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  Date / Time: 4/22/2009 12:22 AM UTC

  Why Iran Won't Stop Loving the Bomb
  

  Why Iran Won't Stop Loving the Bomb

  In less than two months, the world will see its most important election of the year — and it will take place in Iran. I have to admit that even typing those words is sort of strange. I mean, we're talking about a strict theocracy here — a revolutionary regime that still dreams of ideological conquest. So why would its presidential contest even matter at all? How about an overshadowed middle class, a shape-shifting energy industry, and a ratcheting-up of military might at a crucial moment for global security? Sounds a little like last year's most important election, now doesn't it?
  
  Much as we may not care to admit, Iran's approximation of a republic has been, until post-Saddam Iraq recently assumed a recognizable shape, about as good as it gets in the Middle East, where leaders tend to expire before terms do. And even though that remains the case with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei overseeing the country, Iran's No. 2 position — the presidency — has grown significantly in stature under the current occupant, firebrand populist and Jew-baiter Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
  
  Yes, all presidential candidates must be cleared by Iran's religious commissars. But once it's narrowed to acceptable boundaries, the field of candidates actually competes in a manner most familiar to Western democracies — right down to expansive campaign promises and slick video appeals:
  Moreover, the outcome is truly uncertain, as evidenced both by Ahmadinejad's surprising victory in 2005 and the reality that pre-election polls in Iran are almost worthless. Finally, there's the possibility of a second, run-off election if none of the candidates wins an outright majority.
  
  Add it all up, and there's real possibility of political shifts occurring, driven — if you can believe it — by the will of the people.
  
  
  Tehran's Reverse Tea Party
  Setting aside such promise, here's the more depressing reality: While the Iranian Revolution may have been fueled by an odd combination of urban intellectuals and religious zealots back in 1979, what "sustains" the country's rising power today is a well-entrenched bureaucratic elite that cynically exploits the authoritarian government's many levers of control to dominate most economic activity. This setup, in turn, has come to slow — if not halt — the natural ambition of private-business interests to demand a say in politics, all while keeping the economy significantly isolated from outside influences.
  
  Collectively, this hydra-headed elite (clerics, Revolutionary Guard, security services, judiciary, etc.) has so deformed Iran's relatively sophisticated urban population that, to the extent a middle class exists, it lacks any significant political weight — much less self-confidence. Reformists, such as they are, are easily divided and defeated and demoralized, while hard-liners now consistently win over Iran's rural poor with a populism tied to strict Islamic values. Overall, Iran elections pull in about 60 percent of eligible voters, but in major metro areas, that rate can drop to about 30 percent, indicating an urban middle class that has effectively opted out of the political process.
  
  Now, if all your regime wants to do is bankroll mischief abroad while buying off its rural poor (Chavizmo, Persian-style), then having one of the world's biggest reserves in oil and gas is sufficient — when prices are high. But when your state's energy revenues are suddenly cut in half, then the same populist anger that propelled Ahmadinejad into the presidency in 2005 could well turn against him in 2009.
  
  Ahmadinejad's government has spent the last four years eating its seed corn in the energy sector, providing lavish subsidies to the masses (like extremely cheap gasoline) while eschewing much-needed investments in infrastructure (thus triggering Iran's ironic dependence on gasoline imports). Add to this Tehran's highly-publicized pursuit of an A-to-Z nuclear fuel-cycle capability, Ahmadinejad's calculated inflammatory rhetoric vis-Ö-vis Israel, and the regime's puppet-mastery over its ideological proxies (Hamas and Hizbollah), and you've got the world's No. 1 rogue regime that, nonetheless, is living on borrowed time.
  
  But assuming that an Ahmadinejad loss in June means the end of Iran's nuclear program is incorrect. We might see some flimsy, papering-over diplomatic deal no matter who wins, but I fully expect Iran to want the world to eventually realize that it can and will defend itself with nukes — that it's not going away anytime soon.
  
  
  A Crossroads En Route to America
  Iran's population is overwhelming young (roughly two-thirds under the age of thirty) and relatively well educated. Women make up approximately 60 percent of college students, very few of whom will find appropriate employment in an economy long stunted by the oil curse and persistent sanctions from the West. Iran is simultaneously suffering a stunning birth dearth, a world-class brain drain, and the flight of its best businessmen (along with their capital) to more receptive markets across the Persian Gulf. In sum, Iran exhibits all the signs of a civilization in a death spiral, even as the region's Shia "revival" bolsters the regime's international standing considerably.
  
