From US News.com, 28/2/07 (appears in the March 5, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report), by Fouad Ajami ...
...Revolutions are full of cunning, and the Iranian Revolution, now almost three decades old, has been no exception-cunning and ferocity .... Shrewd players, these clerical leaders have found the cracks in the order of states around them. Brutal men.... Given room to maneuver by a substantial windfall of oil income, they have made their nation a player of consequence in its neighborhood.....
American power swept away two regimes that the Iranians dreaded-the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. .... Mixing bravado and bluff, and granting proxies in Palestine and Lebanon, the leaders of the Iranian theocracy appear to have succeeded in spreading the image of a mighty power able to have its way in the world.....
...Iran is a radical player in the world of states, to be sure, but we should not overstate its power. We should not fall for the Persian bluff. It is important that we do all we can to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions and to checkmate it in arenas that count, but we should always remember that this is a society swimming against the tide of history and confronting the limits of its capabilities.
There is an Iranian role in Iraq, but it should not be exaggerated. ...Iraqis are a tough breed, and the notion that they are eager to take their country into a Persian dominion is unconvincing. The Iranians dwell virtually alone in the House of Islam, separated by language and culture, marked by their Shiism.
Then there are the troubles that count-the disabilities at home. Iran's deranged president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, came into power promising to put Iran's oil wealth "on the dinner table." But the Iranian economy is on the ropes. Hyperinflation, the drying up of international credit lines, and the astounding growth in energy consumption in Iran are bringing the country to the edge of crisis. The price of bread and meat and basic commodities has risen by as much as 25 percent. To tranquilize the realm, gasoline is subsidized well below its cost, and domestic consumption now accounts for a stunning 40 percent of Iran's oil production. Dire predictions now hold that the country will be unable to export much oil a decade from now.
The true believers will proclaim that revolutionary purity trumps all, but worldly needs and affairs ultimately prevail. A society that spends $20 billion a year to subsidize the price of energy, electricity, and gasoline will in the end have to contend with the wrath and disappointment of its people. There is swagger in Iran, and there is menace, for its rulers are without scruples. Terrorism, for them, is always an option. But theirs is a vulnerable and brittle society. There is no need to "engage" them and bail them out as they stumble. The regime should be harassed, contained, and held to account.
We may not have to wait two centuries to pronounce on the fate of this revolution. The swagger abroad and the rot at home: It is a trajectory we are all too familiar with by now.
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