What the U.S. Gets Wrong About Iran — Notes

Ibn Khaldun Generational Theory and Iran

• Ibn Khaldun's asabiyyah: Empires decline after $3$ generations.
  • First generation: united by hardship.
  • Second generation: preserves achievements.
  • Third/fourth generation: erodes ambition, inviting new power seekers.
• 1979 Iranian Revolution: Transformed Iran into an anti-American Islamist theocracy.
• Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: Current leader since $1989$ ($83$-years-old); maintains power through hyper-vigilance and brutality, fearing domestic and global opposition.
• Anti-Americanism: Central to Iran's revolutionary identity and global strategy under Khamenei.

Iran's Revolutionary Identity and View of the World

• Iran opposes the U.S.-led world order, allocating significant resources.
• Defines its interests in opposition to the U.S. on major security issues (e.g., Ukraine, Taiwan, nuclear proliferation, cyberwarfare).

Iran's Strategic Behavior and Proxies

• Uses actions of leaders like Putin to gauge and exploit power dynamics, believing it can act with impunity.
• Has entrenched proxies in $Iraq$, $Syria$, $Lebanon$, and $Yemen$.
• U.S. withdrawal from $Afghanistan$ reinforced Tehran's leverage.
• These dynamics complicate reviving the $2015$ Iran nuclear deal.

Nuclear Program, Costs, and Deterrence

• Iran's nuclear program has cost over $200,000,000,000$ dollars in lost oil revenue.
• Its urgency to compromise on the nuclear deal has diminished, despite reported assassinations and sabotage by Israel.
• Iran's worldview persists even if the nuclear deal is revived.

Policy Conundrum and Long-Term Goals

• U.S. efforts (coercion/persuasion) have limited success because normalizing relations could destabilize Iran's theocratic regime, which is built on anti-American imperialism.
• The U.S. faces a dilemma: engage a regime that resists engagement, and isolate one that thrives in isolation.
• Iran is too influential to ignore, too dogmatic to reform, too brutal to overthrow, and too large to fully contain.

Policy Implications for U.S. Strategy

• Short-term U.S. objective: Counter Iran's nuclear and regional ambitions.
• Long-term U.S. objective: Support or encourage a representative Iranian government aligned with its people's national interests, not revolutionary anti-Americanism.
• Policy approach should balance pressure and openness to prevent escalation while supporting potential future legitimate governance.