In a characteristically well written article by STRATFOR; assumptions extensively postulated by Investment Capitalist over the past 5 years are now becoming well fortified realities. Investment Capitalist’s in-depth analyses of the Greater Middle East (GME), its’ history, borders and allegiances created alongside the UN Charter post-WWII; Especially in a “post-Osama” Obama world manifested with a simple 5 minute news conference declaring the sole global superpower eliminated its greatest threat from a cave dwelling goat herder hiding in 4th world safe houses deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, supposedly protected by the Pakistani Secret Police while his multi-billionaire family grew more wealthy and powerful in a post 9/11 world as The Bin Laden Construction Empire was one of many resourceful and Arab companies rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure. Bush Sr. owned an interest in that vast empire, but he supposedly sold it after 9/11 due to a “conflict of interest”. Ya right. Coming from Wall Street, I can park a block of stock as big as I wanted without being noticed. That’s just me, with enough power to bench press 225 pounds. Imagine what the Bush family could do in Dubai.
With the utmost respect for the brave men and women of the armed forces of these Great United States and her allies serving in the Iraqi and Afghani theatres, including thousands who gave up their lives, and the many more thousands crippled for the rest of theirs, not for “freedom” but for the ideologies of a small cadre of post-neoconservatives from “The New American Century” think tank with Imperialist objectives. Think back to when the mighty Persian Empire would go to war; she would build a “coalition of forces” with military units from countries around the world under her control. Sound familiar?
Unlike Bush Sr., Jr. was unable to build such a coalition of nations so he built a “coalition of the willing”, with that bold threat “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists!” Wow. The mighty military industrial complex and a military with stockpiles of weapons with expiration dates on them needed to move. And of course, the infamous Halliburton with her no-bid, cost-plus contracts implicitly designed to induce higher costs. So a heavy truck with a flat tire would be torched instead of repaired. Ah, but lest we forget the real purpose of war: the hundreds of thousands or millions of unemployed low skilled workers graduating from high school with no college aspirations and no economy to soak them up; better to ship them out than let them raise hell within our borders. Then when it’s time to return, they’ve got advanced technical training, GI Funds and can fill mid-level positions quickly during the early stages of an economic recovery.
Apparently, a magnificent castle nestled against a giant mountain in Pakistan, which had remained “hidden” out in the open was, for the first time, discovered by America’s vast electronic detection network with satellites that can observe from space the zit on the face of a man riding a motor Vespa whose license plate is the size of a painting. And just like that, Osama is dead, Obama is the Great King of Kings and it’s time to cut our losses and return home to a recovering economy in need of workers before labor inflation kicks in. Leaving behind the world’s most important historical region dating back to the beginning of civilization. In their wake, America leaves behind a tremendously more powerful Shiite Theology in control of the GME, for which it has been the prime mover for over 3000 years, minus a couple pockets of a few centuries here and there. The only difference? This is the first clerical regime, which Carter so mistakenly said “better a Theology than Communism”. What a moron.
Only Republican’s “got it” when it came to Iran. Even Roosevelt understood, I’m talking Teddy, not FDR although the latter got it too even though a Democrat, but he was being guided by Churchill who really got it. America was the only nation demanding reparations for Iran at the Paris Peace Conference after WWI devastated a neutral Persia. It was also American technician’s by the thousands who helped improve Iran’s port infrastructure so the 8 month backlog of ships could dock and unload in 3 days instead of 8 weeks. American technician’s also trained Iranian fighter pilots to become the best in the world, which some US Air Force Colonel’s referred to as better than their instructors. Iran was the only country in possession of the F-14 Tomcat other than the US herself.
It was American accountants that helped Reza Pahlavi settle Iranian debts and implement a system of checks and balances to prevent raging corruption after the Qajar Dynasty collapsed on itself. Most people don’t know Iran’s central bank, Bank Melli, was actually in London for almost 100 years. Never a vassal like India, Iran was considered a “protectorate” split into northern and southern zones of influence by the Russians and British. At one time, prior to the Bolsheviks taking Moscow, Russian Cossack Brigades controlled several cities in Northern Iran and were stuck there after the Bolsheviks rose to power. At that time, Trotsky and the rest immediately cancelled all debts owed by Iran to Imperialist Russia, returned territory taken by force, and withdrew their forces. It was at Iran’s behest some officers stayed behind to train Iranian officers. One of which was Reza Khan, who became Reza Pahlavi, founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty.
