• Global security

Global security

This report examines Iran’s interactions with groups in Lebanon, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories. It intends to help policymakers understand the real extent of Iranian influence so that they can better motivate Iran and its allies to become more constructive actors in the Middle East.

The author stresses that Iran has provided crucial financial aid to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iraqi Shiite groups. However, Iranian influence is blunted by the populist nature of Shiite Islam and that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is not a significant source of emulation even in his own country. Iran’s goals appear to be largely defensive: to achieve strategic depth and safeguard its system against foreign intervention, to have a major say in regional decisions, and to prevent or minimise actions that might run counter to Iranian interests. I

To achieve its goals, Iran exerts influence in three major ways: through ties with Shiite clerics, or mullahs, financial aid for humanitarian and political causes, and weapons and training supplied to militant groups. Much of this support pales in comparison with U.S. contributions to its allies, however, Iran appears to get more ‘bang for its bucks’. Recipients of Iranian largesse, especially the Lebanese group Hezbollah, are not mere proxies and appear to have considerable tactical autonomy and influence on Iranian policies.

Conclusions include that:

• it is critical to see that Iran is more powerful than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq but constrained by internal problems and external resistance
  
• Iran’s ability to project power is limited by its Persian, Shiite identity and its conventional military weakness - although its nuclear program is accelerating it has made slow progress considering that it began, with U.S. help, more than a half century ago
  
• United States policies of rejecting negotiations with Iran while blaming Iran for violence in the Middle East have bolstered Iran rather than weakened it
  
• lasting peace in Lebanon, Palestine, or Iraq is unlikely without a reduction in tensions between the United States and Iran.
  

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