Interview with Ham Mihan Newspaper, April 22, 2024 -
The interview was in Persian and the translation below was done by Ai.
While all the world's attention after October 7 was focused on the new Middle East centered on the developments in the Gaza Strip, suddenly at midnight on April 13, the world turned its attention to the distance between Iran and occupied Palestine, which had become like a black hole in space due to the closure of the airspace of countries such as Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, as well as the change of flight routes of airlines.
The movement of drones and then missiles that left Iranian soil for Israel and eventually, despite the military coalition created under the leadership of the United States to intercept them, many of them reached the skies of the occupied territories and some also collided with predetermined targets, became the beginning of a new history in the developments in the Middle East that could have many positive and negative consequences for Tehran.
Sasan Karimi, a professor of international relations at the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran, believes in an interview with Qaymayhan: “The balance of power in the region has changed militarily in favor of Iran.”
This international relations analyst also emphasized that “if we have a weakness, which we do, it is in the soft and semantic dimensions of power and not in the hard dimensions; this issue has shown that what we often hear about the need for multiple weapons in terms of deterrence is a false belief.”
Regarding the consequences of the developments of the last two weeks, Karimi also said: “Such an incident with Arab countries will cause Iran’s military authority to be further consolidated in their minds, and secondly, although they know that Iran does not intend to escalate its conflict with Arab countries and will use the issue of Iran more for security purposes, its threatening dimension can increase Tehran’s distance from its neighbors.”
*In the past two weeks and since April 1, we have witnessed developments that are ultimately referred to as the emergence of conflicts and war between Iran and Israel from the shadows. Perhaps few would have predicted what happened on April 13, when Iranian drones and missiles were launched directly at the occupied territories. From a theoretical perspective, how can the developments of these days be examined and analyzed?
The time frame I choose is 6 months and the whole new story starts on October 7; the main point is that Netanyahu, with the predicament he found himself in in Gaza, was trying to drag at least two other players, Iran and the United States, into this game. No matter how hard he tried, Tehran did not enter this predicament intelligently.
In the end, however, the Israeli Prime Minister raised the level of tension to the point of putting Iran in a puzzling dilemma. When our consulate in Damascus was hit, how to act was by no means an easy decision. In principle, of course, the decision is easy and must be answered, but due to the consideration that this is a tunnel that Netanyahu himself is digging to escape the impasse, Iran had reservations for itself and was making calculations beyond the surface; Therefore, it took some time to organize and implement its response, and as Mr. Amir Abdollahian also said, consultations had been held with influential players in the region to reduce the cost of this action.
Of course, the design was a good design and it was well executed because both the response was carried out and the situation that Netanyahu wanted to take advantage of by raising the level of tension was largely avoided. Of course, in these circumstances, the Gaza issue has been largely placed on the low priority list, and this is a fact, but Iran added several new issues to the equation, one of which is the emergence of this conflict between Iran and Israel from the shadows, which of course was not in the shadows, and there were some legal arguments about who wants to take responsibility for attacking the territory of another country, but for Iran, this argument was no longer very relevant because what Israel did justified this, and Iran also set aside this consideration.
The second point is that Netanyahu lost the game here, by once again challenging and damaging Israel's deterrence and image of invincibility, which had been tarnished on October 7; in the sense that the taboo that existed about possibly attacking Israel and taking responsibility for it, which was considered a dangerous thing, was broken by Iran, and incidentally, the main point is that it was shown that the deterrence that is so much talked about in foreign policy circles these days is not the kind of deterrence that Israel has a nuclear bomb. The most important result of this reaction was that such a deterrence does not exist. The story was that Tel Aviv started a high-risk game, Iran continued this game in a somewhat managed but high-risk manner, and ultimately Israel's recent reaction in Isfahan was a very mild reaction. If we now go back to the days before the attack on the eighth hunting base in Isfahan, it seems that Israel's lack of attack was more beneficial to it, and the ambiguity created was promising for its own supporters. Now, if you look at the analyses, the supporters who previously defended all of Israel's actions have become very disappointed, and for this reason they say that perhaps this attack was just a test and the beginning of a series of attacks, and no one believes that a reaction of this level would have emerged in response to that major attack.
I believe that the balance of power in the region has changed militarily in favor of Iran, and Iran has shown that Israel does not have the deterrence it was thought to have in terms of nuclear weapons, and that it has less capability in terms of conventional weapons than was thought. Therefore, since October 7, Israel's hegemony has been breaking down layer by layer.
*Iran also took this path to restore its deterrence; was Tehran successful in this path?
If we want to be fair, the reality is that yes; because Iran was able to accomplish what it wanted to do, meaning that considering the announcement that we fired from here, the decision was made not to cause any casualties, etc., and to only show Israel a thumbs-up. Yes, it was shown that Iran has the ability to deliver its missiles to Israel. Israel is small, about one-seventieth the size of Iran, so it is a very suitable target for missiles.
