Iran is more than oil

OP-ED: Sleepless in Tehran, By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, New York Times, October 28, 2008

Reasonable description from Friedman on Iran's increased vulnerability, but I am wary of the uni-causal explanation for the Soviet Union's fall (oil up and then down), because it takes a complex thing and turns it into an all-encompassing, single-point failure answer. So I am equally wary of thinking that lower oil prices afford us that much leverage with Iran. High oil prices alone don't explain all of Soviet behavior in the 1970s and lower prices don't explain all of it in the 1980s. It is simply a simplistic 20/20 hindsight that's been layered on in recent years, in part to give Reagan undue credit for the USSR's demise. But that's like saying that if you're there to help to pull the plug on the comatose patient, you're the real reason why he stopped being a virile, strong man, and that's--again--awfully simplistic.

We're not powerless with Iran when oil prices are high, nor do we hold some magic key when they're low. It's just more complex than that.

Iran is a real country with real interests in the region. It's also full of a young population hungry for connectivity with the world. You can't control both of those elements simply by turning the big knob called oil prices.

Comments

[farhad]

The shah fall wasn't due to the oil,it was as a result of confilicts of interest between different factions of world powers,and on the other hand,the shah's semi-indepenant sense of existance,that brought the global power's agreement for Khomeini's replacement.In Soviets,it was the single party iron goverment with no unity andcorrelation with its people,hence,a lack of enthuasim and resentment& support,that brought it down.In Iran case,i don't think the aim is the collapse of the regime nessasarrly,despite all the comotions,butperhaps a velvet revolution of sort(shuffling/reforming the people in the regime).one thing drastically different from the shah's period,isthe level of people's political awareness,which reduces the possibility of going back to monarchy &/or an undemocratic Gov,again

[Zane Selvans]

I've heard this love of single causes referred to as "monocausotaxophilia". Attractive, especially in political contexts, but man, that's just not how the world works.

[Vadim]

Yegor Gaidar in "Collapse of an Empire"http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Empire-Lessons-Modern-Russia/dp/0815731140/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product

says that collectivization in 1929 brought down Russian grain production. In 50-s urban population got equal in size to rural. In 60-s Khrushev impored grain. In 70-s it became grain-for-oil.At the end USSR was dependent on oil for all its imports.

Yes, it was oil price. But of cause socialism was the root of this.Agriculture was in ruins. They used students and PhDs to harvest rotten potato. Parts of the country were on rationing long before perestroika. I left USSR in 1989.

[Anon]

Concur with above poster. If Friedman is being reductionist with respect to the USSR, dare I comment on his treatment of the Shah and the Iranian Revolution?

[Louis Heberlein]

One of the reasons the Saudis and Arab communities gave Saddam a long leash was 'irrational' anxiety about the modernizing Iran with a Shiite nationalistic perspective. When they realized Saddam was a psycho close to getting nukes and missiles, they let US in the door with permission to tame him. But their attitude toward Iran was one of the reasons they forced Bush I to limit Gulf War I, and postwar oversight of Iraq. Only the massive expansion of Arab manned terrorism under Al Quida let them permit Gulf War II. I personally believe our roach trap approach was the back payment.

But, the real issue is the potential for Iranian-Arab conflict. Read pages 62-63 of August 2008 National Geographic for regular Iranian citizens' memories of 14 centuries old invasion by those Bedouin Arabs. I'm sure the Saudis and other Arab states noticed it. So, the narrow Iranian Shiite religious extremists can tap into a broader Iranian nationalism.

Looked at in that context Iranian efforts to spur anti-Israeli anger and efforts in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine sectors can also be seen as an effort to pre-empt a unified Arab identity in the Middle East.

Iran has much more technical potential for sophisticated military and economic modernization than most Arab countries even though the have a lot of $ to buy impressive stuff.

[Tom Barnett]

Vadim's trail is more realistic.

Socialism+forced industrialization was an adequate catch-up strategy for the first half of the 20th century--albeit in the USSR's case at incredible cost in human life. But socialism+single-party rule simply wasn't up to the second half of the 20th century--especially with the weak ag legacy caused by collectivization.

Saying oil prices did it in is like saying the patient's lungs filled up and that's what killed him, instead of the congestive heart failure, which was caused by the . . . and so on.

Reagan had good timing, like any actor, but the USSR was going down at Gorby's hand or somebody following him. Reagan accelerated it primarily by denying the Sovs an enemy. Then Gorby felt emboldened to experiment and all was lost--thankfully.

[Louis Heberlein]

Another of history's curiosities: One of the most rational Americans toward Czarist Russia, then the its transition under Lenin, was Rockefeller Sr. who saw an opportunity to use American RR and heavy industry technology to join Russia in exploiting its natural resources. Younger Rockefeller was later one of our political establishment who saw the mutual benefits from economic and social outreach possibilities toward Russia after Stalin paranoid extremist period.