Again, in WWII, a neutral Persia was invaded to feed the Soviet front with supplies as the allies were at the brink of losing the war if Moscow fell. Persia risked a full blown invasion by Germany pouring down through the caucuses if she entered the war on the side of the allies. While neutrality meant not allowing the National Iranian Rail System to be used as the most effective way to deliver supplies to an increasingly battered Soviet Union that was getting crushed on all fronts until Hitler’s fatal mistake of turning to Leningrad, then Stalingrad instead of continuing to Moscow. This error bogged an unprepared, Blitzkrieg trained military down in one of the worst winters on the planet, not having learned from Napoleon’s invasion of Russia which destroyed his entire army without a real battle ever being fought.
The National Iranian Railway was the most direct route to the Soviet front until Stalin’s massive counter-offensive in the dead of winter began the march to Berlin. Reza Pahlavi was forced to abdicate the Peacock Throne to his young son just shy of his 23rd birthday. He had little choice. Persia, known as the first true Aryan nation, not like the KKK in America or the Blue Eye Aryan’s of Hitler’s youth. It’s written that the cold war started at the Tehran Conference ending WWII, and also ended in Tehran with the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and America’s humiliating 444 days of hell until the first few minutes of Reagan’s Presidency when the hostages lifted off the tarmack in their plane to go home. Once again, the mighty Persians dictated who the leader of America would be. Then there was Iran-Contra. Strange but true.
Israel was the primary arms supplier to Iran during the 9 year Iran-Iraq war, which Iran was the defender only to obtain the initiative after the first year and begin to defeat a confused and shocked Iraqi army unaccustomed to Iranian astuteness with their own terrain. With victory in hand, the unfaithful Ayatollah Khomeini, a non-Persian cleric chose to fight his Arab brother in a blood feud that cost millions upon millions of lives, mostly religious zealots who sent their children to the front as a necessary sacrifice they willingly made, knowing their children would never return. These were the uneducated masses behind the 1979 revolution. A war that ended when the US stepped in to prevent Baghdad from being conquered in 1988, which would have returned Iran’s former territory prior to the sudden creation of Iraq at the same time as Israel. Referred to in the Diplomatic Corp. as “enemies of convenience”. Prior to US’s intervention, the Iranians were pounding targets deep within Iraq forcing Saddam to send most of his air force to Jordan for safe keeping!
Persia, which has predominantly maintained her borders except what the Qajar Turks sold off in the 19th century as restitution for injustices brought upon by Imperialist Russia, the real threat to American Capitalism whence it became Soviet Russia in the hands of Stalin rather than Trotsky with Marxist ideals. To put it simply, Iran is once again the dominant power in the GME. A fact which all of her Arab neighbor’s must contend with, as they have for three millenia. What obfuscates the matter is a theological government with an autocratic structure ripe with repression of its masses, human rights violations, and a regime structure for which even the deepest insider cannot fully comprehend. Are the mullahs in charge or has a clever Ahmadi-Nejad declared open war with the clerical power base in Qom by proclaiming loud and wide that “the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei must be exorcised for he is possessed by the devil”? I couldn’t make this stuff up.
The corruption and cronyism in Tehran is at a peak never before reached, with hundreds of billions of petro-dollars creating a vast global network of military authority to challenge the “Great Satan” as they refer to America, for which the “Little Satan” as America refers to Iran, uses to terrorize and challenge US regional goals around the world giving the US the excuse she needs to militarize those areas. And this is all driven by a vast Conspiracy according to Ahmadi-Nejad, who also claims 9/11 was inside job, as if that’s a shocker. For 3000 years, Iran was the primary ally and protector of the Israelite’s, first freed by Cyrus the Great, referred to as the “anointed one”, from slavery in Babylon and more recently, Reza Pahlavi the founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty was referred to as “the last anointed one” in the Old Testament and Iran continues to maintain the 2nd largest Jewish population in the Middle East other than Israel. Not to mention it’s the only Democracy and America’s only real ally against Arab fanaticism or Sunni Islam. A sham democracy yes, but nevertheless a struggling one waiting for the crippled “Velayateh Faqih” to die and never be replaced with another “Supreme Leader”.