I do not consider drones because of their slowness, and even cruise missiles, but the ballistic missiles fired, all of which hit the target, indicate that Iran’s deterrence exists exactly on the scale it said it would, and can launch a significant number of ballistic missiles towards Israel within 400 seconds, and this is deterrence from a military perspective; although we must also consider other dimensions of deterrence.
*The challenge and the main issue in any of our foreign actions is always the media war, narrative and diplomacy, and the issue of responding to Israel in the consulate issue is no exception to this rule, and after April 13, we witnessed a kind of diplomatic harmony and the formation of an alliance in the moment in response to the Iranian attack. What is your assessment?
If we have a weakness, which we do, it is in the soft dimensions and the meaning of power, not the hard dimensions; This issue has been shown to be a misconception that what we hear a lot about the need for multiple weapons in deterrence. What is at least our bottleneck right now is the issue of capability; the capability to create and consolidate a discourse that is part of the main narrative. For example, in the case of Gaza, Al Jazeera alone was able to do this and created a significant part of the semantic load, and a significant part of public opinion gets its news, narrative, and analysis from Al Jazeera, but in the case of Iran, we are faced with various semantic weaknesses, both in terms of the media and diplomacy. Although I do not want to call this weakness in domestic politics, the reality is that if you forget the senior cadres who are connected to domestic politics, in any case, our cadre-building and the way we look at semantic issues are somewhat more unprofessional than engineering and industrial issues. In the field of foreign policy, difficult issues have become more important from our perspective and we have invested in them and we see that we have received a response and from nothing, we have built cruise and ballistic missiles and we are among the leaders in this field because we have invested; first we noticed that these issues are important and then we invested in them and waited and finally we carried out a 2 to 3 decade project and reached a conclusion, but this is not the case with semantic issues and our decision-making system has not been very significant, but its impact is no less, if not greater.
*Regarding the coalition formed against Iranian drones and missiles in the attack on Israel, Jordan played a direct role and some media outlets have also spoken of the role of Saudi Arabia and the UAE; in general, what regional consequences will this reaction of Tehran have in the way Arab countries view and interact?
This is both an opportunity and a threat; Such an incident with Arab countries will firstly further consolidate Iran’s military power in their minds, and secondly, although they know that Iran does not intend to escalate its conflict with Arab countries and will use the issue of Iran more for security purposes, its threatening dimension can increase the distance between Tehran and its neighbors. In order for the distance not to become too great and possibly hostile, our representations and, in principle, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must be more active. Of course, an important shortcoming that we have, and it does not only apply to the UAE, is that our trade exchanges with Arab countries are not very significant, and in the oil fields where we are neither a partner nor a buyer or seller, the level of our OPEC cooperation has decreased and Iran’s role has decreased due to oil sanctions. Perhaps, as a much larger player, Russia has entered OPEC+, and this is a dimension that we have lost, and we could have expanded relations in other trade and economic exchanges as well; Due to various factors, both of which are stronger and we are under sanctions, we missed this opportunity because the most important softener of relations and stabilizer of peace in bilateral and multilateral relations is trade, and the main guarantee for any agreement is these communications. Hobbes said that without a sword, words are empty, but the reality is that in today's world, without an economy, words are empty. Iran has various industries and high engineering and medical capabilities, but unfortunately, instead of being able to export services, we export force, and part of our force has become an immigration force. What could have happened was that our economic and trade exchanges would have guaranteed stability in relations. Iran's dominance is good, but it should not cause fear, insecurity, and ultimately distancing neighbors and making them seek refuge in Iran's enemies, especially Israel.
*After the agreement to normalize relations between the UAE and Israel, we witnessed the signing of a security agreement between the two countries, which the UAE was forced to suspend at some point due to the actions of the extremist Netanyahu government, but the threat of such agreements between Iran’s neighbors and the Zionist regime still exists. How can we manage this current situation without a backlash and without pushing other countries in the region towards Israel?
The issue is very much dependent on how we manage this issue in semantic dimensions; these semantic dimensions are more in the diplomatic direction that we have open, and must proceed in such a way that we use this opportunity that was unintentionally created for us on October 7 and prevented the progress of the Abraham Accords, and do not let it go in that direction again, because on the other side, almost the entire world agrees with this agreement because the tension is to their detriment, while normalization is to our detriment.
In order to continue to prevent the normalization process, we must be able to start a process that reverses the story that Israel started in 1991, which was the same securitization of Iran under various pretexts, including Iran’s nuclear program, etc., which aimed to replace Iran as the main threat in the region, and of course, it was successful to some extent in greatly increasing the distance between Iran and the Arabs.
This task and this management are not easy, but it is possible and requires planning, patience, and investment to design and advance the same narrative. We never intended to intimidate our neighbors, our power is established and should not be in the form of intimidation, and we must resolve our issues with our neighbors in the various contexts that exist, although securitization has made it difficult for us in the past decades.
Of course, this has always been a question of whether regional issues are prior to our global issues or secondary? Because some believe that we must first resolve the issues with the US and the West, and then regional issues will resolve themselves, and some say that we must first resolve regional issues. You also saw in the JCPOA that Saudi Arabia and some other countries in the region became troublemakers and critics of the agreement.
