The nuclear players.

• Author: Sadjadpour, Karim
• Position: THE NUCLEAR QUESTION - United States, Iran

The daily political tumult surrounding Iran's nuclear ambitions is often framed as a duel between two actors--the United States and Iran--whose decisions alone have dramatic implications for the future of world peace. To the casual newsreader in Bangkok or Budapest, it may appear simple that Iran wants the bomb, the United States wants to bomb Iran, and that both are likely to happen. But while Tehran and Washington are undoubtedly the two most important players in this equation, the political decisions taken by outside actors will play a critical role in determining how the Iranian nuclear conundrum plays out, whether in prolonged stalemate, diplomatic resolution or military confrontation. Understanding each side's primary concerns and motivations are critical in attempting to facilitate a peaceful outcome.

Over the past several years, in my capacity as an analyst with the International Crisis Group, I have spent countless hours talking to Iranian, American, European, Arab, Russian and Chinese officials and analysts about Iran and its nuclear ambitions. In private as in public, Iranian officials continue to assert their nuclear intentions are purely peaceful, while U.S. and Israeli officials remain convinced that Tehran is after a nuclear bomb. The real nuance in views and policy comes from the Russians, Chinese, Europeans and Arabs. Among them there seems to be a general consensus that a) Iran is after nuclear weapons capability; and b) the only way the problem might be resolved is with direct talks between the United States and Iran. More than they may know, the collective decisions of these actors will play a large role in determining whether the United States and Iran embark on confrontation or conversation.

WHAT DOES IRAN WANT?

Much has been written about the internal nuclear debate within Iran, but the process of how decisions are reached in Tehran can be confusing and unclear even to regime insiders. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is the final arbiter of major decisions like the nuclear issue, but he makes decisions not by decree but via a painstaking consensus building process involving a small coterie of political institutions and personalities. The Supreme National Security Council, Expediency Council, Guardian Council and the increasingly assertive Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) weigh in, and individuals like lead nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and former president Hashemi Rafsanjani are certainly among the principal players. Hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the nuclear decisionmaker, but according to senior Iranian officials nor can he be easily bypassed, having inserted himself into the debate far more than Iran's previous president, Mohammed Khatami.

To better understand the concerns and ambitions of Iran's leadership, it is worth taking a closer look at the person of Ayatollah Khamenei. In the nearly eighteen years he has been supreme leader--since Ayatollah Khomeini's death in 1989, Khamenei's track record depicts a leader averse to both confrontation and accommodation with the West. On one hand he was Iran's president during the eight-year war with Iraq--when the country was politically isolated and in dire straits financially--and is cognizant that another such conflict could inflict fatal damage upon the Islamic Republic. On the other hand, he believes Iranian appeasement in the face of western pressure will not allay Tehran's concerns but only invite further pressure. He is deeply cynical that any western or U.S. attempts to reintegrate Iran into the global arena are with the best interests of the Islamic Republic in mind.

Indeed, it could be said that Khamenei continues to adhere to his predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini's worldview, that the relationship between the United States and Iran is similar to that between a wolf and a sheep. Whether the United States announces that it wants to isolate or dialogue with Iran--as Secretary Rice did this past summer--Khamenei's speeches constantly urge vigilance against the nefarious schemes of the enemy, giving the impression that he is paralyzed with mistrust. As an Iranian academic friend close to the country's top leadership once told me:

Ayatollah Khamenei is convinced that the problems the United States has with Iran are not about our external behavior--be it the nuclear issue, opposition to Israel, or support for Hezbollah but our very existence as an independent Islamic government on one of the most strategic patches of real estate in the world. Deep down he believes that the only thing that will appease the Americans is a change of regime, to go back to the patron-client relationship they had with Iran during the time of the Shah. Whether or not it's true this is what he believes. (1) This deep sense of mistrust explains in part the inability of the Islamic Republic to make bold decisions that break with the revolution's past. While the vast majority of the country's political elite privately realize that the "death to America" culture created in 1979 is counterproductive in 2007, the fear that the fabric of the Islamic Republic could come unwound, coupled with the system's inherent dysfunctionality, has created an inertia to simply muddle along rather than face the unpredictability of tampering with the status quo. As a European ambassador in Tehran once told me, "If you take away 'death to America,' and you take away the hijab, what will be left of the Islamic Republic?" (2)

Taking all this into account, devising a constructive western foreign policy toward Iran is profoundly difficult for two main reasons. The first is the increasingly evident fact that Iran's leadership itself doesn't know what it wants. When asked what they seek from the United States Iranian officials usually reply with...