Friend or Foe? With the destruction of Saddam and the Taliban, the allowance of Nuclear technology by the American’s and a sudden withdrawal while Iran is at it’s peak military strength suggests friend. But a lesson learned from the Nixon Doctrine, which was to arm Iran to the teeth with anything they wanted without the need for prior approval, led to a disturbingly incapable logistics and procurement network of arms incompatible with each other and an over-zealous King dying of cancer but deeply passionate about his countrymen, to the point of returning the two jets he left Iran on when he abandoned the country to this emotionless, corrupt cleric who the Shah should have allowed his all-mighty military, at one point stronger than France’s military, to crush. Even Saddam offered to assassinate Khomeini for the Shah since the Shah sent his military to aid Oman during an uprising that almost overthrew her Arab rulers. Sending only Persian soldiers, they kept their distance from the Omani Arabs and their women, and shipped in their own food, much like America did when she occupied Saudi Arabia.
The still unanswered question of why the Shah left puzzles many academics and historians. Abbas Milani, in his new book “The Shah”, which took him 10 years to write, suggests the Shah was timid and insecure, leaving the country with expectations of returning like he did after the 1952 Mossadeq coup that returned the Shah after a “vacation”, as was pronounced in 1979. Apparently, he left thinking the American’s had a plan to bring him back, but this time, Carter lied and the Shah took the bait. Reality finally struck when General Oveissi, his most trusted General, put the Great King of Kings in a helicopter to fly over Tehran so that he could see with his own eyes the sea of masses who were for the first time chanting “Death to the Shah”. Until then, a “King who Reigns” was inseparable from Persia. A Persia without a King wasn’t Persia at all. Thus, the Shah was in denial, for whatever reason, I won’t get into as enough people have. But I will remind you that he was once truly loved, and would get in one of his many fast cars and drive around Tehran alone in his sporty convertible allowing his people to see him as equals, to the point where he would go into a market and buy some fruit alone, a practice that ended after two unsuccessful assassination attempts.
This Shah became so detached after 13 years of Prime Minister Hoveyda’s isolation of the Shah that he didn’t realize what he was losing and the historical ramifications, not to mention his historical responsibilities. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, freedom can only be preserved with the fresh blood of the masses who fight for it. The Shah chose to run, not fight, and the Great Military machine he built was left stranded with no choice but to return to barracks after their leader left them demoralized and humiliated. Built to defend its borders from external threats, at one time gifting 25 F-5 Jet Fighters to the King of Jordan after Iran was flush with cash and generous to gift other Princes in the region, even those deposed decades earlier as he felt a kinship of sorts with them.
Quite a difference than 1962 when the country couldn’t even procure a desperately needed $5mm loan. 10 years later, Iran was a lender nation, quelling rebellions in Arab states to which Iran owed no allegiance other than Princely loyalty. Enough of my ranting about the past. Instead, I defer to the article by Stratfor which discusses not only the present but the future of the GME.
The US- Saudi Dilemma: Iran’s Reshaping of Persian Gulf Politics
By Reva Bhalla
Something extraordinary, albeit not unexpected, is happening in the Persian Gulf region. The United States, lacking a coherent strategy to deal with Iran and too distracted to develop one, is struggling to navigate Iraq’s fractious political landscape in search of a deal that would allow Washington to keep a meaningful military presence in the country beyond the end-of-2011 deadline stipulated by the current Status of Forces Agreement. At the same time, Saudi Arabia, dubious of U.S. capabilities and intentions toward Iran, appears to be inching reluctantly toward an accommodation with its Persian adversary.
Iran clearly stands to gain from this dynamic in the short term as it seeks to reshape the balance of power in the world’s most active energy arteries. But Iranian power is neither deep nor absolute. Instead, Tehran finds itself racing against a timetable that hinges not only on the U.S. ability to shift its attention from its ongoing wars in the Middle East but also on Turkey’s ability to grow into its historic regional role.
