How to Create a “Rogue State”
Protest outside the White House, following U.S drone attacks in Iran killing General Qassem Soleimani. Photo by AFP
Within the first days of the new decade, the United States killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, following the decade-long tradition of aggression towards Iran; the thorn in the superpower’s side. Soleimani, both feared and revered as the commander of the elite Quds force, was killed by the U.S in an airstrike on his convoy as he drove to the Baghdad airport.
Iran’s status as a “rogue state” is a self-realizing prophecy; the United States’ repeated aggressive behavior toward Iran has forced it to adopt increasingly provocative steps. The United States has despised the Islamic Republic from the moment Ayatollah Khomeini replaced Shah Reza Pahlavi in Tehran in 1979, and in many ways, Iranian politics both domestically and abroad were born as a response to U.S attempts to topple the country of Iran.
The Wests’ meddling in Iranian affairs dates well before the 1979 Revolution. In 1952, Mohammad Mossadegh, the beloved leader of the nationalist party “National Front of Iran,” was elected prime minister. This concerned the British, who maintained majority ownership of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. When Mossadegh announced his intention to nationalize Anglo-Iranian Oil, it’s British owners were keen to retaliate. They turned to the United States, claiming that this nationalization effort was an example of Mossadegh’s communist sympathies. The U.S responded by having the CIA covertly launch two coups in 1953 to overthrow Mossadegh, ending democracy in Iran by vesting the America-friendly monarch Shah Reza Pahlavi with authoritarian power.
This example of American meddling had a profound impact on the worldview of Iranians. The immediate effect was predictable- the Shah empowered an immensely powerful secret police to root out his enemies while obtaining opulent wealth for himself. Most of the wealth generated by the oil boom of the 1980’s flowed directly to the Shah and his family consequently accumulated $3 billion in revenue-producing assets. The wealth gap generated drew criticism from the country’s powerful clergy, and clerics like Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini were driven abroad in response. The Shah framed this weakening of the clergy, his secularist thoughts and his various investments with American companies as signs of Westernization to appease U.S allies, leaving a sour taste in the mouth of common Iranians. The toppling of Mossadegh, the greed of the Shah, and the war on the clergy all served to inflame anti-Western sentiment that made the 1979 Revolution possible.
In 1979, the people of Iran demanded the removal of the Shah. Mass protests sent Pahlavi fleeing to the United States, and his appointed prime minister was deposed within days of the return of Ayatollah Khomeini, who inherited a powerful regional military and oil industry for his newly proclaimed Islamic Republic. The response from the West was immediately hostile to the new regime, and the United States led the way with crippling sanctions in November of 1979. The immediate source of these sanctions was the Iranian Hostage Crisis, which deserves further scrutiny.
In October of 1979, Shah Pahlavi was accepted into the United States ostensibly for cancer treatments. However, the people of Iran demanded he stand trial for the overthrow of Mossadegh and the subsequent years of brutality and theft of state assets. Mass protests culminated in the storming of the U.S embassy, and 52 Americans would be turned over to the Iranian government as hostages in an act that, in the view of many Iranians, was a direct confrontation against the meddling of the West. These hostages would eventually be released after 444 days of confinement, but the United States wasn’t finished trying to topple the unruly Islamic Republic.
In September of 1980, Iraqi forces invaded southern Iran, launching a brutal eight-year war in which around 350,000 people lost their lives. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein felt threatened by the presence of an ideologically motivated neighbor, while simultaneously inspired by the apparent chaos in Iran following the revolution. The United States sensed an opportunity and offered Saddam their support, both directly or indirectly supplying him with arsenals of weapons, intelligence, and a vast stock of chemical weapons. What could have been a short conflict was drawn out into a protracted, brutal conflict in which the position of the Ayatollah’s regime was solidified, as was the enmity toward the West.
Iran has been able to rebuild itself despite ongoing sanctions from the Americans, as well as U.S support for key Iranian enemies like Saudi Arabia. The United States roundly criticizes Iran for being an authoritarian regime, yet simultaneously ignores Saudi Arabia, where the House of Saud rules with an iron fist, arresting political dissidents and going as far as ordering “hits” on critical journalists. A large portion of American political discourse condemns Iran for being a theocratic regime while in Saudi Arabia, religious police roam the streets and crimes like apostacy, homosexuality, blasphemy, sorcery or witchcraft and many other religious crimes can result in beheading. In fact, the United States has a long history of supporting dictators of the Middle East, while toppling those who cross them. Given this reality, it’s no wonder Iran has developed its own brand of foreign policy.
As the media has emphasized repeatedly, Iran either supports or directs numerous organizations that the United States has labelled as terrorists throughout the Middle East. Their reasoning is varied, but all can be traced back to the political isolation carried out by the United States. In Yemen, Iran has given extensive organizational support to the Houthis in order to undermine their U.S aligned nemesis Saudi Arabia. Iraq, once the United States’ favored tool for keeping Iran in line, is home to the Popular Mobilization Forces which defeated the Islamic State with Iranian support. Iran’s primary goal in continuing to support the PMF is to prevent Iraq from ever becoming a threat again. Hezbollah in Lebanon is perhaps the most deeply aligned with Iran, as well as Hamas in Palestine. While aggressive on the surface, the reason for Iran’s support of these groups can be seen as highly multifaceted. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is widely seen as a “state within a state”. By supporting them, Iran keeps Lebanon in their sphere of influence vis a vis Israel. By supporting both anti-Israel groups, the regime in Iran retains domestic and regional legitimacy as the staunchest opponents of Western dominance. As much as the United States lambasts Iran for its opposition to Israel, U.S allies like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and many others do not recognize Israel as a state, and many of them have fought wars with Israel without Iranian involvement. All of this is despite the fact that Iran’s relationship with the U.S has not been entirely oppositional.
Iran has a history of working with the United States in many instances. At the inception of the Islamic Republic, the Reagan Administration made arrangements to sell arms to Iran via Israel in order to support their own non-state proxy force; the Contras in Nicaragua. The notorious Iran-Contra affair would not be the last time Iran aided U.S forces. Iranian intelligence was instrumental in helping the United States in toppling the Taliban regime in the Invasion of Afghanistan. When contrasted with Saudi Arabia, from which most of the 9/11 hijackers came from and whose government’s involvement in the attack is hotly debated to this day, how can one say that Iran is such an enemy to the U.S? In their most recent act of cooperation, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or “Nuclear Deal,” Iran significantly limited its nuclear program to a degree where it could not produce a nuclear weapon. They had largely kept up their side of the arrangement until the United States pulled out of the treaty.
In light of the United States toppling a democratic regime in favor of an autocrat, decades of continuous economic warfare, and attempts at toppling governments for reasons in direct contrast to their own practices even by means that caused massive casualties, and refusal to abide by concessions made, is it any great mystery why Iran behaves the way it does? Iran’s theocratic regime has been legitimized by continuous acts of aggression on the part of the United States, and its provocations have largely been in response to it. Iran is a renegade regime simply because the United States has always labelled it one, it’s behavior is a reaction to the international isolation forced upon it.