First, the percentage of GDP that Iran spends on its military is smaller than many of its neighbors Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman, and Pakistan all spend more. The threat posed by Iran today is similarly misrepresented, for four reasons. Rather than expanding, the USSR was economically contracting and faced a steady and steep decline during the 1980s. In retrospect, we can now see that the Soviet Union was not the ominous and rising power the Reagan Administration and its supporters portrayed it to be. The cold war analogy is also relevant in another sense when discussing Iran–the exaggerated danger posed by a perceived arch enemy. Is it therefore any surprise that a recent Pew Research Center poll revealed that a clear majority of Americans would support a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities?
Yet it, too, has placed the “Iran question” at the top of its foreign policy agenda, a reflection of how Iran is viewed by American political elites and the public at large. The Obama Administration has adopted a less alarmist tone and attempted to pursue a dialogue with Iran’s leaders. Bush observed at one point that if Iran were to obtain not an actual nuclear weapon but simply the know-how to produce one, World War III would be triggered. This is most evident in the debate surrounding Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. The worst intentions are often assumed and attributed to its leadership. At least, that’s the way it seems in many American political and intellectual circles, where Tehran’s foreign policy orientation is deemed to represent and be motivated by the antithesis of Western values. Democracy in Modern Iran: Islam, Culture, and Political Change By Ali Mirsepassi ĭuring the cold war, we had the Soviet Union today, we have Iran.
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