*There are two scenarios ahead of the confrontation between Tehran and Tel Aviv, the first is the end of the conflict at the current stage and its return to the shadow and proxy side, and the second scenario is the continuation of this conflict in this form and its entry into a new military phase; in this second scenario, several components will be challenging for Iran, one of which is Israel's defense capability, which although its hegemony has been somewhat lost after October 7 and April 13, still provides a high level of defense for this regime, and in addition, it can create a coalition against Tehran's reactions at any moment. Which direction do you believe we will move in?
I believe that this issue is over in the short term, but in the medium and long term it will depend on the various policies that exist in the world, because today we are faced with a much more radical Europe than in the past, but in Washington, this support for the aggressive policy of the Israeli government is not maximum at the moment, and there are various reasons for this; including the fact that it is an election year and the decline in the legitimacy of Netanyahu's extremist cabinet, which in any case raises the cost of supporting Israel in public opinion, and liberal democratic countries cannot do anything, and that is why you see Mr. Biden saying that we are not with Israel in the aggression. However, in the medium term, Biden may fundamentally change, and the policies that Mr. Trump brings with him in a second term may be of a different nature, and this support and the potential danger that this support creates, along with all the elements of power that you mentioned, will increase the pressure on Iran. There is a policy in Israel called the “Thousand Daggers Policy” based on which they try to pressure Iran on various issues and eventually this big entity will be defeated somewhere with thousands of small daggers.
We also have a cultural threat and basically whenever we win on an issue or think we have won, we give up calculating to some extent and then we cannot have that previous attention and follow-up and intoxication happens and makes us imprecise. So we must be careful not to deceive ourselves because this is one of the traps through which humanity fails.
We should not be deceived and this is an important point that we must increase our capabilities, but capabilities are not limited to military and difficult issues. We must try to solve the issue of Iran's security in general, including regional, nuclear, etc., once and for all. This does not mean that we retreat from our positions at all. Rather, there are specialized solutions that show how, just as we can reach a ballistic missile from nothing, we can change this narrative at a calculated time. This requires will, decision, planning, and ultimately consistent implementation.
*After October 7 and the developments of the last 6 months, we witnessed a type of actor from the United States that was trying to form a specific type of cooperation with Iran in order to manage the spread of tension, both qualitatively and quantitatively, and showed restraint on some issues such as what happened at its base on the Jordanian border, which was expected to be accompanied by a reaction from Washington; Can this policy of the United States open up a new engagement with Iran? How do you define this cooperation?
The fact is that I think that relations between Iran and the United States in the past two years have been committed on both sides to not increasing the level of tension, and we saw this in that verbal agreement because both sides benefit from this issue; especially now that the United States is in the election phase, so it does not need to create or increase new tension at all. Of course, there is a threat in this type of behavior, and that is the bone of contention and the unresolved issues; In other words, my own preference is not for the issues not to be resolved but for the tension not to increase because this will reduce the cost for us in the short term, but in the long term, whenever they want and have the opportunity, they will increase the tension.
We should use the situation they have in the region today and are involved in the elections, and we used to solve our issues on a basic level. Yes, after October 7, a cooperation, not a harmony, was formed between Tehran and Washington, which was aimed at not increasing tensions, but it is not clear what will happen after the elections. In any case, after January 21, we are dealing with a second-term president, and we know that with a break between different terms, no one can be president for three terms in the United States. As a result, the next president will have more will and power, both in matters of war and peace, and will not be concerned about getting re-elected. Therefore, the second term is sensitive, but our hands are tied, and from now on, especially if Mr. Trump comes, it will be difficult for us. The best time to put the issues on the table is before the elections and now, because the strategic benefit of such interaction is only for America.
Putting issues on the table, of course, does not mean that we want to solve everything. We can even agree that we have no agreement on some issues and do not want to solve them. However, some issues can move towards resolution within this framework, and in the meantime, the increase in tension will be resolved for us, because whenever they solve their problems, they can increase the pressure on us at any time they want.
*Will April 13 also create a change in the West's view and will we witness a new policy towards Iran?
I think the United States believed that Iran had a legitimate right and if you look at the underlying layer of the positions, everyone has this identification with Iran to some extent that whenever diplomatic sites are attacked, they compensate and as a result they gave this right to Iran and as you saw after the Iranian attack, their positions were that now it is over and they asked Netanyahu not to respond which showed that they implicitly believed that Iran had the right.
However, they may move towards pressures such as reducing oil sales against us and we should also put various proposals on the table to prevent this. This is while Mr. Biden’s administration is no longer showing any desire to come to the negotiating table with Iran, but they can be attracted to negotiations with more comprehensive proposals.
Because the government in Iran is fundamentalist, I think it is good that they show this will. We should look at such issues from a national perspective, and I think it is in the country's interest to go to the negotiating table on regional issues, Gaza and Yemen, and of course the nuclear issue, and with a little more comprehensive negotiation, as the scholars say, we can ward off the evil that is destined.
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