Is Iran’s regime rational?
Aug 13th, 2009 by MESH
From Philip Carl Salzman
How do we know whether our models, or, to be more modest, our characterizations of countries are correct? We try to show that the case studies and other information that we adduce support our vision. But our interpretations are seldom challenged by immediate events, and their validity is most easily assessed in the long term, by which time our views have been forgotten or are deemed irrelevant.
At a recent conference on Iran, three speakers with strong credentials made a case that the Islamic Republic government was basically rational, that it responded reasonably to variations in its political environment, and that its goals were based on realpolitik and realistic. I had two doubts about that. First, its fundamental raison d’etre was religious, and religious objectives, very aggressive ones, appear to be its long-term goals. Second, its extreme position on Israel appears to be fueled by a religious absolutism and triumphalism.
In recent days, I have become convinced about a third basis for doubt about the rationality of the Islamic Republic government. The Iranian national election for president was, by established procedure, already fixed. Four acceptable candidates were chosen out of the hundred-plus by the “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei. All four were outstanding supporters of the Islamic Republic and had held high positions.
But this was not sufficient for the “Supreme Guide” and his extremist supporters. Instead of letting the populace vote for their preferred candidate among this small coterie of loyalists, the “Supreme Guide” decided to fix the election again, in favor of the most extreme candidate, Ahmadinejad. (In Persian, the name is Ahmadi-nejad, rather than the incorrect Ama-din-ejad that one hears on the media.) So, for the benefit of choosing among the small differences in outlook of the candidates, the “Supreme Guide” decided to insure that Ahmadinejad would win, whatever electoral fraud, and preemptive announcement was required.
Was it rational for the “Supreme Guide” to jettison all pretense of electoral probity, and of a “Republic” supported by the people, for such a small gain? Was the loss of legitimacy both at home and abroad worth it? Was driving the populace, seeking small measures of personal freedom and economic stability, to a new understanding that the Islamic Republic regime was their enemy, a reasonable price for the small gain of choosing one among the selected candidates? I would suggest that it was not rational, but rather an expression of fanatical religious motivation. And that would make the Islamic Republic regime a non-rational player.
The events of the fixed election and it s popular aftermath has inadvertently provided a test for a model of the Islamic Republic proposed by Amir Taheri in The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution, published last March, before the recent election. Taheri (p. 358) says that “Iran today… is… like a heaving volcano, ready to explode.”
Taheri’s thesis is based on the multiple contradictions and fractures in Iranian society: revolutionary institutions versus conventional state institutions; the revolutionary armed forces versus the state armed forces; the radical mullahs who wish to control the government versus more traditional mullahs who do not wish religion to be tainted by governance; religious foundations and Revolutionary Guard enterprises versus the workers demanding trade unions; revolutionary religious surveillance of education versus teachers; the revolutionary generation versus the post-revolutionary youth; and Shi’a Persians supported by the revolutionary government versus ethnic and religious minorities.
Taheri cites as further reasons for popular discontent the oppression of the revolutionary institutions, from attacks and arrests over “improper” dress and comportment, to mass arrests of allegedly dissident populations, to the continuing closing of newspapers and magazines deemed insufficiently sympathetic to the regime, to the ever increasing blocking of the electronic media, to the blacklisting of authors and books, to “disappearances” of trade union leaders, journalists, student activists, ethnic activists, and opposition mullahs, to the ongoing wave of executions of minorities—especially Kurds, Arabs, and Baluch—and other perceived opponents of the regime. Taheri (p. 361) says that “faced with popular discontent, the Khomeinist clique is vulnerable and worried—extremely worried…. Iran today… is about a growing popular movement that may help bring the nation out of the dangerous impasse created by the mullahs.”
Taheri wrote this before the recent election and the extraordinary popular demonstrations against the fixed results, and then against the regime. I think that a case can be made that Taheri’s account of Iran has been validated by subsequent events. If he were correct in his assessment, the result should have been exactly what did happen. Taheri’s model has been tested by events and shown to be sound.
