The Islamic Republic of Iran Is In the Doldrums

These are very bad times for the Ayatollahs, led by the Supreme Leader Khamenei, perhaps the worst times of the Islamic Republic since the early days of the Iraq-Iran in war 1980 which lasted until 1988, when the initial Iraqi successes seem to have put in danger the very existence of the revolutionary regime. The Islamic Republic survived the challenge, and it was Saddam Hussein who found his inglorious death years later, an event which in the minds of Iran’s leaders was taken to signal the inevitability of their victory over their other enemies, and they have had accumulated many such enemies during the years.

This is not a piece about the history of the Islamic Republic, so I am not going to get into a detailed discussion of what has transpired in Iran from 1988 until now, rather to show how things have changed in the last three years, particularly in the last few months, in a way which may indicate, that we are witnessing the swan song of the current regime in Tehran. In April 2015, Iran seemed to be on top of the world, at least, as was the dominant line of commentaries provided by friends and foes alike of the regime. This was after the signing of the Iran nuclear deal, which happened despite the vocal opposition of Iran’s main enemies in the Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia, but became possible because of and due to the enthusiastic support of the US, the supposed great ally of the both Israel and Saudi Arabia. Too many eager Western corporations were lining up to do business with the rogue regime. Too many journalists, those who know something about the Middle East, and more so, those who pretend to know, bombarded us all with the predictions about the emerging Iranian-Shi’ite power, on the expense of the declining Sunni Arab states , and despite the cry wolf of the Israelis, led by PM Netanyahu. It looked really promising for the Khamenei regime. The Shi’ite rebels in Yemen seemed to have the upper hand against the Saudi-led coalition. Iraq continued to be ruled by a pro-Iranian Shi’ite government. Hizballah maintained its tight grip over actual political power in Lebanon, and in Syria, where the Al Quds force and the Revolutionary Guards under Qassem Suleimani invested huge material resources and human power in boosting the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, the civil war against the Sunni rebels has been moving in the direction of the Iranians and their Syrian Alawite clients. The Shi’ite crescent, the nightmare of the Saudis and many other Sunni states was becoming a reality, much to the dismay also of another Middle Eastern power, Israel. Khamenei and Suleimani , as well as the formal President Rouhani may not see eye to eye on every issue, but they are firmly united in their desire to wipe Israel off the map. Easy to know it-they all say it unabashedly, but beyond saying, they also engaged in actions. Syria was supposed to be the new front to Israel, with Suleimani turning parts of it into Iranian bases, almost an extra territorial domain, and the money behind all that was supposed to come from the new business relations with the West Europeans , and even more so, from the unfrozen Iranian assets in the US.

That said, what seemed so promising in 2015 seem now to be in shambles. The moneys promised to the Iranian people after the nuclear deal were switched to Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza and mostly to Syria, and the economic bonanza of 2015 has turned to be an illusion in 2018.The reaction of the populace there is violent and it is increasing .Violence in Kazerun in the South is the tip of the iceberg. There are multiple reports about attacks on military installations and government buildings. In Saudi Arabia, the new Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman takes his enmity to the Ayatollahs many steps ahead of what could be anticipated until just few months ago. He is ready to further as yet informal and largely secret cooperation with Israel against the common Iranian enemy beyond anything ever considered possible between the torch bearer of Wahhabi Islam and the Jewish state. In Iraq, the Iraqi nationalist Shi’ite leader Muqtada Al Sadr is the big winner of the recent elections, and while he is rabid anti American , he does not want to be a stooge of Iran. Shi’ism is his ideology, but subservience to Iran is not. Suleimani does not like it,and this is to say the very least. Nor does he like what has happened in the last few months in Syria, where there has been a war between Israel and the Iranians led by Suleimani, and while the battle may not be over yet, the interim result is a resounding defeat to the Iranians, and a major victory to Israel.

Suleimani was defeated militarily , and that is bad enough , but maybe even worse for him is the political defeat. When Russia and the US, both for their own different reasons formally and publicly support Israel’s demand for an Iranian withdrawal from Syria, then it is nothing short of a significant Iranian defeat. PM Netanyahu of Israel may have achieved the impossible-he can go to Washington and Moscow and have these two otherwise political protagonists agree on the basic Israeli demand-Iran should be out of Lebanon.

Netanyahu may have had also ‘’something’’ else on his side-this is the Trump electoral victory in November 2016, his anti-Iranian policies, the abandonment of the nuclear deal and the new Pompeo doctrine about Iran-Change or perish. We are not there as yet, but the exodus of Western companies out of Iran, the continuing protest inside Iran, the Israeli resolve in Syria, accompanied by impressive intelligence and military performance there, and the red lines presented by Putin to the Iranians in Syria may give us the direction; the Ayatollahs are with their backs to the wall. Three years is a lot of time in the Middle East-2015 and 2018 seem like worlds apart. But it is also about history , religion and nationalism in this troubled part of the world. Khamenei and Suleimani have harbored the illusion that they can defy all these factors and create a Shi’ite -Iranian empire. They will not succeed, and there already are many writings on the wall for them.