AEI scholar Michael Rubin's very sober analysis of Iran (Interview with Hugh Hewitt)

Hugh Hewitt/Townhall ^ | April 16, 2008

[nuconvert]

AEI scholar Michael Rubin's very sober analysis of Iran

April 16, 2008

HH: Joined now by Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, one of the country’s leading authorities on the Islamic Republic of Iran. Michael Rubin, last week, Vice President Cheney was on the program, and I talked to him about 12th Imamism, and about Ahmadinejad. And the left has gone crazy, and they’ve been throwing bricks at him, because he said we should take very seriously what Ahmadinejad says, and we should be concerned about sort of a millennialist outlook. And I’ve been waiting to talk to you ever since this controversy broke out, and to get your reaction to the idea that the people of the United States government have to pay attention to the theology of Iran. What do you think?

MR: Absolutely. Look, just one bit of evidence that you have to take a look at the theology of Iran is the fact that in the early years of the Islamic Revolution, the theology of Iran was believed by enough people that thirteen and fourteen year olds would run across mine fields with plastic keys around their neck, believing that if they detonated a mine, that they would go straight to Paradise.

MR: ... the greatest mistake you can make in analysis is projection, assuming that everyone else thinks like you. We may be political, so they’re political in the same way. We may have learned how to negotiate in the State Department’s A100 class, and therefore, they went through similar classes. But that’s not the case. They learned a great deal of their ideology in the Mosques, from age four and five years old. When I was playing with Play-Doh, they were being told to memorize the Koran, and they really believe it. And we have to assume that they don’t think like us. Multiculturalism isn’t just having mojitos with your sushi.

HH: ...."Is Iran deterrable?

MR: Well, first of all, let’s talk about deterrence. When politicians in the United States talk about well, we shouldn’t have a military strategy, instead we should have containment or deterrence, it drives me nuts, because containment and deterrence are both military strategies. You can’t have containment unless you’re willing to station troops in the region, unless you’re willing to upgrades your bases, unless you’re willing to sell arms to neighboring states, and so forth, so that Iran can be contained. The basis of deterrence is basically an understanding inside Iran that if they used nuclear weapons directly or by proxy, that they will suffer the same consequence. The danger here, though, is that Iran, and some Iranian leaders, not all of them, believe that they have the strategic depth to withstand a nuclear strike.

HH: Wow.

MR: And they also believe, it’s the same logic that al Qaeda expressed, albeit from a different theological segment within the Islamist community, that in explaining the Muslims who would be killed, the innocent Muslims in the World Trade Center, for example on 9/11, that they would go directly to Paradise, because they died for the cause, even if it wasn’t their intention to. There is that strain of thought as well. Now 99% of Iranians may not believe this, but 99% of Iranians are irrelevant. What matters when you’re doing U.S. national security and analyzing Iran, isn’t how rich a culture Iran has, but it’s the guys with the guns. And this also drives me nuts about so many journalistic commentaries and so forth, and when I hear diplomats speak about Iran’s nuclear program. It’s not Iran’s nuclear program. It’s the Revolutionary Guard’s nuclear program. And if Ahmadinejad is from the Revolutionary Guard corps, and if he is mirroring their ideology, then we’re in a very dangerous state indeed.

HH: Now Michael Rubin, I’m also surprised that David Petraeus comes to the Senate and the House, and explicitly names Iran as operating the special forces groups that are killing American soldiers, and there is not much news made. It’s incredible to me that they are trying to start a war with us, and we’re not noticing. Were you surprised at how little attention that received?

MR: I was very surprised. Look, I can tell you that when I’m talking to officers, senior commissioned and non-commissioned officers going to these regions, and I do it about four times a month when I’m teaching my classes and so forth, that’s first and foremost on their minds, are what the Iranians are doing, because it’s all well and good to open the pages of the newspaper over a Sunday coffee back in the United States, and talk about this in the abstract. But when you’re dealing with guys that are going into areas of operation where these special groups operate, or are doing logistics, or are doing medicine, or are doing engineering, whatever the whole myriad of missions which our military units have, they’re facing this, it’s very real, and it’s shameful that the media doesn’t realize it.

HH: And what is their strategic purpose? To drive us or to bleed us?

MR: It’s…I’d actually say to bleed us, especially ahead of the U.S. election.

