Vali Nasr, an Iranian-American political scientist based in Washington, must be cursing Benjamin Netanyahu. As Israel’s ebullient prime minister seeks to reshape the Middle East, with the help of Donald Trump’s bunker-busting bombs, it may feel like Nasr’s new book is already yesterday’s news. That would be a shame, because Iran’s Grand Strategy is seriously good, profoundly insightful and full of fresh thinking.
A central pillar of Nasr’s argument is that the West’s understanding of Iran’s strategic calculations is “hopelessly inadequate and dangerously outdated”. I wonder if the same might be said of the mullahs in Tehran. After decades of containment and low-level sparring, Israel has suddenly called their bluff. It may fail in its mission, it may blow up the region, it may even trigger World War Three, but one thing it has already achieved is to expose the myth of Iranian might.
Iran’s much-vaunted anti-American, anti-Israeli axis of resistance, its network of affiliated militias across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian territories lies in tatters, along with much of its military infrastructure. Hamas has been pulverised, together with most of Gaza. Hezbollah, whose arsenal of rockets and missiles was only recently spoken of in awestruck tones, has been decapitated in Lebanon. The Houthis lob the odd missile towards Israel with the empty rhetoric and rage of the impotent. Assad has gone and so, surely, has the “grand strategy” at the heart of this book.
Meanwhile, the mullahs who for years have presented themselves to their long-suffering countrymen and women as a bulwark against the apocalypse can’t even provide a single public bomb shelter or air raid system in Tehran. And we think our public services are broken. Pity the ordinary men, women and children of Iran who have been brought to the brink by a profoundly malign, repressive and utterly incompetent government. The only real measure of its success, fundamental to any dictatorship or authoritarian regime, is its retention of power. And how long will that last?
From revolution to resistance
For too long, Vasr argues, the West has mistakenly viewed Iran through the prism of the 1979 revolution, putting Islam and Iranian clerics front and centre of the picture. While exporting revolution was unquestionably an initial priority, over time the mullahs have shifted to resistance in general and opposition to American hegemony in particular. In so doing they have shown a remarkable gift for self-preservation over ideology.
Dr. Vali Nasr: The Iranian view from Washington
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Vasr contends that Iran sees itself as the inspiration for a global resistance movement against the US, and “seeks to organise the Middle East around it”. Before October 7, 2023, that was arguably true. Today, however, it does not appear to be succeeding, to put it mildly. Who, we might ask, are the Ayatollah’s friends and where are they in Tehran’s hour of need?
We should, nevertheless, be wary about foretelling the end of a 46-year-old regime whose demise has been predicted for decades. To say it has weathered plenty of storms is an understatement. Most devastating among them was undoubtedly the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988, which resulted in up to 250,000 Iranian deaths, embedding the tradition of Shia martyrdom even deeper in the national psyche. From the nadir of this conflict emerged the narrative of “sacred defence”, an expression repeated more than 100 times in this book. Beyond that landmark war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the regime has battled with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the US for almost half a century, demonstrating considerable pragmatism, tactical flexibility and, ultimately, finely honed instincts for regime survival.
But what now, and is this the end of the line? Nasr avoids speculating in a book published before the Israel-US lightning assault, but nonetheless ends with a shrewd warning. To survive, he argues, Khamenei’s Islamic Republic will need to demonstrate the “malleability of a fox”. To pursue the analogy a little further, it is starting to look like the hounds have picked up the scent and are moving in for the kill.