Iran's Islamic Revolution, 29 years down the line, is turning the country into a regional power to be reckoned with, writes Mustafa El-Labbad International attention is riveted on the Islamic Republic of Iran, now in its 29th year, where looming storm clouds threaten an impending clash between Tehran and Washington, to whom, judging by the nearly daily statements by administration officials, the Islamist revolutionary regime has become public enemy number one. The nearly three decade old Iranian revolution has passed through several successive stages since the overthrow of the Shah: an eight-year long war with Iraq, the succession to the revolution's leader and spiritual father Ayatollah Al-Khomeini, the consolidation of the "revolutionary state," and even the launching of a "dialogue of civilisations" initiative. Yet, throughout these changes and transformations, it never lost sight of that paramount constant upon which it was founded: the "rule of the clergy", in accordance with which principle the nation's Supreme Revolutionary Guide resides in a lofty zone above the constitution. Thus, in spite of shifts in domestic policies, the comings and goings of political faces, and various overtures to the world abroad, the ruling religious establishment, in alliance with the "bazaar", or merchant class, has continued to hold sway in Iran, against the backdrop of a turbulent regional environment and a narrowing margin of maneuverability internationally. The Islamic Republic of Iran has ridden out successive waves of American pressure, all the while clinging, regardless of the political and ideological orientations of its rulers, to the fundamental ambition of the modern Iranian state, which is to impose itself as a regional power. Thus, with the patience and skill of a Persian carpet maker, it has woven for itself an axis of alliances stretching from its western borders through Iraq and Syria to southern Lebanon, as the result of which not only is Iran strategically poised, as always, over the Gulf, but, also, through the expansion of its influence, it now overlooks the Mediterranean, as well. The actions of the Bush administration, parading under the banner of the war against terrorism, helped pave the path for this expansion. In toppling the reactionary Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the United States cleared the way for the extension of Iranian influence northward. Hard on the heels of this, the same administration swept away the Saddam Hussein regime, which Tehran had been unable to budge throughout the protracted Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Then, on top of this enormous service, America's relentless pressures on its Middle Eastern allies created a gaping regional power void that constantly whetted Iran's appetite. As developments over the past three years have demonstrated, Iran has deftly played the cards that were virtually handed to it by the US in order to obstruct the Bush administration's enterprise in this part of the world. However, over the past six months, Tehran has been acting as though it has finally trumped the US in the game of regional balances of power. Indeed, regional power balances have tipped in favour of Iran, so much so that the world's sole superpower now feels its back against and is contemplating two alternatives: either to come to an arrangement with Iran or to turn up the threat of military action. It seems, therefore, that Iran has overplayed its hand and that somewhere along the line it forfeited a strong suit by refusing to accept the EU's basket of offers in exchange for halting its uranium enrichment activities. Here, precisely, is where Tehran put paid to any opportunity to sew a rift between Europe and the US, thereby ensuring the strongest ranging of international forces against it since revolution in 1979. Perhaps, too, even that expert eye of the Iranian weaver lost sight of a particular yarn in his spools of thread, that yarn of an ominous red that demarcates the difference between the respective power and resources of a regional power and a global one and that, simultaneously, forms for the former certain untraversable lines in the conduct of international relations in a monopolar world. As it passed into its 29th year, the Iranian revolution crossed the threshold into the most critical period ever for the regime and for Iranian self-determination. As the result of its handling of the Iranian nuclear crisis, it now has only two courses of action open before it. It can either respond to international pressures and agree to suspend uranium refinement activities in exchange for a suspension of the sanctions called for by resolution 1737, which will be immediately read as a political defeat for Tehran, or it can attempt to buck international pressures, which would open the doors to spiraling pressures, the dwindling of the level of "rewards" if Tehran caves in and the spectre of harsher and harsher sanctions if its does not. The Security Council is due to meet in a few days and, already, Washington is clamouring to up the level of sanctions. Mounting international pressures in turn will ricochet through the Iranian political hierarchy, which is still dominated by the political-economic alliance between the conservative religious establishment and the Iranian bourgeoisie and mercantile classes. At the pinnacle of this order sits the Supreme Guide Al-Sayyid Ali Khamenei, who, in addition to his broad constitutional powers, holds the keys to that most crucial instrument of power: the Iranian armed forces as embodied in the Revolutionary Guard, the national army and the volunteer army. However, as the country moves towards a more military footing in the face of possible foreign military intervention, the Iranian military establishment is bound to jockey for an increasing share in the decision-making pie, and it is not difficult to envision the supreme guide being taken down a notch or two from his pinnacle and the emergence of a troika consisting of the clergy, the "bazaar" and the military establishment. Washington, at present, appears resolutely bent on military escalation against Tehran in the hope of preventing it from capitalising even more on America's policy failures. One of the hardest lessons that the Americans learned from their intervention in Iraq was that toppling Saddam handed the geographically and demographically larger Iran the opportunity to extend its influence into Iraq as never before, distorting balances there in a way that has rebounded disastrously for American interests in the region as a whole. But, by extension, toppling the regime in Iran, regardless of if and how it could be brought about, would upset the regional balances in the Gulf in favour of an even stronger player yet. India is 17 times larger than Iran demographically -- and it possesses nuclear and military capacities that are at least 17 times stronger than those of Iran. Washington, which has railed against the totalitarian nature of the Iranian regime, has, since 2000, shown no shortage of an inclination in the same direction, and the same applies to India. Meanwhile, the Iranian nuclear question continues to encapsulate the conflicting aspirations of the major antagonists: Washington, which has targeted the Iranian nuclear programme as the avenue for neutralising Iran as a regional power in order to push through its concept of a "Greater Middle East", and Iran, which is striving to strengthen its regional presence by adding nuclear technology to its political leverage. As the situation stands at present, it appears that the chances of an American-Iranian "deal", based on a range of mutual guarantees and a regional role for Iran within certain bounds, are as consigned to the past as the Iranian revolution's 28th year.
