7

____________________________

TOPPLING THE ARAB SHEIKHDOMS:
HOW IRAN PLANS TO SEIZE THE PERSIAN GULF’S OIL

Iran has effectively annexed a third of Iraq and the bulk of its oil. It is tightening its control over three vital energy corridors: Afghanistan, the Strait of Hormuz, and Kurdistan. If that’s not enough to scare anyone who drives to work or heats his house in winter, Persian Gulf oil itself is now within Iran’s grasp.

The Gulf Arab sheikhdoms, and the oil that sloshes just under their sands, are vulnerable to military takeover. Iran is the overwhelmingly dominant military force in the Gulf, capable of quickly putting a million men in uniform. The next largest military, Saudi Arabia’s, is just a quarter of its size.

Iran’s army is combat-hardened, thanks to the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq War; Saudi Arabia’s has never fought a war. The Saudis’ last engagement was during the 1990–91 Gulf War, when the Saudi soldiers threw down their rifles and ran. If it hadn’t been for the U.S. Marines, there would have been nothing standing between the Iraqi army and the Saudi capital of Riyadh. Even today, the only thing that stands between Iran and Riyadh is the United States.

In one scenario, Iran could provoke a war with Saudi Arabia, sending ground troops and paratroopers to take Riyadh within forty-eight hours. And it would take even less time for Iran to seize Saudi Arabia’s oil fields, which are particularly vulnerable from the sea. The United States would massively retaliate from the air, and ultimately destroy the Iranian attacking force. But the global consequences would be catastrophic: The Iranians could be counted on to instantly sabotage Saudi oil facilities, taking 9 to 10 million barrels of oil a day—nearly all of Saudi Arabia’s production—off world markets, spiking oil prices well beyond global economic tolerances, leading to a worldwide depression. It would take at least two years to bring Saudi production back onstream.

The only real deterrence to an Iranian attack, then, is American ground forces. But the American military is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. There simply aren’t an additional 200,000–300,000 troops available to protect Saudi Arabia or its oil fields, at least not without bringing back the draft and taking two years to train and equip the new troops. And even if this were to happen, with the Middle East already costing us trillions, spending trillions more to defend Saudi Arabia would cripple the U.S. economy.

In December 2007, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the cost of our occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan will reach $2.4 trillion over the next decade. A truly effective containment of Iran—retaking Iraq, disarming Hezbollah in Lebanon, protecting the Gulf Arabs and their oil—could easily double that. We’re talking about the money for the baby boomers’ retirement, the education of three generations of Americans, the price of converting to alternative energy sources. The United States would be spending the equivalent of what it cost Rome to maintain its empire, or Spain or Britain theirs—empires that financially drained their metropolitan centers and collapsed.

Besides, Iran doesn’t actually need to militarily invade Gulf nations to control Gulf oil. The rim of the Persian Gulf, 90 percent Shia, is vulnerable to Iranian meddling. The population of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for instance, is only 19 percent Emirati Arab, while non-Emirati Arabs, many of them Shia and ethnic Persians, make up 23 percent. Dubai, the UAE’s largest city, also hosts a large number of Iranian residents, who also are susceptible to Iran’s influence.

The Gulf Arabs understand their predicament, especially when they remember that in 1971 the Shah of Iran seized three Gulf islands that belonged to the UAE. Iran has shown no inclination to return them—yet another reminder that the Persian Gulf is named that for a reason.

A second Iranian scenario would be to incite demonstrations in Dubai, declare the overthrow of its ruling Al Makhtoum family, call for elections, and have the new “legitimate” government appeal to Iran for help. There would be little the Gulf Arabs could do but stand by and watch. In fact, a takeover of Dubai is not only completely within the realm of possibility; I’d say, should any serious confrontation arise between Iran and the United States, it’s a near certainty.

The Makhtoums, like the Saudis, fully grasp the threat. In February 2008 the ruler of Dubai, Muhammad bin Rashid Al Makhtoum, flew to Tehran to reassure the Iranians he would never consider joining any U.S.-led alliance against Iran. It was the first such high-level visit since the fall of the Shah.

