What are we to make about the current panic about the Iranian threat? Earlier this year, neoconservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, citing the success of the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, warned of “Iran’s Emerging Empire.” Republican Senator Mark Kirk has compared the ongoing nuclear talks with Tehran to the appeasement of Nazi Germany before World War II. In a New York Times piece, experts from the Washington Institute managed to combine both these tropes, implicitly comparing the current Iranian regime to Germany between the world wars and to the Safavid Empire of the 16th to 18th centuries.
There is a term for such rhetoric: threat inflation. From the escalation in Vietnam in the early 1960s to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, policymakers and pundits have routinely exaggerated security in service of urging more U.S. decisive action against perceived foes, whether it be international communism or Saddam Hussein. Last year alone we saw two examples. The first was prompted by the Russian intervention in the Ukraine, which represented, we were told, a resumption of the Cold War. The second was the sudden rise of ISIL which embodied, in the words of then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, an “imminent threat to every interest we have.”
There is almost always a kernel of truth — and sometimes even a large one — to these rhetorical deployments of threat inflation. Russia’s intervention in the Ukraine was, in fact, an egregious breach of international practice that fully merited the response it has prompted from the United States and the EU; it did not, however, presage a second Cold War, if only because Russia lacks anything approaching the power of the Soviet Union at its height. ISIL is clearly a threat — most acutely to Iraq but also to other countries in the Middle East and our interests in the region. But it is a threat that we can contain without the massive introduction of U.S. military force.
The same is true when it comes to Iran, a country that opposes us on a host of issues in the Middle East, not least its longstanding support for Hezbollah and hostility toward Israel. Iran is, by any standard, a regional force to be reckoned with. It is a populous country with a sizeable military and, moreover, one that would clearly like to enhance its regional power. But it is not — alarmist talk to the contrary — on the verge of dominating the Middle East.
In fact, Iran’s strategic situation is far less advantageous than many suggest. It does indeed wield significant influence in Damascus, where Iranian support has proven critical to the survival of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. But that regime, we should recall, remains embattled; its medium- to long-term prospects for survival are, to put it charitably, unclear. Should the Assad regime collapse, Iran will see its ability to supply arms to Hezbollah severely constrained. In other words, Tehran rightly views the civil war in Syria with alarm, not relish.
In Baghdad, too, Iranian clout may be on the ascendant. The reason is simple: Tehran is providing direct military support critical to the Iraqi government’s struggle against ISIL. But, again, the situation on the ground is hardly comforting from the Iranian perspective. The Iraqi government is currently engulfed in a savage struggle to regain huge swaths of territory lost to ISIL. In any case, the United States is — like it or not — a de facto partner with Iran in Iraq.
Even in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has launched air strikes to avert what it considers the victory of Iranian proxies, the picture is complex. The Houthi rebels are Shiite like the Iranians, though they belong to a different strand of Shii’ism. They have, indeed, received modest support from Tehran. But the conflict in Yemen is largely driven by long-standing domestic political rifts that are only partly sectarian in origin. Even a full victory by the Houthis would only give Tehran yet another weak client, this one too far away to support effectively. Ironically, Riyadh’s intervention may play directly into Iranian hands: strategists in Tehran would surely like nothing more than to see their regional rival Saudi Arabia bogged down in a nasty civil war on its borders.
In short, we need to be realistic about the Iranian threat. Where Iranian interests diverge from our own, we should be prepared to oppose Tehran. Normalization of relations between the United States and Iran, for instance, should require a shift of Tehran’s policy towards Hezbollah. Moreover, any Iranian strike against a truly vital U.S. national interest — such as an unlikely effort to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz— should be met by military action. But we should also be prepared to cooperate with Iran where our interests converge, however narrowly. The ongoing negotiations to conclude a nuclear deal with Tehran are a case in point. So is coordination of our efforts against ISIL in Iraq.
Iran — as it has since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 — represents a challenge to U.S. foreign policy. But it is one best addressed through a combination of firm action where necessary and flexible diplomacy where possible. It is not the Persian Empire reborn, much less a latter-day Nazi Germany poised to swallow the Persian Gulf whole.
Joe Barnes is the Baker Institute’s Bonner Means Baker Fellow. From 1979 to 1993, he was a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, serving in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.