with the rise of fundamentalism in Egypt and Algeria, these events sparked renewed fears
of a rising Islamic tide posing an ominous threat to the West. 125
Although the growth of Islamic fundamentalism clearly merits careful at- tention from Middle Eastern governments and their foreign allies, this phe- nomenon should not be seen as the emergence of an "Islamic monolith" or as a case where a revolution was successfully exported. In the first place, most contemporary Islamic movements predate the revolution in Iran, and their growing popularity is due more to indigenous trends than to the trans- mission of revolutionary ideas from Tehran. This qualification is especially true of Sudan-the only other regime that openly espouses fundamentalist principles-where the process of Islamization was not the result of a mass
revolution. On the contrary, the Islamization campaign was begun by Jifar Nimeiri (a former general who seized power in the early 1970s) and com- pleted following his ouster by a military coup in 1989. 126 Similar obser- vations apply to North Africa as well. According to Fran\ois Burgat, "Khomeinism was . . . not responsible for the creation of the Islamist move- ment" and none of his successors "could be considered to be the conductor of an Islamic orchestra responding to his solicitations. "127 Although the
? the south. See Middle East International, no. 418 (February 7, 1992), 18-19; and "Fundamentalism Alters the Middle East's Power Relationships," New York Times, August 22, 1993, 4:1.
124 See Middle East International, no. 416 (January 10, 1992), 7-8; no. 418 (February 7, 1992), 1? 18; no. 421 (March20, 1992), 17-18; no. 465, (December 17, 1993), 13; and MECS 1991, 183-84. 125 In 1993, an unnamed U. S. official warned, "From the Iranian point of view, Sudan is strategically located: south to Africa, north and west to Egypt and North Africa. It gives the Iranians a strategic toehold, which can help promote its revolutionary cause in Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Sudan itself, and south. " Quoted in "Fundamentalism Alters the Middle East's Power Relationships. " For other examples of Western alarmism about the rise of Is- lamic fundamentalism, seeJohn L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (London: Ox-
ford University Press, 1992), chap. 6. For a predictably extreme assessment by a member of the Iranian opposition, see Mohammed Mohaddessin, Islamic Fundamentalism: The New Global Threat (Washington, D. C. : Seven Locks Press, 1993); for a critique, see Leon Hadar, "What Green Peril? " Foreign Affairs 72, no. 2 (1993).
126 According to John 0. Voll, "the Iranian revolution seems to have had little direct impact on Sudan. The basic developments of Islamization and Islamic revivalism . . . during the 1970s and 1980s were primarily shaped by the long traditions of Sudanese history. . . . The re- lationship between Sudan's Islamization program and the Iranian revolution tends to dis- prove the hypotheses that view the Islamic resurgence as a tightly bound network of events or even some form of international conspiracy. " "Islamization in the Sudan and the Iranian Revolution," in Esposito, Iranian Revolution, 283, 288.
127 See Fran? ois Burgat and William Dowell, The Islamic Movement in North Africa (Austin, Tex. : Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 1993), 3? 37? According to G. H. Jansen, "the Irani-
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Egyptian and Tunisian governments have repeatedly accused Iran of sup- porting the Islamic radicals, their statements have clearly been intended to encourage foreign support and to provide a scapegoat for their own fail- ures. Such reports should not be dismissed entirely, perhaps, but they should be discounted. 128
The belief that Islamic fundamentalism is a unified movement directed or inspired by Iran also ignores the considerable diversity among the various fundamentalist groups. The Iranian revolution was conducted by Shiite Muslim Persians, while the other Islamic movements are led by Sunni Arabs. None of the Sunni movements have embraced Khomeini's doctrine of ve- layet-e faqih, and their specific political programs differ significantly as well. 129 Among other things, this diversity suggests that, should additional
"Islamic" movements gain power in other countries, they are as likely to quarrel over the "correct" form of Islamic government as to cooperate in a jihad against the West.
Furthermore, despite the many problems that presently afflict a number of Middle Eastern governments, they have been able to contain the Islamic challenge through a combination of cooptation, repression, and external support. 130 If the revolution in Iran helped inspire fundamentalists else- where, it also gave fair warning to potential victims and encouraged them to join forces against the perceived danger. Although the more extreme movements have responded with violent campaigns against government officials and Western tourists and business interests, none of these regimes had fallen as of mid-1995. Iran has had more than fifteen years in which to
replicate its own revolution; the ability of regimes as fragile, corrupt, and economically troubled as Egypt and Algeria to resist its efforts is compelling
ans may even flatter themselves that the Algerians are only following the Iranian example, but that would not be true. . . . If there has been any outside influence in Algeria it has come from Saudi Arabia. " See Middle East International, no. 416 Oanuary 10, 1992}, 8.