MR: Look, the way I would put it is in 2003, we had the strategic advantage. We had troops in Iraq, we had troops in Afghanistan, and the Iranians were a little bit frightened. But the more some politicians got up, and for very short term political reasons, talked about how desperate they were or we were to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq as quickly as possible, the Iranians thought hey, we can change our greatest strategic liability into an asset. We can sort of, we can interfere here, and make…I mean, basically, prevent the Americans from doing a withdrawal, we’ll bleed them both militarily and politically.

- - - -

HH: I’m joined by Michael Rubin, who I think ought to be one of the most featured guests on the television and radio, because Iran ought to be at the center of this election, ought to be at the center of all of our conversations. But unfortunately he’s not, because we’re sleepwalking through this election. Michael Rubin, are you amazed at the lack of conversation about Iran in the political arena?

MR: I am. A lot of the discussion about Iran is really less about Iran, and more about inside the Beltway politics, which is very, very dangerous, because the Iranian threat is growing, and the nuance is important.

HH: And so the key part here is how to talk about it. Does Iran follow our politics to the extent that they believe that John McCain is a menace to them, ...

MR: They will do what they can to hurt John McCain ahead of the election.

HH: And so do you think that means a Tet-like offensive in Baghdad and around as we get close to the election in November?

MR: I believe that there will be an upsurge in violence for two reasons. One is that, and the second is that while it’s not on the headlines now, there’s supposed to be the provincial elections in October, which will be too tempting a target for the Iranians. It will be coming just a month before the U.S. elections.

HH: Now I spoke yesterday with Fred Kagan from Berlin, who believes that the Iraqis are becoming quite antagonistic towards the special groups that Iran is funding, and quite antagonistic to the Iranians. Does that square with what you are hearing, Michael Rubin?

MR: Yes. Even though the majority of Iraqis may be Shia, one shouldn’t conflate or assume that all Shia get along. Just remember, during the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988, that most of the conscripts, most of the people at the front, were Shia in the Iraqi Army, and they didn’t pick up and defect to Iran, because nationalism meant more than religion.

Will Israel allow Iran to reach nuclear stage, or go critical, as they say, without at least attempting to stop it?

MR: Israel’s got no good option. This isn’t Osirik, the Iraqi nuclear reactor which Israel bombed in 1981. If we were going to hit, if we, the United States, were going to hit Iran, we’re talking probably around 400-1,000 sortees. Now Israel can’t do that by surprise, which means that they’re going to take tremendous loss if they do this, and they’re going to have to go over Saudi Arabia, they’re going to have to go over the Persian Gulf and so forth. The Iranians are going to know they’re coming. That said, if they feel that the United States and Europe aren’t serious about the Iran nuclear program, that we’re neither preparing to stop it nor to effectively contain and deter it, they may try to do it, because they feel that the Iranian nuclear program is an existential threat.

HH: Well, after what they did in Syria, whatever that was, and whatever they took out, it seems to me that they have drawn a clear line in the many sands of the Middle East, that they will not allow a state hostile to their existence to have these sorts of weapons. But having said that, if they launch that because the Bush administration is coming to an end and the don’t see any, or they’ve been told we’re not going to do it, and the Vice President was just there, what does Iran do after those strikes?

MR: What you would have is an Iranian response by proxy. First of all, Hezbollah, under UN auspices, has rearmed. And not only have they rearmed the missiles which they had used or were destroyed in the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, but now they have missiles that from Lebanon, from Syria, can hit Tel Aviv. They can hit basically anywhere in Israel they want. Iran will also likely launch its own attacks, and I think we would see terrorism worldwide. Remember, the Iranians have already shown that they have a pretty sophisticated network. They’ve been able to stage attacks from Baghdad to Buenos Aires.

HH: ..."what should America be prepared for in the short term, I mean, within the next 24 months in that region?

MR: In the next 24 months, I think things are going to get worse, then they’re going to get better. The only way to have stability is for the Iranians to take us seriously, to understand that there’s lines in the sand, and that we mean it. But what the Iranians see now is that they can keep poking us, poking us and poking us, and that we’re not going to respond. And so what most worries me is that the Iranians are going to be with overconfidence, not judge the U.S. correctly, that if there’s military conflict, it’s not going to be ordered by Washington. It’s going to be in response to something atrocious, which the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have done in Iraq or elsewhere.

