Only Permanent Interests
States have permanent interests that even revolutions do not change significantly.
Former ambassador Michael McFaul is a smart diplomat and very knowledgeable about Russia. During the Obama administration, he served as ambassador to Moscow, and he was one of the architects of the so-called “reset.” That policy of modest cooperation with Russia was evidence at the time that the U.S. could successfully work with an authoritarian state on issues of common interest. The “reset” (2009-2011) delivered some limited but important results, and it was a far more productive period in U.S.-Russian relations than the decades before or since. So it is odd when he makes such bizarre, ideological pronouncements about other parts of U.S. foreign policy. For example, he fired off this random observation earlier today:
This is false, and it feeds into a dangerous idea that U.S.-Iranian antagonism is driven by our incompatible regime types rather than a clash of competing interests in the Middle East. This kind of thinking tends in one direction: towards war and regime change. The U.S. has good relations with dozens of authoritarian regimes, and it has peaceful relations with almost all authoritarian states. In some cases, those relationships are far too close and cozy. Somehow the U.S. manages to have stable and peaceful relations with dictators and monarchs on almost every continent, but in the Iranian case we are supposed to believe that it is the lack of democratic government that is the cause of tensions.
A more democratic Iran would in all likelihood perceive its national security interests to be very similar to the current government’s perception of those interests. There is considerable continuity in Iranian security thinking from regime to the next, as Ariane Tabatabai has demonstrated in her excellent No Conquest, No Defeat. It seems reasonable to assume that this will continue to be the case whenever a different regime takes power in Iran. States have permanent interests that even revolutions do not change significantly. If Iran became a democratic republic tomorrow, their government would still seek to defend itself from foreign attack and it would still cultivate regional allies.
The impediment to a stable and peaceful relationship between the U.S. and Iran is not Iran’s lack of democracy. It is the definition of U.S. interests in the Middle East that treats Iran as a major threat that must be “countered” at every step. As long as the U.S. defines its interests so that they are bound to conflict with Iran’s regional interests, the relationship will be a strained and difficult one. If the U.S. were less preoccupied with Middle Eastern affairs and reduced its military footprint in the region, there would be fewer occasions for clashes and fewer issues in dispute. The U.S. and Iran still might not have close relations, but they could have stable and peaceful relations just as the U.S. has with many other countries with authoritarian governments. By declaring such a relationship to be impossible with the current Iranian government, McFaul is lending support to advocates of regime change.