As we are eagerly awaiting a breakthrough in the negotiations between the US and Iran, it is worth reflecting on a concept that has been flagged on several occasions by public officials and commentators alike. This is the idea that the US should not engage in further negotiations with the Iranians, but rather should re-start the military operation and, by doing so, “finish the job.”
It is not clear what this expression would mean in practice, but one can imagine it could be interpreted as proceeding with regime change, and installing a government less hostile to the US and its allies in the Middle East, starting with the monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula. In fact, anything short of regime change (e.g. stopping Iran’s nuclear program) would not amount to a finished job, as the existing regime could re-start its activities considered by the US as hostile. So, how likely is regime change? And what would a new regime less hostile to the US look like?
The answer to the first question is: very unlikely. To get to regime change, the US would need to pursue two potential paths that are currently not available as viable options. The first path would be a ground invasion (“boots on the ground”), an option that would require the US to deploy between 500,000 and 1 million soldiers and accept a high number of casualties. Trump does not seem inclined to accept those risks. The second path would be deploying nuclear weapons, as Trump alluded to when he mentioned his intention to eliminate “a whole civilisation” in one night. But that option is also currently unviable. If Trump deployed a nuclear weapon to prevent another country from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the result would be that all other countries in the region will want to have one, to make sure that they will not be attacked in the future. First countries on the list would be Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey, to begin with.
But let’s assume that the US finds a way to get to regime change that is politically acceptable and practically feasible. What would a new regime less hostile to the US look like? One should note that Iran did have a very different regime, a democratically elected one, in the 1950s. But in 1953 a coup orchestrated by the CIA and the US, at the instigation of Britain, which was pre-occupied with the nationalisation of the country’s large oil reserves (at that time exploited by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, later renamed British Petroleum, today’s BP) deposed the democratically elected government led by Mohammed Mossadegh and gave most powers to the Shah Reza Pahalavi.
The Shah led a regime that was certainly closer to Western interests and introduced a very Western approach in social life. But the country reacted to what was perceived as foreign interference and this led to the Islamic Revolution that brought Khomeini to power. The Islamic Republic that the US is confronting now is the result of that revolution. This is to remind everybody that any Western attempt to achieve regime change may actually lead to an outcome that is the opposite of the desired one.
Now, let’s assume that the US still manages to pursue and possibly obtain regime change in Iran. Even in that case, we should still dispel the myth that this would be akin to “finishing the job.” To prove this, one should look at the history of the country. Iranians are a proud civilisation that has existed, in different forms, over the last 2500-3000 years. They created an empire, which lasted around 200 years, from 550 B.C. circa to 330 BC circa, when it was defeated by the army of Alexander the Great, and became one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Europe’s Balkan Peninsula in the West to India’s Indus Valley in the East. The empire was a global hub of culture, religion, science, art, and technology. In 1971, the then Shah Reza Pahlavi celebrated the 2500th anniversary of the Persian empire, with a massive gathering in Persepolis, the old capital, which was re-built on purpose.
The Iranians only respect two major civilisations: the Greeks, to their West, because they were able to defeat their empire; and the Indians, to their East, because they are even older and equally developed from a social and technological standpoint. Iranians reportedly don’t like being called “Persians” because this was the name that the Greeks gave them. Even the mighty Romans, whose empire lasted more than thousand years, were defeated by the Iranians.
Iran is the land of the Aryans, and is therefore ethnically different from all the Arab countries of the Middle East. When they were conquered by Islam, they wanted to have their own version of it, the Shiite, not to be confused with the Sunni version of the Arab countries. Iranians had their own religion, the Zoroastrian before Islam; today still the Zoroastrian eagle is a symbol of the country.
Given this historical background, it is obvious that no short-term military campaign would be able to bring down this civilisation, which has been around for thousands of years. Also, this civilisation is proud of its differences compared to the surrounding ones, being Arabs, Indians, or Western. So, no regime that could be installed by foreign powers to rule the country can be made similar to its neighbours’; it cannot be “normalised” or made “compliant” to norms that are not produced by itself. In this sense, there’s nothing that current military campaigns can do to “finish the job,” because this is a job that cannot be finished.