128 One recent congressional study noted that although Tunisian leaders blamed the rise of fundamentalist attacks on the "Tehran-Khartoum-Tunis axis," "no evidence has been re- leased that these attacks were part of a 'Fundamentalism International' conspiracy to take power in Tunisia. " George Pickard, The Battle Looms: Islam and Politics in the Middle East, a Re- port to the Committee on Foreign Relations, U. S. Senate, 103d Congress, 1st sess. (Washing- ton, D. C. : U. S. Government Printing Office, 1993), 12. See also Middle East International, no. 417 aanuary 24, 1992), 5-6.
129 See Bassam Tibi, "The Iranian Revolution and the Arabs: The Quest for Islamic Iden- tity and the Search for an Islamic System of Government," Arab Studies Quarterly 8, no. 1 (1986).
130 When the Islamic Salvation Front gained a majority in first stage of the December 1991 elections, the Algerian Army promptly canceled the second stage and began a brutal cam- paign against the Algerian fundamentalists.
A similar campaign in Tunisia resulted in the ar- rest and sentencing of three hundred members of the main fundamentalist party in August 1992.
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evidence of the advantages even weak states possess when facing a revolu- tionary challenge. 131
To be sure, the revolution in Iran did inspire fundamentalist groups in a number of other Muslim societies, primarily by demonstrating that a movement based on Islamic principles could overthrow a seemingly im- pregnable regime. As in the French and Bolshevik cases, however, success in one context did not lead to rapid triumphs elsewhere. Most important of all, the claim that the revolution in Iran "caused" sympathetic upheavals elsewhere is almost certainly spurious; instead, it is merely one part of a much broader political process whose ultimate outcomes will take many forms.
Iran's Arab Allies. Although the revolution left Iran isolated from most of its neighbors, it did establish close alignments with a number of other "rad- ical" states. The Syrian-Iranian relationship was probably the most impor- tant for the first decade after the revolution-an alignment based almost entirely on realpolitik. Despite serious ideological differences, the two states were united by their mutual antipathy to Iraq, Israel, and the United States. Syria backed Iran during the hostage crisis, provided modest amounts of Soviet weaponry from its own stockpiles, and aided the Kurdish insurgents within Iraq itself. Syria also shut down Iraq's oil pipelines in 1982, and it and Iran joined forces to support the Islamic fundamentalists in Lebanon in the early 1980s. Although President Hafez al-Assad still referred to Syria's alignment with Iran as "strategic" in 1986 and President Khameni described the relationship as "profound" and "brotherly" the following year, Syrian-
Iranian ties were strained when Syria began to favor the more moderate Lebanese Shiite faction, Amal, over Hezbollah. The end of the Iran-Iraq war reduced the value of the Syrian-Iranian alignment, and Syria subsequently refused to allow Iran to send additional Revolutionary Guards and a ship- ment of arms to Lebanon in January 1990. Syria also joined the UN coalition against Iraq in the wake of the latter's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 (a move that Iran regarded with misgivings), but relations between Tehran and Damascus remain cordial at present. 132
Iran also enjoyed good relations with Libya, Algeria, and South Yemen for most of the 198os, based primarily on their mutual opposition to the United States and Israel. Algeria also served as the principal intermediary with the United States during the hostage crisis, but relations deteriorated sharply
131 See F. Gregory Gause III, "Revolutionary Fevers and Regional Contagion: Domestic Structures and the Export of Revolution in Middle East," Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 14, no. 3 (1991).
132 See Yosef Olmert, "lranian-Syrian Relations: Between Islam and Realpolitik," in Menashri, Iranian Revolution and Muslim World, 172--'75; Ramazani, Revolu tionary Iran, 81-82; "Chronology," ME] 40, no. 4 (1986), 699; MECS 1987, 419; 1989, 367.
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after the Algerian government voided the results of the 1991 elections and launched a major crackdown on the fundamentalist movement. The Islamic Republic also established cordial diplomatic relations with a number of rev- olutionary movements and Third World states during its first decade, being particularly friendly toward radical states such as Nicaragua, Cuba, and North Korea. 133 These policies, which were consistent with Khomeini's com- mitment to protecting the "oppressed" peoples against great-power domi- nance, confirm that Iran's postrevolutionary foreign policy had made a decisive break with the policies of the old regime.
