The Iranians’ dream of having a new Persian empire has been going on for centuries, since the Safavids took power in Iran in the early 15th century where they, sect-wise, forcibly converted the Sunni population en masse to the Shia sect, and, nationality-wise, forcibly Persianized the Turkic people.
During their reign, and even prior to the rise of their empire, the Safavids carried out bloody massacres to force the population into Shiism. The unsatisfied desire of this state was echoed by the Iranian dream of resurrecting their empire that Muslim Arabs had crushed in the 7th century. In other words, the Safavids’ hunger for power united with the Iranians’ desire to revive their empire.
Historic Milestones
Ismael I, the founder of the Safavid dynasty, conquered Iran and became its Shah (king) between 1501-1524. The Safavids, who survived until 1736, ruled Iraq and annexed it to their empire as the first step in their expansion into the Arab region. Shah Ismael I waged a war against the Sunni Ottoman Empire and was defeated in Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. But despite his defeat at this decisive battle, Shah Ismail quickly recovered most of his kingdom, removed his rivalries at home, and consolidated his rule using extreme violence to achieve his sectarian and political goals. Shah Abbas I ruled between 1571-1629, and during his reign, the Safavids Empire was at its height but the Safavids started to woo Europe while they were fighting the Ottomans in a bid to serve their Shia Persian empire, despite the fact that the Safavids themselves were of Turkicized Iranian origin.
Today Iran is doing the same and attempting to expand into the Arab Region to control Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen under pretexts such as defending the Shia Arabs and protecting the Shia holy sites. This can be seen as an attempt to revive the Safavid Empire, and even the pre-Islamic empires. Since 1974, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has been warning of the danger of Iran. Most recently, in September 2014, Kissinger who also served as National Security Advisor, weighed in on the threat of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), and stressed that the more dangerous enemy is Iran.
The strategic relations between the Western Bloc and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran, were primarily marred by his attempts to take control of the region. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi acted in advance and introduced a series of economic, social and political reforms with the proclaimed intention of transforming Iran into a global power and modernizing the nation “Toward the Great Civilization”. Even after his downfall because then-US President Jimmy Carter gave up on him, the Shah of Iran, the Islamic Republic which was built on the ruins of his rule, continued to be under Western umbrella and patronage despite all the differences and disputes with the West. That is because the Cold War had not rescinded the strategic importance of Iran on the map of the “conflict” between the Western and Eastern Blocs.
Iran was seen then as the geographic barrier between the former Soviet Union and the warm Gulf waters and the oil and gas resources that Tehran used in the best way to consolidate the Shia rule and consequently promote the neo-Persian empire dream, in terms of content, while opposing this same dream, in terms of form. The West continued to turn a blind eye to the Iranian expansion into this region allowing the danger of Iran to escalate to a nuclear program that threatens the West itself and not only the region where many states are Western allies. The Islamic Republic attempted to invest all its material and human resources in powering its expansion eastward and westward into all neighboring countries.
Can Iran turn itself into an Empire?
The pressing question begging to be answered is this: Can Iran revive the pre-Islamic Achaemenid Empire, or the post-Islamic Safavid Empire in an age where great empires like the Ottoman Empire and the Soviet Union have perished?
There are a number of reasons and factors that simply make the realization of this dream impossible. These are:
1. Domestic Factors:
A group of domestic factors indirectly create unfavorable circumstances for this quest for a new empire despite all the efforts being made by Iran. The middle class has an aversion to the religious rule which curbed its social, economic and political growth. And although the revolution upholds the slogans of “Republic”, “Freedom” and “Independence”, this theocratic state has been pursuing totalitarian policies for more than three decades in a bid to circumvent these principles and in doing so it uses extreme violence to crack down on any civilian protests under the pretext of protecting the “gains of the revolution” and the country’s “national security”. These policies made it necessary for Iran to concentrate all the religious, political, economic, legislative, and military and security powers in the hands of the Wilayat al Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist) in order to legalize dictatorship.
The other critical and sensitive factor is the expanding national tendency of the Persian people who are distancing themselves more and more from the Shia religious establishment and feeling uncomfortable with the other ethnicities. Persians account for more than half of the population of Iran where their attitude led other non-Persian ethnicities namely Arabs, the Kurds, the Gilaki people, the Turks, the Mazandarani people and the Lurs to champion their own nationalist origins. That was a result of the crumbling influence of religion as the “greatest common denominator” that was supposed to hold these ethnicities together.
2. External Factors:
Now, the neo-Persian empire dream is facing many regional and international deterrents. The international community will not accept any dramatic change(s) to the current established borders that would serve any unilateral expansionist ambition. Rather, the revival of nationalist tendencies were instrumental in dividing the former Soviet Union, former Yugoslavia, former Czechoslovakia, and encouraged East Timor to declare independence from Indonesia, and South Sudan to seceded from the Republic of Sudan. This is not limited to the Middle East and Third World countries. Rather, Britain, Spain, Canada and Belgium, the so-called “First World” may also be divided in a democratic way.
On the other hand, the crisis of identity in the Iranian state is yet another factor curbing the imperial dream. If Iran forges alliances with the Persians in Afghanistan and south Uzbekistan, the Sunnis will thwart this bid. The whole population of these countries is Sunni although the history and geography that they share with Iran. This is what made Iran invest in the Shia minorities in the Arab Region and nurture them as its 'pockets'. But the development of the right to citizenship in Arab countries after they went through modern day social, intellectual and political shifts fueled by the Arab Spring, the Shia Arabs appear to champion their nationalist loyalty to their countries and not to Iran.
3. A Better Scenario
Iran will continue to face the same domestic issues, and will even have to go through transition toward more freedom, democracy and development. The aforesaid problems were what fueled the revolution that toppled down the Shah of Iran. First and foremost is the need to recognize the rights of these non-Persian peoples and ethnicities who are in fact the Achilles tendon of the state in Iran. The question that begs itself here: What if the state in Iran gives itself up to the fact that the dream of reviving ancient empires will always be something theoretical and impossible?
If this happens, then it is expected that Iran will move in another direction rather than attempting to achieve the impossible. That is to say, Iran will seek to promote tis cultural, historical and religious ties and interests with its neighbors in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq and the Gulf region. In doing so, Iran will be a “major player” in drawing a clear definition of a Middle East where human, economic and political development prevails and security, stability and peace is established all over to serve the interests of all peoples.
On the sectarian, if not the confessional level, Iran should bow to the language of numbers: Shia people account for no more than 12 percent of Muslims, at the best estimate; Not all the Shia are loyal to Iran, and Iran cannot bet on the Shia people loyal to it forever because of nationalist and political reasons. The best solution therefore would be to use faith to promote communication with all Muslims, achieve rapprochement in order to be able to serve Iranian interests, simply because the Sunni majority will never accept to be under the control of Iran.
The ruling religious establishment in Iran has only one choice: to ensure that it will not create a Shia empire, and to recognize the fact that all the investments of the Islamic Republic in these enterprises will be fruitless, given all the objective reasons and adverse circumstances that make this dream impossible to realize. Among these circumstances is the recent Gulf Arab states’ support for the legitimate government in Yemen against the rebel Iranian-backed Houthis who seized power by force.
