Dina Esfandiary

A Comparative Study of U.S. and Iranian Counter-ISIS Strategies

ABSTRACT The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)s activities now go beyond insurgency and conventional operations in the territories it controls in the Middle East. It poses a threat to U.S. interests and allies in Europe, and a serious threat to Iran and its borders. While Washington formed an international coalition encompassing many European and Middle Eastern states to combat ISIS, it only coordinates some tactical and operation-level efforts with a key player on the ground: Iran. For its part, Iran is leveraging similar counter-ISIS tools as those adopted by the United States, despite their strategies differing fundamentally.

Yemen: an Opportunity for Iran–Saudi Dialogue?

When the Houthi rebels took control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in September 2014, Arab Gulf officials and Western pundits claimed that Iran was aiming to export its revolutionary ideology and establish a Shia empire throughout the Middle East. They claimed that Iran was doing so by backing, perhaps even controlling, the Shia Houthis. The Houthi takeover came at a critical point for the region: Tehran was in the midst of negotiations to resolve the crisis surrounding its nuclear program. The resulting deal provided Tehran with sanctions relief and removed some of the barriers to Iran’s reintegration into the international community. Some already wary Gulf Arab states viewed the success of the talks as an end to Iranian isolation, with the country fixing its broken ties to the West and reasserting itself as a top regional power. As a result, when it became clear that the Houthis had made substantial progress in Saudi Arabia’s backyard—with the Yemeni government effectively out of the picture—Saudi officials were rattled. Following exaggerated reports of wholehearted Iranian backing of the Houthis, the Saudi-led coalition strikes against Yemen were portrayed as part of a proxy war between the two regional rivals, in which both had equal involvement. Today, this view is prevalent among Gulf Arabs, whose fear of a resurgent Persian Empire dictates the course of events in Yemen. Yemen is a primary zone of influence and a high priority for Riyadh. For decades, Saudi Arabia has been involved in Yemen’s affairs, influencing various communities for its own leverage. While Yemen does not have much to offer by way of resources, Saudi control over Yemen is a point of prestige and legitimacy

Cooperating with Iran to Combat ISIS in Iraq

Two conflicting trends characterize the recent evolution of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). On one hand, the group has lost over 45 percent of its territorial gains in Iraq and about 20...

Conclusion: Latency with Intent

This concluding chapter draws together the various strands of argument raised throughout the book. Ultimately, this chapter brings the reader back to the core themes underpinning the concept of nuclear hedging: latency and intent. The chapter offers a final discussion of the role and interaction of these primary elements, before setting the path for further study in the area.

Narrating a Nuclear Programme

This chapter explores the evolution of Iran’s nuclear narrative, again with an emphasis on the period from 2002 when the Iranian nuclear challenge came to the fore as an international security issue. Consideration is given to how civil and military representations of nuclear were constructed and projected both domestically and internationally, and the impact of this on the evolution of the nuclear programme in its entirety. A key theme that emerges is the relationship between domestic politics and the nuclear narrative, which is shown to be symbiotic and self-reinforcing, with a profound influence on the direction and pace of the nuclear programme. The chapter also illustrates how the distinct and often powerfully emotive issues of nationalism, sovereignty, identity and progress coalesced into an interpretative framework that appeared to favour and promote a strategy of nuclear hedging.

Opaque Proliferation and Moves Towards Latency

This chapter considers some key aspects of Iran’s nuclear programme in technical terms and examines the implications of the particular approach that Iran has adopted. Themes addressed include the coherence of the civil rationale in light of particular technical developments, the extent and significance of nuclear opacity, and the relationship between the nuclear programme and the military sphere. The period of study for this chapter is 2002 to 2013 because it was over this timeframe that the international spotlight on Iran gained ever more intensity, and technical indicators continually emerged that raised questions over Tehran’s designs in the nuclear area. It is shown that, while these indicators did not provide ‘smoking gun’ evidence to support allegations that Iran’s civil programme disguised a nuclear weapons programme, it was evident that Tehran had moved far beyond what it strictly needed for its civil nuclear programme.

Rouhani’s Redirection: The End of Iranian Hedging?

The implications of the election of moderate Hassan Rouhani as President of Iran are the focus of this chapter. The analysis lays out and explains the domestic political developments that have taken place since 2013 and how these have impacted on the nuclear programme. The chapter relates this contextual change and its significance to the book’s broader exploration of hedging as proliferation behaviour. From a theoretical perspective, the analysis examines what the rollback agreed as part of the recent nuclear deal reveals about the limits of nuclear hedging as a conceptual approach.

Playing for Time? Iran’s Nuclear Diplomacy

The focus of this chapter is Iran’s nuclear diplomacy from 2002 to 2012 because it was during this period that the country made the advances that subsequently ensured the long-term continuity of the nuclear programme. The chapter demonstrates that Iran’s diplomatic activity comprised three main strands. First, Iran sought to play on differences between the Western powers on the one hand, and China and Russia on the other, in order to weaken the international consensus on how to respond to the Iranian nuclear challenge. Second, Tehran would reach agreements with its negotiating partners and then renege on them or suggest alternatives. Third, the Iranians capitalised on non-nuclear weapon states’ concerns regarding the use of nuclear technology for civil purposes. These diplomatic approaches bought time for the nuclear programme to develop, notably the capacity to enrich uranium, while also delaying the imposition of penalties for Iran’s transgressions.

The Nature of Nuclear Hedging

Nuclear hedging is an established concept in the literature on proliferation behaviour, yet it has received little scholarly attention to date. This chapter begins by situating hedging in relation to other relevant concepts in the field, such as ‘latency’, ‘ambiguity’ and ‘opacity’, before going on to probe the nature and characteristics of nuclear hedging. In particular, the chapter considers how this subtle form of proliferation behaviour might be identified, setting out three original ‘hedging indicators’—technical nuclear development issues, the national nuclear narrative and nuclear diplomacy on the part of the suspect state—which, taken together, form an analytical lens through which countries suspected of hedging can be viewed.

Introduction: Understanding Iranian Proliferation Behaviour

For well over a decade, much of the commentary on the Iranian nuclear challenge has reduced the issue to a binary opposition: nuclear weapons acquisition versus civil nuclear development. Yet Iranian proliferation behaviour is far more complex than this approach would suggest. This brief opening chapter explains the need for a more nuanced interpretation based on the concept of nuclear hedging. The chapter goes on to describe how, over the remainder of the book, the analysis both advances conceptual understanding of nuclear hedging as proliferation behaviour and uses this concept to generate new insights into the Iranian case.