Understanding Confrontations and Conflicts in West Asia: Two Excellent Studies Penetrate the Veil

Iran’s Counter-hegemonic Geopolitics

Iran’s ‘counter-hegemonic geopolitics’ emerged from this self-confidence—for Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolution was the sign of ‘His [God’s] favour and had destroyed the regime of arrogance by His powerful hand. He has made our great people into leaders and exemplars for the world’s oppressed.’ Thus, with divine support, Iran has challenged the US’ global hegemony, while the USA has persisted with its efforts to discredit the nation’s rulers and undermine the revolution as it views the Iranian state order as both malign and fragile.

Iran’s challenge to the US-led world order, Saraswat notes, brings together geography, politics and religion, thus shaping what the academic Lari Nyroos has called ‘dissident geopolitics’, that is, geopolitics that is deeply imbued with religion that facilitates the shaping of the ‘self’ versus the ‘other’. Thus, the author asserts geography and faith combine to create the ‘architecture of enmities’—that places US hegemony in confrontation with Iran’s counter-hegemony.

This divide was an integral part of the Islamic revolution itself. In the context of the hostage crisis, when Iran’s Islamic militants had taken control of the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini had asserted: ‘America is the number-one enemy of the deprived and the oppressed people of the world. There is no crime America will not commit in order to maintain its … control of the world’.

In fact, Khomeini was convinced that the revolution in Iran would bring together the entire global Muslim community, starting with the Arab regimes in the Gulf—this led to calls for ‘exporting’ the revolution. Taking this seriously, the Gulf monarchies came together to form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and, separately, encouraged and financed the Iraqi attack on Iran in 1980, initiating a devastating conflict that went on to 1988.

Khomeini saw this war as the product of collusion between Saddam Hussain and the USA to contain the revolution and prevent it from co-opting the Shia population in Iraq. Hence, for Iran, this war became a Sacred Defence—defence of the revolution, the nation and the faith. Khomeini merged these interests by invoking the martyrdom of Imam Hussain at Karbala and calling for defiance and sacrifice—on the frontlines and at home.

Israel too was made a part of Iran’s counter-hegemony geopolitics. Saraswat points out that Khomeini viewed Israel as representing Western interests in the region aimed at dominating the Muslim world. He therefore reframed the Arab-Israeli conflict as a pan-Islamic resistance to Zionism when he said: ‘Israel was born out of the collusion and agreement of the imperialist states of East and West. It was created in order to suppress and exploit the Muslim peoples and is being supported by all the imperialists’.

Expediency Versus the Supreme Leader

When Khomeini passed away in 1989, the contours and content of Iran’s counter-hegemonic doctrine had been defined and have remained unchanged since then under the tutelage of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Up to 2019, when the book ends, Iran has had four elected presidents—Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ali Khatami, Mohammed Ahmadinejad and Hassan Rouhani—while the supreme leader has remained unchanged.

All the presidents attempted to reshape their country’s aggressive and confrontationist approach, with three of them even attempting a fresh relationship with the USA. All of these efforts were finally unsuccessful, not only because of the interventions of the supreme leader but also because the USA itself was not ready to change its demonisation of the Islamic Republic.

Rafsanjani helped end the war with Iraq on the basis of ‘expediency’: though Saddam Hussain remained in power, Rafsanjani and the generals were able to persuade Khomeini that Iran was in no position to continue the bloody conflict. Khomeini himself, at this point, sanctioned the concept of ‘maslahat-e-nizam’ (‘reasons of expediency’)—when the interests of the nation would supersede considerations of faith or religious ideology. An Expediency Council was set up in 1988 which could override the decisions of the doctrinaire Guardian Council.

Thus, it was with expediency and pragmatism that Rafsanjani as president came to be associated. He rejected Iran’s hegemonic role in the region and abandoned the idea of ‘exporting’ the revolution. On this basis, Iran could mend its ties with the GCC states and shape new relations with Russia, the Central Asian republics, members of the European Union, as also the Eastern nations of India, China and Japan.