The Iranian Position
Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said something last week that caught our attention. Speaking at Iran’s first Strategic Naval Conference in Tehran on July 13, Vahidi said the United States is “making endeavors to drive a wedge between regional countries with the aim of preventing the establishment of an indigenized security arrangement in the region, but those attempts are rooted in misanalyses and will not succeed.” The effect Vahidi spoke of refers to the 
Iranian redefinition of Persian Gulf power dynamics, one that in Iran’s ideal world ultimately would transform the local political, business, military and religious affairs of the Gulf states to favor the Shia and their patrons in Iran.
From Iran’s point of view, this is a natural evolution, and one worth waiting centuries for. It would see power concentrated among the Shia in Mesopotamia, eastern Arabia and the Levant at the expense of the Sunnis who have dominated this land since the 16th century, when the Safavid Empire lost Iraq to the Ottomans. Ironically, Iran owes its thanks for this historic opportunity to its two main adversaries — the Wahhabi Sunnis of al Qaeda who carried out the 9/11 attacks and the “Great Satan” that brought down Saddam Hussein. Should Iran succeed in filling a major power void in Iraq, a country that touches six Middle Eastern powers and demographically favors the Shia, Iran would theoretically have its western flank secured as well as an oil-rich outlet with which to further project its influence.
So far, Iran’s plan is on track. Unless the United States permanently can station substantial military forces in the region, Iran replaces the United States as the most powerful military force in the Persian Gulf region. In particular, Iran has the military ability to threaten the Strait of Hormuz and has a clandestine network of operatives spread across the region. Through its deep penetration of the Iraqi government, Iran is also in the best position to influence Iraqi decision-making. Washington’s obvious struggle in trying to negotiate an extension of the U.S. deployment in Iraq is perhaps one of the clearest illustrations of Iranian resolve to secure its western flank. The Iranian nuclear issue, as we have long argued, is largely a sideshow; a nuclear deterrent, if actually achieved, would certainly enhance Iranian security, but the most immediate imperative for Iran is to consolidate its position in Iraq. And as this weekend’s Iranian incursion into northern Iraq — ostensibly to fight Kurdish militants — shows, Iran is willing to make measured, periodic shows of force to convey that message.
While Iran already is well on its way to accomplishing its goals in Iraq, it needs two other key pieces to complete Tehran’s picture of a regional “indigenized security arrangement” that Vahidi spoke of. The first is an understanding with its main military challenger in the region, the United States. Such an understanding would entail everything from ensuring Iraqi Sunni military impotence to expanding Iranian energy rights beyond its borders to placing limits on U.S. military activity in the region, all in return for the guaranteed flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz and an Iranian pledge to stay clear of Saudi oil fields.
The second piece is an understanding with its main regional adversary, Saudi Arabia. Iran’s reshaping of Persian Gulf politics entails convincing its Sunni neighbors that resisting Iran is not worth the cost, especially when the United States does not seem to have the time or the resources to come to their aid at present. No matter how much money the Saudis throw at Western defense contractors, any military threat by the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council states against Iran will be hollow without an active U.S. military commitment. Iran’s goal, therefore, is to coerce the major Sunni powers into recognizing an expanded Iranian sphere of influence at a time when U.S. security guarantees in the region are starting to erode.
Of course, there is always a gap between intent and capability, especially in the Iranian case. Both negotiating tracks are charged with distrust, and meaningful progress is by no means guaranteed. That said, a number of signals have surfaced in recent weeks leading us to examine the potential for a Saudi-Iranian accommodation, however brief that may be.
The Saudi Position
Not surprisingly, Saudi Arabia is greatly unnerved by the political evolution in Iraq. The Saudis increasingly will rely on regional powers such as Turkey in trying to maintain a Sunni bulwark against Iran in Iraq, but Riyadh has largely resigned itself to the idea that Iraq, for now, is in Tehran’s hands. This is an uncomfortable reality for the Saudi royals to cope with, but what is amplifying Saudi Arabia’s concerns in the region right now — and apparently nudging Riyadh toward the negotiating table with Tehran — is the current situation in Bahrain.
When Shiite-led protests erupted in Bahrain in the spring, we did not view the demonstrations simply as a natural outgrowth of the so-called Arab Spring. There were certainly overlapping factors, but there was little hiding the fact that Iran had seized an opportunity to pose a nightmare scenario for the Saudi royals: an Iranian-backed Shiite uprising spreading from the isles of Bahrain to the Shiite-concentrated, oil-rich Eastern Province of the Saudi kingdom.
