Iran continues to deploy soft power in the Horn, sponsoring a recent Iranian trade fair (October), and offering some 1m in loans to finance the building of a new Parliament building and Commercial Centre (2004). In the wake of the departure of Royal/Dutch Shell and Total from the Djiboutian/Ethiopian market, local service stations now bear the insignia of OiLibya, a marketing arm of Libya’s National Oil Company. Neither country is a stranger to the Horn, but a strange juxtaposition, next to American and French forces, and loads of Gulf businesses. Further indication of how everything is connected…–EDC
Washington’s long quest to “teach Iran a lesson” has had a real impact. Iran is learning a lesson that Washington has long since forgotten – that positive reinforcement is more effective than threats and insults. Under unrelenting U.S./Israeli pressure to kowtow, Iran is learning to soften its rough edges, offer economic incentives, and practice diplomacy.
I leave it to Iran area specialists to explain why modern Iranian politicians have seemed so inept at the diplomatic game. My sense from Roman sources is that the great old Iranian empires weren’t too smooth at diplomacy either, though that may just be a bias of those histories (Romans too put the emphasis on force).
In any case, I wonder if anyone else is getting the impression that Washington is putting Tehran through a diplomatic (in the Metternich/Talleyrand sense) finishing school that will make Tehran a much more formidable regional player in the near future than it has been with its “shoot-myself-in-the-foot” attitude of the last generation.
I would suggest that this is an important issue likely to take Washington by surprise (e.g., Ahmadinejad’s Nov. visit to his buddy Erdogan and Ali Larijani’s tete-a-tete this week with that stalwart Shi’ite revolutionary Mubarak). Your note is a helpful additional piece of information on this issue. Let’s discuss it further…