New York - Let us say, for the sake of argument, that President Barack Obama's caution in responding to the Iranian surprise that followed the presidential elections was well-placed – at least at the beginning and in the public domain. Yet today, after a week has gone by of developments that could yield a bigger surprise, the US President must exercise greater wisdom and caution, and must return to the policy drawing board to prepare potential realistic scenarios different from those he produced before the surprise. Binding himself to how he had envisioned or imagined dealing with Iran is not in his interest, nor is it in the interest of the United States, especially that the fundamental basis is to embrace the Islamic Republic – with its mullahs in power and its revolutionaries for Presidents – so that it may become willing to cooperate, engage in dialogue and reach an understanding today. Barack Obama is required to decide which Iran he has laid out wise policies to embrace – is it Iran the Islamic Republic, with its old or new mullahs, whether reformists or hardliners, clinging to power? Or is it the Iran of those who seek to overthrow the regime brought by the 1979 revolution, most of whom are the sons and daughters of the fathers and mothers who participated in this revolution against the Shah before it was devoured by the mullahs and turned strictly into religious authority and religious authoritarianism? If Obama makes light of the generation of change in Iran and sees in it a failed chapter of the “twitter uprising,” he might face a surprise greater than that brought about by the “tape recording” revolution exactly thirty years ago. And if he assumes that current President Ahmadinejad will remain in power anyway, Obama should expect of Ahmadinejad more stringency and strictness towards the United States after what happened, no matter how much the US President tries to cling to caution, in order to avoid and defend against the accusation of interfering in Iran's affairs. He should expect the mullahs of Tehran, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to take preemptive or vengeful measures, not necessarily in Iraq or Afghanistan, but rather in Palestine and Lebanon. He should be careful, aware and wakeful of Iran and Israel implicating the United States in order to undermine Barack Obama's insistence on making peace in the Palestinian issue. He should anticipate preemptive policies, so as not to find himself chasing the events, as did his predecessor Jimmy Carter in Iran 30 years ago. Indeed Iran, thunderous today with calm protests, is forging its future and weaving it with surprises day after day. It is hence of the utmost importance for the US President not to make himself a hostage of his envisioned “grand deal,” which relies on providing the mullahs' regime with guarantees that the United States will not support the Iranian opposition and will not work on toppling the regime. Barack Obama will be forced to do away with the prime support of his “grand deal” policy, even if the mullahs stay in power. And this is not the only aspect that will require reconsidering in the way the Obama Administration imagines the Iranian issue, be it internal, regional, nuclear, or revolutionary… Here are a few examples: It might not occur to one that there would be a relation between the Lebanese parliamentary elections and the decisions of the ruling Iranian establishment in charge of the presidential elections in Iran. Analysts might rush to examine the Iranian-Israeli relation around the nuclear issue, without it occurring to them to examine the Iranian and Israeli governments' agreement on “combating” Barack Obama's initiative regarding Palestine. Realistically, both issues are significant. One observer who monitors the relation between the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its allies in Lebanon said that “the Lebanese elections decided the fate of the elections in Iran,” as Hezbollah's defeat led Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to take “unusual measures because he could not digest two defeats and agree to relinquish control for the next eight years of rule in Tehran.” According to the seasoned observer, “Khamenei decided that he needed a strong team in Tehran to act as he wishes and take the necessary decisions after Lebanon's elections.” Such necessary decisions following the Lebanese elections may be more Palestinian, knowing that the men in power in the financial system in Iran are in dire need for the Palestinian struggle and conflict to continue, so that they may raise the banner of the “Palestinian Cause” in their “Jihad” against the United States and Israel, and in order to impose regional hegemony and justify the possession of advanced nuclear capabilities. Indeed Iran, which Barack Obama seeks to seduce into talking about the nuclear issue or about ceasing to support terrorism, is the same Iran that is mobilizing its capabilities in order to defeat Barack Obama's plan regarding the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad are not alone, nor are they alone in seeking to do so. Their de facto partners are Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who try to delude Obama's discourse and vision in order