This explains Saudi Arabia’s hasty response to the Bahraini unrest, during which it led a rare military intervention of GCC forces in Bahrain at the invitation of Manama to stymie a broader Iranian destabilization campaign. The demonstrations in Bahrain are far calmer now than they were in mid-March at the peak of the crisis, but the concerns of the GCC states have not subsided, and for good reason. Halfhearted attempts at national dialogues aside, Shiite dissent in this part of the region is likely to endure, and this is a reality that Iran can exploit in the long term through its developing covert capabilities.
When we saw in late June that Saudi Arabia was willingly drawing down its military presence in Bahrain at the same time the Iranians were putting out feelers in the local press on an almost daily basis regarding negotiations with Riyadh, we discovered through our sources that the pieces were beginning to fall into place for Saudi-Iranian negotiations. To understand why, we have to examine the Saudi perception of the current U.S. position in the region.
The Saudis cannot fully trust U.S. intentions at this point. The U.S. position in Iraq is tenuous at best, and Riyadh cannot rule out the possibility of Washington entering its own accommodation with Iran and thus leaving Saudi Arabia in the lurch. The United States has three basic interests: to maintain the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, to reduce drastically the number of forces it has devoted to fighting wars with Sunni Islamist militants (who are also by definition at war with Iran), and to try to reconstruct a balance of power in the region that ultimately prevents any one state — whether Arab or Persian — from controlling all the oil in the Persian Gulf. The U.S. position in this regard is flexible, and while developing an understanding with Iran is a trying process, nothing fundamentally binds the United States to Saudi Arabia. If the United States comes to the conclusion that it does not have any good options in the near term for dealing with Iran, a U.S.-Iranian accommodation — however jarring on the surface — is not out of the question.
More immediately, the main point of negotiation between the United States and Iran is the status of U.S. forces in Iraq. Iran would prefer to see U.S. troops completely removed from its western flank, but it has already seen dramatic reductions. The question for both sides moving forward concerns not only the size but also the disposition and orientation of those remaining forces and the question of how rapidly they can be reoriented from a more vulnerable residual advisory and assistance role to a blocking force against Iran. It also must take into account how inherently vulnerable a U.S. military presence in Iraq (not to mention the remaining diplomatic presence) is to Iranian conventional and unconventional means.
The United States may be willing to recognize Iranian demands when it comes to Iran’s designs for the Iraqi government or oil concessions in the Shiite south, but it also wants to ensure that Iran does not try to overstep its bounds and threaten Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth. To reinforce a potential accommodation with Iran, the United States needs to maintain a blocking force against Iran, and this is where the U.S.-Iranian negotiation appears to be deadlocked.
The threat of a double-cross is a real one for all sides to this conflict. Iran cannot trust that the United States, once freed up, will not engage in military action against Iran down the line. The Americans cannot trust that the Iranians will not make a bid for Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth (though the military logistics required for such a move are likely beyond Iran’s capabilities at this point). Finally, the Saudis can’t trust that the United States will defend them in a time of need, especially if the United States is preoccupied with other matters and/or has developed a relationship with Iran that it feels the need to maintain.
When all this is taken together — the threat illustrated by Shiite unrest in Bahrain, the tenuous U.S. position in Iraq and the potential for Washington to strike its own deal with Tehran — Riyadh may be seeing little choice but to search out a truce with Iran, at least until it can get a clearer sense of U.S. intentions. This does not mean that the Saudis would place more trust in a relationship with their historical rivals, the Persians, than they would in a relationship with the United States. Saudi-Iranian animosity is embedded in a deep history of political, religious and economic competition between the two main powerhouses of the Persian Gulf, and it is not going to vanish with the scratch of a pen and a handshake. Instead, this would be a truce driven by short-term, tactical constraints. Such a truce would primarily aim to arrest Iranian covert activity linked to Shiite dissidents in the GCC states, giving the Sunni monarchist regimes a temporary sense of relief while they continue their efforts to build up an Arab resistance to Iran.