What is Taheri’s policy advice? He says (p. 361) that “the outside world would do well to monitor carefully and, whenever possible, support the Iranian people’s fight against the fascist regime in Tehran.” How would he do that? “With a clear compass, the litmus test for any particular policy towards Iran will likewise be clear: does this activity, program or initiative help or hinder regime change?” (p. 362). What would not help is for foreign countries to treat with the regime in any way that would validate it and give it legitimacy. President Obama and European Union, please take note.
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8 Responses to “Is Iran’s regime rational?”
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Philip Carl Salzman raises several very important questions about the factors that motivate the Iranian regime. He uses this as a jumping-off point to discuss a new book by Amir Taheri concerning the internal stability of the Islamic Republic. This is important because, even as the election controversy in Iran fades into the background for most of the American public, it has become a vital part of the backdrop for Obama’s foreign policy towards Iran.
While I look forward to reading The Persian Night, I do want to raise one point about Salzman’s analysis. In my opinion, he seems to conflate rational with non-religious. He writes, for example, that he had two original basic doubts about the rationality of the Islamic Republic: “First, its fundamental raison d’etre was religious, and religious objectives, very aggressive ones, appear to be its long-term goals. Second, its extreme position on Israel appears to be fueled by a religious absolutism and triumphalism.”
There are many different ways to define rationality, including the most simple, which is just having ordered preferences. In that way, to the extent any state has ordered preferences uninterrupted by domestic politics, including the United States, I am not sure it is fair to call Iran irrational. If they have a clear hierarchy of policy outcomes they prefer, even one motivated by religion, that is rational.
This is not meant to minimize the role of religion in Iranian government or foreign policy in the slightest. I am not an expert on Iran and I am trying to keep an open mind about what factors are most important in determining Iranian foreign policy. I am also inclined, based on my own research in other areas, to believe religion can and does play an important role in international politics in some situations. However, I am not sure why that makes someone or a government non-rational, unless you define “rational” as “following realpolitik.”
Michael Horowitz is a member of MESH.
During 2005, I had similar questions about the rationality of the Iranian regime as those posed by Philip Carl Salzman, and began a year-long quantitative study to answer them, with colleagues from the Iran Policy Committee: Gen. Tom McInerney (USAF, Ret.), Gen. Paul Vallely (USA, Ret.), Capt. Chuck Nash (USN, Ret.) and R. Bruce McColm. The results were published in What Makes Tehran Tick: Islamist Ideology and Hegemonic Interests and agree with Salzman’s two main observations:
Regarding the first point, our qualitative analysis found that grand, sometimes apocalyptic, religious goals are part of the very fabric of Iran’s system of government: Velayat-e Faqih (Rule of the Jurisprudent), in which the highest religious authority, the Supreme Leader, also has absolute political power. While the Iranian regime will often employ “rational” strategies to get what it wants in the short term, those gambits are often part of a much less realpolitik, much more fanatical set of interests, such as bringing about the apocalyptic return of the Twelfth Imam, who disappeared into a state of “occultation” in the 9th century.
Analysts who focus on the ostensible rationality of many of Iran’s individual decisions, such as those who cite the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate to demonstrate Iran’s willingness to curb its nuclear program, miss the forests for the trees.
On the subject of Israel, my quantitative content analysis of Iranian statements about the United States and Israel since 1979 found that Iran’s hostility toward the United States was roughly proportional to the threat Tehran perceived from the United States—about what you might expect from a rational actor. But, when it came to Israel, Tehran expressed hostility totally out of proportion to the threat perceived from Israel. I concluded that the imperative to export the Islamic Revolution to Iran’s near abroad was the primary driver of Iran’s hostility toward Israel. By being even more aggressive toward Israel than its neighbors, Tehran seeks to co-opt Arab hostility toward Israel and become the leader of a pan-Islamic revolution on the Khomeini model.
My researchers and I also collected and analyzed regime statements perceiving threat and categorized them according to whether the speaker perceived a threat to secular national interests, Iran’s Islamic Revolution, or pan-Islamic interests. We were surprised to find that a significant majority of the statements dealt with secular interests, such as national security and the economy. But when we measured each category of statements for intensity, we found that regime officials spoke with a substantially higher level of intensity regarding threats to the Revolution and pan-Islamism than secular interests. Islamist ideology won out again.
