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IRAN AND THE SUPERPOWERS IN THE GULF Mohammed E. Ahrari .HE 1979 IRANIAN REVOLUTION, which abruptly ended the shah's reign and brought Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini to power, substantially increased political turbulence in the Persian Gulf. Within five years there was an attempted coup in Bahrain, an abortive takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, and an attempt to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait. Terrorists also perpetrated numerous attacks in the area, including attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel. The region has also been the site of a protracted war between its two most populous nations, Iran and Iraq, a war now in its seventh year. In response to these threats the small, sparsely populated nations of the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula have grown increasingly concerned about their security. In May 1981 these concerns led several of the oilrich Gulf states to form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as a way of enhancing their collective security. The major threat perceived by the Gulf nations is Iran's commitment to export its fundamentalist form of Islamic government, either through direct attacks on the Gulf states or through support for indigenous fundamentalist groups. Moreover, the Gulf states fear that, even without Iranian encouragement, religious groups within their own borders might be led to emulate Khomeini's path Mohammed E. Ahrari is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Mississippi State University. His specialties include the American policymaking process and superpower relations in the Middle East. He is the author of OPEC: The Falling Giant (Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 1986); and The Dynamics of Oil Diplomacy: Conflict and Consensus (New York: Arno Press, 1980). His edited book, Ethnic Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy, will be published by Greenwood Press in early 1987. The author wishes to acknowledge the critical assistance of Reba R. Lewis, lecturer, Department or Sociology, East Carolina University. 157 158 SAIS REVIEW to power. Iran's pledge to increase the number of theocratic "Islamic republics" is also aimed at damaging the strategic interests of both superpowers in a region whose oil reserves and location make it an area of crucial strategic importance. As an ideological state in which Shiite Islam plays a dominant role in the creation of all national policies, Iran today pursues a very different foreign policy than it did under the shah. The long-range objective of Iranian foreign policy under Khomeini is the creation of a political order that is truly indigenous to the region. Two central goals of this order are to minimize superpower influence and create what could be called an Iran-centric Islamic regional order, one in which Islam would not only determine the nature of domestic politics of the Gulf countries but also shape their foreign policies. However, the political order in the region before 1979 serves as a precedent for the order sought by Khomeini. Under both shah and imam, Iran has perceived the emergence of an Iran-centric regional order as natural and inevitable. Iran, both reasoned, has the largest population in the region and— after Saudi Arabia— the second-largest oil reserves. Under the shah, however, the political order in the Gulf enjoyed the explicit support of the United States, which in fact helped to construct it. By contrast, Khomeini has spurned both superpowers. There are two significant bases for fundamentalist Iran's confrontation with the superpowers . The first is the Third World idea of nonalignment, present since the 1957 Bandung conference. But the novel element that imparts post-1979 Iran's experiment in nonalignment with its particularly extreme character is Khomeini's depiction of the superpowers as debased, corrupt , and "anti-Islamic."1 Khomeini has consistently emphasized the United States' close relationship with Israel and the negative implications of this relationship for all Muslims in the region, particularly the Palestinians and the Lebanese. Iran under Khomeini has persistently stated that continued U.S. military support of Israel and its expansionist policies is an attempt to thrust a political solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict upon the Arabs, a solution aimed at guaranteeing the existence of Israel without necessarily resolving the Palestinian question. Similarly, Khomeini's Iran has stressed...

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