The Next 100 Years: Incentives

Today, incentives are structured in the U.S. to avoid thinking about the crucial challenges we face, so we are busy digging deeper the hole we are standing in.

Mankind faces two fundamental challenges that are external to the political system, i.e., not the result of faulty governance: climate change and population growth. Mankind’s response might be bottom-up, as suggested by the Occupy movement; all seven billion of us might slowly accept new cultural priorities. However, the behavior of government will surely have a huge impact, and by far the most influential government is that of the U.S. The U.S. government itself faces two constraints on its ability to rise to meet these challenges: its addiction to global military activism and its support of elite financial exploitation. With the natural leader of global governments thus distracted, an effective governmental response to the two major global challenges seems a long shot.

Washington’s international focus on using military force to spread its influence and its domestic focus on facilitating the enrichment of the super-rich at the expense of everyone else undermine its ability to address the two key external challenges. Focusing on the uncritical enrichment of all the rich rather than, say, allowing the enrichment of those who perform socially useful tasks while punishing those who behave irresponsibly is a critical failing. The choice is not between the wealthy and the poor: there is no obvious reason to assume that equality would lead to resolution of global problems. There is no obvious reason why the incentive of becoming rich in return for making greater contributions to society cannot be a socially responsible approach.

Abetting the mindless enrichment of the few, regardless of their behavior, on the other hand, clearly obstructs effective steps to meet common challenges. Playing the stock market using other people’s money with the assurance of government bailouts for all the rich who lose offers an enticing prospect for the rich that will suck away into meaningless financial contortions funds that could be employed for long-term projects of benefit to all, including projects to redesign society to meet the challenges of climatic and demographic change. A foreign policy that frames international issues in terms of military competition similarly drains away funds while simultaneously exacerbating social problems by destroying infrastructure and provoking refugee flows, to cite just two effects. Both financial exploitation and war are socially destructive forms of behavior that simultaneously drain away government resources and distract government from addressing real problems.

More, they create zero-sum psychological contexts that inhibit cooperation between the two sides. Concerning war, one need only note the difficulty of Israelis and Palestinians cooperating on a mutually beneficial program to share scarce water resources or the difficulty of Washington and the Taliban reaching agreement on a mutually beneficial program to develop Afghanistan’s economy amidst endless violence. Concerning finance, the lack of Wall St. efforts after the 2008 Financial Crisis it did so much to provoke to take responsibility for the damage it caused to the American public and the rapidity with which efforts to call the uber-rich to account were slandered as “class warfare” betray the same elite zero-sum perspective.

As Paul Krugman said back in 2009 in answer to his own question about why some bankers “suddenly” began making “vast fortunes” just before the 2008 collapse:

It was, we were told, a reward for their creativity — for financial innovation. At this point, however, it’s hard to think of any major recent financial innovations that actually aided society, as opposed to being new, improved ways to blow bubbles, evade regulations and implement de facto Ponzi schemes. [New York Times 4/26/09.]

Krugman goes on to point out that the issue concerned not just “the bankers” but the whole system, in which the government provided vast amounts of corporate welfare to promote their accumulation of wealth:

Wall Street is no longer, in any real sense, part of the private sector. It’s a ward of the state, every bit as dependent on government aid as recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a k a “welfare.”

I’m not just talking about the $600 billion or so already committed under the TARP. There are also the huge credit lines extended by the Federal Reserve; large-scale lending by Federal Home Loan Banks; the taxpayer-financed payoffs of A.I.G. contracts; the vast expansion of F.D.I.C. guarantees; and, more broadly, the implicit backing provided to every financial firm considered too big, or too strategic, to fail.

And, writing in 2009, Krugman of course did not refer to the scandalous bias, reported just recently, built into U.S. tax law permitting many of the richest corporations in the land completely to evade taxes in years when they made billions of dollars of profit.

Yet what has been the performance, three years after the onset of the 2008 Financial Crisis, of Big Finance in thanks for being handed the hard-earned dollars of “the 99%,” some 20 million of whom are now either officially unemployed, under-employed, or so discouraged they have dropped out of the market? In 2010 Big Finance foreclosed on an all-time record of over 1,000,000 homes. The Republican allies of Big Finance in Congress are advocating that Washington pull back from reforming the fraudulent foreclosure process, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)—who recently called the Occupy Wall St. protesters a “mob”—has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign support from Big Finance during 2011. Meanwhile, the acting Comptroller of the Currency John Walsh is telling us that foreclosure reform could take “a year,” but—pending such reform—of course the foreclosures conveniently continue [LA Times 9/23/11]. Banks, surprise-surprise, are still fabricating documents to promote foreclosure [America Blog 9/1/11]. As for Wall St. fraud, the possibility of perjury charges against Goldman Sachs CEO Blankfein for 2011 remarks to Congress is emblematic of the attitude of Wall St. [Fierce Finance 4/14/11].

A political focus on the pursuit of short-term military victory that provokes long-term hatred or the accumulation of wealth without concomitant production of…anything…also has a subtle psychological impact by encouraging short-term thinking. In war, it is hard to get away from the obvious goal of winning the next battle; at the stock market, it is hard to get away from the obvious goal of making profitable short-term investments. To ask a general facing the threat of defeat or an investor facing the threat of financial ruin for a thoughtful assessment of where society will be in a generation is laughable.

Were the general charged instead with guarding a generation-long international effort to construct something or were the trader told his profits would be a function of progress toward some generation-long social goal, those two individuals would have entirely different attitudes toward the future of society. In a word, socially useful thinking and socially productive behavior can be bought. Generals and traders are neither good nor evil: incentives matter.

War and its domestic equivalent, financial exploitation organized by a minority as an institutionalized component of the system, are short-term, zero-sum activities, while the real dangers on mankind’s horizon call for century-long programs supported by everyone. U.S. elite priorities do not just miss the target of protecting our future but exacerbate the problems we must address, and the way the system is designed—with incentives for short-term thinking and socially destructive behavior—make it almost impossible to reform those anti-social elite priorities.

The Next 100 Years: Climate Change

The facts of climate change, one of the two great challenges to humanity over the next 100 years external to governance, supports a pessimistic prognosis.

The scientific view:

Decreasing CO2 was the main cause of a cooling trend that began 50 million years ago, the planet being nearly ice-free until CO2 fell to 450 ± 100 ppm; barring prompt policy changes, that critical level will be passed, in the opposite direction, within decades. If humanity wishes to  preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO2 forcings. An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting
agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects. [Hansen, et al, "Target Atmospheric CO2...".]

Current level - 388 ppm [CO2now.org.]

The Next 100 Years: Milestones for Success

Many reasons for pessimism about the next 100 years exist, e.g., rising challenges and a poor historical record of human behavior.  Defining milestones indicating that humanity is rising to the occasion may help lead us forward.