“Iran and the United Arab Emirates have historical and strong relations,” Rashid said at his press conference in Tehran, “and with my trip to the Islamic Republic of Iran, bilateral relations will rise to new horizons.” Considering that Dubai is a constituent member of the UAE and that Iran was still holding on to the three islands it had earlier seized from the UAE, this was tantamount to an unconditional surrender.

In the case of an American retreat from Iraq or even the Gulf, Iran could simply bully the Gulf Arabs into accepting Iranian suzerainty. A few military confrontations on Gulf waters, either accidental or intentional, and the Arabs wouldn’t have a choice. Iranian president Ahmadinejad already hinted at Iran’s plans in December 2003, when he offered the Arabs a “joint security pact”—the Iranian equivalent of NATO, over which Iran would clearly dominate. Already, Arab Gulf emissaries these days travel to Tehran more often than they do to London or Washington.

If Iran succeeds in taking control of the Persian Gulf, it would not only mark the first time that the waterway hasn’t been under Western dominance since the British Navy first sailed into the Gulf in 1763, it would be a massive geopolitical shift, akin to Japan’s invading China in 1931 or Russia seizing Eastern Europe at the end of World War II. And considering the West’s hydrocarbon addiction, the economic consequences would be catastrophic.

There’s something else that makes this dark narrative even darker: In spite of industry and OPEC claims, the Persian Gulf is running out of oil. Its true reserves may be half of what we’ve been told they are, a radical recalculation that alters all other calculations.

Oil reserve estimates are based on data provided by oil-producing countries and oil companies. They’re not independently audited, and the numbers are impossible to corroborate. The higher reserves an OPEC member claims, the higher the OPEC quota it’s allotted, and the more oil it’s allowed to “lift,” or pump out. And of course, the more barrels of oil a company “books,” the higher its stock prices—and the higher the bonuses for its executives.

Not surprisingly, it has been well established that both countries and companies systematically overestimate their reserves. Several years ago, Royal Dutch Shell was caught and fined, and its stock was downgraded. Other major oil companies have been luckier. Still, their data is notoriously unreliable.

The more reliable way to calculate reserves is by looking at production data—how much oil is actually lifted from a particular field. Based on inflated industry and company estimates, the remaining proven reserves worldwide amount to 1.255 trillion barrels. But if we go by actual production, according to the respected, independent Energy Watch Group, oil reserves in fact are closer to 854 billion barrels. Energy Watch Group believes that Middle Eastern reserves are overestimated more than most. Officially they’re put at 677 billion barrels. But calculated on the basis of production, they’re more like 362 billion barrels—a little over half of what is claimed.

The numbers for each country tell the same story. Saudi Arabia, rather than possessing the 286 billion barrels it claims, has only about 181 billion barrels. Iraq claims 99 billion barrels, but in fact has 41 billion. Kuwait claims 51 billion but has closer to 35 billion. As for Iran, it has just 43.5 billion, rather than the 134 billion barrels it claims.

Saudi Arabia’s shortfall in reserves is the most alarming. Its mega oil fields are the world’s reserve tank, and their true capacity will determine whether we bicycle or drive to work in the decades to come. Saudi Arabia produces roughly 11 million barrels a day, accounting for 19 percent of the world’s oil exports. Analysts, going on industry and Saudi calculations, count on Saudi Arabia to boost its production to 15 million barrels a day to meet increasing global demand.

Historically, Saudi Arabia has also been the world’s “swing producer.” When demand spikes or collapses, Saudi production goes up or down accordingly, smoothing market prices. For instance, during the Gulf War, Saudi Arabia boosted its production by 3.1 million barrels a day, at a time when 5.3 million barrels of Iraqi and Kuwaiti production were off the market. Thanks to this Saudi surge production, world oil prices rose only moderately. Add to this the fact that Saudi oil is some of the world’s cheapest to produce—about $1 to $2 a barrel to lift, compared with $11 to $15 a barrel in the Caspian Sea, where the oil lies deeper underground—and there is no doubt that Saudi Arabia and its oil are a pillar of the world’s economy, expected to fuel uninterrupted world growth for the next fifty years. Or so we’ve been led to believe.

