Persian Puzzles: Iran Politics Analysis with Roger Cohen

Roger Cohen, Fisher Family Fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project, presented his analysis of the Iranian political landscape and nuclear program in a speaker event titled “Persian Puzzles: The Mullahs' Nuclear Game” on December 1, 2011.  Nicholas Burns, Faculty Director of the Project, prefaced the presentation by highlighting the lack of official American-Iranian communications as a major barrier to understanding the current issue at hand and its possible solutions.

Cohen began the session by acknowledging the recent diplomatic complication between Iranian and British leaders. “I feel like I am addressing you at the sequel of the sequel of the sequel – with the Basij storming the British embassy.” However, he focused his presentation on his personal interest and experience in Iran, the great gap in understanding that currently exists between Iran and the West, and the Iranian nuclear program.

Roger Cohen and Iran

Cohen first went to Iran in the early 1970s, as a self-purported “hippie.” His most recent foray into Iran was on a New York Times assignment in spring/summer of 2009, during which he witnessed “unforgettable scenes” of the protests and violence that took place in the aftermath of the presidential elections. He demonstrated his knowledge of Iranian culture by raising an example of “taarof” – the Iranian art of hyper-politeness – and lightheartedly labeled Iran as “the only country in world where hypocrisy is prized as a social art.” Given strong cultural differences between the US and Iran and the lack of direct communication between the two countries, the potential for misunderstanding looms large.

The Iranian Perspective

Iranian leaders are very paranoid about the United States, and have been especially so since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Cohen quoted Ambassador John Limbert in saying “from the U.S. standpoint, the Iranians are seen as “devious, mendacious, fanatical, violent and incomprehensible.” Iranians, in turn, see Americans as “belligerent, sanctimonious, Godless and immoral, materialistic, calculating.” The United States has very little firsthand, tactile knowledge of Iran, Cohen said.  When he returned from Iran in 2009, American officials were” all over him” because they wanted to know what Iran was like.

The Iranian Nuclear Program

When Iran looks to the west, east, north and south, it sees its nuclear-armed neighbors; the hypocrisy of being told that it cannot develop a nuclear program did not escape the Iranian leadership or Iranian people, Cohen said.

The Iranian nuclear program has been in development for a very long time. “Iran has been hovering in an area of ambiguity and inertia with the development of its nuclear program,” he said. The Iranians have maintained the illusion of movement for years now. In Cohen’s view, the nuclear program is about building capacity. Intelligence sources had yet to find evidence of an actual nuclear program with military capability. He suggested that the Iranian program has been set back by the Stuxnet virus as well as the assassination of several of its top nuclear scientists.

The nuclear program is a point of extreme national pride, he said. It was just as critical as Mossadegh’s oil nationalization movement. In a sense, it was the glue that kept the regime together. Cohen spoke of how Iranian mullahs are given lessons on nuclear science and instructed to tour the country and give talks on it in cities and villages. Despite the Iranians rich history, ancient civilization and a strong self-image, it was the nuclear program that was mostly constantly featured in media headlines and gave Iranians a sense of importance.

The ultimate question was, “Do they want to make a bomb, or do they not?”

There are two hypotheses: Iran wants a bomb. This would require the Iranian leadership to move out of the gray zone and out of inertia – and to become visible in its activities. The second option was that Iran, in fact, has a risk-averse regime that has survived because it had backed down when under real pressure.

Cohen said he believed in the second hypothesis.  The Iranian regime would rather preserve the advantage of the status quo without running any additional risks. In either scenario, Cohen stressed that a military strike would be a mistake; it would lock this “tired” regime in for another generation.

Cohen concluded by saying, “don’t forget the Iranians. The noble people of Iran are there…they’re a very creative society. They’ve been questing for a long time for some time for some kind of better, more decent, more open society.” In his heart, he believes the right path is engagement, but he acknowledges that it is hard to see how engagement would work. The West needed to try harder to communicate with Iran. “It’s a great civilization that we have had no contact with for quite some time,” he said. He stressed that there needs to be a confidence-building measure, but didn’t have an answer as to what this might look like; he simply stated “We’re at an impasse; it’s likely not going to explode tomorrow, but it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”