What Iran Really Wants

09-13-2009 • Commentary Magazine

Iran’s negotiating proposal is now public. Just like its previous incarnation, it is revealing. Anyone familiar with the rhetoric of the Islamic Republic will recognize in these pages the recurrence of Iran’s central grievance—namely, the need for a new world order where Iran, as a leading member of the Non-Aligned Movement, has its proper place in the sun. Whether Western leaders take this rhetoric seriously is now an important question. In the discussion surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, all the talk about whether Iran is or is not rational misses the point of what Iran’s regime is about and wants to achieve. Iran may not be wedded to the kind of apocalyptic politics that the rhetoric of some of its leaders frequently suggests; but it remains, at heart, a revolutionary power driven by an ideology that successfully weds Persian nationalism, Shia revivalism, Third World-ism, and revolutionary Marxist-Leninist theories. Its devastating potential always derived from this explosive combination of the subversive with the divine. Its quest for nuclear weapons is driven, at the very least, by the desire to push this agenda more aggressively and more successfully.