Milestones suggesting that humanity is on the road to successfully coping with the challenges of the next 100 years include:

• movement away from force and toward discussion as the preferred method of solving problems
• rising emphasis on serious science
• rising tendency to hold people responsible for their behavior, at least to the degree of demanding carefully reasoned justifications and identification of lessons
• longer range thinking and planning
• rising experimentation at local levels rather than top-down, all-eggs-in-one-basket mega-solutions
• replacing either-or, zero-sum solutions with intermediate, positive-sum solutions

A few indications of such trends do exist. The Occupy Wall St. movement has generated calls for citizens to transfer their savings from huge national banks that play the stock market to local banks. Beyond the formal Occupy Wall St. movement, popular demands for mortgage debt forgiveness matching Washington's forgiveness of Wall St. bankers is rising:

While Lower Manhattan was being occupied, the New Bottom Line, a coalition of community groups, church folks and other networks, was staging daily clashes with big banks around the country. George Goehl of National People’s Action sees the level of direct action and nonviolent civil disobedience rising rapidly among frustrated people of conscience. [William Grieder, "It's Time for Debt Forgiveness, American-Style" in The Nation 11/14/11.]

More good news, particularly the defeat of Republican attacks on the right of workers to organize in Ohio, came out of the mid-term election.

So far, however, the overall trend of cultural shifts in the U.S. at least appear to be moving in the wrong direction as measured by every one of the above criteria.

The Next 100 Years

Beyond the unavoidable climatic and demographic challenges of the next 100 years lies the real threat: government incompetence.

What We Know

• climate change is occurring, with sufficient warming to change disease patterns, forest cover, storm magnitude, patterns of desertification in the U.S. Southwest, availability of water being predictable over the coming generation
• overpopulation will intensify dangerously over the coming generation regardless of how many mothers choose not to reproduce

What We Should Plan For

• unaffordable rise in oil prices forcing a change in the wasteful, mobile American lifestyle
• high food prices
• taking local initiative to survive
• a more challenging environment, making decision-making tougher, provoking society to push closer to the unknown limits, causing more failures

What Current Behavior Teaches Us We Can Expect

• government short-sightedness and elite resistance to sharing in the U.S. that will make matters far worse than necessary (judging from behavior during the Occupy Wall St. campaign, the financial crisis, in response to global warming, and after Katrina)
• spreading police brutality against victims and all advocating change
• demonization of science and thinkers
• hardline, rigid, top-down, control-oriented policies
• popular rage worldwide against the rich West and domestically against a corrupt elite
• extreme instability in terms of society, climate, availability of resources and services
• extreme geographic variability in conditions

Faced with the dual, independent but positively reinforcing challenges of climate change and overpopulation, the elite can be expected to exploit rather than lead, both domestically and internationally. As the natural and social environments both worsen, the big question is whether or not we can shift political behavior from constituting a net minus to constituting a net plus.

The Delusion of Current Events

With victory after victory, the American super-rich are destroying American democracy while their military-industrial allies impose the American Empire upon the world. Saddam is dead; bin Laden is dead; Washington is dropping bombs with impunity; Goldman Sachs is bigger than ever. And yet, America, looking weaker and sillier every day as its government implodes like Marie “let them eat cake” Antoinette, is neither honored nor obeyed. So what is happening: do events speak for themselves, or is something else going on?

The temptation to dwell on events when writing history is almost irresistible. Events are after all the building blocks of history, are they not? Well, perhaps, if you consider white caps to be the building blocks of ocean storms. But if you see storms as the culmination of the interactions of underlying forces—currents, winds, submarine topography, temperature shifts, then you should see history as well as the story of underlying forces—greed, the pursuit of justice, economic competition, cultural urges, security fears, ethnic antagonism, competition over scarce resources.

Consider the history of the 21^st century so far. The main events have been:

1. 9/11;
2. the U.S. decision to respond with military force rather than via the system of justice;
3. the U.S. invasion of Iraq;
4. the poisoning of the Gulf of Mexico;
5. the recession;
6. the “end” of the recession;
7. the overthrow of Mubarak (just a wild guess that it will prove to be the harbinger of a serious Arab socio-political modernization process);

But do these events constitute the key things that happened during this period? Consider the following long-term processes (not one of which can really be called an “event)”

1. the global rise in oil and food prices that set the modernization process of poor countries back by perhaps a decade;
2. the loss of a crucial decade in the battle to overcome (or just survive) global warming;
3. the rising scale of environmental disasters in an increasingly permissive and shortsighted regulatory context;
4. the weakening of the U.S. via the roughly $20 Trillion hit taken by the U.S. economy as the result of its invasion of Iraq ($5T per Stiglitz and Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War) and $20T from the resultant recession (based on the near $1T official bailout plus follow-up hidden Government support to Big Finance; omitting the actual cost of lost productivity or unemployment checks handed out);
5. the discrediting of the U.S. as moral leader of the global movement toward democracy;
6. the relative decline of American power and rise in the power of Russia, China, and Iran;
7. the exposure of the Wall St. model as both socially and financially harmful;
8. the victory (!) of Big Finance in reestablishing itself, despite the recession it caused, in control of both the U.S. political and economic processes;
9. the endless recession on Main St., where the tsunami of unemployment and foreclosures continues;
10. the ability of radical Islam to resist the American Empire, or, to put it differently, the ability of Muslim societies to retain a measure of independence from the U.S.;
11.  the Muslim shift from a focus on attacking the West to peacefully reforming Muslim socio-political systems;
12.  the transformation of the U.S. from the global champion of democracy and reformist “capitalism with a heart” into an elitist plutocracy where the super-rich are intentionally destroying the middle class to replace democracy and the post-Depression egalitarian trend with a two-class society composed of a mass of impoverished, dependent, docile, and depoliticized workers exploited to further enrich the super-rich;
13. the exposure of the weakness (via wars by the U.S. and Israel in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Gaza, and Lebanon) of modern, high-tech warfare as a means of stopping social movements and constructing…anything.

Judging from events, the history of the 21^st century so far has been the story of American punishment of Muslim independence combined with the advancement of the American Empire. Al Qua’ida was smashed, the Taliban were kicked out of power, Saddam was deposed, Iran was marginalized and economically strangled, Gazans were imprisoned, and southern Lebanon (briefly) depopulated. Simultaneously, the American Empire marched where it wished, expanding military bases with blazing speed and constructing a global financial empire even faster. True, some troops are moving around, but few bases seem to be returning to local hands. Also true, Lehman collapsed and AIG was, for a time, virtually nationalized, but Goldman expanded, and the old financial structure that brought us the recession (proximate cause) within the context of focusing on conducting war and making it invisible to the U.S. public (fundamental cause) was strengthened rather than being disciplined, much less overthrown.

