America’s Great SatanNovember/December 2019 59phrase has been invoked by much lazier
strategists to justify a permanent hard
line against Iran. After all, i your adver-
sary is motivated primarily by ideology,
then it is less likely to be open to com-
promise or accommodation. The problem
is that this framing has blinded many
American analysts to Iran’s real motiva-
tions: maximizing its security interests in
a deeply hostile environment.BAD BLOOD
The United States’ relations with Iran
date back to World War II, when
thousands o U.S. troops were deployed
to Iran to secure a rail line essential to
the year-round supply o the Soviet
Union, then a U.S. ally. Although U.S.
involvement in Iran remained limited in
the early postwar period, Washington did
participate as a junior partner in a British
conspiracy to overthrow Iran’s elected
prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq,
in 1953. The overthrow o Mosaddeq was
the original sin o the U.S.-Iranian
relationship, and Iranian anger at the
coup was later compounded by U.S. and
Israeli support for Mohammad Reza
Shah Pahlavi, whose repressive policies
and inept attempts at modernization
undermined popular support for his
regime. The shah’s intimate relationship
with the United States tainted both
parties in the eyes o Iranians, contribut-
ing to the resentment that resulted in
the Islamic Revolution o 1979.
The revolution marked a turning point.
In late 1979, Iranian students stormed
the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took its
American sta hostage, leading U.S.
President Jimmy Carter to sever diplo-
matic relations in April 1980. Soon, U.S.
and Iranian interests were clashing across
the Middle East. In 1980, Iraq attackedstockpile o missiles and rockets poses a
serious threat to Israel. Yet Tehran’s
motivations are as much geopolitical as
ideological: the missiles are Iran’s main
strategic deterrent against Israel. And
this deterrence has generally prevailed
since 2006, when it broke down through
incompetence and misperception. The
Israeli government has made it clear that
i it ever has to Äght another war with
Hezbollah, it will invade Lebanon and
leave only after it has destroyed Hezbollah
and its armory. The situation is obviously
delicate, but neither Israel nor Iran has an
interest in upsetting the apple cart.
Aside from terrorism, many o Iran’s
attempts to expand its reach throughout
the Middle East should be seen for
what they are: opportunistic responses to
blunders by the United States and its
partners. Hawks often warn o Iran’s
inÁuence in Iraq, for instance, but this is
fundamentally a result o the U.S. inva-
sion in 2003, which toppled Saddam
Hussein’s Sunni minority government and
empowered the country’s Shiite majority.
Even with increased Iranian inÁuence,
moreover, successive governments in
Baghdad have maintained good relations
with both Tehran and Washington—in-
deed, the current government may be the
most pro-U.S. Iraqi government yet. Iran’s
backing o the regime o Syrian Presi-
dent Bashar al-Assad is an attempt to sus-
tain the status quo—and defend a once
reliable ally—after it was threatened by
Sunni Arab states that were trying to over-
throw Assad by arming and funding Syrian
rebels. And Iran’s support for the Houthis
in Yemen has been a largely convenient
attempt to bleed its Saudi rivals dry.
The archrealist Henry Kissinger
famously said that Iran must “decide
whether it is a country or a cause.” The