The Future Belongs to Islam

The basic paradigm of superpower and small country relations can be applied anywhere, not just in the Middle East, and the same basic patterns emerge wherever the basic paradigm is applied. There are of course case studies which one could employ in order to apply the basic paradigm and then derive the certain patterns which then apply everywhere. We will now use Iran as a case study for the application of this particular paradigm, and then determine whether these patterns actually emerge. 

Iran is an example or a case study that highlights a “reawakening of Islamic consciousness” which in essence is aimed at a basic pattern found throughout, namely, the “opening the door to a global religious revolution that would finally vanquish the overbearing influence of the United States and its allies and bring an end to three centuries of Western primacy.” 

Iran has challenged the United States by “embracing a project of constructing an alternative world order in opposition to the one being practiced by the world community” to borrow from Kissinger. Moreover, Iran “combined its challenge to modernity with a millennial tradition of a statecraft of exceptional subtlety.” All on its own, Iran managed to turn the long-standing regional order in the Middle East “upside down” after its revolution in 1979, much to the dismay of the United States and Israel. The turning point in Iran’s relations with the West was in fact the Iranian revolution of 1979. To borrow from Kissinger: 

“With Iran’s revolution, an Islamist movement dedicated to overthrowing the Westphalian system gained control over a modern state and asserted its ‘Westphalian’ rights and privileges – taking up its seat at the United Nations, conducting its trade, and operating its diplomatic apparatus. Iran’s clerical regime thus placed itself at the intersection of two world orders, arrogating the formal protections of the Westphalian system even while repeatedly proclaiming that it did not believe in it, would not be bound by it, and intended ultimately to replace it.” 

In a word, resistance. In Iran, we find an example of yet another smaller country standing in the face of a big power and in essence stepping out of the basic and long-standing paradigm which is at the heart of big power and small country relations. The Supreme Leader of Iran is known by the Iranian system as “the Leader of the Islamic Ummah and Oppressed People.” From an Iranian standpoint, resistance would lead to Islam supplanting the Eurocentric global order over the course of time. “The future belongs to Islam” as the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared a number of decades ago. 

To borrow from Kissinger, Iran’s challenge to the West “is not a matter of specific technical concessions or negotiating formulas but a contest over the nature of world order.” But why the contest? The answer is the difference in historical experiences. After all, the United States is a major modern power with a kind of historical experience that differs from the one Iran as a smaller country has experienced for centuries, if not millennia. And to borrow from Kissinger:

“The United States and the Western democracies should be open to fostering cooperative relations with Iran. What they must not do is base such a policy on projecting their own domestic experience as inevitably or automatically relevant to other societies’, especially Iran’s. They must allow for the possibility that the unchanged rhetoric of a generation is based on conviction rather than posturing and will have had an impact on a significant number of the Iranian people. A change of tone is not necessarily a return to normalcy, especially where definitions of normalcy differ so fundamentally. It includes as well – and more likely – the possibility of a change in tactics to reach essentially unchanged goals. The United States should be open to a genuine reconciliation and make substantial efforts to facilitate it. Yet for such an effort to succeed, a clear sense of direction is essential, especially on the key issue of Iran’s nuclear program.” 

In other words, the starting point for a broader philosophical discussion and dialogue with a small power which is challenging a big power is for the big power to engage with the small power over “the resolution of an ostensibly technical military issue.” After all, the conversation and the dialogue has to start from somewhere.