But there were limits. The USA remained hostile: It linked Iraq and Iran in its ‘dual containment’ policy in the Gulf after the war on Iraq in 1991, strengthened its military presence in the region, and expanded defence ties with the GCC states. Khamenei also restricted the country’s global outreach by emphasising concerns relating to ‘cultural invasion’—pointing out that ‘an all-round attack has been devised’ to undermine the country’s Islamic ethos and the values of the revolution. The instruments used by the West were: cinema, the press and television broadcasting, particularly trans-national satellite television broadcasting, which, in the Iranian view, needed to be confronted with more robust faith-based initiatives.

The ‘Dialogue Among Civilisations’

Khatami anchored his presidency on two ideas: One, that the country’s national identity was both Iranian and Islamic, thus highlighting Iran’s pre-Islamic political and cultural achievements; and, two, his idea of a Dialogue Among Civilisations, largely directed at the USA. Khatami noted that both the USA and Iran had very substantial moorings in faith—the US’ Puritan traditions had provided the basis for the country’s core values of freedom, democracy and republicanism. These, he asserted, were not very different from Iran’s values that, for over two centuries, had been founded on Islamic principles—the values of ‘liberty, independence and a noble way of life’.

Here, too, both the supreme leader and the USA ensured that these refreshing ideas found no fertile soil. Khamenei insisted on the centrality of Islam in shaping the national identity and placed history, traditions and customs as secondary influences. The USA also rejected Khatami’s overture: In 2002, President Bush included Iran in the ‘axis of evil’ and accused it of developing WMD, exporting terror and repressing its people’s desire for freedom.

This enabled the supreme leader to project the USA as viscerally hostile to Iran’s Islamic identity, its faith and its revolutionary order, and reaffirm its counter-hegemonic approach: As the American armed forces positioned themselves on Iran’s eastern and western borders, Khamenei spoke of them as ‘prancing around’ and viewed their militarism as a ‘sign of their weakness [which] will increase pressures on them’.

‘Islamic Awakening’

Ahmadinejad abandoned the relatively liberal approach of his two predecessors and based his presidency on populist policies at home and a confrontationist approach abroad. Domestically, he propounded the ‘resistance economy’ that would be fiercely resilient in the face of US sanctions, while in the region, Iran would lead the ‘axis of resistance’ as part of its counter-hegemonic strategy.

But the president faced serious domestic opposition in June 2009, in the shape of the Green Movement, due to doubts about the election results for his second term. Saraswat quotes one observer who saw this confrontation as a struggle between ‘the authoritarian version of political theology’ and popular sovereignty that had emerged from civil society networks. Another commentator called it a civil rights movement, ‘a post-ideological struggle for civil liberties’.

But the supreme leader did not accept these descriptions. He viewed the agitations as a Velvet Revolution organised by the ‘camp of arrogance’—western governments seeking regime change by encouraging domestic strife, on the lines of the ‘colour’ revolutions then being engineered in Eastern Europe. Later, as the Arab world burst into the Arab Spring uprisings in early 2011, Khamenei saw in them evidence of a regionwide ‘Islamic Awakening’—this was not just a fervent resurgence of the Muslim world, he asserted, it also affirmed the ongoing divide between Islamic movements and the ‘evil network of Zionist and arrogant power’.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and After

Reeling from the hammer blows of US sanctions that had crippled the Iranian economy and reduced millions to penury, President Hassan Rouhani obtained Khamenei’s approval to initiate talks with the Americans on the nuclear issue. But the mandate was tightly controlled: The negotiations would be restricted to nuclear matters; for the supreme leader, the USA continued to represent Global Arrogance against which Iran’s ‘Islamic discourse’ continued its struggle. Khamenei reminded the Iranians that their ‘flag and discourse is faced with “jahiliyya” (the pre-Islamic “age of ignorance”)’, and that Iran remains committed to ‘the destruction of Global Arrogance’.

Iran utilised the options opened up by the nuclear agreement to pursue new initiatives—it consolidated its place in Iraq by co-opting local politicians and supporting the powerful Shia militia. It became an active player in Syria by backing the Assad regime with militants and, later, aligning itself with Russia and Turkey to pursue the Astana peace process. It also expanded ties with China by emerging as a significant presence in the Belt and Road Initiative, both on land and sea.

The supreme leader’s doubts about the US’ sincerity in engaging with Iran were affirmed by the latter’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under Donald Trump and the re-imposition of crippling sanctions on Iran. Iran now revived its ‘resistance economy’ and pursued its interests with the help of its new regional partners—Russia, China and Turkey.