There’s a growing conviction that Saudi Arabia, more than any producer, is lying about its proven reserves. In one particularly telling study, a computer scientist looked at Saudi Arabia’s giant Ghawar field, which stretches for more than 150 miles beneath the desert. Ghawar is the largest oil deposit in the world, producing approximately 5 million barrels a day—almost half of Saudi Arabia’s production. Its cumulative production since it was discovered is 55 billion barrels.

The study, taken entirely from public data, looks at the amount of water injected into Ghawar over the years. (Water injection forces oil to the surface.) The only conclusion the scientist was able to arrive at from the amount of water injected is that Ghawar is filled mostly with water. In other words, Ghawar is nearly depleted, the consequence of which is that Saudi production could fall off faster and more steeply than anyone has so far predicted. If the numbers are indeed accurate, no wonder the Saudis lie about their reserves: with no new discoveries of oil to offset Ghawar, $4.00 for a gallon of regular will soon look like a fantastic bargain.

Adding to the skepticism about true Saudi reserves, Saudi production is declining, down a million barrels a day since 2005. The Saudis claim this is because of declining global demand, which of course is nonsense. In 2006, the price of oil went from $60 to $74 a barrel, then to $100 in 2007 and $135 in 2008 (at this writing). OPEC blamed the decline of the dollar for the rise, but that didn’t account for all of it. Saudi Arabia either couldn’t or wouldn’t boost production to smooth out prices. Evidence suggests they couldn’t: From 2004 to 2007, the Saudis tripled the number of their oil rigs in an attempt to find new fields. In any event, the days when Saudi Arabia could lift oil for $1 to $2 a barrel are disappearing, and the notion it will take its production up to 15 million barrels a day is a fantasy.

Iran faces an oil depletion as severe as Saudi Arabia’s, with an even larger disparity between its real and claimed reserves. In 2005, Iran produced approximately 3.94 million barrels a day. But Iran’s sustainable capacity, meaning the amount they can recover from their existing oil fields without damaging them, is only 3.8 million barrels a day—it’s running out of oil even faster than Saudi Arabia. Although Iran doesn’t rely on one mega field like Ghawar, 60 percent of its production comes from oil fields more than fifty years old. To take just one comparison, in 1974 Iran was producing 6 million barrels a day. Today, with domestic consumption at 1.5 million barrels a day, Iran very well could run out of oil sooner than we expect. It’s counting on making up the shortfall by drilling its South Pars mega gas field, but South Pars is still a speculative investment.

Iran also does not produce enough gasoline, thanks to a shortage of refineries and increasing demand. In June 2007, Iran ordered a comprehensive gasoline rationing program—one reason cars there are switching to natural gas. The rationing sparked riots. And like most market interference, it failed to cut back on consumption. But it’s Iran’s oil depletion that promises to cause the real problems.

At the current rate of global consumption, and if Iran indeed has less than half the reserves it claims, Iran will run out of oil in ten years rather than thirty. Iraqi oil will therefore become even more critical for Iran’s economic survival. And even if Iran took over all of Iraq’s oil, this would still only add a few years of longevity. How could Iran not be tempted to take over Saudi Arabia’s oil fields, even if they’re not as full as Saudi Arabia claims?

Iran has many other reasons to expand at the expense of its neighbors. Like the Soviet economy, Iran’s economy suffers from a morbidly inefficient state sector. Unemployment is around 11 percent (according to the government, which means it’s probably a lot higher). Inflation is at 16 percent and possibly as high as 50 percent. And most telling of all, petroleum accounts for 80 to 90 percent of Iran’s exports—the perfect storm for a country with a large army and weak neighbors.

With 75 percent of its population under twenty-five, Iran clearly needs a change in course. America’s neocons would like us to believe that Iran is in a prerevolutionary state, the Iranians ready to rise and depose the clerics and hard-liners and install a more pragmatic regime. This may or may not be true. But there’s no evidence whatsoever that the government that would succeed the mullahs would either wean itself off oil or reconsider Iran’s ambition of dominating the Persian Gulf and its oil. Iran knows it is running out of oil and must do something—and quickly. It has no intention of letting itself become the Bangladesh of the Gulf.