  Iran has reached, at the thirty-year mark, the sort of ideological crossroads that every revolutionary regime invariably confronts: Does it eventually settle in toward becoming a normal nation-state, or does it keep up the great struggle? Ahmadinejad's Principlelists (so called for their devotion to the revolution's original principles) hope to revive the nation's flagging ideological fervor, while the far weaker reformist wing favors a pragmatic return to the international community.
  
  Oddly enough, here's where Iran's pursuit of Da Bomb makes sense for both sides of Iran's tilted political spectrum.
  
  For the hardliners, the acquisition of a nuclear deterrent would demand the West's respect (meaning safety from any attempt at a regime change) while triggering its continued hostility (especially if Israel attacks). But for the reformists, pursing the nuclear option also makes sense because it could — under the right negotiating conditions — lead to Iran's international acceptance by the West as the region's primary power, triggering a U.S.-Iran dÇtente dynamic that elevates Tehran over its rival — the House of Saud.
  
  Yes, the Saudis, as well as the Turks, could quickly match Iran's nuclear capability, but in ideological terms, that would set up a diplomatic alignment more like this:
  
  
  The West + Israel + Sunni nuclear powers
  vs.
  Shia Iran + Eastern powers (Russia + India + China)
  
  And all three of those Eastern powers are profoundly interested in Tehran remaining partial to their designs of long-term integration on energy. But no matter how it goes down, Iran would be at the center of everything — simultaneously secure from Western attempts at regime change while playing point-man for a loose coalition of great powers looking to exploit a post-American world order.
  
  And if you're the Supreme Leader looking down on all this from above, aren't you logically more interested in keeping Ahmadinejad in power for four more years? Beats some bland reformist who'll turn your regime inward.
  
  Because if it makes sense that only Nixon could go to China, then conversely only Ahmadinejad can go to America. That effectively exploits its financial woes and strategic tie-down in AFPAK. Tehran can't do much about the former (although silent friend China certainly possesses leverage), but it certainly can do plenty about the latter (in fact, it is highly incentivized to do so given its planned natural-gas pipeline through Pakistan into India).
  
  And regardless of which direction this Nixon-goes-to... dynamic plays out, I think we're looking at a lengthy, dÇtente-like process that will ultimately yield a stabilizing security order across the Middle East.
  
  
  Joining the Big-Boys Club, Nukes in Hand
  Indeed, most observers agree that this election, while it will hinge on the domestic economy, could well determine whether Iran returns to the fold of nations any time soon or remains in angry isolation.
  
  Here's my bet: No matter who wins, Tehran will eventually decide to return to the international community, but only with their nuclear capacity in hand — especially if Israel strikes. In effect, the regime has already decided that becoming a recognized nuclear power, in combination with its energy ties to rising Eastern pillars, will be sufficient to secure its place among the world's great powers. Moreover, only in achieving such supremely satisfying equivalency can Tehran finally conquer its profound inferiority complex vis-Ö-vis the United States, with whom it has long suffered a deeply conflicted love-hate relationship.
  
  Remember: America couldn't pursue dÇtente with the Soviets until we recognized their "accomplishments" and showed respect for their regime, the underlying notion being that both sides would stop trying to topple one another and would transmute that in-your-face competition into indirect, Third-World rivalry. That ideological "cease-fire" triggered the growth of the Soviet Union's economic connectivity with the outside world, and that financial addiction eventually ensnared the calcified regime in a political reform process that proved its undoing.
  
  Consider it globalization's equivalent of the Five-Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique from Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill 2. And I believe the same fate awaits Iran — albeit on a much more regionalized scale, with China and India as the primary pushers of economic connectivity.
  
  After all, Tehran, like any insecure revolutionary regime, just wants to join the big-boys club and all that it entails. And since that goal cannot be prevented, in my mind, we must prepare ourselves for new and different opportunities to subtly subvert the regime.
  
  Yes, the impatient on our side will want shortcuts. Our hardliners — especially our fierce supporters of Israel — will find this journey too fraught with uncertainty. But we have done this before and done it well. Iran certainly isn't like us, but it's certainly not unique. Even if its religious quotient is, in the end, fundamentally irrelevant, get ready for a long summer ahead.
  
  Esquire contributing editor Thomas P.M. Barnett is the author of Great Powers: America and the World After Bush. John H. Richardson is on assignment.

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