Thomas P.M. Barnett

ARTICLE: "A Feared Force Roils Business in Iran: As hard-liners rise, shadowy Revolutionary Guard muscles in on airport and nabs energy deals," by Andrew Higgins, Wall Street Journal, 14 October 2006, p. A1.

One of the surest signs of a fatally corrupt regime is when the security forces start going into business for themselves. Cynicism has no higher calling.

The Chinese realized this years ago with the PLA, forcing them to get out of the vast majority of the businesses they had wormed their way into over the years, when funding was light from the central authorities.

Seeing such stuff pile up even faster than before makes less impressive all those arguments about the revolutionary fervor of the Ahmadinejad crowd. I mean, if they were gearing up for national suicide, why would they continue to be so busy making bucks?

None of this is new with the Guard. It's just gotten so much more brazen under Ahmadinejad thanks to our increasingly hard-line that's designed--of course--to weaken the very parts of the Iranian elite that we instead bolster:

The struggle for the leases and drilling rigs [where Iranian Guard-sponsored businesses are crowding out others] reveals an unintended consequence of U.S. foreign policy. In this case, instead of weakening Iran, America's efforts to squeeze the country ended up boosting the very hard-line forces there that the U.S. wants to curb.

Unintended? Yes. Unforeseen? Not if you've tracked other countries where we've tried the route of sanctions--like Cuba.

Sad to say, the piece included arguments from Bush officials to the effect that although the RG benefits now from the unintended integration of Iranian energy sectors created by our sanctions and economic isolation tactics, "they are also in the best position to persuade the regime that its current track will undermine the future of the Iranian people"... once the "real" pain of all this isolation takes effect.

Oy vey! Tell it to the Chinese and Russians and Indians.

The naivete of that mindset is stunning, and from Treasury to boot. Let the Guard consolidate their power and get richer in the meantime, and when the big pinch comes, they'll do our arguing for us.

I ask for empowering the masses from below with economic connectivity and let them do the talking regarding reform. But for that perspective, I am considered naive.

Meanwhile, our "realists" put their faith in the Revolutionary Guard to do the same?

Can our strategic thinking on Iran get any more bankrupt?

Yes, yes. Letting the RG get richer will curb the regime's support for terrorism in the region. Buy that and I've got an undamaged oil rig to sell you off the coast of Louisiana.

Our strategy of keeping Iran disconnected gets us what? Further concentration of the economic and political power in the hands of the hard-liners--and a bomb we cannot prevent.

But of course, stay the course. What else can be done in the final two years of this post-presidency?