And yet, after all the successes of the American Empire project, the U.S. seems far less secure and less domestically sound than it was a decade ago, while those countries offering an alternative approach to global governance (Russia, China, Iran) each find their non-military strategy has significantly strengthened its hand. Iran, barely surviving a generation ago, now has not only secure borders (in the context of the regional U.S. military withdrawal that appears to be occurring) but a real sphere of influence. China just keeps advancing economically, playing its cards close to its chest and casting bemused glances at the wild-eyed, clumsy Westerners who keep picking up rocks only to drop them on their own feet. Russia is gathering itself, carefully signing nice, legal, non-threatening petroleum contracts in every direction, in fundamental contrast to expensive American military moves that seem to leave the U.S. more and more out of the global hydrocarbon loop. Moreover, it remains unclear exactly what might be meant by any statement that the U.S. “won” the war in Iraq, while every indication is that the U.S. is losing the war in Afghanistan. And all the while, domestically, the condition of American infrastructure and the socio-economic situation of the American worker continue to decline like a Hollywood version of Das Kapital. (For a brilliant summary of the decline of U.S. governance over the past half century, see Noam Chomsky’s “America in Decline.”)

In short, events and reality appear to be telling precisely contradictory stories! Looking at events does not just give a superficial picture of reality; it gives a picture that utterly contradicts reality. The military successes of the American Empire project add up to a less secure and less powerful U.S. The financial successes of the super-rich add up to an increasingly weak and unstable American society whose future we may have already seen—in the riots a few years ago in the suburban ghettos of Paris, in Greece more recently, and this past week in London.

Arab Revolt Futures

Now that the rules governing Mideast politics have changed and assumptions are suddenly challenged, if not discarded altogether, wise policy-makers will be considering what factors will emerge as the key drivers of future Arab behavior. This post begins a new series analyzing how the Arab Revolt of 2011 is likely to develop and laying out the method to facilitate adjustments should events overtake this analysis.

One Short, Exciting Week in the Mideast

The Muslim world, wracked by political instability over the past week, took a step in a new direction while Washington remained focused on domestic political squabbles of little historic significance.

Evolution of the Washington-Tehran Dispute

Neither Washington's nor Tehran's behavior is fixed in stone; rather, each adapts and each sometimes passes the ball, though the other side usually fumbles it.

U.S.-Iranian relations today are plagued by untested assumptions that constrain policy, effectively putting  decision-makers in a mental box preventing them from seeing alternative tactics that might greatly enhance their side's national security. In other words, these decision-makers are using bad models. Good models are still wrong; model airplanes do not actually carry passengers anywhere. But a good model airplane enables engineers to build better real airplanes. Policy formulation is no different.

The Meaning of a Democratic Iran

Make no mistake! A democratic Iran would not become an American colony. It would be a proud emergent regional power, willing to resist Israeli regional hegemony, deeply involved in Iraqi society, and insistent upon a better deal for the non-Western world.

With all the thoughtless accusations flying around obfuscating the real issues that separate Washington from Tehran, perhaps it would be useful to take a moment to consider what a truly democratic Iran would be like.

First, (Warning: Sit down; this may take your breath away.) a democratic Iran will still defend itself. As long as it remains ringed by hostile American military bases and as long as nuclear-armed Israeli Zionists insistent upon retaining their military domination over the region remain in power, Iran will still want the option of a nuclear deterrence.

Second, a democratic Iran will still be proud of its glorious past, will remember the injustice of Russian and British and American interference, and will demand to be treated with respect. Washington will still be seen as owing Iran a truly sincere apology for the coup that destroyed Iran's nascent democratic movement in 1953, supporting a dictatorial shah, supporting Saddam's invasion, and shooting down an Iranian airliner.

Third, a democratic Iran will still be Muslim and will therefore find Israel's repression of the Palestinian people repugnant. Depending on the degree to which Washington moves back toward a less biased position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the degree to which Zionist extremists continue to hold power in Israel, a democratic Iran may or may not remain leader of the anti-Zionist front, but it is hardly likely to copy the Shah's willingness to ignore Israeli repression of fellow Muslims...any more than a democratic Saudi Arabia or Egypt would.

Fourth, a democratic Iran will still feel entitled to be a regional leader. It will not necessarily be a crusading Shi'ite revolutionary state, but it will still be Shi'ite and will therefore retain a special relationship with Iraq and Lebanon, just as the U.S. has a special relationship with Canada. It will still feel that it has a natural interest in the security situation along its borders and will thus pay attention to events in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Fifth, a democratic Iran will still want to reform the global political system to distribution resources and power more equitably. It will be energetic, articulate, and involved.

A democratic Iran could be a real blessing for a deeply sick global political system...provided that it is welcomed, rather than threatened, by the global elite. But do not expect it to kiss up or kneel down, any more than those 13 colonies of yesteryear did.

The Negative-Sum Permanent War Against Islam

Forget rhetoric. Think about what is actually happening in the world. With the neo-cons kicked out and, in the minds of thinking people, utterly discredited, has anything changed? Or is Washington still fighting a war against Muslims?

The U.S. military has not left Iraq; on the contrary, it has consolidated itself out of sight. The threats against Iran have not only not ended; they have intensified. How else does one interpret the impatient remarks of Secretary Clinton and the highly public movements of Israeli nuclear-capable ships into better positions from which to attack Iran? U.S. forces are not withdrawing from the Muslim world; they are building up. Supply lines are shifting from ground to aerial. Deaths on both sides are rising. The main campaign under the neo-cons was in Iraq, a country of some 30,000,000, including the several million refugees and the 1,000,000 who died as a result of the U.S. invasion. Now the main campaign is in Pakistan and Afghanistan, an area with a population of some 190,000,000. The refugee flow in Pakistan is rising so fast it cannot even be calculated. That is not progress.

The war on Islam, or, to be more precise, the war against activist Muslims who talk back, demand their rights, and refuse to kowtow, is slowly becoming institutionalized. It is being transformed from an emergency response to a deadly threat from a small but evidently vicious, immoral, and possibly uncompromising group into a permanent policy of aggression toward all Muslim societies that refuse to submit.

Washington does not discriminate between extremist Muslim enemies and Muslim social reformers. Not just Hamas, in itself no enemy of the U.S., but the whole half-starved civilian population of tiny, helpless, half-starved Gaza is treated the same as anti-Western terrorists in their training camps. Moslems who talk back are threatened with the same military response as Moslems who shoot back.

This attitude toward Islam is irrational and self-defeating. Condemning Muslims to submission or resistance is a fool's game with endless unpredictable opportunities for disaster that only multiply as the game continues to be played. Even if the West managed to survive and maintain such a policy, eventually the side-effects of endless war would encompass the decline and fall of Western democracy: endless war and democracy are mutually exclusive. Western arms may, conceivably, always win, but Western society can only lose a zero-sum military conflict with Islam. If that tragedy occurs, it will come as no satisfaction to Westerners that Muslim society will also end up a loser. Nothing is more tragic than a negative-sum outcome.

Historical Analogies for the Iranian Predicament

Finding Iran confusing? So is everyone else. We (i.e., Westerners threatening Iran and Iranian politicians who threaten it in their own myriad ways) might all just want to calm down and consider for a moment the lessons we might learn from history.

Zionist politicians intent on expanding Israeli territorial control and defeating any country (and Iran is the last) willing to defy Israeli regional military domination are doing their best to make the case the Iran is sui generis. On this one point, Khomenei would certainly have agreed. But Khomenei has been dead for a long time, and Iran looks more and more like other countries every day.