CONCLUSIONS: THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION AND BALANCE-OF-THREAT THEORY
The independent impact of revolutions on the level of security competi- tion is probably most apparent in the Iranian case. The revolution altered virtually the entire spectrum of Iranian foreign relations and led directly to a protracted war with Iraq. Although Iran faced a number of opponents under the shah, it had not been involved in a major war since 1945, and it enjoyed good relations with most of the great powers. The revolution transformed U. S. -Iranian relations from a close alignment to one of bitter enmity; undermined Iran's wary but cordial relationship with the Soviet Union; caused the severing of diplomatic relations with several European states; and alarmed and provoked the gulf states and several other re- gional powers. It is virtually impossible to imagine these destabilizing events occuHing had the shah retained his throne. Moreover, the evidence suggests that these effects occurred for most (if not all) of the reasons iden- tified in chapter 2.
The Balance ofPower
SuperpowerResponses. BecauseofIran'soilreservesandstrategiclocation, both the Uruited States and the Soviet Union viewed the revolution there in terms of its potential impact on the global balance of power. U. S. leaders feared that the fall of the shah had created a power vacuum that might be filled by the Soviet Union; indeed, some U. S. officials suspected that the So-
133 Khomeini told the Nicaraguan minister of education during the latter's visit to Iran in 1983: "Your country is very similar to our country; but ours has more difficulty. . . . We should all try to create unity among the oppressed, regardless of their ideology and creed. Other- wise, the two oppressors of East and West will infect everyone like a cancerous tumor. " Quoted in Hunter, Iran and the World, 236, n. 9?
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viets had played an active role in bringing the shah down. 134 The ouster of the shah had direct strategic consequences as well, as the U. S. lost access to monitoring stations that provided intelligence data on Soviet missile tests, and U. S. officials worried that the Soviet Union might obtain secret military technology that had been sold to Iran.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 magnified these concerns. U. S. leaders saw the invasion as evidence of greater Soviet as- sertiveness: Carter warned that the invasion was "a stepping stone to possi- ble control over much of the world's oil supplies. " A U. S. Defense Department study argued that the Soviet Union might exploit the turmoil in Iran "in ordeir to seize a historical opportunity to change the worldwide bal- ance," and the United States established the so-called Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) to defend its interests in Southwest Asia. 135 Carter declared that "an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region . . . will be repelled by any means necessary. " Taken together, the "Carter doctrine" and the creation of the RDF were primarily intended to deter any Soviet attempt to exploit the power vacuum in Iran. 136
Concern for the balance of power was still evident even after it became clear the new Jregime was not pro-Soviet. For example, the American decision to provide arms to Tehran in 1985-86 was inspired by a 1985 Central Intelli- gence Agency report warning of a Soviet attempt to take advantage of Iran's "imminent" collapse. 137 Or as White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan put it, President Reagan "has this feeling, that we cannot allow Iran to fall into the
134 According to former deputy secretary of state Warren Christopher, U. S. policy makers "had to be concerned with the reality that Iran's internal divisions made it weaker and there- fore more vulnerable to Soviet opportunism. " Zbigniew Brzezinski distributed copies of a New Republic article blaming the revolution on Soviet interference among other U. S. policy makers, and former National Security Council aide Gary Sick reports that this view "found a ready audience among many policy makers in the United States and elsewhere. " CIA direc- tor Stansfield Turner stated, "I am sure that there is some Soviet influence behind it in one de- gree or another," and presidential candidate John Connolly suggested publicly that Iranian foreign minister Sadeq Qotbzadeh was a KGB agent. See Christopher et al. , American Hostages, 2; Bill, Eagle and Lion, 277-78; Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 356, 372, 379, 386, 397, 444, 451, 485-500; Sick, All Fall Down, 106; Howard Hensel, "Moscow's Perspective on the Fall of the Iranian Monarchy," Asian Affairs 14, no. 2 (1983), 154; and "Connolly Tells of Belief Ghotbzadeh is in KGB," New York Times, January 14, 1980, A13.
135 The Pentagon study also warned that Soviet conventional superiority in the region might force the United States to use nuclear weapons against a Soviet drive to the gulf. "Carter Embargoes Technology for Soviet," New York Times, January 5, 198o, A3; and "Study Says a Soviet Move in Iran Might Require U. S. Atom Arms," New York Times, February 2, 198o, 1:1, 4?
136 "Transcript of President's State of the Union Address to Joint Session of Congress," New York Times, January 24, 1980, A12. For background, see Gary Sick, "The Evolution of U. S. Strategy towards the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf Regions," in The Great Game: Rivalry in the Persian Gulfand South Asia, ed. Alvin Z. Rubinstein (New York: Praeger, 1983), 68-76.