It also sought to counter the US’ regional domination with its plan for cooperative regional security, the Hormuz Peace Endeavour (HOPE), which was envisaged as a coalition of ‘all countries directly affected by the developments in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz’. This initiative not only confronted US hegemony but also posed a challenge to Iran’s Arab neighbours that have tied their security interests to an alliance with the USA.

Saraswat concludes that, in coming years, Iranian state order will continue to reflect the dichotomy of conservatives seeking to affirm the values of the revolution and viewing the USA as the enemy, ranged against ‘reformists’ who seek to uphold the centrality of civil society, outside state control, and see themselves as part of a broader international milieu that espouses greater global connectedness and accommodativeness. As of now, the former appear to be winning the debate.

Authoritarian Rulers in West Asia

Fazzur Rehman Siddiqui’s book on the ongoing confrontations and conflicts in West Asia is a timely companion to Saraswat’s book on Iran’s regional policy approaches. Although this book pays particular attention to the turmoil in the region in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, the author has referred to several historical issues that have shaped contemporary developments.

The book begins with a detailed discussion of the Arab world’s fragile state order, particularly the near-total absence of participatory systems of governance. He then examines the region’s intractable insecurities and rivalries that have made West Asia an arena of enduring competitions and conflicts, scenarios that are further complicated by regular political and military interventions in regional affairs by major external role-players.

Siddiqui asserts correctly that recent developments have significantly transformed regional states and have prepared the ground for major changes in domestic order and alignments—though it is not easy to predict what shape these will take, it can be safely concluded that the region will remain unstable and possibly even in ‘deep chaos’, as the author says.

Taking a broad historical view, Siddiqui points out that the Arab state order was constructed at different times in the last century by colonial powers to suit their interests, and took little account of the familial, tribal, ethnic, linguistic, economic and religious affiliations of the people whose destinies were being moulded through these foreign interventions. All local efforts at resistance were harshly put down so that the emerging states were kept in shape through brute force. Often, external powers obtained support through their sponsorship of local leaders who were kept in their positions of authority only so long as they served the interests of their sponsors.

It is true that after World War II, the Arab world experienced several coups d’etats in which rulers backed by foreign powers were overthrown, generally by the armed forces, but these also did not bring in any form of participatory governance. In fact, as economic policies failed to provide development and employment, the regimes became increasingly coercive. But, though harsh, they were hollow at the centre—they lacked the capacity for effective governance. Finally, their populist rhetoric led to the debacle of the 1967 war that ended the grand promises of national resurrection from republican potentates.

After this catastrophe, the pendulum of influence shifted in favour of the Gulf monarchies. They anchored their hereditary rule in a public affiliation with Islam. But they also obtained another source of domestic political support—from 1973, as the oil producers took control of their hydrocarbon resources and quadrupled the price of oil, they had access to unprecedented revenues. These they used to develop the national infrastructure and expand welfare for their citizens.

But they also utilised these revenues to co-opt citizens into supporting the royal order through a social contract in which the ruler provided security and economic well-being to his citizens and in return enjoyed the monopoly over national decision-making on the basis of pledges of loyalty and obedience from the citizens.

Fragile Regional State Order

Thus, the West Asian political order—both republican and monarchical—used co-option, where possible, and coercion, where necessary, to maintain the status quo. But the state order has remained fragile since it depends not on popular support or domestic capability but on the backing of Western powers that conflate state security with regime security and ensure these rulers remain in place. But, of course, Western support is entirely conditional on the regimes serving western, particularly American, interests—even when this support harms their interests and those of their citizens.

The USA has been the dominant presence in the region since the 1970s when Britain withdrew from its territories ‘East of Suez’. It sustains its interests and the regimes that are its allies through a vast and substantial military presence across the region, backed by periodic armed interventions to further its interests and punish recalcitrant rulers.

The US military forays in the region have been frequent and devastating in their consequences: In the 1980s, it backed Iraq in the war with Iran and then with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, it mobilised the ‘global jihad’ in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation. The former led to Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait as a reward for its war effort, while the latter made extremist Islam a global scourge for the next three decades.