It is almost impossible to view the Basij without thinking of the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution: naïve and no doubt frequently sincere youths full of indignation, minds crammed with ideology and played for fools by corrupt leaders. So far, they remain under control, but Mao ended up having to call out the army to control his teenage bully boys, and that pretty much trashed his revolution.

It is also almost impossible to view the IRGC without seeing that model of military kleptocracy, the Pakistani Army (see Alyesha Siddiqa’s Military Inc. on the latter). Pakistan and Iran are similar in many ways, not the least because both have politicized and educated publics that have demonstrated the will and capacity to take charge of their own fate and defend their rights. The impressive overthrow of Musharraf and the Lawyer’s Movement in Pakistan as well as the courage of protestors both against the Shah in 1978-9 and today in Iran hold lessons in democratic action that put complacent Americans, whose democracy is also under domestic attack, to shame. In Pakistan, the masses concerned about civil liberties tamed the military only to see corrupt and incompetent politicians slip back into power. Are senior clerics in Qom right now considering how Iran might do better?

There is no embarrassment in admitting that we foreigners don’t have a clue about what is happening in Iran. Events strongly suggest that Khomenei, Ahmadinejad, the IRGC, the Qom clerical establishment, and the Iranian populace don’t either. After all, while you were reading this article, the situation changed. But there are historical precedents worth contemplating while we all (hopefully) take a deep breath and calm down.

Post-Election Lebanese Possibilities

As someone who has frequently advocated the use of scenario analysis to think about the future, this set of scenarios about the upcoming Lebanese election is irresistable. Brief though they are, these highly valuable scenarios by Qifa Nabki make the point that Lebanon is at a turning point, with dramatically different potential outcomes regardless of which coalition wins. It would have been very nice if Washington had figured that out a few weeks ago, but since it did not, better now than never. More important than who wins may well be how the world treats this tiny, much maligned country.

Washington could do much worse than to sit down with these scenarios and start thinking about the impact of various policies on the likelihood of one or another coming true. The foremost question in the minds of rational Washington decision-makers should not be, "Who will win?" but "What will best preserve the peace and stability of Lebanon?"

Then those decision-makers can move on to another question: "How can the situation in Lebanon be used as a model for managing delicate political rivalries elsewhere in the region?"

The Good…

If March 8 wins, the best scenario it could hope for would be one in which all the March 14 parties agree to participate in a national unity government with a minority veto. A consensus PM would be chosen, and an atmosphere of national reconciliation would prevail. The scenes of MPs embracing each other and agreeing to put past grievances behind them would inspire investor confidence in Lebanon and Saad Hariri would hop on his jet and make a quick tour of Western and Gulf Arab capitals, assuring them that everything in Lebanon was fine, and that nobody should panic about the changing of the guard or about Hizbullah’s weapons. A few months down the road, Hariri himself would sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Hizbullah and Solidere shares would go through the roof.

If March 14 wins, on the other hand, the best it could hope for would be to form a cabinet in which it holds over two thirds of the seats OR a cabinet in which President Suleiman holds the balance through a few loyal ministers, without facing a Hizbullah-Amal boycott. Rather, the opposition parties would happily join the cabinet with no blocking powers, agreeing to settle the thorny issue of the resistance through national dialogue talks, which have worked so brilliantly in the past. In the course of these talks, Hizbullah would agree to disarm of its own accord (because M14 “asked nicely”), donating its guns to another worthy resistance somewhere in the world.

The Bad…

If March 8 wins, the worst that could happen would be a boycott of its cabinet by all of the March 14 parties (with the likely exception of Walid Jumblatt), and a concomitant loss of foreign aid, loan guarantees, and Gulfi tourists. Iran would quickly jump in with an offer to supply the Lebanese army with weapons and training, which would lead Israel to make the case — accepted by the world — that Lebanese officialdom was now an extension of the Iranian Revolution. A couple of months later, a Lebanese shepherd firing his ancient rifle at an Israeli wolf on the border would trigger a massive ground, sea, and air invasion (not countered by a single retaliatory strike from Syria or Iran), and Lebanon would be flattened.

If March 14 wins, its doomsday scenario would be the aforementioned boycott of its cabinet by the FPM and the Shiite parties, and a return to the sit-in days of 2007-08. The coalition splinters as the West grows tired with the Cedar Revolution, and an ignominious settlement reached in Doha (or worse yet, Damascus) returns the country to yet another round of parliamentary elections. This time, March 14 loses in a landslide. Syria offers to send in its troops to stabilize Lebanon from another round of failure and impotence at the highest levels of government, and the West happily agrees. Hail the Third Republic!

Managing the Iranian Challenge: Part II

The second in a series exploring how to manage the Iranian challenge...

The first hint of how to approach Iran is contained in the long-winded phrase "anti-Western, ultra-nationalist, theological conservative, politically radical Shi'a." Before trying to defeat the enemy, it's wise to figure out who the enemy is and, indeed, whether or not the adversary truly is or need remain an enemy. An adversary will become an enemy when so defined: Treat an adversary as an enemy and the adversary will respond in kind, thereby "proving" the "truth" of your original error.

We can assume that all Iranians love their country and want to see their society continue to exist, but beyond that, the 70 million people of this nation caught between the 19th and 21st centuries constitute a collection of highly disparate groups, few of which started out "anti-Western." It's the long, sorry history of Western interference in Iran's internal affairs that is responsible for Iranian "anti-Western" feeling; it isn't opposition to the West. Indeed, many parts of Iranian society have long been attracted to Western ideals of civil liberties and democracy. A desire to protect oneself — to protect moral values or territorial integrity or independence — isn't the same as being "anti-Western." In simple terms, to oppose Western interference is not to oppose the West.

The details are complicated, but the bottom line is not: Washington can begin the long road of eliminating Iranian "anti-Western" sentiments simply by ending its bullying rhetorical tone, treating Iran with respect, and recognizing the right of Iran to be held only to the same standards as other countries.

[For evidence that Washington remains far from ready to address the Iran issue with an open mind and intellectual rigor, see this report on the appointment of Dennis Ross.]

The "ultra-nationalist" component in Iran may prove to be much harder to deal with, but the first step is to recognize that this component doesn't equate to "Iran." Whatever the strength of ultra-nationalism in Iran, it derives most recently from Iran's desperate defense against Saddam (and his former U.S., Russian, Arab, European allies) and is strengthened by every insult, every application of pressure, every demand for "preconditions before negotiations," and every demand that Iran obey rules to which it never agreed and which no other country is required to obey. Those Iranians desiring pragmatic economic development or the strengthening of civil liberties have no ground to stand on in the domestic Iranian political debate as long as Iran is besieged; they're in the same position, only worse, that Americans were in on the eve of the U.S. attack on Iraq. To speak out is to risk denunciation as "traitors." And in Iran, those accused of treachery by the regime risk not just political marginalization but death. The world may have to endure Iranian ultra-nationalism until that generation ages, but the world does not have to go out of its way to empower that ultra-nationalism.