137 See Bill, Eagle and Lion, 31o-11, and "U. S. Overture to Iran," 169, 173; and Draper, Very Thin Line, 148-51, 292-<)J
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Soviet camp. " Similar motives underlay the decision to reflag Kuwaiti tankers and to provide a naval escort in 1987; Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger explained that failure to act "would have created a vacuum in the Gulf into which Soviet power would shortly have been projected. "138
Not surprisingly, Soviet leaders welcomed the collapse of an important U. S. ally, although they were also concerned that instability and chaos within Iran might force the United States and its allies to take military action, thereby bringing Western military forces up against the Soviet border. Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev issued an explicit warning against foreign inter- vention in Iran in November 1978, and the message was repeated on several subsequent occasions. 139 Soviet pronouncements and propaganda broadcasts repeatedly spoke of "American interference" and reminded Iranians of the dangers that Western intervention would pose for them, but these obviously self-serving efforts had little impact on Soviet relations with Iran. 140
Paradoxically, although both superpowers were concerned that the revo- lution in Iran might tempt the other to intervene, they were aware that such a step might provoke a major confrontation, and this knowledge probably discouraged either party from taking direct action. The fear of a Soviet re- sponse clearly inhibited the United States during the hostage crisis, for ex- ample, and the Soviets did nothing to aid the leftist Islamic Mujahedin and Tudeh Party as they were being decimated by the Islamic Republican Party. 141 The Iranians seemed to be well aware of the benefits they derived from this bitpolar stalemate, correctly inferring that each superpower would help protect them from the other. 142
Regional Responses. The effects of the revolution on the balance of power within the region were even more profound. Before the shah's departure, for
138 Quotations from Bill, "U. S. Overture to Iran," 169; and Ramazani, "Iran's Resistance to U. S. Influence," 37?
139 Brezhnev's first warning stated that "any interference, especially military, in the affairs of Iran, a state directly bordering on the Soviet Union, would be regarded by the Sovieft Union as a matter affecting its security interests. " Quoted in Martin Sicker, The Bear and the Lion: Soviet Imperialism and Iran (New York: Praeger, 1988), no. After the U. S. attempt to res- cue the embassy hostages, Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko declared, "We are against all measures of a military, or generally forcible, nature on the part of the United States or any- one else against Iran. " Similarly, Brezhnev declared, "We are not going to intervene . . . [in the Iran-Iraq war]. And we resolutely say to others: Hands off these events. " Quoted in Yodfaft, Soviet Union and Revolutionary Iran, 77-'79, 92.
140 See Hensel, "Moscow's Perspectives," 156-57; Dennis Ross, "Soviet Views towards the Gulf War," Orbis 28, no. 3 (1984), 438-39; and Zalmay Khalilzad, "Islamic Iran: Soviet Dilem- mas," Problems ofCommunism 33, no. 1 (1981).
141 See Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 488-89, 493-94; Salinger, America Held Hostage, 106; and Gary Sick, "Military Options and Constraints," in Christopher et a! . , American Hostages in Iran, 15o-55.
142 See Hunter, Iran and the World, 58-59.
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example, Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia declared that "the Arab states will have to support Iran and the Shah, because the stability of that country is important to the [entire] region . . . and any radical change will upset its secu- rity balance. "143 The conservative oil monarchies also worried that shah's de- parture would tilt the regional balance in favor of radical or pro-Soviet forces. Similar concerns were evident in Israel, which provided direct aid to the Is- lamic Republic despite its overtly anti-Zionist rhetoric. For Israel, Iran was still an effective cotmter to the more immediate threat it faced from states such as
Iraq, and aiding the Iranian war effort was consistent with the same balance- of-power strategy that had inspired Israel's tacit alliance with the shah. 144
The revolution's impact on the regional balance of power was also appar- ent in Iraq's decision to invade Iran in September 1980. The apparent weak- ness and vulnerability created by the revolution was not the only reason Iraq attacked, but it was clearly a central factor in its calculations. Thus, the Iraqi invasion was a direct response to the window of opportunity created by the revolution, even if that window turned out to be smaller than Sad- dam Hussein expected. 145
Finally, although Khomeini criticized the state system as an illegitimate human invention and welcomed Iran's isolation from other states, the Is- lamic Republic was not immune from the competitive pressures of balance- of-power politics. Although Baathist Iraq was condemned as an atheistic state, Baathist Syria had become Iran's principal ally by 1982. Indeed, the pressure of war convinced Iran to purchase arms from a diverse array of suppliers-including Israel and the United States-solely for the purpose of improving its military capabilities. This does not deny ideology's effect on
Iran's foreign policy, but it does suggest that external constraints set limits on the regime's ideological purity.