[nuconvert]

I excerpted the transcript a little, just to shorten it a bit.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Guess this is the next battle....but first we have Iraq:

End Game On With Sadr Should Bring Sadr’s End ( What will Iran do next?)

************************INTRO EXCERPT**********************

It seems Iran and the Mahdi are getting desperate. The weapons going into Diyala are possibly for al-Qaeda to use, since that is their region of Iraq. It would be another indicator of Iran’s support to both al-Qaeda and the Mahdi. The assassination attempts are clearly attacks Iraq’s government, now a US ally. This is a dangerous game for Sadr and Iran to play. We will not allow defeat easily. - end update

[attiladhun2]

The fanatical 12th Imam messianism aside, the only thing the mullahs understand is force or the credible threat of force. The reason force (or a credible threat to use force against them) is the only thing that can possibly threaten them is that it has the potential to bring down their little racket. Which is why I said from the beginning of the WOT that every nation facilitating terrorism should have been dealt with, including Iran. We are at war with a radical ideology, not a tactic.

[nuconvert]

pong

[gpapa]

Neither a wise nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him. [Dwight D. Eisenhower]

[PGalt]

MR: Yes. Even though the majority of Iraqis may be Shia, one shouldn’t conflate or assume that all Shia get along. Just remember, during the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988, that most of the conscripts, most of the people at the front, were Shia in the Iraqi Army, and they didn’t pick up and defect to Iran, because nationalism meant more than religion.

Thanks for the ping. Interesting interview.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the interview:

But the more some politicians got up, and for very short term political reasons,

Well,...much of the driving force for the left here in the USA is anti-American....

*************************************************

It’s difficult to imagine they are so blatantly antiAmerican!

See this :

Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left

And a review:

**********************************

By	Kat Bakhu (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left (Hardcover)

I had long wondered why people on the Left had the propensity to speak more positively about people who would slit their throats than they do about their own country, which affords them more freedom and opportunity than anywhere else. David Horowitz has answered that question thoroughly and convincingly in his Unholy Alliance. Where I felt bewildered and confused, I now feel crystal clear. Unholy Alliance is such a great book.

It begins with the leftist movements at the beginning of the 20th Century, and works its way up to the present day, exploring the anti-American attitude of these movements in detail. Horowitz shows that the enemies of the US back then are largely the same group today, operating under the same misperceptions, making the same mistakes, and pursuing the same impossible utopia.

Individual chapters are included on the Patriot Act (I was persuaded that it is a GOOD thing); the democratic flip-flop on Iraq once G.W. Bush implemented what they agreed with Clinton needed to be done; the driving components of the current anti-war movement; as well as chapters on individual personalities who are major spokespeople of the Left. Horowitz covers a lot of ground, and he covers it concisely and clearly. Unholy Alliance is richly informative without ever being boring or plodding.

This book is so illuminating that I simply cannot do justice to it here. I love people who reason so clearly that they help me get my own reasoning clear. Horowitz is just that type of person! In the terrain of mindless clichés (no-blood-for-oil, etc.), he is a breath of real fresh air.

[BIV]

I don’t think Cheney went over to the ME to say goodbye to his oil buddies or to greet Halliburton lifers or to surrender.

He was delivering a message to Iran. Maybe just a warning instead of a war plan session, but I’d guess it was both.

I don’t think Bush will leave office with a nuclear-armed Iran blackmailing its neighbors and threatening Israel. But, he has disappointed me before.

[BOBTHENAILER]

Thanks for all the great pings today. Printed most of them for reading tonight.

[Kenny Bunk]

The Shiite millenial mindset is so alien to Westerners that it is hard to take seriously, or at least seriously enough.

The Shiites look forward to the end of the world when the planet is destroyed and when every living soul is killed, as a joyous occasion. It is they, the Good Shiite Muslims, who will then be taken into Paradise on a fast track ...faster if one is a martyr. Infidels, and even Bad Muslims, will become their slaves in Paradise for all eternity. Call it the Shiite Rapture.

This will give Allah the chance to start over with a clean slate and build a perfect Shiite world. In effect, the Shiite Theological End Game might well be stated as:

Armageddon? Bring it on, infidels!