As for the "Shi'ite" component, Washington decisionmakers felt it was worth spending a trillion dollars to install a Shi'ite regime in Baghdad, so Washington can evidently live with Shi'ite governments. In addition, Shi'ite regimes constitute a valuable bulwark against Sunni Salafi jihadism. To know that a particular regime is "Shi'ite" doesn't say much about whether or not it can find common ground with the West.

Even to know that it's "theologically conservative" says little. We may, for example, find the attitudes toward women of theologically conservative Shi'ite hard to stomach, but our own treatment of women has undergone a revolutionary shift over the past century; if we see ourselves as leaders, it does not follow that we can always insist that others obey our own timetable. Moreover, every major religion on earth today encompasses highly discomforting contention between its conservative and liberal wings. Such moral debates are important and a valid issue to be considered during foreign policy formulation but should not be confused with decisions about war and peace.

The first step in resolving the problem of Iran is thus to recognize that Iran, like other countries, is composed of many communities. This means recognizing that no homogenous entity called “Iran” naturally exists in any sense that is significant for international relations unless we manufacture it. A Pearl Harbor event or a 9/11 event can, temporarily, make “politics stop at the water’s edge. A nuanced, thoughtful policy, in contrast, will permit natural differences within a national political system to emerge. In other words, the natural complexity of a society and the factional complexity of the resultant political system offer endless opportunities for adversaries willing to combine patience, consistency, sympathy, moderation, and generosity.

Looking Deeper.

Having made the challenge very complicated by asserting that Iran is composed of many communities, all of which need to be taken into account, we need some analytical method of simplifying again so we can make progress. In brief, do a small set of explanatory factors exist that drive much of Iranian behavior and that might be used to analyze the behavior of all the various Iranian communities with significant impact on Iranian foreign policy? This essay has identified three such “drivers” of Iranian behavior:

· Security: the need for national physical and economic security as well as the need of a regime for political security; thus, this incorporates concerns about “regime change” from the outside and illegal narcotics that might destabilize society.

· Independence: the freedom to follow an independent national and international path; the former would encompass the freedom to practice one’s own culture, the latter the freedom to pursue foreign policy goals of choice without being marginalized (admittedly difficult in practice to distinguish from a desire for influence). The desire for independence is critically distinct from the desire for influence: the former presents no direct threat. Nevertheless, it is frequently confused by others, who see “hermit kingdoms” as implicitly threatening the global system. Thus, advocates of global free trade may be hostile toward countries that simply want to “opt out” (partly for psychological reasons and partly because such “opting out” denies the “globalists” the benefit of the hermit kingdoms’ resources).

· Influence: both the international bully and the committed idealist proselytizing to the world want influence. An intermediate position would be one that insists upon being consulted on regional matters but is willing to compromise on the specifics.

Different communities within a society will react in different ways. One may emphasize economic security more than military security. Another may feel independence merits greater economic sacrifice. Some may translate “influence” into a demand for political control of neighbors; others may see it in terms of the right to proselytize, and over time the two can get confused (think of the confused relationship between British movement into 19^th century China for economic benefit and to protect its missionaries). But the argument presented here is that the behavior of all communities will be most profoundly impacted by these three drivers. The more sophisticated a foreign policy, the more drivers can be taken into consideration, but these three constitute a reasonable starting point.

Combining these three drivers generates a model of behavior distinguishing eight different scenarios representing eight ideal types. These are ideal types because this is of course just a model, so no single scenario (i.e., no octant) can be expected literally to predict actual behavior. Nevertheless, the model may usefully guide expectations and structure thinking about the conditions likely to elicit certain types of behavior.

Consider, for example, the red octant (upper, rear, left), symbolizing an Iran that desires a great deal of influence, perceives itself as lacking security, and which is striving for an extremely independent foreign policy line.

· Security. How Iranians actually assess their security is difficult to determine. There can hardly be any doubt that Iran today in fact exists in a severely challenging political context: Bush Administration rhetorical threats have still only been qualified, not eliminated; Israeli rhetorical threats are being stepped up; U.S. military bases continue to surround Iran; the Israeli military threat only grows; Sunni Arab hostility is palpable; anti-Iranian terrorist groups roam its borders; Sunni Taliban insurgency threatens to bring its old Afghan Taliban enemy back into power; the Pakistan Baluchi instability threatens to spill over into Iranian Baluchistan. In addition, Iran’s economic security is being undermined by a range of factors, including both the incompetence of the regime’s economic policy and the Western embargo preventing it from modernizing its energy infrastructure. It is therefore only logical to assume that Iranians are uneasy about their physical security. Nevertheless, a counterargument also exists. The longer Iran survives without being physically attacked, the more secure it may feel despite continued rhetorical attacks on it. In addition, the replacement of Saddam with a Shi’ite regime in Iraq enormously enhances Iranian security, and the ability of its Hezbollah and Hamas allies in the Levant to hold their own provides a small further measure of security. Finally, the increasingly obvious need of the U.S. for assistance in escaping from the regional mess it is entangled in clearly serves Iranian interests.

· Independence. The degree of independence from international norms that is desired will vary widely across Iranian communities. For most of the Iranian elite, the desire for domestic policy independence is strong, though this is perhaps not true of the average Iranian. The man in the street probably would gravitate toward independence in personal behavior from the regime, except when the international context appears particularly threatening. For Ahmadinejad’s faction, the desire for independence in foreign policy line is also strong, in part because Saddam’s invasion taught them a lesson, in part because they gain power domestically and prestige in the Muslim world from their independent stance, and in part because they believe in Shi’ite proselytizing.

Influence. "Influence for what?" is of course the question. To marginalize a state absolutely is to ensure absolutely that the state will be hostile. No state can logically be expected to accept an international political system that marginalizes it: the ball is in the system's court. That is, it is up to the system to make the first move, take some measure of risk, and test the intentions of the marginalized state by allowing it some influence. There are many ways in which Iranian influence in its region can be of benefit to the U.S., as is finally beginning to dawn on Washington. The world will not learn which Iranian decisionmakers may accept types of influence the U.S. might find acceptable until Iran is given the chance. The mere offering of options to Iran would alter the history of the region and force Tehran to make tough choices.

Numerous points of contention touched on above remain essentially untested. A key untested question in dealing with Iran is the significance of its desire to proselytize. To what extent particular Iranian factions might trade Shi’ite proselytizing or the right to play regional power politics for international respect and a solid sense of security remains unknown. The answer is unknown because the West has not seen fit to make Iran the kind of offer that would even put the question squarely on the table. Only a far more discriminating approach to Iran by the U.S. can begin to provide the answer.

Ahmadinejad’s neo-con war generation faction seems to fit squarely within the red octant, for example. Other factions may occupy more complex political spaces. Most Iranian factions can be expected to support the right of Iran to pursue nuclear technology, since the rest of the world has this right and, by the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, so does Iran.