In 1991, the USA led an international coalition to undo the occupation of Kuwait. After Iraq’s crushing defeat, it sought to emasculate Iraq with the sanctions-inspections regime and the no-fly zones and then subjected both Iraq and Iran to the ‘dual-containment’ sanctions that it unilaterally imposed on them. After the 9/11 attacks, the USA led the assault on Afghanistan and then, two years later, attacked Iraq to effect regime change. Today, the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are viewed as serious misadventures—both being poorly planned and executed, with no clarity about war aims or timely withdrawal.

To compound the US’ follies, in its approach to West Asian challenges, it has been deeply influenced by Israel and the powerful lobby that supports its interests in the USA—this is behind the US’ visceral hostility towards Iran and its full backing for Israel on the Palestinian issue. But these positions have aggravated regional divisions and tensions and made West Asia insecure and conflict-prone.

The Arab Spring Uprisings and After

Siddiqui has devoted considerable attention to the Arab Spring uprisings that spread across North Africa and West Asia in early 2011. These popular agitations reflected the people’s anger at the economic malaise, the crony capitalism and corruption that defined the political order, and authoritarian rule that thwarted their aspirations and crushed all forms of dissent.

The uprisings took place in two stages—2011–2013 and 2018–2020. In both periods of the Arab Spring agitations, each of which brought down four rulers, popular dissent has been coerced into submission by the brute force of state power. A major role in crushing popular aspirations has been played by the Gulf monarchies—particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE. They, working with the Egyptian armed forces, removed the democratic government of Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

These uprisings have also contributed to regional conflicts. Rattled by the widespread public agitations for change, Saudi Arabia and the UAE cooperated to disperse with military force the demonstrators in Bahrain calling for reform. Saudi Arabia then sought to divert attention from calls for reform by mobilising domestic and regional support against Iran—demonising the latter for its hegemonic intentions based on sectarian support from the region.

The Gulf monarchies targeted Iran’s interests in Syria by seeking to topple the pro-Tehran government of Bashar al-Assad on the basis of its sectarian affiliation with Iran, and then initiated military action in Yemen to crush the political aspirations of the Houthis on the ground that they too are linked to Iran on a sectarian basis. Neither war has gone well for the kingdom and its partners—there has been widespread death and destruction but no military victory in sight—nor has Iran been diminished as a regional influence.

The ongoing conflict in Libya originated in the direct military assault of western powers to destroy the Gaddafi regime in 2011, but the country has remained mired in civil conflict since then. It has two governments—the one in Tobruk backed by the UAE and Egypt, while the one in Tripoli is supported by Turkey and Qatar.

Siddiqui concludes by pointing out that given the significant changes—political, economic and social—taking place in West Asia, the emergence of a New Arab World is inevitable. What will this new Arab world look like: Will the states become more harsh and totalitarian? Or, will it open itself up to popular participation in governance? His prognostications seem to be pessimistic: He fears that rivalries among the major regional states will get sharper, encouraged by state fragility, economic crises, and sectarian and ethnic divisions so that the region could sink into deeper chaos.

Some Observations

Both books are timely and provide a wealth of understanding of the arcane forces that drive politics in West Asia. Surprisingly, though published this year, both of them end abruptly in early 2019. Thus, the reader is denied a discussion of several important matters relating both to Iran and the Arab world.

Where Iran is concerned, most of the Trump period—with its harsh sanctions, aggressive brinkmanship, and sharp provocations through bombings and assassination—is left out of the study, as are important details relating to Iran’s internal situation, its provocations on nuclear matters, and its deepening ties with Russia and China.

With regard to the Arab world, the evolving Saudi policies towards Iran, Turkey’s ‘neo-Ottomanism’ in Iraq, Syria, Libya and the East Mediterranean and, above all, the reduced US credibility as a security provider in the region are excluded from Siddiqui’s book.

Linked with this is another serious concern: Given that the books are priced exorbitantly at around ₹1,600 each and that the texts appear to have been with the publishers for about two years, it is surprising that the publishers have paid no heed to copy-editing—almost every page has several typos, grammatical errors and poor syntax, which a good copy editor would have quickly spotted and corrected.

But these criticisms do not detract from the high quality of the research that the authors have done, the wide range of sources they have consulted and the clarity with which they have presented their understanding of the complex issues that shape West Asian affairs.

It is also a matter of considerable satisfaction that the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) has sponsored these important studies. Clearly, India’s oldest foreign affairs think tank is retrieving its position as our country’s premier platform for discussion, debate and writing on issues that crucially matter to our national interests.