Our imaginary foe

IRAN'S THEOCRATIC leaders are not an attractive group of men. Their behavior and their public statements provide much ammunition for those who are convinced their regime should be toppled. Iran is a dangerous country.

But Iran does not pose an existential threat to the United States analogous to imperial Japan, Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. It is not a rising superpower that threatens to dominate the globe--a regional troublemaker, yes. But "confronting Iran" should not become the guiding focus of U.S. foreign policy.

Rhetoric about Iran's malign propensities has received much attention. A worst-case analysis, most vigorously argued by Norman Podhoretz, an advisor to former-presidential-candidate Rudolph Guiliani, would suggest that once Iran gets hold of nuclear weapons, its messianic president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, may be inclined to use them, especially against Israel. Ahmadinejad and his coterie believe in scenarios that call for a bloody battle between true believers and infidels as the precursor for the return of the Hidden Imam and the establishment of a world government. This is why Iran, unlike other nuclear powers--including the Soviet Union and China during the cold war--may not be susceptible to the logic of deterrence. For this reason they must be stopped from getting the bomb. In the absence of any diplomatic solution this simply calls for a military strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities. (1)

While such apocalyptic visions are frightening, to infer, as Podhoretz does, that Ahmadinejad is another Adolf Hitler does not take into account the reality of Iran's strengths and weaknesses. Dan is an important regional power that wants to be taken seriously and have an influence on Middle East geopolitics. Yes, it has energy reserves, a talented, educated population, and a unique geographical position that strides both the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea--and it may even soon have the capacity to build nuclear weapons. But its ability to act as a regional hegemon is constrained by political, economic and military limitations. For all the rhetoric about Iran as a new Mideast colossus, the reality is that Iranians are not a martial people.

Iran is an authoritarian theocracy on the political level, but within its own parameters it has a lively and active political culture. The balance of political power in Tehran is adjudicated by the conservative supreme leader, Ali Khameini. He has been successful in reducing the power and influence of the reformists who thrived during the first years of President Mohammad Khatami's terms in office from 1997-2005. Khameini played a complicit role in the surprise election of Ahmadinejad in 2005, but since that time he has kept the new president in check by allowing the pragmatic conservatives, including former-President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, to wield influence in the National Security Council and other high-level institutions. In 2007, Rafsanjani was elected chairman of the Assembly of Experts, a body that legally has the authority to supervise, choose or dismiss the supreme leader.

As expected, the outcome of Iran's parliamentary elections on March 14 assured that the conservatives retained their overall majority in the parliament. But let us be clear, the hard-line Council of Guardians disqualified many of the reformists' candidates, making it impossible for them to compete in a number of districts. Ahmadinejad can boast that the votes point to popular approval of his nuclear policies. However, the conservatives as a group are disunited and a significant number of pragmatic conservatives will be in the new parliament, including the former-nuclear-negotiator Ali Larijani and the mayor ofTehran, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. They are likely to challenge the president on a number of issues, especially those relating to the poor performance of the Iranian economy, which is in the doldrums and is not attracting the level of foreign investment it needs to modernize its infrastructure and upgrade its oil and natural-gas industries. Thanks to high oil prices, Iran has a cushion of financial reserves, but oil production is down from the high of 6 million barrels per day in 1974 to 3.8 million barrels per day in 2006. Unemployment and inflation remain high. Ahmadinejad has fulfilled very few of the promises for economic relief he made during his election campaign in 2005. Frequent shortages of staple items, such as fuel and food, have led to rationing and subsequent price increases.

One clear indicator of Iran's comparative economic weakness is to contrast it with the growth and investment in massive infrastructure projects that are flourishing across the Gulf in the Arab countries. The emergence of super-rich city-states, flush with unprecedented oil wealth while still militarily weak and dependent upon Asian labor and American military power for prosperity and survival, is an extraordinary development. These city-states are attracting much foreign investment and having a veritable one-upmanship contest; each trying to create more high-rise buildings, resort facilities, duty-free shopping malls and luxury airlines equipped with the most-advanced planes on the market. Dubai is the poster child for this phenomenon, but it has competition in Abu Dhabi, Doha, Manama and Kuwait City. With the exception of Kuwait, the lifestyle for visitors and expatriates in the other Gulf cities is determinedly secular and open. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, wants to make Dubai an international hub, a financial and tourist center comparable to Hong Kong and Singapore. He plans to make Emirates Airlines the biggest in the world and Dubai the busiest airline hub, surpassing London, New York and Singapore. The airline is currently the world's fastest growing, receiving a delivery of one new Boeing or Airbus plane each month for the next five years. Dubai also plans to build a $33 billion Dubai World Central Airport with six runways--making it the world's largest airport.