IS AHMADINEJAD THE “NEW NIXON”?

Dr. Barnett posted one his more intriguing examples of strategic analysis with “Only Ahmadinejad can go to Washington“, where he gamed the complex and dangerous diplomatic minuet between Teheran and Washington. It’s a great post which should be read in full and Tom’s interpretation of events raised in my mind all kinds of questions and ideas. More on that in a bit.

The post also elicited some interesting comments from T.M. Lutas, Tangurena and Porphyrogenitus, the last of whom brought up the issue of Kremlinology, an example of a kind of scholarly discipline you must adopt if you choose to analyze secretive, hostile, dysfunctional, regimes that govern against their own society and are ridden by factions and conspiracies. Opacity makes analyzing these kinds of states more art than science. Iran as a whole is not as closed a society as the old U.S.S.R. but its upper reaches of government are probably far less well understood by American experts on Iran today than the politburo once was by CIA sovietologists.

I’m not certain if Dr. Barnett would consider himself an ex-kremlinologist or sovietologist, but as he was taught by some of the best who were, you can see Tom applying those skills here:

“Ahmadinejad is irrelevant on the nuclear issue. It began long before he took power and reflects a concerted ayatollah-led bid for both national prestige and protection from U.S. invasion. Ahmadinejad’s agenda overlaps on that issue only to the extent that he discovered, early in his administration, that it’s faltering stature could be instantly improved with a very impatient and demanding public, if he chose to align himself with that strategy. In this move, Ahmadinejad has proven himself to be a very clever politician and a superb propagandist who plays the Americans, and especially the American-Jewish community, like a banjo (he plucks, we sing).

Our myopic focus on that nuclear bid (still several years off, but no matter to the propagandists on their side or the Chicken-Littles on ours) has obscured what is truly powerful and useful about Ahmadinejad’s administration. As this article argues very well, the mullahs realize that having themselves represent the nation abroad isn’t working, thus the apparent compliance in letting Ahmadinejad move in the direction of creating a political party powerbase that is, despite his personal religion, basically secular and more traditional…

…Ahmadinejad is pursuing a revamp of both economics and politics in Iran that is of almost Gorbachevian-level ambitions. In effect, to save the theocratic regime, he believes a separate political party needs to be built outside of the mullahs for regime legitimacy: in effect, handing us, out of his sense of political desperation in the face of the “challenges buffeting Iran” (“economy is in shambles, unemployment is soaring, and the new president has so far failed to deliver on his promise of economic relief for the poor”; “Ethnic tensions are rising around the country, with protests and terrorist strikes in the north and the souhhd, and students have been staging protests at universities around the country”), that which we seek–the marginalization of the mullahs or de-theocratification of the regime.

In short, we’re so much closer, due to Iran’s internal problems, in achieving that which we need most to achieve with Iran, a development that would make the achievement of nuclear capacity irrelevant (Iran having nukes isn’t the problem–we can deter; Iran giving nukes to terrorists is).

Many of Ahmadinejad’s critics inside Iran believe he will fail. This article gives us real pause for hoping for that outcome. He may well end up being our “Nixon” who can, on the basis of his unassailable rhetoric and staunch, anti-Israel reputation, the exact tool we need for our strategic purposes.”

I found Tom’s choice of Nixon as an analogy for Ahmadinejad fascinating yet also inexact. The subtle diplomatic signalling is reminiscient of 1969 -1972, as is the potential for secret realpolitik between ideological adveraries.

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