Seth Cropsey
American Purpose, Apr. 14, 2023
“As for Iran’s nuclear program, it is now too advanced to destroy.”
The Iran problem has metastasized and can no longer be shunted off or ignored. Disengagement is not an option: The situation has progressed to the point that Iran, in concert with Russia and China, is on the cusp of becoming a major-power member of the Eurasian revisionist coalition. It is no longer a question of whether Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, but when it does and whether a strike on its nuclear program can be successful. The good news for Washington is that a carefully crafted policy can delay the acceleration of the threat for some time.
The Iran threat stems from the nature of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is distinct from other authoritarian regimes in that it is not wholly modern. (Even the Hermit Kingdom, despite its insularity, embraces a modern, if mixed, ideology.) Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic’s ideological progenitor and first leader, was steeped in the Shia political-theological tradition and there is no denying his intellectual authenticity or the degree to which pre-modern thought influences the regime he created. The Islamic Republic is intentionally modeled after a specific medieval Islamic interpretation of Plato’s Republic, complete with a guardian council selected for intellectual talent and a philosopher-king, styled the Supreme Leader.
Like Marxism-Leninism, Khomeinism identifies the nation as a springboard for global Islamic revolution (in its universalism at least the regime is modern). At a minimum, the Khomeinist Islamic Republic seeks to remake the Middle East in its own image, as a series of Islamic republics that comprise a truly virtuous Islamic civilization. The Westphalian state system, with its restrictions on borders and sovereign equality, is nonetheless instrumentally useful to Iran, allowing it to claim rights and privileges like any other state and cry foul when it perceives those rights to be violated. But fundamentally, the Khomeinist polity puts no stock in modern political concepts. It is by nature aggressive, expansionist, and acquisitive. … [To read the full article, click here]