In the meantime, there’s an easy way to help Iran’s economy—alleviating its need to gobble up more territory—and smooth relations with Iran. The West should lift sanctions to help it extract its oil more efficiently. Iran’s current recovery rate is 24–27 percent. The rest of the world’s producers are closer to 35 percent. By giving Iran access to the modern equipment needed to boost its recovery rate, as well as develop South Pars, the United States can ensure Iran doesn’t slip into early penury, forcing it to sail across the Gulf and take Saudi Arabia’s oil.

At any rate, one thing is clear: The worst thing America could do would be to leave the status quo as it is.

A complaint you often hear in the Middle East is how Americans don’t appreciate this or that country. A Saudi will tell you it’s dangerously shortsighted for the United States to ignore Saudi Arabia, with its 24 percent of the world’s oil reserves. How can the Americans ignore a country that’s a keystone of the world’s economy? There is no one in the Middle East who’s not enraged that the United States defers to Israel, a country with no oil and of little strategic importance. Arabs and Iranians alike feel slighted by America—humiliated and bent on revenge.

I heard this same grievance from Ayatollah Khomeini’s former aide, Amin, the one who now owns a bookstore in Paris. Amin gave me a quick primer on why he thought America has historically allied with the wrong players in the Middle East.

“The United States in the Middle East has always stood on four very wobbly legs,” Amin told me. “Pakistan, the Shah of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.”

Each of the four, Amin is convinced, has failed the United States or will do so. He offered a quick tour d’horizon to make his point.

“Pakistan is not a country, it’s an army,” he said—not unlike Saddam’s Iraq.

Amin reduced Pakistan to five provinces ripped out of the British Raj, its borders drawn for British convenience rather than that of the Pakistanis. “The country cannot hold together,” he said.

My conversation with Amin took place three months before Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, but there were already signs Pakistan was coming off its hinges. President Musharraf was unable to control the tribal areas along the border of Afghanistan, let alone capture bin Laden for the Americans.

“As the Pakistani army goes, so goes Pakistan,” Amin told me. “In twenty-four hours a coup could change American fortunes in that country. Wasn’t it clear enough in Pakistan’s failed hunt for Osama bin Laden? It couldn’t or wouldn’t help.”

It was hard to argue against the point that Pakistan has been a waste of money. In 2007, the United States gave $52.6 million to Pakistan’s Frontier Corps—a tribal force meant to keep peace along the wild and historically ungovernable Afghan-Pakistan border—to do something about al Qaeda and the Taliban’s taking refuge there. Another $97 million was to be spent in 2008. But the money got us nothing, neither bin Laden nor the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. And it certainly didn’t buy stability.

“As for Saudi Arabia,” Amin went on, “it’s an archaic political structure—Bedouin tribes incapable of coping with the twenty-first century. Do you think it’s an accident that there were fifteen Saudis on those planes on September 11? And lest you forget, they were the most Americanized Saudis, the crème de la crème of Saudi Arabia.”

I had made up my mind long ago that Saudi Arabia was yet another virtual country. Its borders are artificial, and it’s ruled by fragile tribal coalitions that will crack under pressure. Yet all along the United States has treated Saudi Arabia not only as a friend but as if it were a force capable of defending our interests in the Gulf.

Amin’s views of the second wobbly leg, the Shah of Iran, were predictable.

“You anchored your national security on a diseased liver,” he said, referring to the United States’ decision to support the terminally ill Shah, rather than Iran itself. “In your Cold War myopia, all you could see was that the Shah banned Iran’s Communist Party.”

“And then there’s Israel,” Amin said, laughing without humor.

It didn’t surprise me that Amin reserved the worst for Israel. In the two decades I’ve spent in the Middle East, I’ve seen how truly mysterious the region’s Muslims find America’s attachment to Israel. Aside from possessing no oil, Israel is demographically insignificant. Muslims look at Israel as an American colonial fort, one not worth the upkeep. “Why the Israelis and not us?” they’d ask me. They‘re stung by the apparent unfairness and injustice of it, and see it as simple racism: America picked one Semitic tribe, the Jews, over another, the Arabs.

