Hosam Matar, Al-akhbar English, Published Friday, September 28, 2012
A major dilemma faces all ideological powers about how to resolve the
tensions between their material-based interests and value-based
interests; it is the choice between realism and idealism. In this
regional moment known as “The Arab Spring,” almost all regional powers
are facing this challenge, including Iran - as an ideological Islamic
actor.
The “political interpretation” of religious identity views culture
and religion as one of many variables defining the behavior of
international actors; as opposed to the “anthropological conception” of
religious identity which presupposes it to have an essentialist and
determinant nature without considering the material factors. The second
approach fails to give powerful explanations in the case of Iran. It is
usually used to argue that Iran is a “Martyr State” or “Mad State” that
is motivated by messianic ideology and controlled by extremist
Ayatollahs.
This notion of a “Martyr State” is usually used to deny the
possibility to deter or contain nuclear Iran, making the best option
military action against Iranian “military” nuclear facilities. This view
of Iran’s “Irrational Fanaticism” is influenced by focus on Iranian
discourse and rhetoric more than on its behavior, but as Ray Takeyh
(senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign
Relations) says, “Iran is a country whose rhetoric is always worse than
its conduct.” Moreover, Iran perceives its relation with the US as a
“Chicken Game,” where the best strategy is “claiming insanity” and
"brinkmanship," which Iran repeatedly uses. This approach lacks
credibility and empirical evidences, and is mainly used for political
reasons.
So, the influence of Iran’s
religious identity over foreign policy cannot be perfectly understood
without understanding its interactive relation with material factors,
where the relative weight of these variables is flexible and subject to
evolution according to time and national and international contexts.
Ayatollah Rafsanjani in an interview 2003 insisted that the relative
weight of ideology [Islam] and national interest in foreign policy
decision making depends on the circumstances of a particular case at a
given point of time.
In spite of its ideological character, Iran considers strategic
calculations about material factors, like: economy, balance of power,
and security. The Iranian regime is deeply aware of the need to save its
revolutionary Islamic character while balancing it with material
conditions; this is because pure Islam will protect the “Republic” and
the Republic’s independence will keep Islam pure. The Iranian leadership
is aware that some of its declared Islamic interests cannot be saved at
certain moments due to limits in material conditions; from here, the
leadership realized the need to rank these interests according to their
importance, in order to direct the material capabilities to save the
most important when needed. In this way, culture, mainly religion,
informs and in many ways determines the priorities of foreign policy.
This ranking of religious-based interests is based on the interaction
of the following variables. First, how much these religious interests
simultaneously reinforce Iran’s national interests? Second, how much
these interests have a strong symbolism and sacred power in Muslims’
minds and hearts, and their centrality in the ideological discourse of
the Islamic Republic and their relation to “Mahdism.” Third, is how much
impact these religious interests have on the legitimacy of Iran’s
Islamic role at the national, Shia and Islamic levels.
The outcome of this interaction of material-religious variables is,
however, affected by many elements that have significant meaning for the
Iranian leadership, including: survival, rationality, and political
interpretation of religious texts.
The state’s survival, according to realism, is the ultimate interest;
nevertheless, survival-seeking behavior in the international system
depends on the actors’ theories of what it takes to survive, and
religion can affect this in diverse and significant ways, as Snyder
argues. Snyder criticizes Waltz, who writes as if it can be taken for
granted that the national interest of a state is its survival in its
existing form, but empirically “we know that the nation-state is not an
unproblematic billiard ball. The interest of the state is often in a
vexed relationship with the interest of the nation as a
religious-cultural unit.”
Even though Iran is not suicidal, the cult of martyrdom in Iranian
politico-religious discourse cannot be ignored, as Shiism is so
sensitive to this concept. So, Iranian leadership is ready to take risks
and high costs in order to save certain Islamic interests according to
their importance, so the cost–benefit analysis is based on material and
religious scale. At this point, it is necessary to examine Iranian
leadership rationality.
It is useful to refer to G. Hossein Razi’s (Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston) work, An Alternative Paradigm to State Rationality in Foreign Policy: The Iran-Iraq War.
Razi argues that the assumption of equal rationality of states promoted
by rational theories ignores both domestic policies and the elite’s
role in foreign policy. The individuals who make up foreign-policy
elites are “neither exclusively creatures of reason, nor solely a bundle
of subconscious impulses and nonintellectual drives, but a combination
of both, the mix of which is not constant in time, even for the same
elite, or across space.” And since foreign-policy elites vary in their
beliefs, images, motivation and propensity toward rationality, a set of
identical objective internal and external constraints do not
automatically convert into identical decisions. So, Razi emphasizes the
need to understand foreign policy also through cognitive empathy which
is based on knowing a leader’s beliefs, images, and motivations. This
paradigm is crucial for understanding Iranian foreign policy, where
religion’s role is extremely active, having a dominant position for
religious leadership and informal structures headed by pro-regime
elites.
So Iran as a strategic ideological actor may sometimes
choose religious interests even when they contradict deeply with its
material interests, for example:
- First, when the religious interests are directly related to both
“Mahdism” and the legitimacy of the Islamic role of Iran, internally and
externally according to these interests’ high sacred power and their
persistence in Iranian religious discourse.
- Second, when the Supreme Leader holds a world view and religious
understanding that rejects compromise and prefers revolutionary actions,
especially when he has a president in power sharing the same visions.
- Third, in the moments of high internal tensions that may threaten the
legitimacy of the Islamic regime, such interests may prevail in order
to cover the loss of popular legitimacy with that of Islamic legitimacy.
- Fourth, when policy-makers fail to recognize or undermine the
material costs of promoting religious interest according to lack of
information or “irrational” calculations, as metaphysical power. Brenda
Shaffer concludes that cultural interests may be promoted when the
material trade-offs are unknown to the decision-makers; for that, the
amount of information impacts the degree that culture can influence
foreign policy.
In conclusion, Iran’s experience in balancing religious and material
interests has evolved through time, and, as Dehshiri and Majidi argue –
in Iran’s Foreign Policy in Post-Revolution Era: A Holistic Approach
– Iran’s foreign policy has succeeded in balancing its religious ideals
and pragmatism, as well as the national and transnational interests of
the Islamic “Ummah” by taking into account the constraints of the
international and regional systems while preserving its identity and
principles. Thus, they conclude, the Islamic Republic of Iran becomes a
model to be emulated on the world stage. This balancing process can
explain many ambiguities in Iranian foreign policy since 1979 up until
the “Arab Spring,” including the Syrian crisis.
Hosam Matar is a Lebanese researcher of International Relations.