These are the people with whom some would like to talk ... negotiate. They'll talk for as long as it takes them to develop the means of the nuclear exchange with Israel or anyone else, that will bring their millenium (and they hope everyone else's) to an end, giving them the holy martyrdom, the destiny for which Shiites pray.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Interesting post!

[Ilya Mourometz]

This is serious stuff that I’ve been following for a while. I studied ancient Iran and India and have maintained a lifelong interest in the region. Shiite millenarianism is more prevelant in Iran, which in many ways is the true birthplace of the great monotheistic religions (starting with zoroaastrianism), and partly because of that, it’s also always been a hotbed of “endtimes” thinking.

What I’m getting at is that there is enough in Iranian cultural history going way back before Islam to feed into a millenarian mindset that isn’t as easily explained as, say, the kind of nutjob endtimers that, for instance, holed up in a cave in Russia last month. These guys in Iran are a helluva lot more serious about it and the twelvers, for instance, have been planning for this for a long, long time. It’s not some whim or fad that happens to affect a fringe element.

Basically, all shiites believe in the notion that the hidden imam will reveal himself. The divisions are between those who believe that the last real imam was the 5th, 7th, or 12th caliph. At any rate, in Iran, the shiites largely took on a particularly apocalyptic vision of the Imam’s return which, as I understand it, is more characteristic of twelvers than the fivers and seveners (who tend to live in places like Pakistan and Iraq—not all shiites are alike anymore than all Protestants are alike just because they aren’t Roman Catholics).

Up till recently, this never was a great cause for concern because shi’ism was historically very non-political. That changed with the Ayatollah Khomeni in the 1940s who, in a purely objective sense, was possibly the most important shiite leader of the last 500 years precisely because he transformed a somewhat morbid, death-obsessed, politically quiet sect into a powerful political force. This was only possible because Khomeni also happened to be a nationalist opposed to the US relationship with the Shah.

In transforming the religion into a political powerhouse, Khomeni ultimately directed that apocalyptic impulse against the US and, to a lesser extent Israel. This is important—Israel is and always has been of secondary concern to radical shiism. The US has always been the great satan to them. Even this might have amounted to a passing movement in the 60s, except that Khomeni came back to Iran after years of exile (in France, of course—like most muslim radicals of all stripes, his political ideology came from leftist french intellectuals living in lebanon in the 1950s).

Most Americans who weren’t around in the 70s think it was a shiite, religious iranian revolution, but it wasn’t at first. It was much more like the Russian revolution and like that revolution, which was hijacked by the bolsheviks, the iranian revolution was hijacked by Khomeni’s backer—all at Carter’s invitation. In order to calm what was a grassroots, populist overthrow of the Shah, Jimmy Carter and the French basically agreed that the Iranian mob needed someone to keep a lid on things, so they deliberately brought Khomeni in.

In order to unify the revolution, Khomeni did the obvious (in addition to executing bundles of non shiites)—he made the US the enemy and had the students take over the embassy. Anywhoo, fast forward, and you have those same people inspired by Khomeni’s anti-american rhetoric now in charge, only this time, on the verge of getting nukes (in fact, it’s widely believed that Ahmadenijad was one of those hostage-taking students at the embassy).

Carter’s incredibly inept handling of the Iranian revolution is easily the worst foreign policy debacle in American History—worse than anything the left can say about Iraq or Vietnam by an hundredfold at least. It has led, by deliberate steps, to a situation in which a large group of apocalyptic nutjobs who literally view the US as a satanic entity are within a few years or months of being able to spark Armageddon. It’s only too convenient that the Sunni style apocalyptic cult, the wahabbists, led by Osama bin Laden, are on the same page. Oh yeah, and there’s Jimmy once again, trying to f*ck things up in the region. But then again, he’s on record as being an apocalyptic christian—or did you all forget that?

Scary stuff.

[CGVet58]

bttt

[nuconvert]

While I can quibble with some other aspects of your post, this one really stands out: “This was only possible because Khomeni also happened to be a nationalist opposed to the US relationship with the Shah.”

Of all things, Khomeini wasn’t, it was a Nationalist. He had absolutely no loyalty or interest in the culture and country of Iran,- and said so from the moment he stepped off the plane when he returned from France - except as a vehicle to further his religious ambitions.
His brand of shiism - his invention - Khomeinism, called for allegiance to him and to allah, not the State.

