The Iran Hawks' Distorted View of Iran By Daniel Larison

 Earlier this week, the Secretary of State displayed his superficial understanding of Iran:

It’s going to be hard. It’s been very difficult for anyone to do real deals with Iran, because we’re dealing with radical Shia clerics who are making theological decisions, not geopolitical ones [bold mine-DL].

American policymakers have viewed post-revolutionary Iran this way for almost half a century. The image of the Iranian government as nothing more than radical zealots is very helpful to Iran hawks because it allows them to cast Iran’s leaders as dangerously irrational. Hawks routinely try to paint adversaries as irrational in order to make diplomacy with the other side seem impossible and not worth trying. Hardliners describe an enemy this way so they can justify the most aggressive and hostile policies against them.

Rubio’s comment is partly a projection of his own ideological fanaticism. Rubio, Trump, and other Iran hawks are the ones making decisions based on their ideological obsessions rather than any real U.S. interests. The U.S. has no compelling reason to provoke a crisis with Iran right now, but that is what it is doing for reasons that have nothing to do with American security.

Treating an adversary as an irrational actor is also a very convenient excuse for one’s own diplomatic incompetence. Negotiating a mutually beneficial agreement between the U.S. and Iran has been challenging in the past, but it is not nearly as difficult as Rubio makes it out to be. The inflexibility and maximalism of the American side are the things that keep getting in the way of an agreement. Despite having been punished with sanctions for no good reason and then having been attacked for no good reason, the Iranian government is the one that has been pragmatic and open to real talks. It is the U.S. side that insists with something approaching religious fervor that Iran must make huge concessions on a range of issues in exchange for nothing.

The Iranian government mostly has a record of acting according to the perceived security interests of the regime and the country. They have usually been making decisions based on Iran’s national interests as they understand them. Rubio is simply wrong in his assessment, and that is one of the reasons why he and other Iran hawks are so consistently wrong in their policy preferences.

Especially since the death of Khomeini in 1989, the Iranian government has been focused on building up their defenses and establishing relationships with clients and allies in the region to guard against a repeat of the experience of the war with Iraq. Their government has proven that they are willing to negotiate on the nuclear issue within limits, and they were complying with the requirements of the nuclear deal until the U.S. reneged on it and piled on the sanctions again.

Rubio also falls back on this crude and oversimplified view of the Iranian government because most people in our government have only the shallowest understanding of any adversary. That goes double in the case of Iran. He may think he is offering up an insight, but he is just announcing to the world that he is relying on the most cartoonish assumptions. Much like the “martyr-state myth” that Iran hawks have peddled for decades, the idea that the Iranian leadership is making “theological decisions” when it comes to foreign policy and national security issues is deeply ignorant.

One of the reasons why this crude view of the Iranian government persists in Washington is that the U.S. and Iran haven’t had normal diplomatic relations in over forty years. That is a recipe for misperception and hostility. Even if we didn’t have a dedicated cadre of ideologues encouraging fear and loathing of Iran on a daily basis, our leaders would struggle to understand a country that they have never visited, studied, or communicated with on a regular basis. U.S.-Iranian relations will remain poisoned indefinitely until our governments establish diplomatic ties and begin routinely talking to each other. That won’t solve everything, but it is necessary first step if our governments are ever going to break out of this cycle of senseless, avoidable conflict.

Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. A new conflict started by the U.S. will only sour the Iranian government on engagement and further discredit Iranian advocates of diplomacy. Iranian hardliners will thrive on the pointless, unnecessary conflict that Rubio and Trump are stoking, and the Iranian people will be the ones paying the price as usual.