Mousavi can be expected to agree with Ahmadinejad that Iran faces profound security threats, but he may well be willing to take much more seriously any American offers to address such concerns simply because he has not built his career by frightening voters and is not waving the bloody shirt in his current campaign against Ahmadinejad. Moreover, Mousavi can be expected to put economics higher on his list of security concerns than Ahmadinejad has. Mousavi will probably differ markedly in his attitude toward "influence," perhaps being satisfied to be treated with respect and consulted on regional affairs rather than exploiting issues such as the Palestinian-Israeli dispute to score political points. As for the third driver, "independence," while Mousavi, prime minister during Iran’s existential war against Iraq, can hardly be expected to return Iran to a position of subordination to the West, it seems likely that he will be much less interested in the egregious emphasis on standing aloof from the West of which Ahmadinejad is so enamoured.

The West has cluttered its negotiating table with negative options and cut off its own nose by its arbitrary blindness to positive options. The multi-party rightwing faction that has controlled Israel for the last generation has encouraged this attitude in great part as a cover for its own expansionist agenda. In allowing itself to be led by the nose, Washington has needlessly sacrificed American security on the false alter of "Israeli security," in the process endangering the security of both countries. A case in point is the issue of nuclear research. Singling Iran out for discriminatory inspection procedures will only collapse the political space for flexibility. This suggests an obvious way forward: working toward the goal of common inspection procedures for all countries in the region. For the Obama Administration even to suggest this as a distant but morally justifiable goal would open political space in Iran for compromise. As long as Washington acts to preserve the emotional intensity of the nuclear issue, playing into the hands of Tehran hardliners, other factions will have little choice but to express outrage at the U.S. position. Aside from the highly symbolic issue of nuclear technology, other factions may only occasionally overlap with the political space inhabited by the Ahmadinejad faction. Indeed, Mousavi has already made clear in political speeches over the last month his dissent from Ahmadinejad's Palestinian policy.

In sum, real space exists between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. Beyond that momentary difference, so many options exist for offering Iran substantive choices at low risk to the West that momentum toward new positions could be created in innumerable ways. The overall approach is important, as stressed in the original article that provides an overview of how to manage the Iranian challenge. But the details are also important, as will be discussed...

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A future post in this series will take a more detailed look at the array of options for testing Iranian intentions that are at the disposal of Washington in the fundamentally critical arena of national security. As far as can be determined from the pubic record, American decisionmakers do not appear to have done more than scratch the surface of the options that a sincere and imaginative group of policymakers might "put on the table." Stay tuned.

Forecasting the Next Five Years

The most likely course of the next five years currently appears to be an increasingly severe recession at least until the mid-term election, followed by serious reform, recovery, and a new bubble. (No, we never learn.) This picture is not very cherry, but there are several quite conceivable scenarios that are much worse...scenarios that we as a nation have full power either to turn into reality or prevent, depending on the maturity of our collective judgment.

The next couple years look very grim in economic terms because:

1. everyone has now learned the lesson that we have been living beyond our means and that the elite are taking care of themselves first, the needy second; seeing a storm coming, everyone will be diving for cover;
   
2. government responses to the recession have been monetary (bailouts to financial institutions, encouragement to people to buy things they cannot afford) or legal (efforts to keep people in homes they cannot afford) rather than substantive (creating useful work, e.g., rebuilding infrastructure).

Really, folks, does anyone outside of the Washington elite actually think that encouraging people already in debt to spend more money on junk Chinese consumer goods will help this country get back on its feet?

Over the longer term, I will go way out on a limb and make the assumption that individual Americans will start thinking, tighten their belts, plan for a more responsible individual future, and in that way slowly regain their economic balance. The land, after all, is rich, and the population is still fairly well educated. In fact, while jobs are scarce is exactly the time to get yourselves even better educated. Meanwhile, pent-up demand will rise, facilitating (oh, no!) yet another housing bubble. Perhaps by the mid-term election things will be bad enough to get some genuine reformers into Congress, greatly facilitating the renewal of faith in our system and a recovery. (Or, if things get bad enough, giving us the courage to invent a new system.) At the same time, historic inflationary pressure will be building because of the way the Government is printing bailout money to pay off all those rich folks who gambled and deserve to lose (but won't because they run things).

In sum, a real depression over the next couple years seems increasingly likely with each passing day, followed by a recovery and dangerous inflation/housing bubble. That rather depressing prediction is actually the good news. It rests on four questionable assumptions:

1. individual American economic frustration and disgust at Government irresponsibility will not translate into widespread rioting, troops firing on crowds, marshal law, etc.;
2. no foreign enemy will figure out a way to take major advantage of our momentary weakness to create a "whole new ball game;"
3. the FDIC protection of individual bank accounts will remain in place, preventing a run on the banks;
4. food supplies will not be disrupted.

Invalidation of any of those assumptions would create a truly dangerous situation. Fighting in the streets is more of a danger than might be thought. The shocking Federal Government behavior in New Orleans and the use (already!) of local SWAT forces to attack foreclosed homeowners both show the proclivity of government to pour gasoline on fires by immediately resorting to force to solve all problems. No one knows how many members of the elite would really not mind provoking violence in order to find an excuse to enhance their own power, especially when the alternative may become a punitive reform program to reallocate resources from the rich to the people.

The assumption that no foreign enemy will entrap us also rests on shaky ground. If the Afghan insurgency sucks massive U.S. reinforcements into Afghanistan and the insurgents then turn their full efforts toward cutting the supply lines, the U.S. will face a significant threat. Al Qua'ida may also yet figure out a way to take advantage of the convenient U.S. target in Iraq. Even more dangerous is the possibility that the ascendent Israeli extremists will trick the U.S. into a war with Iran. The shocking ease with which the Israeli hardliners in recent days have asserted control over Obama Administration appointments (e.g., chairman of the NIC) illustrates the power of this group.

Even if foreign affairs do not worsen the economic crisis, the response of the Washington elite over the last six months to the recession raises the prospect of another scenario: endless denial. It is beginning to appear increasingly plausible that the elite will never come to grips with the need for responsible reforms, that it will simply continue in denial, trying to protect itself, and allowing the population to struggle along pretty much on its own. This recession is in no sense a normal part of the capitalist business cycle; rather, it is a completely manufactured crisis - manufactured by elite irresponsibility facilitated by intentional efforts by government to facilitate the enriching of the rich combined with individual irresponsibility. Thus, the crisis could be ended fairly rapidly by a turn toward good government; by the same logic, the failure of Washington to clean up its act could prolong this recession for the foreseeable future. The threat of endless Washington corruption and governance for the sake of the rich is probably the greatest danger facing the U.S. today.

Rafsanjani Meets Sistani: Smooth Move in the Endless Chess Game

That Rafsanjani would meet with Sistani as Obama is announcing the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq nicely symbolizes the natural cultural proximity of Iraq and Iran, as opposed to the unnatural current closeness of U.S.-Iraqi ties. Current U.S.-Iraqi ties should be viewed as highly unstable. Force could perhaps maintain this situation for some time, but the default assumption should be that it is very temporary. In contrast, the default for Iranian-Iraqi relations is very close.

