Iran and US are rivals, not partners

Until a few weeks ago, advocates of dialogue with the Islamic Republic of Iran claimed that this was the only way to prevent the mullahs from doing mischief. Now, the tune seems to be changing. The "dialogue" is now presented not only as a means of preventing mischief but also as a way of persuading the mullahs to do good.

According to this new argument, the mullahs could join the "right side" in the name of "common interests".

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton started the chorus by insisting that Iran had a role to play in promoting regional peace. Richard Holbrooke, the US presidential envoy to southwest Asia, followed by musing about the contribution that Iran could make to stabilising Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those statements triggered a torrent of speculation about the Islamic Republic's role in helping the US achieve its objectives in the Middle East. This led to some rather comical suggestions such as the one, advanced by some "experts", that the US use a newly completed road that connects Afghanistan to the open seas via Iran.

The road, we are told, could replace the current logistical route passing through Pakistan that the US has used since 2001. The Pakistan route has been under attack from the Taliban, especially in the strategic Khyber Pass. The decision by Kyrgyzstan to close a US air base near Bishkek further complicates the task of supplying Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Thus, the Iranian route appears as an attractive alternative.

Still, there remains the fact that the Iranian route is vulnerable to attacks by Baloch rebels. More importantly, perhaps, could anyone imagine the US depending on the mullahs for the task of supplying its troops in Afghanistan?

The claim that Iran and the US could become the best of buddies is based on the belief that they have shared interests in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Both US and Iran wish to see Afghanistan and Iraq stabilised, Holbrooke tells us.

Neither Washington nor Tehran would want to see the Taliban return to power in Kabul. The Americans do not want the Taliban because they had sheltered the terrorists who brought about the 9/11 attacks. Tehran does not want the Taliban because they represent the most vicious form of sectarian bigotry aimed against Iran's brand of Islam. A similar argument could be made about Iraq.

The US does not want the remnants of the Baath to return to power in Baghdad to prepare for revenge. The mullahs share that desire because they know that such a regime could become their worst enemy. The problem with that analysis, however, is that it assumes too much and ignores a great deal.

True, Iran and the US have an interest in stability in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, each wants its own brand of stability.

The US wants Afghanistan and Iraq to achieve stability through democratisation, closer ties to the West, and faster inclusion in the international system. Iran regards that kind of stability as a threat. It dreads the prospect of becoming a theocratic tyranny sandwiched between two democracies to its east and west.

Tehran's theocrats want their own political siblings to stabilise Afghanistan and Iraq as part of what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls "the Islamic bloc" in a war of civilisations.

In other words, in Afghanistan as in Iraq, Washington and Tehran may appear to want the same thing while in reality they want the exact opposite. The Islamic Republic and the US work with different constituencies in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The US is trying to build a new elite in Afghanistan based on the emerging urban middle classes and the ethnic Tajik community that accounts for about 32 per cent of the population.

Iran, on the other hand, has forged special relations with the Hazara Shiites and ethnic Uzbeks while bribing some Pushtun groups to encourage opposition to the American presence.

While Kabul and much of northern Afghanistan could be regarded as an American influence zone, most provinces in the west and northwest of the country are under Iranian influence. These are areas that, under British pressure, Iran ceded to the then newly created Afghan state in the Treaty of Paris (1856).

In Iraq, the US is depending on the Kurds, a good chunk of Arab Shiites, and at least a third of the Arab Sunnis to build a secular democracy. Tehran, on the other hand, depends on Islamists, both among the Arabs and the Kurds, to advance its interests.

Far from being potential partners in Afghanistan and Iraq, as Holbrooke and others seem to think, Iran and the US are rivals, to say the least. To be sure, this need not exclude dialogue or even an accord between Iran and the United States.

However, such a dialogue and any eventual accord would repeat the Yalta experience under which the United States and Britain allowed the Soviet Union to carve its zone of influence in eastern and central Europe.

At that time, too, the Western powers and the former Soviet Union shared common interests in Europe, most especially in making sure that the Nazis and their allies did not return to power in any form. Both wanted stability in Europe. But the Europe that Stalin wanted was quite different from the Europe that Roosevelt and Churchill hoped for.

Over the past 66 years there have been countless debates about whether or not the Western powers should have allowed Stalin to carve an empire in Europe.

Many believe that the Treaty of Yalta was a betrayal by the Western democracies of the eastern and central European nations. Others argue that Roosevelt and Churchill had no choice because they could not have persuaded their people to support a new war to prevent Stalin from acquiring an empire. In other words, the surrender in Yalta was dictated by historic necessity.

The question for those who urge a new Yalta, this time with Iran, is whether or not capitulating to the mullahs is a similar necessity.

Amir Taheri is an Iranian writer based in Europe.