Font size: 
The Middle East is soaking up the windfall generated by the Bush-Cheney dividend, no country more eagerly than Iran. High oil revenues have enabled the mullahcracy to mitigate some of the adverse public impact of its incompetent and kleptocratic policies, and have given the Khameini-led administration a voice in the Middle East that is several decibels higher than Iran's nearest competitor for influence, Saudi Arabia.
In terms of popularity, despite their Shiite faith, both Iranian Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khameini and his poster boy, President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, would defeat by a wide margin any other ruler in the region, thanks principally to their perceived defiance of the Bush administration. Since talk of a possible U.S.- Israeli military strike on Iran gained traction in 2004, Tehran has moved silently and swiftly to expand its network within the region.
Even in Dubai, a city-state where the ruling ideology is commerce, there is a substantial Iranian presence. This is not only through the state's historically influential Persian community, a numerically small group that controls one-third of local businesses.
Oil revenue has enabled the creation of numerous links between the business elite in Iran and their counterparts in the rest of the region, giving the country a footprint not seen since the early 1970s,when the withdrawal of the British to "east of Suez" led to the Shah of Iran appointing himself as the regional successor to the empire. The cost of the military buildup that followed wrecked the social contract between the Shah and his people and opened the way to the 1979 takeover by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Few within the region agree with the latest U.S. intelligence reports that suggest Iran has abandoned its quest for security through the development of nuclear weapons. Many see in the clean chit indications of a deal between the mullahcracy and the Bush administration that would reduce Iranian assistance to insurgents in Iraq in exchange for a promise not to militarily attack Iran.
Defying the United States and getting away with it would substantially increase the already high credibility that Iran enjoys in the Middle East as the country that can challenge the Bush administration. Both religious and national security figures in Tehran have fanned out across the region, warning apprehensive rulers that a U.S., NATO or Israeli attack would be met by the ignition of subversion throughout the region. In view of the discrimination faced by the Shiite population in almost all the authoritarian states in the region, this segment of the population is seen as vulnerable to recruitment by Tehran.
However, they are not alone. Key elements of the religious establishment, as well as large chunks of the young, have recently demonstrated a willingness to join hands with their Iranian counterparts in telling the United States and its allies where to get off. Almost as much as Israeli policies toward the West Bank and Gaza, what has humiliated Arabs is the military occupation of Iraq and the U.S. refusal to bring to account its own nationals who have shot and killed civilians even in situations where the latter were unarmed.
More than one-third of local oil workers in Saudi Arabia's oil-producing districts are of the same Shiite faith as Grand Ayatollah Ali Khameini. So are the overwhelming majority of the population in Bahrain and significant proportions of the populations in the region's other sheikhdoms.
Add to this a religious establishment that is, although Sunni, uneasy at its rulers perceived silence in the face of ground realities in Iraq and around Israel; and a youth that is returning to the political rhetoric and anti-Western radicalism of a Gamal Abdel Nasser, disillusioned with the meager returns of hard-line Islamism. Thus the pool of sympathizers of the mullahcracy is growing steadily in the Middle East, enabling an expansion of well-funded Iranian networks.
Unlike the Saudi authorities, who lavish cash even on individuals and institutions outside their control, the authorities in Tehran are careful to direct funds only to those entities that are responsive to their advice and geopolitical -- as distinct from religious -- worldview. Even in Saudi Arabia, especially since 2003, networks linked to Tehran have multiplied, although most are dormant, awaiting activation in the eventuality of a military strike on Iran.
It is small wonder that most of the region's elites are as opposed to a strike on Iran as Bush's Democratic opponents within the United States. While the effects of a surgical missile strike against nuclear facilities could be contained, the worry is that there would be a robust Iranian reaction to such an Osirak-style operation. That could lead to all-out bombing of military facilities in Iran, which in turn could lead to an extreme Iranian reaction, such as the attempted launch of long-range missiles into Israel. At this point, oil prices could be expected to double.
The fact that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas returned empty-handed from the Annapolis meeting has added to the popularity of Hamas in the West Bank, thus making it likely that the organization would win in any future poll within the territory. Israel's blockade of Gaza has led to a feeling of both helplessness and anger throughout the Arab world, which is daily given precise information on the sufferings of the local population. Those living inside the West Bank are not faring much better. Such policies are custom-made to generate jihad.
Until Israel withdraws fully from those parts of the Palestinian territory that it regards as inessential to its long-term plans for an expanded state, and allows the local population in Gaza and the West Bank to have access to the outside world, the economic development needed to dampen the desire for revenge will not take place. Gaza needs an international airport and seaport so the territory can be made into a second Dubai.
Within the region, there exist the financial resources to create such a transformation, while within Gaza, the human resources are plentiful and of high quality. Gazans need access to jobs and education if they are to be prevented from volunteering for a futile jihad against the region's Sparta, Israel. Sadly, in their professed desire for a "full" Palestinian state, neither Bush nor his attractive but ineffective secretary of state seems to be paying any attention to the economic plight of the Gazans and those living in the West Bank who are not Israeli settlers.
This unwillingness to ensure the basic elements of a civilized lifestyle to the Palestinians is adding thrust to Iranian diplomacy in the region. These days, any local ruler seen to take an anti-Iran position may face anger from his own citizens, who will see in such a posture yet another example of subservience to the United States.
The steady Iranian progression toward nuclear capability seems to be moving closer toward what was until recently considered the irresistible force of a U.S. military response. The pathetic spectacles of Iraq and Afghanistan -- where top U.S. and NATO commanders go begging for support from tribal and other jihadi elements ready to temporarily cease offensive operations in exchange for favors -- have led to a widespread belief within the region that after North Vietnam, the next Third World country to humble the United States will be Iran.
And just in case Washington does not blink, the rulers in Tehran are quietly building up their retaliatory capacity throughout the region on which much of the world depends for its energy needs.
--
(Professor M.D. Nalapat is vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and professor of geopolitics at Manipal University. ©Copyright M.D. Nalapat.)