Thus, the effects of the revolution on the balance of power exacerbated the security competition between Iran and a number of other states and were an important cause of the war between Iran and Iraq.
Perceptions ofIntent
The fall of the Pahlavi dynasty and its replacement by the Islamic Repub- lic affected virtually every aspect of Iran's foreign policy. Whereas the shah
143 Quoted in Menashri, Iran, 47?
144 On Israel's military aid to Iran, see Segev, Iranian Triangle; Cordesman, Gulfand Searchfor Stability, 717; Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 504; and Hiro, Longest War, 1 18.
145 See John W. Amos II, "The Iran-Iraq War: Conflict, Linkage, and Spillover in the Middle East," in GulfSecurity in the 19Bos: Perceptual and Strategic Dimensions, ed. Robert G. Darius, John W. Amos II, and Ralph H. Magnus (Stanford, Calif. : HooverInstitutePress, 1984), 58-60; Jack Levy and Mike Froelich, "Causes of the Iran-Iraq War," in The Regionalization ofWarfare, ed. James Brown and William P. Snyder (New Brunswick, N. J. : Transaction Books, 1985), 137-39?
? ? Revolution and War
. ad been oriented toward the West and closely allied with the United States,
he Islamic Republic was suspicious of both. Whereas the shah had main- rained cordial if guarded relations with the Soviet Union, Khomeini viewed it as the "lesser Satan," condemned its atheistic ideology, and denounced its invasion of Afghanistan. The shah had supported Israel and the conserva- tive gulf states and opposed the radical Arab regimes; by contrast, the Is- lamic Rep1lbl lic broke diplomatic relations with Israel, aided efforts to overthrow the gulf states, and aligned itself with Syria, South Yemen, Libya, and later Sudan. And where the shah's objectives vis-a-vis Iraq were limited (he sought to dominate the region but did not try to overthrow the Iraqi regime), revolutionary Iran was calling for the ouster of the Baath even be- fore the war began.
These changes cannot be explained solely by shifts in the balance of power. They were also products of the radically different worldview that in- spired the revolution itself. Apart from its specifically Islamic content, the ideology of revolutionary Iran arose from hostility to the shah and his poli- cies, especially to his pro-Western orientation. It is not surprising that the new regime therefore took steps that alarmed Iran's former allies.
Iran's foreign relations also support the hypothesis that revolutionary states are especially prone to spirals of hostility. In particular, both sides tended to take the very dimmest view of each other's actions and dis- counted the possibility that their own behavior might be responsible for the opposition they were facing.
As one would expect, the tendency to spiral was most apparent in Iran's diplomacy vis-a-vis the United States. Although both the Bazargan govern- ment and the Carter administration seemed genuinely interested in estab- lishing a new relationship after the shah's departure, relations between the United States and Iran soon deteriorated into a web of mutual suspicions. Throughout this period, each side's defensive responses and hostile infer- ences were reinforced by insensitive or unwitting actions by the other. 146 In the spring of 1979, for example, Iranian fears of a military coup inspired a series of purges and executions by the Revolutionary Courts, prompting the U. S. Senate to pass a condemnatory resolution. This action in turn derailed
an attempt to establish direct contact with Khomeini (who greeted the Sen- ate resolution by calling the United States a "defeated and wounded
146 In February 1979, Carter stated that the United States would "honor the will of the Iran- ian people" and expresdse his willingness to "work closely with the existing government of Iran. " Foreign Minister Karim Sanjavi replied that Iran still sought "friendly relations" with the United States, in the context of Iran's new policy of nonalignment. The United States agreed to resume military shipments to Iran in October, and Prime Minister Bazargan and Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yazdi (who had replaced Sanjavi in April) expressed their own hope that relations "would soon take a turn for the better. " See Menashri, Iran, 97; and Behrooz, "Trends in the Foreign Policy of Iran," 16-17.
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? The Iranian Revolution
snake") and sparked mass demonstrations in Iran denouncing U. S. interfer- ence. The U. S. decision to permit the shah to enter the country for medical treatment in October angered the Iranian revolutionaries and raised new fears of a U. S. plot to place him back upon the throne; together, these events confirmed Iranian images of American aggressiveness and discredited the mote moderate forces, thereby helping the more extreme forces consolidate their control. r. 47 On the other side, the seizure of the U. S. embassy and the prolonged detention of the hostages cemented U. S. hostility and solidified perceptions of Iran as a fanatical and dangerous regime.