To think that the regime is or has been interested in what’s best for Iran and Iranians, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Revolution and the regime is all about. Unfortunately, there are many in Washington (and in the media) who don’t get it.

[astounded]

...”To think that the regime is or has been interested in what’s best for Iran and Iranians, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Revolution and the regime is all about. Unfortunately, there are many in Washington (and in the media) who don’t get it.”

I agree. The regime does not equate with the “people”. The latter are hostage - for the most part - to islamic radicalism. There are grave dangers there that need to be addressed - sooner than later.

[Ilya Mourometz]

We can agree to disagree. Khomeini authored numerous Iranian nationalist poems from the 1940s onward; he despised the arab states—including those that were majority shiite, he refused to even consider recognition of the term “arabian gulf”, etc. The purpose of the revolution was to overthrow the Shah, not to create the Islamic republic. It was largely motivated by middle class landowners—a recently created group that didn’t even exist until major land reforms that began in the 1950s. The Iranian middle class flexed their muscles for more political freedom to go along with their new economic freedoms and the Shah responded with a massive crackdown. This led to the “pressure cooker” effect and caused the revolution to explode. It was not about radical shiism or Khomeini at first, but had been brewing for some time. No person can seriously claim that post-revolutionary Iranian shi’ism can be understood outside of the context of Iranian culture. It is precisely because of this that the revolution never spread in all these years, despite iran’s attempt to use Hizbollah in this fashion.

The inability to see that nationalism, politics and religion are inseparably mixed in post-revolutionary iran is what has been the great failing of American policy toward Iran. It’s the mistaken notion that it’s strictly about religion (as we understand religion) that’s caused the US to consistently misread what’s been going on over there for thirty years. Iran was America’s strongest non-European ally for nearly forty years and it could have survived the overthrow of the Shah; only because of Carter’s utter incompentence did that reverse course.

[nuconvert]

“The purpose of the revolution was to overthrow the Shah, not to create the Islamic republic.”

In the eyes of the people who were in favor of the revolution, yes. They had no idea what was coming.
It’s important to separate the anti-Shah group who were not interested in a strict islamic country, from the Khomeini followers & loyalists.

The nationalism you speak of in post-Shah Iran is a tool used by the regime to placate and control the people and further the regime’s own agenda. It’s used to make the regime seem like one of the people. The regime is not interested in Iranian/Persian culture before the time of Mohammed. They would prefer it never existed.

Did you know that Persian was not Khomeini’s native tongue? And that he never spoke it well?

Yes, politics and religion are inseparable under Khomeinism. But Nationalism is used as a means to an end because the people are nationalistsic, not the regime.

And yes, “Iran was America’s strongest non-European ally” under the Shah, and “Carter’s utter incompentence did that reverse course.”

[nuconvert]

Correction: “In the eyes of the people who were in favor of the revolution”

I should have written, In the eyes of the people who were in favor of the overthrow of the Shah.

[Ilya Mourometz]

I think we’re actually in agreement for the most part. I don’t know whether the leaders of Iran since Khomeini did or didn’t have any stake in Iranian culture, but I suspect that they didn’t—at least their public pronouncements seem to indicate that. To be fair, stories of them destroying Persepolis or exterminating the few zoroastrians left in the country turned out to be false (in fact, there remains relatively healthy jewish community in western iran). On the other hand, as a general rule, they are not interested in the pre-islamic past. I agree that to the extent they rely on nationalism, it’s merely a tool to sway the masses.

I also agree that the people of Iran remain staunchly “iranian” insofar as that means they identify with their glorious past and accomplishments; and that this probably exceeds their adherence to the post-Khomeini cult that Ahmadinejhad is trying to enforce and spread into the rest of the region. In the end, though, I think he in particular is a true apocalyptic sort and possibly the most dangerous man on the planet right now irrespective of whether he’s able to spread his brand of shi’ism into Iraq and beyond.

I don’t think it’s that significant that Khomeini wasn’t a native speaker of Persian. Many, if not most, Iranians don’t speak Persian as their native tongue. There are dozens of languages in Iran; Persians are the ruling elites, but they are a minority (think about 30% or so). The turkic speakers may outnumber those who speak persian, kurdish, and other indoiranian tongues. I used to know the numbers but don’t have them handy.