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Is Iran dangerous, or a paper tiger?

Larry Kummer, Editor

Why has starting wars – aggressive wars, for conquest – usually proved fruitless in the modern era, the past few centuries (even back to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648). Perhaps because so often the aggressors know so little about their targets, their designated victims. Japan’s elites knew little about America in 1941 – neither its industrial strength nor the determination of its people. Their education proved expensive.

Now the drums of war are beating as hawks urge war with Iran.  I see two questions unasked and unanswered in most articles by Iran.

(1)  How to respond to a threatening but dying nation? Containment seems to me the preferred method, but this is a complex question.  Esp given Iran’s demographics — which are if not the destiny of nations than a major contributor to it.  China’s bumper crop of single men – with no local women to marry.  Iran with a surplus of unemployed men, followed by a population collapse.  These are the hidden trends that shape the world in ways difficult to predict.

(2)  How much do we know about Iran?  Some recent works suggest that we, as so often true in life, know far less than we believe.

The following articles discuss these questions.  {This post was updated 6 September 2009}

Contents

  1. Spengler sees a dying regime in Iran
  2. Iran’s ugly demographics are good news
  3. George Friedman of Stratfor looks at Iran (update)
  4. For more information

(1)  Spengler sees a dying regime in Iran

First, 5 articles by the provocative “Spengler”, writing for the Asia Times.  The first 3 describe a dying regime, dangerous as it might strike out while it still has strength.  The last 2 describe a sad, even pitiful, picture of Iran’s inner life.  This is a nation than in a single generation has seen its fertility rate drop by 90%, from 6.5 to .66 – amongst the lowest in the world.

(2)  Iran’s ugly demographics are good news

This was discussed briefly in Spengler’s 13 November article above. Well worth the read.

… Iran is experiencing what you might call the reverse-Children of Men effect. Just like in the post-apocalyptic film, Iran is, increasingly, a society devoid of children. But the real-life outcome of this birth dearth is far less grim than the police state depicted onscreen. In fact, there’s a good chance that declining fertility rates will usher in a new era of stability–an Iran that is bourgeois, secular, less like Children of Men’s bombed-out Britain and more like – Denmark.

… The connection between fertility rates and political stability is still not fully understood, mostly because the human race has never, in its entire history, reproduced at below-replacement levels, and we simply don’t have the longitudinal data to see what that could mean. Still, when you notice that some of the highest birthrates in the Islamic world are in places like Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Gaza, whereas the world’s lowest birthrates are in nations like Italy, Japan, and Germany, it’s clear that Iran’s lower birth rates could signal some unheralded, and very positive, changes.

… Obviously, Iranian culture doesn’t bear many similarities to the world’s other low-fertility belts, like Scandinavia and the northern Mediterranean. But there’s some evidence that Iran may begin to resemble those regions once it begins to realize the effects of its baby bust.

Demographic changes don’t show their full effects for years–the children born into Iran’s new social configuration won’t graduate college until the 2010s and 2020s. But already Iranians have become familiar with expectations about gender, autonomy, and the individual that are very different from those offered by the clerical regime. Given another decade or so of uninterrupted development, trends make it very likely that Iran could approach high levels of stability and even political pluralism. Of course, that’s if Ahmadinejad doesn’t scotch it first.

Philip Jenkins is the author of God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe’s Religious Crisis.  See his Wikipedia entry for more information.

(3)  George Friedman of Stratfor looks at Iran (update)

These don’t read well in retrospect.  As Stratfor provides a window into the thinking of the upper levels of the US government, a close reading of these shows their limited understanding of both Iran — and the nature of the US – Iran relationship.  For example, they see Iran’s leaders as seeking a negotiated settlement with the US — largely due to Stratfor’s perception that the US position in the Middle East is strong, and Iran’s as weak.  Events have not been kind to this view.

  1. The Iranian Game, 24 April 2003
  2. An Unlikely Alliance, 2 September 2003 — Yes, he means the US and Iran.
  3. The Unnoticed Alignment: Iran and the United States in Iraq, 19 November 2003
  4. Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia, 3 June 2004
  5. War Plans: United States and Iran, 30 October 2007
  6. The NIE Report: Solving a Geopolitical Problem with Iran, 3 December 2007
  7. The U.S.-Iranian Negotiations: Beyond the Rhetoric, 12 February 2008
  8. Iran Returns to the Global Stage, 10 November 2008
  9. Iran’s View of Obama, 23 March 2009
  10. Western Misconceptions Meet Iranian Reality, 15 June 2009
  11. The Iranian Election and the Revolution Test, 22 June 2009
  12. The Real Struggle in Iran and Implications for U.S. Dialogue, 29 June 2009

(4)  For more information from the FM site

To read other articles about these things, see the FM reference page on the right side menu bar.

For more information about Iran:

  1. Is Pakistan’s Musharraf like the Shah of Iran? (if so, bad news for us) , 8 November 2007
  2. War with Iran , 9 November 2007 — Why Iran is not necessarily our enemy.
  3. The new NIE, another small step in the Decline of the State , 10 December 2007
  4. Iran’s getting the bomb, or so we’re told. Can they fool us twice?, 16 January 2009
  5. Iran – a key state to watch as the new world order evolves, 3 March 2009

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