How Iran Can Project Power in the Middle East

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May 26, 2017 Iran is more formidable on paper than perhaps it is in practice. It is the 17th-largest country in the world and the 17th-most populous. It is the sixth-largest producer of oil and the third-largest producer of natural gas. And, according to the International Monetary Fund, it boasts the world’s 29th-largest economy by gross domestic product despite decades of economic sanctions against it.

But the country is constrained by its demography. Iran has several large minority populations, including Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and Baluchis, all of which have separatist tendencies. Since its founding in 1979, when it toppled the secular monarchy, the current regime has tried to solve this problem by cultivating a national identity steeped in Shiism. (The shared use of the Persian language has also helped in that regard. In fact, historically, it has influenced the cultures and civilizations of peoples in all the surrounding regions.)

But religion can go only so far. Its efforts have not exactly endeared the government to the Sunni minorities that populate Iran’s farther reaches. And the clerics who dominate the government are often at odds with the country’s republican institutions.

Problematic though these ethnic and sectarian differences may be for domestic Iranian politics, they also affect the geopolitics of the region. The Caucasus, the Middle East and South Asia all have large Shiite populations, but Iran alone has a government that incorporates the religious practices of the majority of its citizens. And it is surrounded by Sunni majority states that are often hostile to its interests. (There are notable exceptions, of course. Azerbaijan is mostly Shiite but has a secular government; Bahrain is mostly Shiite but has a Sunni monarchy; and Iraq is mostly Shiite but has a mostly ineffectual government.)

And so Iran doesn’t have too many options for projecting power. It can’t go east, even if it wanted to involve itself in the troubles of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It can’t go north, lest it encroach on territory traditionally under the influence of Russia. It can go only west, toward the Middle East.

1. But this strategy cuts both ways. The west may be the only avenue for expansion, but it is also one of the only avenues for invasion – which happened intermittently from the 3rd century to the 7th century, the 16th century and as recently as 37 years ago. Iran’s national security strategy, therefore, is to ensure that threats to its west are neutralized – no easy feat, considering most of Iran’s neighbors are majority Sunni Arab.