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Turnabout

You know, it's funny ... up until 1979 Iran under the Shah was, with some variations in policy from administration to administration, our main regional security partner and a major energy supplier. In addition, Iran served as a listening post for American intelligence agencies working against the Soviet Union, and theoretically was the first line of defense against a possible Red invasion. Over time, the Iranian public grew increasingly anti-American as the Shah's rule grew more erratic, authoritarian, and as Iran's spiralling inflation and rapid urbanization fostered economic hardship and social upheaval.

Today, by contrast, Iran--or at least its government and a minority of its population--is a sworn enemy of the United States and, increasingly, Red-ish China's regional energy partner and a perceived front line against a rapidly encroaching United States. Russia also has important ties to Iran, of course, as does India, with whom Iran has agreed to share bases in the event of another war with Pakistan. All of these relationships--coupled with Iran's position as a major oil supplier to the OECD countries--suggest (operational difficulties aside) that the probability of a U.S. airstrike on Iranian nuclear facilities is low despite Hershian intimations to the country. To say nothing of an outright U.S. invasion. So despite the fact that Iran is now surrounded by thousands of U.S. men and war materiel, it does have some room to maneuver.

One seriously problematic element that hasn't been discussed too much (although here's some vaguely informative analysis on the state of play from the mysterious Asia Times) is that the likely reaction among the GCC countries to a rising Iran will be to want to buy more advanced military hardware. (Aside: did you know that the UAE's F-16s are better than ours? Too bad they have to import British and Indian pilots to operate them, eh? That was one of Richard Clarke's major boo-boos IMHO.) Although that may cheer the folks at Lockheed Martin Corp., I'm not so sure it's good for America or the region. I'm far from the resident economics expert on this blog, but my understanding is that windfall oil profits--more on the way?--tend to get invested in military hardware to the detriment of genuine economic and social development. Some of the Gulf monarchies--Kuwait, Qatar, parts of the UAE--are beginning to understand and act upon the need to invest in butter (particularly education), although they still like to buy guns in large quantities. According to Hossein Askari, a scholar at George Washington University writing in this fall's National Interest, about 43% of what the Saudi regime spends goes to the military in some form, and the comparable figure for the UAE is around 39%. That's no good, and we need to stop being their enablers. To make matters worse, these deals tend to be incredibly corrupt as unelected princes often take gargantuan "finder's fees" in the process. And who really knows where all of that less-than-transparent money ends up?

So number six in my list of suggestions over at Dean Nation might have been a call that the United States resist the urge to make huge arms deals in the region, because ultimately it may be self-defeating. The ousting of Saddam, despite the instability it has unleashed, ought to make such a policy easier to follow. Unless, of course Iran gets more aggressive. In which case we will also need to think long and hard about what we have learned from the 90s with respect to the kind of bases and offers of protection we plan to offer these countries.

UPDATE: I'm not sure that investing huge sums in gargantuan real estate projects is particularly wise, either. We'll see.