Iran Overplaying It's Hand?

Writing in today's NY Times, Dariush Zahedi and Omid Memarian argue that Iran is overestimating the strength of it's position in the dispute between it, Europe and us over it's nuclear program. The say that while Iran appears to be taking a page from North Korea's "Getting and Keeping a Nuclear Weapons Program for Dummies", Iran is ignoring at it's own peril it's weaknesses:

In fact, Iran has serious domestic frailties, including a shaky economy and its attendant unemployment and popular resentment, not to mention soaring levels of drug abuse and a brain drain. But President Ahmadinejad no doubt takes comfort not only in his belief in divine protection but also in the knowledge that Shiite religious parties aligned with Iran are now the dominant political forces in Iraq, while the American public hardly seems amenable to waging another war in the region. Moreover, Mr. Ahmadinejad very likely believes that the best way to guard against regime change from without is to emulate North Korea by swiftly advancing Iran's nuclear capacity.

The new president also surely knows that even if Iran's nuclear dossier is referred to the United Nations Security Council, meaningful multilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic will most likely be vetoed by Russia or China. Flush with petrodollars, Iran has become a major purchaser of Russian technology, including roughly $1 billion worth of allegedly defensive weapons that Moscow recently agreed to sell to Tehran. Meanwhile, China, seizing on Iran as a key producer of oil and gas not beholden to the United States, has quickly emerged as one of Iran's largest trading partners.

This hardly needs to be said, but if Bush and the GOP recognize the power of an enemy to draw people together, so certainly does Ahmadenijad. Whatever unhappiness the people of Iran are experiencing over their job prospects would certainly be put to the side if we lob a few bombs into their territory. However if President Ahmadenijad is paying extra careful attention to our situation, he'll realize that once conflict gets too costly, that magical unifying force of nationalism can fade. And though we may not have ways of striking directly at Iran's nuclear program and eliminating it entirely, the author's argue that we still have other ways of making Iran feel our pain:

But the Iranian regime is not invulnerable, and Washington knows this. Just as Iran can use the Shiite card to create mischief in the region, the United States could manipulate ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iran, which has significant, largely Sunni, minority populations along its borders.

Many of Iran's ethnic and religious minorities see themselves as victims of discrimination, and they have not been effectively integrated into Iranian economic, political or cultural life. Some two million disgruntled Arabs reside mainly in the oil- and gas- rich province of Khuzestan. The United States could make serious trouble for Tehran by providing financial, logistical and moral support to Arab secessionists in that province. Other aggrieved Iranian minorities would be emboldened by the Arabs' example - for example, the Kurds and the Baluchis, or even the Azeris (though the Azeris, being Shiites, are better integrated into Iranian society). A simple spark could suffice to set off centrifugal explosions.

The possibility that Iran could end up looking like it's next door neighbor should give even the most staunch hard-liner pause.

As history shows us, potential for conflict between opposed states turns not only on their actual relative strengths and weakness, but how they perceive not only their enemies' strengths and weaknesses, but their own. WWI is awful testimony to what can happen when states miscalculate. If we or the Iranians make the mistake of miscalculating which of us has the upper-hand, we might find ourselves in a conflict that benefits neither of us.