Tehran’s irrationality is also apparent in its economy. The Iranian regime has validated that ideological extremists make poor economic managers; as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and like-minded clerics have co-opted more and more of the Iranian economy, unemployment has risen, national assets have suspiciously disappeared, and inflation is rampant.
As Salzman points out, the aftermath of election unrest is revealing the regime’s fanaticism and its fundamental weakness, as the ideological purists are pitted against the loyal opposition. Only an extremist, paranoiac regime would feel the need to turn against an “opposition” whose leader was hand-picked to run in the Presidential election and is loyal to Iran’s theological system of government.
With the regime at war with itself, now is precisely the time to deny Tehran the oxygen of legitimacy. Engaging the Iranian regime was never likely to be successful, and was as much about appearing to have made a good faith effort at diplomacy to keep the anti-Tehran coalition together rather than a genuine plan for halting uranium enrichment. In the past, Tehran has used negotiations as a ploy to buy time and as a mechanism for inducing concessions from the West without reciprocating (one of those rational, short-term gambits).
With the ruling clerical elites increasingly weakened and divided by street politics, the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad faction needs to take a hard line against the West for domestic political purposes against encroachment by the likes of Ayatollahs Montazeri, Rafsanjani, and Khatami. On balance, it is unlikely that the clerical elite will accept the offer of the international community for a temporary cessation of uranium enrichment so that substantive negotiations can commence.
Ideological irrationality in Tehran may make a negotiated cessation of Iran’s nuclear program impossible, but the upshot is that the same ideological rigidity makes the regime quite fragile.
Raymond Tanter is a member of MESH.
The problem is not that Iran is irrational. The problem is that the rest of us are not irrational.
“Irrational” motivations and aspirations are the only ones that mean anything, the only ones that pack any power. Rationality is cold and dead; irrationality is hot and bothered. Rationality is entropy; irrationality is energy. Only heat drives an engine, and only that which is “illogical” can provide a genuine and lasting raison d’etre.
Islamism’s current edge over the West results, in the final analysis, from its possession of just such “irrational” motivations—morally deplorable though some of them may be in our eyes—while the “enlightened” countries of the industrialized world persist in the sorry delusion that they can run on empty, or rather on ice.
We like to talk about North American and European (and some other) countries as “rational” actors or states. Much of the time it seems that this term is employed to mean something like “national entities deploying anti-idealistic policies designed to serve their own interests exclusively” or “governments focused on improving their citizens’ economic welfare, physical security and individual liberties—but (God forbid!) no other dimension of their lives.” In other words, in order to join the august club of “rational” states, your government must not pursue any goals that cannot be shown to be “cost effective” or “pragmatic” or “logical.” Economic prosperity, social equality, democratic freedoms—yes. Faith, mystery, tribalism, nationalism, romance—no. Israel, the country that I live in, is by these “rational” criteria immediately disqualified and denied membership in the club.
And thank God for that. Because if the West doesn’t wake up and—instead of spending so much time decrying the “irrationality” of the Iranian regime—go out and get some good old healthy and human irrationality of its own, it is, in the long run, done for.
Ze’ev Maghen is professor of Persian language and Islamic history and chair of the department of Middle East studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
I concur with Michael Horowitz that Philip Carl Salzman and I left “rational” and “irrational” poorly defined. While I cannot speak for Professor Salzman, my use of the term “irrational” was meant to describe an ordering of preferences that departs from the usual ordering that realists posit. Realists suppose that national security is at the top of such a preference ranking, followed by other secular interests, such as the economy. The unusually high importance placed not only on religion, but on the export of Iran’s religious model of government abroad, defies realist explanations of behavior.
One more illustrative example was the Iranian regime’s boldness in dispatching its Iraqi allies to invade Camp Ashraf, Iraq, where Tehran’s main opposition, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, is located. In attacking the camp and killing several dissidents, the regime ignored the risks of international opprobrium and further mobilized the opposition movement.
Raymond Tanter is a member of MESH.