But Iran would view such a preliminary understanding as the path toward a broader accommodation, one that would bestow recognition on Iran as the pre-eminent power of the Persian Gulf. Iran can thus be expected to make a variety of demands, all revolving around the idea of Sunni recognition of an expanded Iranian sphere of influence — a very difficult idea for Saudi Arabia to swallow.
This is where things get especially complicated. The United States theoretically might strike an accommodation with Iran, but it would do so only with the knowledge that it could rely on the traditional Sunni heavyweights in the region eventually to rebuild a relative balance of power. If the major Sunni powers reach their own accommodation with Iran, independent of the United States, the U.S. position in the region becomes all the more questionable. What would be the limits of a Saudi-Iranian negotiation? Could the United States ensure, for example, that Saudi Arabia would not bargain away U.S. military installations in a negotiation with Iran?
The Iranian defense minister broached this very idea during his speech last week when he said, “The United States has failed to establish a sustainable security system in the Persian Gulf region, and it is not possible that many vessels will maintain a permanent presence in the region.” Vahidi was seeking to convey to fellow Iranians and trying to convince the Sunni Arab powers that a U.S. security guarantee in the region does not hold as much weight as it used to, and that with Iran now filling the void, the United States may well face a much more difficult time trying to maintain its existing military installations.
The question that naturally arises from Vahidi’s statement is the future status of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, and whether Iran can instill just the right amount of fear in the minds of its Arab neighbors to shake the foundations of the U.S. military presence in the region. For now, Iran does not appear to have the military clout to threaten the GCC states to the point of forcing them to negotiate away their U.S. security guarantees in exchange for Iranian restraint. This is a threat, however, that Iran will continue to let slip and even one that Saudi Arabia quietly could use to capture Washington’s attention in the hopes of reinforcing U.S. support for the Sunni Arabs against Iran.
The Long-Term Scenario
The current dynamic places Iran in a prime position. Its political investment is paying off in Iraq, and it is positioning itself for negotiation with both the Saudis and the Americans that it hopes will fill out the contours of Iran’s regional sphere of influence. But Iranian power is not that durable in the long term.
Iran is well endowed with energy resources, but it is populous and mountainous. The cost of internal development means that while Iran can get by economically, it cannot prosper like many of its Arab competitors. Add to that a troubling demographic profile in which ethnic Persians constitute only a little more than half of the country’s population and developing challenges to the clerical establishment, and Iran clearly has a great deal going on internally distracting it from opportunities abroad.
The long-term regional picture also is not in Iran’s favor. Unlike Iran, Turkey is an ascendant country with the deep military, economic and political power to influence events in the Middle East — all under a Sunni banner that fits more naturally with the region’s religious landscape. Turkey also is the historical, indigenous check on Persian power. Though it will take time for Turkey to return to this role, strong hints of this dynamic already are coming to light.
In Iraq, Turkish influence can be felt across the political, business, security and cultural spheres as Ankara is working quietly and fastidiously to maintain a Sunni bulwark in the country and steep Turkish influence in the Arab world. And in Syria, though the Alawite regime led by the al Assads is not at a breakpoint, there is no doubt a confrontation building between Iran and Turkey over the future of the Syrian state. Turkey has an interest in building up a viable Sunni political force in Syria that can eventually displace the Alawites, while Iran has every interest in preserving the current regime so as to maintain a strategic foothold in the Levant.
For now, the Turks are not looking for a confrontation with Iran, nor are they necessarily ready for one. Regional forces are accelerating Turkey’s rise, but it will take experience and additional pressures for Turkey to translate rhetoric into action when it comes to meaningful power projection. This is yet another factor that is likely driving the Saudis to enter their own dialogue with Iran at this time.
The Iranians are thus in a race against time. It may be a matter of a few short years before the United States frees up its attention span and is able to re-examine the power dynamics in the Persian Gulf with fresh vigor. Within that time, we would also expect Turkey to come into its own and assume its role as the region’s natural counterbalance to Iran. By then, the Iranians hope to have the structures and agreements in place to hold their ground against the prevailing regional forces, but that level of long-term security depends on Tehran’s ability to cut its way through two very thorny sets of negotiations with the Saudis and the Americans while it still has the upper hand.
The U.S.-Saudi Dilemma: Iran’s Reshaping of Persian Gulf Politics is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
