Iran’s only salvation is through peace with Arab states

Smuggled from one safe house to the next, communicating with underlings via scraps of paper for fear of using a phone, and with his foremost regional commanders dead, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is perhaps pondering how his actions have brought Iran to this miserable juncture.

The Iranian supreme leader’s hapless spy chief Ismael Qaani has disappeared, prompting speculation that he may have been killed by Israel, or is under interrogation in Tehran over his culpability for security breaches.

Iran flooded the region with transnational paramilitary armies such as the Houthis in Yemen, Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon that were supposed to be cannon fodder in the exalted cause of regime preservation. But through such warmongering, the ayatollahs succeeded only in placing a large target on their own heads.

The “axis of resistance” was never primarily about attacking Israel: it was a pretext for subverting governing authorities in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, converting these nations into proxy frontline states against the full spectrum of regime enemies — including Arab countries and the West. Iran cynically wields these failed states like playing cards, dialing tensions up and down as proof of its supposed pre-eminence.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the ayatollahs were prisoners of their own rhetoric, having for so long trotted out the nonsensical narrative of “death to America” and “death to Israel,” while in practice spending the past year dodging and weaving in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid being caught up in full-blown regional war.

But through such warmongering, the ayatollahs succeeded only in placing a large target on their own heads.

Baria Alamuddin

Tehran and Hezbollah’s constant missteps ultimately granted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the pretext he sought for targeting the Iranian regime directly. It is only because the Biden administration in the White House is risk averse and focused on elections that there has been any hesitation in Israel embarking on massive air assaults against Iran’s nuclear, oil, military, economic and civilian installations. Khamenei must be having sleepless nights about the prospects of a Trump presidential election win.

Iran has dispatched diplomats to Riyadh, Doha, Cairo, Baghdad, Damascus and elsewhere in last-ditch efforts to avert Israel’s oncoming onslaught, but the regime looks more isolated than ever. Dysfunctional, questionable allies such as North Korea and Russia habitually fail to follow through on promises of weapons and support — particularly given Moscow’s historic ties with Israel, 15 percent of whose population speak Russian.

The most likely existential threat to the regime is from the inside, from an impoverished and frustrated populace who blame their oppressive leaders for their miserable plight, so the ayatollahs can ill afford to look so weak and vulnerable.

Hezbollah’s decapitation is fueling tensions in numerous states, including Iraq, where the conspicuous humiliations of the “resistance” have encouraged calls to demobilize the Iran-backed Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi militias in the knowledge that it is only a matter of time before Israel unleashes its firepower on Baghdad. Likewise in Lebanon, where a radically weakened Hezbollah will nevertheless fight tooth and nail to avoid losing its accustomed political prestige, particularly with Israel agitating for implementation of the 2004 UN Security Council resolution that requires the disarmament of all non-state forces.

Having lost an entire cohort of veteran commanders, the regime in Tehran appears to be promoting surviving Iraqi warlords such as Qais Al-Khazali and Akram Al-Kaabi, but the Revolutionary Guards must feel trepidation that future phases of paramilitary brinkmanship sit in the unpredictable hands of such mercurial megalomaniacs and inexperienced nonentities. While Iraqi paramilitaries may be more numerous than Hezbollah, they have long since devolved into criminal mafias, offering scant military abilities other than skirmishing with each other and staging predatory attacks on defenseless civilians.

It doesn’t have to be like this. After millennia of shared culture and history with Iran, fellow-Muslim Arab states are not its natural enemies. They are supposedly all on the same side in championing the justice of the Palestinian cause. So rather than mumbled threats that Gulf states could be targeted if Tehran is hit, Iran should be seeking to reactivate its previous reluctant and tentative steps toward diplomatic outreach.

After millennia of shared culture and history with Iran, fellow-Muslim Arab states are not its natural enemies.

Baria Alamuddin

This would entail removing the gun it holds to the Arab world’s head, by demobilizing proxy armies, renouncing pretentions of nuclear supremacy, and ceasing efforts to flood Arab states with narcotics. For decades Gulf states have weathered an atmosphere of threats and hostility, such as groundless territorial claims over Bahrain, the occupation of UAE islands, and support for insurgencies and coup attempts.

Through all these self-defeating machinations, Iran only harmed and isolated itself. Because of its nuclear program and support for terrorism, this foremost oil producer is impoverished by sanctions, while billions of dollars were siphoned off to fund Arab paramilitary armies that Israel is gleefully ripping limb from limb. The weapons arsenals being destroyed throughout Lebanon were funded off the backs of ordinary Iranians who have taken to social media in droves to denounce such colossal wastage that made Iran a target for Israeli wrath.

This warmongering regime has hubristically brought itself to the cusp of annihilation — but it can still save itself by affirming its commitment to becoming a normal state that prioritizes enriching its citizens and coexisting peacefully and prosperously with its neighbors.

Paradoxically, a strong and unified Muslim world would pose the greatest threat to the maximalist ambitions of Israel’s extreme right by presenting a united front in support of Palestinian justice and nationhood. This would allow states such as Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq to step back from the brink of disintegration and return to the Arab fold, with all the support for reconstruction and economic rehabilitation that this would bring.

For Iran, acknowledging that the past 45 years have been an exercise in self-destructive futility would not be an admission of defeat, but instead may represent the only prospect of emerging from this catastrophe in one piece.

Nobody, least of all the regime itself, wants to witness Iran’s destruction. Let us hope that at this late and fateful moment the ayatollahs possess some kind of survival instinct.

• Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.