IRAN’S CHANGING politics have been a central concern of the Obama administration during its first year in office. President Obama pledged to engage Tehran comprehensively at first, hoping to influence its nuclear policies, internal politics and regional approach from Afghanistan to Israel. The bitter political conflict over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed victory in last June’s presidential elections dramatically changed this script and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton now says Iran is moving towards a military dictatorship.
Her comments signal a sea change in US policy away from a broad engagement, following the failure to deliver on it by both sides. It has suited Mr Ahmadinejad to resist US efforts for a dialogue as he suppressed continuing domestic opposition and forged a closer relationship with the Islamic revolutionary guard which forms the backbone of his regime. They are an extraordinarily powerful group in Iran, militarily, politically – and economically because they control many sectors such as construction, oil and gas, import-export and communications. This makes the guards not only the principal focus of Mrs Clinton’s fears about military rule but the main targets of her gathering campaign for tougher international sanctions.
She says military groups are displacing Iran’s civilian leadership and political institutions. “It’s a far cry from the Islamic republic that had elections and different points of view within the leadership circle”. Independent analysts believe it is probably wrong to counterpose the two, since the top political leadership is encouraging militarisation and disparages the political opposition in more and more extreme terms. The extent to which that opposition endures and can revive is not at all clear, nor how it will respond to increasing economic difficulties which would be made worse by external sanctions.
What then is the political objective of Mrs Clinton’s intervention? She made these remarks on a visit to stiffen Saudi and other Gulf leaders’ support for sanctions and their readiness to offer oil to China should it support sanctions at the United Nations. But is this diplomacy a prelude to a new policy of containing Iran and confronting it militarily, or rather a sophisticated intervention in its domestic politics intended to shift the balance of power back to the opposition? Ratcheting up sanctions can all too easily have the unintended consequence of strengthening the military by giving them a patriotic excuse for greater internal repression against opponents painted as US agents.