The question of “rational” or not seems to me wholly artificial. Was Hitler “rational”? By many measures no, but he alternated bluster with professions of peaceful intent for six years to keep the democracies off balance and to encourage appeasement until he had reached the moment that he found optimal for launching the European war. Was Stalin rational? By many accounts he was paranoid, and his purges weakened the Red Army, for which the USSR paid a heavy price early in the war. But, all in all, he played his cards cannily enough so that he emerged the war’s big winner. He accrued an empire although until then he had been extremely cautious (i.e., “rational”) about military adventures. Or, consider Mao with his Great Leap Forward, Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, etc. Scarcely “rational,” those adventures. Yet he raised China from a “ripe fruit,” as the Japanese militarists put it, to one of the world’s mightiest powers, while living a life of earthly pleasures worthy of the emperors. Unlike Hitler and Stalin, he retains his iconic status. There are fruitful questions we may ask about the motivations of Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, et al. But whether or not they are “rational” is not one of them.
Joshua Muravchik is a member of MESH.
What’s rational? It is not necessarily “reasonable” or “restrained,” let alone “responsible.” It refers to an actor who weighs means and ends, risks and rewards—and then tries to get one in line with the other. It is getting the “mostest with the leastest,” as in: how far do I have to climb up the tree to harvest the sweetest fruit without breaking a leg?
“Reasonable” doesn’t even mean “realistic,” especially when it comes to regimes that must balance internal and external power considerations. Which brings us to Iran—or any other autho-totalitarian system. Screaming Marg bar Israil or Marg bar Amrikah, which in Persian means “death to both,” sounds quite irrational, considering that these two nations could visit death on Iran a hundred times over. But it does make sense for regime-maintenance reasons, as in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, who counsels his son and successor to “busy giddy minds for foreign quarrels” to keep his barons at bay. Meshugaas, to use an appropriate term from the region, is good for mobilization.
Long ago, Thomas Schelling taught us about the “rationality of irrationality,” a bargaining strategy that makes one actor to look slightly (or mightily) crazy and so intimidates the other who will then yield. Was Hitler, that master of brinkmanship, “irrational” when he threatened war before Munich? No, that rattled Messrs. Chamberlain and Daladier to the point of letting him have the Sudetenland. Hitler was then fuming and foaming all the way to the bank, grabbing the rest of Czechoslovakia a few months later in March 1939.
Is Kim Jong-Il crazy? He may be crazy, but not stupid. Since 1994 he has pocketed one concession after another, one high-level visit (most recently by Bill Clinton) after another, and yet he has tested nuclear devices twice while shooting his missiles all over the place. Not bad for a few fits of peeve. This is not “irrational,” given the yard stick of means/ends and risks/rewards. He has calculated the costs (minimal) correctly.
Nor does the behavior of the Iranian regime merit the moniker “irrational.” It took the measure of the West six years ago and correctly decided (with a short bout of hesitation after the United States had taken Baghdad) that it could get away with its nuclear weapons program. The risks were finite, given that the United States was not going to get involved in a third war in the region and the EU “troika,” incapable of any strategic option, could be strung along ad infinitum. Ahmadinejad is probably also correct in assuming that Israel will not go it alone. The bottom line is: high reward, low risk—the essence of rationality.
How rational has the regime been since the June election? Remember that the aftermath was not first and foremost a duel of “regime vs. people,” but an intra-regime power struggle, with Ahmadinejad trying to execute a kind of putsch at the polls. The immediate target was the old guard: Rafsanjani, Moussavi et al. The target behind the target was none other than the Supreme Leader Khamenei. This struggle continued into August, with Khamenei, though aware of the threat, at first maneuvering and then coming down on the side of the President. The reason was pure raison de régime, and we are witnessing the outcome now: arrests, show trials, the intimidation and extinction of the opposition.
Is this “rational?” It certainly is in the short run, with regime maintenance as supreme imperative, and it is in the medium-run for sure, as there won’t be such a mass- and regime-based challenge soon.
