Minimal interpretation key | The United States need to conclude a geopolitical agreement with the Iranian leaders whatever they are. Iran dominates the Strait of Hormuz, the access corridor to the oil wealth in the Persian Gulf and is also an access corridor to Central Asia, another large reservoir of oil on earth. Washington also needs the mullahs’ regime to incorporate it in its diplomacy: this under-control Islamic agitator should spread disorder among Chinese adversaries by disrupting oil production in the Sunni petro monarchy of the Persian Gulf, but also within OPEC, or in pseudo-republics of Central Asia allied with China and Russia. The mullahs aligned with Washington will also be efficient in raising the Chinese Muslims against the Chinese Communist Party.

The mullahs hope to sell this agreement in exchange for a guarantee that their regime will never be harassed. This is what we call "security guarantees". But the voice of Americans is not enough for the mullahs: they were in principle allied to the Shah but they overthrew him in order to islamize and reshape Iran and its neighbour countries. This plan has partially failed because the mullahs who should be only a catalyst have retained power and drove the Islamo-leftist pawns of America away. Meanwhile, the mullahs have created the Hezbollah and have forged ties with other militias funded by them in order to become a leading player in the entire region. It is this political interference which guarantees the survival of their regime. What they want boils down to an American recognition of their role through their militias and ensuring that the USA will not seek to demilitarize the militias starting with Hezbollah.

Such is the starting point of the crisis happening between the two countries: on the one hand, the need for the United States to conclude a geopolitical agreement to strengthen their hegemony over the Persian Gulf and Central Asia, and in a second hand the exorbitant price for this agreement demanded by Tehran.

In order not to pay this price, America needs to weaken the mullahs (not completely) and force them to yield on their demands. America has therefore chosen to hit the mullahs’ regime on its weak point: its deficit economy. The American pressure acts through this area. To justify these sanctions, Washington accuses Tehran of being a nuclear and a ballistic missile threat. In order not to lose ground in this atypical poker game, Tehran bids in these two areas in order to divide the Atlanticist camp and the Security Council, both of them compounded of American and trade partners of Iran. Tehran bids not only in the nuclear or ballistic field but also it relaunches its adversary by hitting on its most sensitive point: the American military presence in Iraq and the Americans dead at the front. Tehran, which excels in the field of terrorism, harasses Americans in Iraq or in Afghanistan by supporting the jihadists of both countries without forgetting to use Hamas and Hezbollah to bother another sensitive point of the United States.

To summarize, when Washington brings up new sanctions, Tehran intensifies its asymmetric warfare in Iraq and vice versa when Tehran intensifies guerrilla, Washington brings up new sanctions. In addition to this mutual weakening, both sides regularly meet and the meetings may also accelerate efforts to weaken the adversary.

Currently… | We have experienced recently when Tehran had engulfed Basra: A simple allusion from the CIA to the resumption of the manufacture of nuclear weapons by Iran so that Tehran would see the threat of further economic sanctions preventing it from signing a major oil contract with India.

The very next day, Tehran calmed things down and even sent a message to Washington passing through the Iraqi Abdel Aziz Hakim to resume their talks for a settlement. Washington has responded positively by proposing the resumption of negotiations. Tehran started the action of militias to get to rendezvous by having the upper hand and this tactical choice from Tehran has been done according to Petraeus’s hearing in Washington. Tehran wanted we admit its power in Iraq. Obviously, Petraeus has, as usual, made declarations on the harmful influence of the Pasdaran "on Iraqi Shiites" [1]. Tehran has not been successful and more for the punishment, Washington responded by referring to new financial and diplomatic sanctions under the pretext of the pursuit by Tehran of nuclear activities prohibited by the Security Council. Paris, with its very Atlanticist position, immediately aligned itself with Washington.

As we said earlier, the nuclear escalation of Iran has always aimed at dividing the Security Council in which each member has different interests in Iran.

And we must always return to the interpretation key: the ultimate goal of Washington to inflict increasing sanctions is to weaken Tehran in order to impose an agreement to deprive Moscow of a regional ally that is geopolitically essential to preserve the Russian hegemony in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea. That is why Russia has immediately responded by saying that it was out of the question to impose new sanctions against Iran (to weaken it in order to force it to sign), nor to revise the duration of time 90 days given to Tehran by the Security Council and even less to consider a negotiated solution other than through the Security Council (ie with the presence of Russia). Lavrov also raised the possibility of offering real security guarantees to Iran!

Without a comprehensive key for an analysis of Iran-US relations, but also Russian-Iranian relations, the various initiatives of intervening countries remain incomprehensible. We therefore redirect you to several articles on the complexity of relations between Iran and Russia [2], its geopolitical ally by default.

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The french version of this article :
 Analyse globale des relations irano-américaines
 (10 AVRIL 2008)