Fletcher Graduate Sounds Warning On Iran

In an op-ed column, a Fletcher graduate and Middle East expert says that unless we appeal to the younger, more politically frustrated population of Iran, the Islamic state could pose a major nuclear threat to the United States.

Medford/Somerville, Mass. [12.3.04] In the wake of an agreement between Iran and European nations to halt the enrichment of uranium in the Islamic state, a Fletcher graduate and expert on Middle East issues says that the threat from Iran is still significant, but the United States has options besides military invention.

“Just imagine a country with one of the world's largest oil and gas reserves possessing a nuclear bomb and that is ideologically obsessed with the United States,” Cyrus Partovi wrote of Iran in an op-ed column for the The Oregonian of Portland, Ore.

Partovi, a senior lecturer in the Department of International Affairs at Lewis and Clark University in Portland, Ore., graduated from the Fletcher School in 1969 and is considered a specialist in Middle East politics and U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy.

Citing an Islamic principle known as Taqiah – meaning dissimulation – Partovi says that an international agreement agreed to by Iran can be broken because the rule says that the clerics leading the country are justified in deceiving their enemies.

“In other words, Taqiah trumps Iran's commitment to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.” He cautions, “One would hope that the International Atomic Energy Agency and the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Great Britain who seemed enamored by the Iranian charm offensive are fully aware of Taqiah.”

Iran has come to view the possession of a nuclear weapon as central to their continued sovereignty, Partovi says.

“They know that possession of a nuclear bomb has ensured the survival of the North Korean regime, and they intend to buy the same insurance.”

While Iran has met with international opposition to its plan to develop its nuclear program – especially from the United States, which hoped to bring the matter before the U.N. Security Council prior to Iran’s accord with the European powers – Partovi says that Iran is “in a win-win situation.”

Besides the Taqiah trumping any agreements with the IAEA and European nations, Iran’s nationalistic populace holds a strong belief that a sovereign Iran is entitled to nuclear defenses, he writes.

Also, Iran is aware that the United States, an avowed ideological foe, is mired in Middle East issues ranging from efforts to rebuild Iraq and fight insurgents there to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Therefore, whatever happens, the mullahs are in the driver's seat,” Partovi concludes. “All they care about is to remain in power. Nothing else matters.”

While Iran has been rumored to be a future military target of the United States, which is known to be wary of the nation’s nuclear development, Partovi says that the U.S. should focus its energies on tapping the support of reform-minded Iranians who elected President Mohammed Khatami.

Partovi says several Iranians are “voters who have come to regret their naiveté in believing that a smiling mullah [Khatami] could save them from 23 years of theocratic nightmare.”

The key to stemming the threat of violence from Iran, Partovi believes, is reaching out to the younger population of Iran, which is politically motivated and dissatisfied with the nation’s current rule. He writes that 65 percent of Iranians are less than 25 years of age and that “they aspire to the same freedoms as we treasure.”

“Unlike in the rest of the Arab world, whenever possible young Iranians have shown their affection for America,” Partovi says. “The Bush administration must identify itself with this young, frustrated generation.”

Partovi suggests that the first salvos should be fired on the airwaves, not the battlefields. Giving satellite and shortwave radio abilities to Iranian opposition forces will provide a crucial conduit for information and communication.

“It will send a powerful signal to the Iranian student movement that Washington is serious about removing the clerics,” he wrote, warning “short of that we are in for a long nightmare.”