Note that I said "close," not friendly. The two societies are profoundly entangled; that does not prevent interstate rivalries.

A much more valid perspective would consider the triangular relationship between Shi'ite Iran, Sunni Saudi Arabia, and an Iraq split between the two. (No, we are NOT going to complicate this further by discussing the Kurds and bringing in Turkey.) Minority Sunni domination now being removed, the most obvious prediction for the future is instability, because Sunni-Shi'ite competition in Iraq will interact with Iranian-Saudi competition in the region in an endless crunching of contradictions.

Though simple enough, this picture already suggests a number of basic images that Washington decision-makers, not to mention glib U.S. talking heads urging U.S. interference in Mideast affairs, may have a hard time keeping in focus:

• Both Sunni and Shi'ite factions in Iraq will constantly be tempted to invite Saudi and Iranian "interference" in Iraqi politics;
• Both Iran and Saudi Arabia will constantly be tempted to interfere in Iraqi politics;
• The presence of each will aggravate bilateral hostilities;
• Iraqi nationalism will constantly be competing with pan-Shi'ite and pan-Sunni sentiments.
  

The above is a simple, "default" model. It says nothing about which tendencies may dominate at a particular moment. What, then, does this model do? It predicts instability. Washington will need to understand this fundamental sociopolitical context in order to remain an effective regional player.

It may be worth pointing out that the U.S. does not really seem to have any natural allies in this contest. Neither Saudi nor Iranian interests can ever be assumed to match American interests. These two statements seem utterly obvious and would hardly be worth putting into words were it not for the history of American confusion about Mideast realities. Unfortunately, American decision-makers cannot seem to resist superficial labels, calling countries "conservative" or "radical" and then blindly assuming that these words somehow distinguish "friend" from "foe." "Conservative" Saudi proselytizing of radical Salafi ideology throughout the Muslim world and "radical" Iran's highly pragmatic cooperation with the U.S. to stabilize newly conquered Afghanistan after 9/11 are cases in point.

Since American decision-makers obviously need Mideast realities simplified...but in some way that is accurate rather than misleading, it may be useful to build on Larijani's recent invitation for them to "play chess," but with a couple caveats. Rather than thinking of the chess game as a match between two players in an existential contest, equate the chess game with "international affairs." The chess pieces then represent countries, and checkmate never occurs in the game (though individual countries can of course be eliminated). Now, what is your objective as a decision-maker? Stay alive and take advantage where you can, which means bargaining constantly with every other piece on the board. Having found force to be a blunt instrument in this game, Washington now needs to conjure up the skills to interact on a level playing field with the locals, all of whom understand the game much better. Casting aside simplistic labels about "good" and "evil," "friend" and "foe" would do much to clarify Washington's vision.

A Mideast Story

I do not claim to know the truth of the story that follows, but it matches observed behavior ominously well and thus deserved to be taken seriously…

At some point during the last decade of the last century, a consensus arose among the Israeli ruling elite that force was the path to success. Sensing, if vaguely, both the length of the path and the risks of the strategy, these decision-makers designed a plan. Perhaps they designed the whole plan in detail at the beginning; perhaps they just laid out the general direction and filled in the details as apparent initial success whetted their appetites for more.

Step I was the elimination of Arafat personally and the whole PLO as independent actors, so as to subordinate the Palestinian people once and for all. Feeling, with some justification, that they had achieved this by 2005, they agreed to Bush’s idea of a Palestinian election to provide a democratic veneer to the Israeli victory.

Although shocked by the Hamas victory in January 2006, they reacted with dispatch, launching an economic war against the new Palestinian regime and encouraging a mini Palestinian civil war. In accordance with the consensus on force as the tool of choice, the speed of the Israel reaction suggests that little serious thought was given to alternative approaches, such as welcoming the newfound Hamas willingness to play by democratic rules. Israel was determined to drive home the point that Palestine belonged to Israel.

In the event, Hamas ended up being partially overthrown, keeping control only of Gaza. Again adjusting tactics rapidly but retaining the underlying strategy of force, Israel focused its economic war on the population of Gaza. At the same time, Israel continued its harsh suppression of West Bank Palestinians, despite the subservience of the Abbas regime. The Israeli elite consensus in favor of force prevented Israel from taking advantage of the opportunity to make the West Bank a showcase of how Palestinians might live profitable, if not exactly free, lives in return for subservience. Offered no hope of a better life should they accept subservience to Israel, the population of Gaza naturally continued to support Hamas.

Although Hamas’ electoral victory had knocked Israel slightly off balance, it nevertheless moved smoothly to take Step II of its strategic plan, preparing for and, when given the excuse by Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers, executing an invasion of Lebanon. Israel had been trying firmly to subordinate Lebanon for a generation and resolved to erase the bitter memory of its retreat from that country in 2000. Lebanon was not in itself terribly important, but Hezbollah’s “resistance” rhetoric and odd rocket attack were both distractions and a symbol that resistance might not be futile. In the second shock of the year, Hezbollah fought Israel to a bloody draw, quite sufficient to put a shine on its resistance armor and tarnish the reputation of the regional superpower.

Keeping its eye nonetheless on the distant goal line, Israel both balanced the Hamas and Hezbollah balls and advanced the Syrian ball, attacking a Syrian “nuclear reactor” under construction on September 6, 2007. Whether or not the attack on a building under construction eliminated any real, if only eventual, threat to Israel, Step III smartly dismissed any Syrian pretentions to independence and drove home the lesson that Israel’s neighbors did not have the freedom even to possess technology without Israel’s permission. Any Egyptians or Saudis or Turks, much less Iranians, aspiring to study advanced technology could take note as appropriate.

By 2008, Israeli decision-makers were itching to teach both Hamas and Hezbollah the lessons they had failed to teach in 2006. First, they signed a ceasefire with Hamas in mid-2008 but cheated by maintaining the economic war against the population and again by launching a small attack in November. Hamas logically refused to extend the ceasefire in December, giving Israel the excuse it was looking for, and it launched what was intended to be a decisive military attack to destroy Hamas as an independent actor (if not literally to exterminate it). The Israeli blitzkrieg faired better in the Gazan ghetto than it had in the unwalled hills of Lebanon. Despite the survival of Hamas as an independent actor, Israeli decision-makers felt they had achieved sufficient success to move on to address once again the failed mission in Lebanon.

Israel marshaled its forces along the Lebanese border and sent its jets to violate Lebanon’s borders to the sound of rhetorical threats warning Lebanon that Israel would attack if Hezbollah sought revenge for Israel’s murder of a Hezbollah official or even if Lebanon imported weapons without Israel’s approval. Meanwhile, Hezbollah continued to strengthen its domestic political position and now seems within reach of winning the upcoming Lebanese election. Assuming both that Hezbollah gives Israel no pretext for invading and that Hezbollah does indeed appear headed for victory as the election approaches, Israel will face a major decision: a Hezbollah regime in Lebanon three years after Israel’s invasion to destroy that party would represent a severe symbolic challenge to Israel’s claim to regional domination.

