It’s a common assumption among diplomats and policymakers: Governments want the best for their people. Given the opportunity, they will work to the betterment of their citizens and society. Just over a year ago, Acting State Department Spokesman Marie Harf insisted the Iranian government would use its perhaps $100 billion windfall to repair its own economy rather than invest in terror and aggression. President Obama, too, has assumed that Iranian leaders want to do what is necessary to further trade and reintegrate into the world economy. Speaking at the beginning of this month against the backdrop of both Iranian provocation and its leaders’ demands that the United States ease pressure on the Islamic Republic, President Obama also voiced a basic assumption that the Iranian leadership wanted to do what was right for business.
The idea, however, that other countries want prosperity and will do what is either in their national interest or the interest of their people is a Western conceit grounded in both projection and a misunderstanding of multiculturalism. The preponderance of evidence shows that undemocratic regimes often allow ideology to trump peace and prosperity for their people. The Palestinians, for example, have received more aid per capita than any other people on earth. There has been nothing stopping Gaza from becoming a new Singapore but a succession of corrupt terror-embracing politicians and political movements. Likewise, the Arab boycott of firms doing business in Israel did far more harm to the boycotters than it did to Israel which, even before the discovery of offshore gas, became wealthy from the ingenuity of its people. In Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared his goal “to raise a religious generation,” not to raise an affluent generation. Hence, he has targeted banks belonging to his ideological opponents despite the reputational damage that has done to notions of rule-of-law upon which businesses depend.
The Islamic Revolution occurred against the backdrop of tremendous growth in Iran’s economy, as the shah sought to transform Iran from a third-world into a first-world country almost overnight. It was the social upheaval caused by rural Iranians embracing urban life without ever abandoning village values. Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini triumphed in his goal to oust the Shah and subsequently waved off economists and pragmatists with the quip that ‘We didn’t have a revolution over the price of a watermelon.’ Simply put, the imposition of revolutionary ideology trumped all else. A decade ago, Iranian labor unions marched under the slogan, “Forget about Lebanon and think about us [our salaries].” Khomeini and his supporters — many of whom now hold top posts in governmentn— didn’t care about the workers. Khomeini, like current President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, embraced the constitutional precept of exporting revolution.
The Iranian people suffer twice for Obama’s assumptions and his secretary of state’s naïveté because the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action disproportionately empowers the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Most of the assets are now unfrozen, and new investment flows into its coffers. Never in the history of the Islamic Republic, has the Revolutionary Guards presented an iota of evidence that it cares for the health and well-being of ordinary Iranians; indeed, it only exists to protect the leadership from the will of the people.
There is no substitute for careful negotiations, nor should American officials ever assume that adversaries will ever embrace the spirit of the law over its letter. Neither the current administration nor that which follows it should believe the notion that these adversaries share American values. If they did, the world would have become a much more peaceful place decades ago.