“Israel’s greatest conquest wasn’t the West Bank and Gaza,” Amin told me. “It was the American imagination.” Where once the United States looked at the Middle East through the prism of Moscow and the Cold War, he said, “it now sees everything through the prism of Tel Aviv.”

“The United States is prisoner to a narrow collective memory,” he added. “A country that was manufactured in Hollywood.”

And Iranians are doubly aggrieved, he said, because it’s not just Israel we favor. They see the same racial and political prejudice in our bias toward Sunni countries. Why does the United States shower attention on corrupt Pakistani generals and grotesquely corrupt Saudi princes when neither can field a real army? Can’t we see the disparity in the raw numbers? The numbers alone should be enough for us to take Iran more seriously. But the United States is unable to comprehend the durable and the permanent.

“Don’t you Americans remember history?” Amin asked in genuine frustration. “Wasn’t the first post–World War II nuclear crisis over Iran? Over Stalin’s attempt to seize Iranian oil fields? Still today the United States ignores Iran’s real status as the preeminent Gulf power. It treats Iran like a pariah. Even under the Shah, you looked at Iran as a heavily fortified castle, a far outpost of the American empire, manned by your friendly if primitive natives.”

Although Amin didn’t claim to have information that isn’t public, he’s convinced that the Iranian “nuclear threat” is fabricated, by both sides. The Iranians want the world to believe they’re building a nuclear bomb mainly to get attention, to have a chip to play at the global poker table. Indeed, one day they will make a bomb, Amin said, but right now they’re only interested in being treated as a serious player. They want to be given their due, if for no other reason than as a deterrent to an American or Israeli attack, as Saddam attempted to do when he made the world believe he still possessed weapons of mass destruction.

What about the view that the Iranian leaders are apocalyptic Shia ready to attack Israel with a nuclear bomb? I asked.

Amin replied with what seemed like a digression. “Did you know that when Arafat went to see Khomeini after the revolution, Khomeini couldn’t understand a word of Arafat’s Arabic?”

Amin’s point was that Arafat’s inability to talk to Khomeini in the prophet’s language is a metaphor for how far apart the Iranians are from the Palestinians. Iran sees the Arabs, and particularly the Palestinians, as very much subordinate to their core national interests. They’re not about to go to war with Israel over the Palestinians, especially at the risk of a nuclear confrontation.

I knew the Iranians had told us over and over through diplomatic back channels that they’re not particularly concerned about the fate of the Palestinians or the existence of Israel. Iran will accept whatever settlement the Palestinians accept, they assured us, whether it includes returning Jerusalem or not. I heard the same thing as recently as March 2008, when a politburo member from Lebanon’s Hezbollah told me that Hezbollah would be “no more Palestinian than the Palestinians.” In other words, if the Palestinians agreed to settle with Israel, so would Hezbollah. Only a serious engagement with both Iran and Hezbollah can test this claim.

Amin thought it was a critical, even fatal, error for the United States not to have any idea what Iran really wants. Why do we take seriously Ahmadinejad’s mad ranting about destroying Israel? Haven’t the Arabs been making the same threat since 1948, and we’ve ignored them?

Finally, Amin was convinced time is on Iran’s side.

“Do you know what the consequence of your not understanding Iran is?” he asked me. “Iran today is a superpower, if only by default.”

Amin was certain this was thanks to America’s never giving Iran its due, to ignoring the most populous, stable, powerful country in the Persian Gulf—a state that has existed for thousands of years within the same borders. Instead, the United States made a shortsighted bet on failing Sunni states lurching toward collapse.

The consensus in the Persian Gulf is that the first Arab sheikhdom to fall will be Bahrain, with a tap by Iran.

A small island nation at the top of the Persian Gulf, Bahrain has only a ceremonial army. Whenever there’s a problem, the Saudis send a reinforced battalion across the causeway linking the two countries to put it down. Iran could occupy Bahrain in an hour.