Also in the long run? Not if we apply Western yard sticks of rationality, as defined by economic growth, popular consent, modernization… But it is not irrational for autho-totalitarian regimes to preserve their power and crush their opponents. As long as it works.
Josef Joffe is a member of MESH.
MESH colleagues, who have kindly commented on my discussion, appear to have adopted the anthropological truisms that I force-feed my students every year. Yes, different cultures have different assumptions and distinct visions. Yes, everyone can be rational, in their fashion. Yet I fear that the discussion of “rationality” has taken us down a dead-end road, and away from the destination that we seek.
The real and practical question is: How dangerous is Iran? The pertinent question about rationality here is: Is the Iranian regime rational in our terms? That is, can we deal with them on terms about which we can agree?
For practical purposes, it is irrelevant that Shi’a may be perfectly “rational,” on the basis of their assumptions, in wishing to blow up the world so as to bring back the hidden Mahdi to make the world perfect. From our point of view, that is not a “rationality” that can converge with our interests. And therefore a “meeting of the minds” is unlikely.
If our rationality and Iranian regime rationality are on divergent tracks, then admission of past errors, appeal to common interests, and pleas for negotiation will make little headway in securing our interests. Other means will be required.
Philip Carl Salzman is a member of MESH.
The discussion of rationality or irrationality of the Iranian regime seems to use a point of departure which is based on two (incorrect) assumptions:
1. That the prime objective of every entity—no matter what its secondary goals are—is self-preservation, and no matter what secondary goals certain actions may achieve, if they endanger the primary goal, choosing them is “irrational.”
2. That the information on which “rational choices” are based is equal and know to all sides, and hence we can postulate that, given that information (which both we and the object we are analyzing know), the response that provides the most cost-effective way of arriving at the goal is the “rational” one and that which does not achieve that goal is “irrational” (particularly if it endangers other goals).
Both assumptions are incorrect. If we look at individuals and societies as gestalts which see themselves as components of larger entities, we can easily see that an individual may sacrifice his own goal of self-preservation in the service of the self-preservation of the wider entity of which he is a part (e.g., family, country). It happens all the time and we—the rational part of the world—extol such actions as noble. For some reason we tend to draw the line at national entities and do not take into account the possibility that a collective entity (a regime or organization) sees itself as part of a larger Umma and that its own sacrifice may serve the preservation and victory of that larger entity. One may look at the “irrationality” of bin Laden in bringing the United States to invade Afghanistan. However, he believed that such an invasion—while it might bring about an American occupation of a Muslim country—would generate a world-wide Jihadi movement which would ultimately bring about liberation of all Muslim countries from the yoke of Western “civilizational” occupation. The loss of Afghanistan, therefore, served the higher goal. (The famed Israeli poetess Hanna Senesh, who sacrificed her life in parachuting into Nazi-occupied Hungary, wrote “blessed is the match that is burned and lit the fires in the hearts.”)
In the Iranian context, therefore, the question arises whether the regime does not “know” something that we may not know: that even extreme responses to its actions might be counter-balanced by a “greater good” to the goals of Islam (the appearance of the Mahdi).
The fact that there is no “community of information” that we can base our assumptions on is easier to prove. True, Saddam Hussein should have known that his obstinacy in holding on to Kuwait was endangering a vital U.S. interest and that he was no match for the United States. He also “knew” that he needed only a few months to complete his nuclear program that would allow him to achieve many of his goals. Nevertheless he brought on an American response that was clearly counter-productive to his goals. Apparently, what the Americans “knew” that they would do, he did not “know,” and hence his database for decision-making (rational decision-making) was ultimately flawed. This happened again in 2003. However, there is no debate regarding Saddam Hussein’s “rationality.”
In light of the above, we should ask ourselves not if the Iranian regime is rational but what are its assumptions and what information does it bases its decisions on. We may discover that what appears to be Iranian ‘irrationality” derives from an incorrect reading of our world, and that were we Iranians, we would read the West and Israel in the same manner. Therefore, as Julius Caesar explained, “the fault is not in our stars (something that we can not control) but in ourselves.”
Shmuel Bar is director of studies at the Institute for Policy and Strategy, IDC, Herzliya, Israel.