Whatever happens in Lebanon, Israel seems intent on moving to Step IV, knocking Iran off the regional stage. While Israel has been focused on the preliminary steps in its strategy of using force to achieve dominance, Iran has much less aggressively and more smoothly been making its own bid for regional leadership. First, Iran tolerated the American intrusion into the region, benefitting from the American elimination of Iran’s two enemies, the Afghan Taliban and Saddam. Second, Iran used Israeli bad-neighborliness as justification for its own claim to regional leadership.

Israel stumbled against Lebanon, stumbled again against Hamas, and strained its formerly close ties with regional power Turkey but nevertheless seems intent on pursuing its strategy of force to achieve its goal of regional domination. After all, Israel still has its U.S. blank check, not to mention European support and support from various Arab dictatorships. Israel has established its ownership of Palestine. Israel has established its right to control how its neighbors arm themselves. Attacking Iran would only extend these principals from the Gaza Ghetto and the Levant to the Asian shore of the Persian Gulf.

Will Israeli decision-makers see the victory over Palestinians, the messy and imperfect bloodying of Gaza, and the draw against Hezbollah as evidence that they have a good strategy for challenging a power on the region’s edge? If so, what state will be next to be taught an Israeli lesson?

Dynamics of Iranian-Israeli Hostility

EXCERPT. Iranian-Israeli relations are moving toward war. Any effort to avoid realization of the doomsday "Victory for al Qua'ida" Scenario, in which everyone in the Mideast except al Qua'ida loses, will require addressing both insecurity and ambition.

TEXT. A 2007 scenario analysis of Iranian-Israeli relations generated a “doomsday” scenario leading to an Israeli nuclear attack on Iran called “Victory for al Qua’ida.” In the original analysis, the most important causal dynamic underlying each of the four scenarios was identified, with the above graphic showing the “Insecurity Dynamic” described as key to the Victory for al Qua’ida Scenario. According to this dynamic, inequality generates both contempt by the strong and resentment by the weak, prompting both parties to search for a risky, “final” solution. That search in turn generates an endless feedback loop of rising distrust that leads to rising insecurity that leads to rising hostility that intensifies the search for a final solution.

A review of this 2007 scenario following the recent Israeli attack on Gaza and general election found that Iran and Israel appear to have moved closer to a military clash since 2007.

This essay introduces the critical topic of evaluating the dynamics underlying behavior in the Iranian-Israeli relationship, asking:

• The degree to which the Insecurity Dynamic (on the right) identified in 2007 explains their relationship;
• What other dynamics should be included to understand this scenario.

Note that a dynamic may be defined as required for the scenario but found to be non-existent in reality, thus casting doubt on the likelihood of the scenario coming true.

Validating the Insecurity Dynamic

The innovation of explicitly focusing on the dynamics underlying scenarios so as to draw attention away from the scenario stories, which are essentially fairy tales designed to provoke thinking, to the very real but frequently ignored or misunderstood dynamics that actually cause behavior is critical to transforming scenario analysis from an amusing tale-spinning exercise into a rigorous analytical method for thinking about the future.

A qualification to the original Security Dynamic leaps out immediately: it is not just the weak (i.e., Iran) that feel resentment or the strong (i.e., Israel) that feel contempt. Indeed, not only contempt but resentment seem mutual, judging from public elite commentary. The common Israeli comments that Iranian nuclear arms “cannot” be tolerated, an assessment that flies in the face of half a century of all sorts of hostile dyads tolerating each other’s nuclear arms without a nuclear exchange, is an example. This qualification suggests at least two avenues for exploration:

• Inequality may not be the only source of discord;
• The steps from inequality to the search for a “final solution” may be much more complicated than as drawn.

Be that as it may, the elements in general seem on target.

• Distrust is palpable in the relationship, with each side egregiously interpreting the other’s behavior in the worst possible light.
• Insecurity, at least on the part of Israel, seems surprisingly high, considering that Israel is infinitely the stronger of the two in strategic military terms. Indeed, an interesting question is why Iran, given its extreme vulnerability to attack, does not demonstrate more insecurity. One explanation may be the power of the regime to disregard and conceal opinion; another may be the leadership’s experience of resisting Saddam Hussein.
• Hostility is intense, with little if any visible effort to ameliorate tensions.
• Israel’s focus on nuclear war as a solution and Ahmadinejad’s focus on the eventual collapse of Israel show the mutual tendency to overlook the wide range of normal options and focus on highly unrealistic “final” solutions.

In sum, the Security Dynamic in general rings true as a structure for stimulating critical thinking about the dynamics actually at play.

Other Dynamics

If a whole scenario were the result of only one dynamic, analyzing the future would be easy. What other dynamics need to be considered to understand the level and durability of Iranian-Israel hostility over the last generation?

The change in both Israeli and Iranian foreign policy provide clues suggesting that not just insecurity but also ambition plays a critical role. This is perhaps too obvious to require belaboring, except that it informs any serious effort that might be attempted to resolve the situation. Israel has, to summarize a half century in a sentence, evolved from a pioneering society looking for a home, to a regional power not just demanding security but also developing a strong appetite for regional domination. Indeed, it is not clear that very many Israelis can even make the distinction between the two goals. With Palestinians subjugated, Egypt neutralized, and Saddam’s Iraq destroyed, all the tall Mideast mountains of opposition to Israel have been leveled, expanding Israel’s perspective far enough to make Iran visible as only mountain on the horizon. At the same time, as the Islamic Revolution has consolidated itself and Iraq has been transformed from Iran’s primary enemy into an increasingly friendly Shi’ite partner and as the old Soviet bias towards Iraq has been replaced by a new Russian bias toward Iran, Iran has developed ambitions of its own. Whatever truth there may be in the various details of Israeli and Iranian charges and countercharges, it is clear that each country aspires to be the leader of the region. While each might, absent security concerns, eventually see a path to moderation of its own ambitions and accommodation of its antagonist, neither has yet learned to do so.

At a minimum, explanation of how “Victory for al Qua’ida” might come about requires the addition of a dynamic explaining the clashing ambitions of these two rising powers. The "Danger of Ambition" causal loop diagram gives a very simple idea of the core dynamics. For starters, it is not just that their ambitions clash, but that the behavior of each tempts the other to exploit it to feed its own appetite. Israel exploits Ahmadinejad's rhetoric to excuse its own expansion; Iran exploits Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians to excuse its self-promotion as the leader of Muslims. Each opposes the adversary's ambition not just because it clashes with their own but also because opposition excuses their own. Up to a point, shadow boxing is useful, but the more intensely the two sides shadow box for convenience, the more likely it is that each side will begin to believe that the other really does pose a threat. Moreover, threats to ambitions get confused with threats to security. Legitimate opposition to the adversary's gluttony get misinterpreted as an existential threat.

Israel wants military dominance, territorial expansion into the West Bank, and--certainly for some parties--expansion beyond that. Iran wants recognition of its natural role as a regional power, which clashes with Israel's desire for preeminence. Any effort to avoid realization of the "Victory for al Qua'ida" Scenario will require addressing both insecurity and ambition.