And as with the UAE, the Iranians don’t even need to invade. Bahrain has a population of just over 700,000, and 70 percent are Shia Muslims. Iran funds Bahraini Shia clerics, charities, and schools. Many senior Bahraini clerics are in exile in Qum, Iran. Not only are Bahraini Shia sympathetic to Iran, they are even more so today now that the Bahraini Shia’s historical center of learning and spiritual guidance, Najaf, is in Iranian hands. And it’s not as if the Iranians keep to themselves their ability to meddle in Bahraini politics.

An adviser to the Bahraini king told me that Iran was responsible for civil disturbances that broke out there in late 2007.

“The Iranians like to give us a taste of what they’re capable of,” he told me. “Little reminders now and then.”

Bahrain was part of Iran for centuries—until 1782, when the Al Khalifa family, a band of pearl divers and pirates, seized the island from Iran’s declining Qajar Dynasty. In order to hold on to it, the Al Khalifa quickly signed a series of treaties with Britain, turning the island into a British protectorate by the nineteenth century. When Britain left the Persian Gulf and gave Bahrain its independence in 1971, Bahrain immediately offered naval basing rights to the United States—with the express purpose of dissuading the Shah from seizing it, as he had the three islands he seized from the UAE.

For Iranians, then, Bahrain represents the worst kind of colonialism. It’s as if during the Civil War, Canada had seized the state of Maine. Would America simply shrug its shoulders and let Canada keep it? Bahrain may be an independent, sovereign country in the West’s view, but the Iranians consider it stolen property that one day they’ll reclaim.

In July 2007, a close adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made that very point in an interview.

“The public demand in Bahrain,” he said, “is the reunification of this province with the motherland, Islamic Iran.” Although the adviser claimed he was speaking privately, no official in Iran repudiated the interview. The Bahrainis were left to interpret it as official policy.

The king of Bahrain, Sheikh Hamad, came to power only in 1999. He understands just how vulnerable he is. In fact, ever since I first met him, at the Dorchester Hotel in London a couple of years ago, it has been all he could talk about.

As far as I could tell, Hamad had traveled to London with a modest entourage of twenty or thirty people. Dressed in a canary yellow shirt and black slacks, he looked like any other rich Bahraini on vacation. He had no interest in trying to keep up with fellow Arab royalty, who flew to London in their Boeing 777s with hundreds of retainers. But he also traveled light partly out of necessity. With no oil to speak of, the Bahrainis have to live within their means.

We first met in the Dorchester’s oblong lobby, which was getting a face-lift at the time. Sheets of plywood covered one wall, with jackhammers drilling behind it, causing the furniture to bounce on the floor. British aplomb ruled, though, and afternoon tea continued. Taking his cue from his former occupiers, Hamad pretended to ignore the deafening racket.

Since Hamad and I couldn’t hear each other over the din, we agreed to meet again when we were next in London. Before shaking hands goodbye, he invited me to the Formula 1 car race in Manama, Bahrain’s capital city. (I never managed to run in those circles, and missed it.)

Two months later, Hamad and I met again at the Dorchester. The renovations now complete, we talked in a small conference room off the lobby. Hamad’s son, Crown Prince Salman, joined us. In January 2007, Hamad would appoint Salman deputy commander in chief of the military, a move many interpreted as a means for Hamad to exert tighter control over his kingdom.

For the first fifteen minutes we talked about Iran’s newly elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Hamad listened closely as I told him about the rumor going around that Ahmadinejad had participated in the assassination of an Iranian Kurd in Vienna in 1989. No one knew for sure whether the Ahmadinejad in Vienna was the same Ahmadinejad who was now the president of Iran. But it was not an unimportant question. If indeed President Ahmadinejad was a cold-blooded assassin, we’d have a bigger problem on our hands than we feared.

When I finished, Hamad threw up his hands. “What difference does it make? They’re all terrorists.”

I was pretty sure Hamad didn’t mean the Iranians. He was too polite to spell it out to an American, but what I took it to mean was that the Bush administration terrified him. As far as Hamad was concerned, the United States created the Iranian Frankenstein in the Gulf by invading Iraq. But at the same time, it was absolutely clear in his mind that if it weren’t for the U.S. fleet floating between him and Iran, he would lose his crown. But how long would the fleet be there?

