Sue Hulett: U.S. should focus on sanctions against Iran

Thanks to my favorite moderate and military historian, Fred Visel of Carl Sandburg College, who first asked me, “do you know you reversed the percentages of Sunni and Shia in Iraq in your editorial?” Yikes, I meant to say “Sunni-led Iraq.” I apologize for this inexcusable proof-reading error.  Having made this error in public, I now cannot run for president.

Let me review, while Shia Islam makes up only 10-20 percent of the world’s Muslim population, Iraq has a Shia majority (between 60-65 percent), but had a Sunni controlled government under Saddam Hussein and cronies from 1958-2003. Sunnis make up over 75 percent of the world’s Muslim population. Islam is the world’s second largest religious community at about 23 percent of the total, with Christianity remaining the largest at about 33 percent of the total. Sunni and Shia, are two branches of Islam that disagree, sometimes violently, over religious doctrine and over who can be divinely ordained religious leaders. Finally, in Iran, which is largely Persian rather than Arab, 89 percent of the population is Shia and about 9 percent is Sunni. (If you like government figures, see the CIA World Factbook.)

Why, you may ask, does this religious split matter in relations between Iraq, Iran, the United States and stability in the larger Middle East? While Fred Visel rightly worries about the negative consequences of U.S. military actions in the region, I worry about an aggressive and terrorism-sponsoring Iran that gains influence as the United States gives the appearance of weakness in the nature of its withdrawal from Iraq. Iran may gain influence with its fellow Shia in Iraq as Iraq struggles to maintain its independence in the face of rival internal religious factions and in face of continued Iranian intervention in its internal affairs.

Expanding Iranian influence is not inevitable. While the population in Iran and Iraq are largely Shia, there is a long history of cultural and political animosity between Persian Iran and Arab Iraq; they have territorial and oil production disputes, and, in 1980, they began a bloody war. Iraq (under Saddam) used poison gas against Iranians and launched Scud missiles and bombers against Iran’s capital, Tehran. Iran retaliated against Baghdad. Casualty estimates are 1 million killed, 1 million or more wounded, with millions of refugees. The war ended in stalemate in 1988.

Currently, Iran wants to take advantage of a revitalized and empowered (by the U.S. overthrow of Saddam) Shia majority in Iraq. Iran has ties with the larger Shia parties and factions and with key military officers. On the other hand, many Shia Iraqi clergy (and most Sunnis and Kurds) do not share the vision of Iran’s “Islamic Revolution” or of a Supreme Religious Ayatollah running a country (i.e., a theocracy with a religious leader). A second disadvantage for Iran is the bitter aftertaste of Iran’s covert terrorism and economic activities in Iraq since 2003 that created additional conflicts with some religious and ethnic factions in Iraq. 
How well Iran uses its leverage and advantages and minimizes Iraqi disaffection, depends not only on Iraqi politics, but also the image of American strength (or weakness) in the region and how well the United States deals with the current Iranian regime.

While others worry about the potential impact of the United States staying too long in Iraq and Afghanistan and of directly confronting Iran, the sole remaining dominant aggressor in the region, I worry about the appearances of American retreat and appeasement. An aggressive Iran that has been the primary supporter of terrorist groups and actions in the larger Middle East since 1979 poses a danger regionally and globally. The Americans, Sunnis and others in the region, Europeans, Pakistanis, Israelis, and Indians must confront the issue of a nuclear-capable, ayatollah-led, Revolutionary Guard-oppressed and expansionist-minded Iran.

Recent concerns regarding Iran’s global hyper-activity include the Iranian plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, the hundreds of newly discovered artillery shells filled with chemical weapons that were, Washington believes, designed by Iran and supplied to Libya, and the blistering pace toward completion of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. This past week Iran allowed militants to takeover and ransack the British embassy in Iran. Many European states have recalled their ambassadors or closed their embassies in Iran. You might recall that the United States has not had an embassy in Iran since 1979 when government-endorsed Iranian militants took over the U.S embassy and held 50-plus U.S. diplomatic staff hostage for more than a year. (Some might remember more distant anti-U.S. actions such as the Iranian use of proxies to bomb U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, the U.S. Embassy in Kenya and the U.S. barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996.)

In sum, I worry that an un-resisted Iran poses dangers to U.S. interest and stability in the Middle East. The question at hand: Should Obama continue to retreat, “lead from behind,” and “negotiate from a position of weakness,” or should he consider more active measures with coalition partners to isolate and limit Iranian power? It seems clear that regional powers and the United States ought to focus on global sanctions to derail Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, disentangle Iran from its terrorist proxies, and offer aid to countries at risk of “overexposure” to Iranian manipulation (as in Iraq and Bahrain.)

L. Sue Hulett is the Richard P. and Sophia D. Henke Distinguished Professor of Political Science and chair of the Political Science Department at Knox College.