In a speech delivered some six years back in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Richard Murphy, former American diplomat, termed Iran's diplomacy confusing. Now the Iranian officialdom can say the same when it comes to recent US stances vis-à-vis Iran.
Iranian statesmen wonder what is going on in the White House, given recent contradictory signals sent by the US, such as President Clinton’s renewal of the ban on imports of Iranian oil, followed four days later by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s address at a conference in Washington, praising Iran, lifting the ban on imports of Iranian carpets, pistachio, caviar, and admitting the political errors the US has committed toward Iran.
All this has created a situation in which the same confusion Murphy faced in 1994 is now gripping the Iranian officials who are confounded with recent contradictory remarks and gestures by the US!
Throughout the last two decades, a mythological spirit has dominated the Iran-US words and deeds.
The Iranian culture relies heavily on mythological heroes that could fight off the enemies. The salient feature of the Iranian hero, however, is that though he is in the right, he is "oppressed and wronged". Historically, the more "oppressed and wronged" the hero is, the more popular he would be.
The symbolic hero for the Iranians is a warrior who defends his community in an unequal war. The Iranian mythological hero Rostam was a warrior who, despite all his power and prowess, was finally killed in an unequal war through enemy plots and deceitful strategies (The same holds true about Siyavash and Arash, two other Iranian mythological heroes).
The said feature is seen in the historic personality of Hussein ibn Ali, the third Imam of the Shiites and the most popular religious hero for the Iranians. He was the most oppressed and wronged -- yet popular – Iranian hero who was killed by the enemies in an unequal war.
After the Islamic Revolution of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini symbolized the Iranian hero who challenged all external enemies of the Islamic Revolution. This combat struggle reached a zenith with the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran in 1980.
During the first decade after the Islamic Revolution, Iran, however, taxed its energy by combating the external enemy. "Criminal US", "Arch Satan", "Global Arrogance", "Regional Reactionary Regimes" were all enemies of the collective Iranian unconscious of those days.
In the trail of the Iran-Iraq war when people began to realize domestic problems and shortcomings, the external enemy no longer loomed so large as a threat. No longer was the collective Iranian unconscious satisfied with countering the US.
The enemy of the first decade of the revolution lost its importance as compared with the monster of domestic problems. As such, the collective Iranian unconscious sought a domestic hero to fight the internal enemies and restore the peoples’ freedom and legitimate rights.
Contrary to the first decade after the revolution, this time the enemies of the new Iranian hero were no longer the US and "Global Arrogance" but rather monopoly, reactionary tendencies, violence, and despotism at home.
The people needed a hero that could successfully fight these domestic demons, and this hero was Mohammad Khatami.
In the meantime, the US foreign policy since 1945 has been geared toward "quest for a hero". But the American culture views the hero as an all-powerful who uses an iron fist, considers the last solution to be the best solution, and violently crushes the enemies.
This approach has inherently allowed the US diplomacy to sow the seeds of animosity. The heroic US diplomacy aims at crushing and humiliating the enemy. This diplomacy has been successful in the short term, but the crushed and humiliated enemy will not stand still, harboring a deep grudge and awaiting any future opportunity to take vengeance on the US in a very costly way.
The US forces’ bloody, severe, and humiliating suppression of the Iraqi military and people during the second Persian Gulf War will surely backfire, as the Iraqi government and people harbor a deep-seated grudge against Washington.
The US treatment of Japan during World War II and its fight against Vietnam are crystal clear examples of the US iron fist diplomacy, examples recorded in global history and diplomacy.
For the very same reason, half of the past 50 years of US diplomacy toward Iran was spent in hostility and cold relations.
Prior to the 1953 US led coup against then premier Mohammad Mosaddeq, most Iranian intellectuals and people regarded the US as the symbol of freedom and democracy. Yet the violent and unconventional policies the US adopted in those days easily marred its unblemished past record.
The 1953 US led coup was a strategic blunder in US diplomacy, pointing to the absence of astuteness among then White House statesmen as opposed to the subtlety and complexity of their British counterparts.
The historic irony was that while Britain had actually faced a loss through Mosaddeq’s nationalization of the oil industry, the US led the coup against the popular Iranian prime minister! Britain tactfully convinced the US to orchestrate the coup, thus apparently keeping itself clear.
The Iranians believe that one who plants winds reaps storms. The 1953 coup prompted the Iranians to hate their former friends and allies in Washington, the abominable results of which came to light 26 years later in the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran.
If Superman, Rambo, and Arnold are symbols of powerful American heroes, they were well defeated and outwitted by the witty and sly British James Bonds during the 1953 coup against Mosaddeq.
Contrary to their American counterparts, the British heroes prefer to dispense with muscle and resort to their gray brain cells.
The heroes of every society are emblematic of that society’s feelings, tendencies, and inclinations. They are, in fact, indigenous products of their own cultures. As such, the Iranian heroes often have masochistic tendencies, while their American and British counterparts respectively have sadistic and Narcissistic penchants.
The interesting point is that over the past years, the perception of the US and Iran have overlapped when it comes to the hero archetype. The clash of the oppressed and wronged Iranian hero with the oppressive American hero has given both countries enjoyment and mental satisfaction. At present, however, the Iranians are faced with an internal enemy and as such wish to abandon the struggle with the external enemy.
The US, too, is apparently nostalgic over losing an age-old enemy. To compensate for this loss, it wants to define a new role for itself in Iran’s new political strategy.
But absence of a US consensus toward Iran is very confusing for the Iranian politicians who are unable to come to grips with the recent contradictory measures the US has taken with regard to Iran.