Enigma Variations

"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia," Winston Churchill famously declared in a 1939 radio broadcast. "It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." In today's world, the same might be said of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In both instances, too little is known of the sources of power within the country, too little is known of the motivations of the persons exerting that power, and too little is known of the conflicting pressures to which they are responding. In both cases, our ignorance is partly -- but only partly -- our own fault.

These thoughts are prompted by two conflicting articles appearing in today's press. In the New York Times, Michael Slackman writes from Tehran that the economic hardships and international isolation imposed by America's foreign policy is actually helping the hardliners secure their hold over the nation. The hardliners, led by President Ahmadinejad and the religious leadership, are less afraid of a military strike from the West than they are of a "velvet revolution," similar to those that undermined various Communist regimes. They fear that increased prosperity and contact with the international community would gradually weaken Islamic fundamentalism's hold over the people. Therefore, they have consistently worked to undermine the moderating influence of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and to marginalize him as a political influence in the country.

President Ahmadinejad holds power at the sufferance of the religious leadership, and especially that of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's so-called Supreme Leader. As long as Ahmadinejad's aggressive foreign policy and repressive domestic rule further the religious objectives of the ayatollahs, he will remain useful and will stay in power. So far, Slackman writes, the president retains their confidence. As Ayatollah Khamenei commented last week, in reference to the West's attempts to hold back Iran's development of nuclear capabilities: "Iran will defeat these drunken and arrogant powers using its artful and wise ways."

On the other hand, Barbara Slavin writes from Washington, in USA Today, that opponents of President Ahmadinejad took over two powerful governmental positions this week, constituting a major setback for the president. Rafsanjani, rather than being marginalized, has now been elected president of the Assembly of Experts, a religious convocation of Shiite clerics that appoints the Supreme Leader himself. He is expected to make this assembly a more active governing body. And Ayatollah Khamenei replaced the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, the most powerful military force in the country and a military force that Bush reportedly wants to designate as a "terrorist organization." The new commander, Mohammed Ali Jafari, is no liberal domestically, but has favored increased negotiations with the United States on various issues, including the nuclear capability issue.

According to an Iran analyst for the U.S. Navy -- for whatever that opinion is worth -- Khamenei is fed up with President Ahmadinejad's confrontational approach toward the West, and is acting to moderate his approach to foreign policy.

Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer choice.

My instincts tell me that isolation of countries, economically and politically, only tightens a dictator's power by giving him an external threat against which to rally his country. At the same time, all the economic hardships are borne by the very citizens we say we are hoping to help. Cuba is the obvious example of such a foreign policy that has achieved nothing, nothing except securing votes from south Florida for American politicians.

Foreign policy is an art, however, not a science. What works in one instance may be counter-productive in another. Our uncertainty is heightened in situations like Iran -- as in Stalinist Russia -- where we have so little reliable information regarding the conflicting political ideologies, opposing personalities, and economic forces at work.

"May you live in interesting times," goes the ancient Chinese curse. We certainly do. Stability in Iran -- a fascinating and often underrated civilization -- would be a major favorable development for our world. It is unclear, at this time, whether President Bush's policy toward Iran will be his one significant foreign policy success, or whether it will have recklessly unified the Iranian people for years to come behind repressive political and religious rulers.