Losing an island of 700,000—a Persian Gulf country without oil—may not seem like much of a loss in the global scheme of catastrophes. But it very well could prove to be the first domino in Iran’s seizing the Arab side of the Gulf. The “domino theory” deservedly earned a bad reputation during the Vietnam War. But the Persian Gulf isn’t Southeast Asia: Iran’s successful inroads into the Arab world—Syria, Lebanon, Gaza—suggest there really is a possibility that one country tipping over would knock over the next. An Iranian takeover of Bahrain would be a lesson the Arabs would never forget. “If you want to scare the monkeys,” as the Chinese saying goes, “kill the chicken.”

There is also the important question of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain. If Sheikh Hamad is deposed and replaced by a government friendly to Iran, the United States will have no place to dock or gas up its carriers in the Gulf. The island of Diego Garcia, which is in the middle of the Indian Ocean, is the next closest naval base—much too far away to allow us to efficiently patrol the Gulf.

There used to be a saying, “As goes Egypt, so goes the Middle East.” It might be more apt to say, “As goes Bahrain, so goes the Persian Gulf.”

For fifty years, the Communists were the face of the world’s liberation movements, the champion of the poor, dispossessed, and oppressed. In Iranian eyes, that torch has passed to Iran.

Iran’s revolution in the Middle East has less to do with religion than with politics and economics. Iran has exploited Shia discontent, but it also has promised to redress global economic inequality, Third World political impotence, colonialism, and injustice. Iran has taken over from the Communists in the war of conviction, and with the bond of belief, salvation, and the hereafter, it’s the greatest threat to the Middle East since the Ottomans.

The reason President Ahmadinejad solicits the support of Venezuela’s populist president Hugo Chavez, and even the descendants of Che Guevara, is to tap the legacy of world revolution—the have-nots against the haves. It certainly helps that Tehran looks like a socialist country. Walk around Tehran and you’ll notice there are no palaces—none of the grand, sprawling compounds like those Saddam Hussein or the Saudis built for themselves. Although Iran’s mullahs possess great fortunes, they’re not on display. Iran successfully portrays itself as a populist country, one committed to helping the downtrodden.

Iran is using that same revolutionary appeal to succeed in Iraq. As it becomes more apparent that the allies will not be able to reconstruct Iraq, Iran’s populist, almost socialist image will become an irresistible beacon for Iraqis. Iran has stated over and over that it will not allow Iraq’s oil wealth to be stolen by a minority, as they accuse the Sunnis under Saddam of having done. The Iranians are offering Lebanon as the new paradigm: didn’t Iran quickly and with little corruption rebuild the Shia areas of Lebanon that were bombed in the 2006 war?

None of this means Iran will force a Shia republic on Iraq or Bahrain. That’s too blunt an instrument for Iran’s imperialist strategy. And anyhow, the Iranians understand that identities in the Middle East change. The Maghreb, a swath of northern Africa, was Shia for longer than it was Sunni. Egypt was a Shia country during the Fatimid era of the tenth to twelfth centuries. And in Syria today, there’s anecdotal evidence that Sunni and minority Alawites are converting to Shia Islam in solidarity with Hezbollah.

Iran is prepared to adjust its goals, to bend to Iraqi nationalism, sectarian divisions, the peculiarities of the Bahraini Shia, or whatever else is necessary to extend its influence. And with the price of oil at over $135 a barrel, Iran has the money to rebuild Iraq.

Iran will continue to hold itself out as an incorruptible power, unlike the United States, which has been dirtied in one corruption scandal after another in Iraq. The United States still isn’t able to get the electricity back on in Baghdad, while one of America’s and Britain’s largest exports to Iraq and Afghanistan is private security companies, mercenaries.

Today in Kabul, you can’t miss the contrast. The American and British embassies are surrounded by blast walls, standoff cement barriers, and razor wire. The Iranian embassy, by comparison, is enclosed by a simple wall, with families picnicking on the trim lawn in front. If there are Iranian security guards, you can’t see them.

As much as the Americans like to see themselves as the defenders of democracy, Iran’s anticolonialist message is the one people in the Persian Gulf are listening to.