Saied Shokoohi

Without providing smoking gun evidences, the United States is trying to put pressure on Iran regarding issues like nuclear activities, allegations of support for terrorism, and Human Rights abuse. But what is the main reason behind this harsh and aggressive behavior towards Iran enforced by the US.

In this regard, the theory of Offensive Realism can come in handy to explain the roots of this behavior. According to this theory, the ultimate goal of actors in the international system is to reach the pinnacle of the power pyramid in order to become a hegemon.

John Mearsheimer summarized this view in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, “Given the difficulty of determining how much power is enough for today and tomorrow, great powers recognize that the best way to ensure their security is to achieve hegemony now, thus eliminating any possibility of a challenge by another great power. Only a misguided state would pass up an opportunity to be the hegemon in the system because it thought it already had sufficient power to survive.”

A hegemon is defined as a powerful state that dominates all the other states in the system. Although Mearsheimer does not believe that it is possible for a state to become a global hegemon, he does believe in states that seek regional hegemony. Furthermore, he argues that states attempt to prevent other states from becoming regional hegemons, since peer competitors could interfere in a state's affairs.

States which have achieved regional hegemony, such as the US, will act as an offshore balancer, interfering in other regions only when the greater powers in those regions are not able to prevent the rise of a hegemon.

Most of the Realist thinkers, especially John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and Fareed Zakaria believe that after the Second World War, the US had turned into the regional hegemon in the Western Hemisphere. So, its main goal was preventing other great actors from turning into peer competitors against itself. The US was, somehow, successful via different strategies.

Facing crippling problems in the economic, political, social and military spheres, the US is not a hegemon any longer, but still remains to be a prevalent power. Its primacy requires the American leaders to persist on preserving the most favored international system and order. This goal dictates Washington to suppress any revisionist or dueling country which seeks to undermine the US power or influence around the globe.

The most obvious and crucial example of these challenging countries is Iran. Enjoying a geographical status as well as other key components of power, Iran is a serious contender for the US in the Middle East. Iran is also committed to downgrading the power and influence of the US in the region.

In recent years, some unintended events in the region contributed to Iran’s accumulation of power and influence. Some of them caused by the US itself, such as toppling Iran’s main adversaries in the region, including Sadam Hossein’s regime in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The removal of these regimes was a double-edged sword which benefited Iran more than it did the US. It also led to the solidification of Iran’s clout in the region, which is pernicious to the interests of the US.

The Obama administration, struggling to preserve the US preponderance throughout the region, is obliged to counter Iran’s rising power. Despite their claims that all choices including military assault are on the table, in reality, the US has limited options facing Iran. Given its economic and social crises, it can’t afford engaging another military operation in the region, especially being aware of Iran’s high capacity in stinging a deadly and crashing response throughout the region.

So, what is the Offensive Realism’s prescription? At present, the most suitable strategy for the US is Offshore Balancing. Stephen Walt argues in his most popular article, The End of the American Era that, “Offshore balancing seeks to maintain benevolent hegemony in the Western Hemisphere and to maintain a balance of power among the strong states of Eurasia and of the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Instead of seeking to dominate these regions directly, however, US first recourse should be to have local allies uphold the balance of power, out of their own self-interest. Rather than letting them free ride on US, Washington should free ride on them as much as it can, intervening with ground and air forces only when a single power threatens to dominate some critical region. For an offshore balancer, the greatest success lies in getting somebody else to handle some pesky problem, not in eagerly shouldering that burden oneself.”

So, in order for the US to encounter Iran’s rising power in the region, there is a need for a third party that can burden the costs and responsibilities of contending with Iran. For the time being, there are two options: Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the latter being more suitable and more eager to take on the job, mainly due to some lingering rivalries between Iran and Saudi Arabia regarding different aspects including that of ideological warfare in the world of Islam and other geopolitical factors and thus has been chosen to accomplish this mission. The allegation of Iran’s Terror Plot against the Saudi’s ambassador in Washington could be analyzed accordingly.

In order to eschew these arrangements, Iran should pursue the old strategy of Balance of Power. This could be either internal by resource mobilization or external through alliance formation. It could also be both of them simultaneously.

Saied Shokoohi is a visiting research fellow at the Institute for Middle East Strategic Studies. He is also a Ph.D. candidate at Allameh Tabatabaee University in Tehran.