to defeat his peaceful plan towards a solution of two independent states. What some fear is for the desires of leaders in both the Iranian and Israeli governments to meet in provoking a military confrontation in Lebanon – through Palestinian elements and not necessarily through Hezbollah – which would enable Netanyahu to evade the requirements of peace and Iran's leaders to evade internal pressures resulting from the uprising, protests and challenges, and to turn the world's eyes away from Iran. What is feared, according to the well-informed observer, is for the deteriorating situation inside Iran to lead to the decision being taken of triggering a confrontation with Israel through Lebanon, with the aim of imposing “martial law within Iran,” under the pretext that Israel will strike Iran and that the situation requires imposing military law. The ruling regime in Tehran has lost its composure and is behaving with panic when faced with developments, and this is clear evidence of its inability to accept reforms and of its weakness in its very depth and condition. All of this makes it a fragile regime prone to break. The dangerous nature of such a situation is embodied in a decision to escalate and confront in order to escape the reality of the collapsing regime. Its positive aspects are represented by the window of opportunity it opens up to a popular decision by the youth of Iran, one that would put an end to the path of extremism, hegemony, imposition, oppression and the use of violence against countries in the region to export the Revolution. This generation wants to restore its right to have a normal life and not to be isolated. This is why it has succeeded in striking the regime at its core. It has succeeded in exposing its ideological-political identity as one belonging to the Soviet era. Iran's youth has laid bare the impossibility for the regime's clerics to pretend that their spiritual and religious leadership has placed them above politics and accountability for political cunning to remain in power. Iran's youth has proven to the leaders of the regime that it speaks a modern language, one the regime's men have not even begun to decipher – shocking them with the first internet revolution in the ways of social media. It is very important for President Barack Obama to assimilate all these issues from a political, historical and social point of view, while designing his comprehensive policy in a new and all-inclusive strategy towards Iran and the region in light of recent developments. It is important for him to interpret Iran as it is today, after the regime has become battered because of its weakness, despite the arrogance of its President and the superior airs of its Leader. Indeed, in such weakness lies an opportunity for the US Administration to forge a strong and beneficial relationship with Iran, regardless of whether the leaders of the regime remain in power, the reformists within the regime come to power or the regime is overthrown. Indeed, change has come to the Islamic Republic of Iran, whom the US President addressed, confessing in advance his acceptance of it and of its legitimacy as a regime without obtaining anything worth mentioning in return. It is this regime which has now changed the game by gathering a unified opposition against it, after it had been dispersed, as a result of it taking measures brought about by panic. And now the game has entered a new phase, one requiring different rules. Perhaps any direct stance on the domestic events in Iran would be considered unacceptable and an interference in internal affairs. However, the United States and the whole international community have the right to think about steps that would prevent the use of Iraq or Lebanon as arenas for regional escalation and pretexts for imposing extreme internal measures. One such step could be speeding up work to implement the idea of making Israel and Lebanon commit to the 1949 truce agreement, by virtue of Chapter Seven of the United Nations Charter, and as per the Taif Agreement which ended the Lebanese civil war. The purpose of this is to block the path of Tehran's mullahs and Israel's rulers. Indeed, shutting the Lebanon window on both sides means shielding the Lebanese scene from their destructive adventures – each for their own internal reasons. The other necessary measure is international action, especially in the meeting of the Quartet at the end of this month, to adopt a strategy of seriously pushing for the two-state solution – Israel and Palestine – as envisioned in the Road Map without being unnecessarily courteous towards Netanyahu's latest incapacitating novelty, represented by his negations of a real Palestinian state. It is highly important for the Obama Administration to realize that Tehran's mullahs will not allow a solution to the Palestinian issue because they are in need of a continuing struggle as a justification for the conflict with the United States and Israel, and as a means to usurp leadership of the cause from the Arabs in order to spread their influence in the region and in the Muslim world. Indeed, this is not a matter of magnetism, charisma or ability to convince, but rather one that is at the core of fundamental policy. Moreover, Iran's mullahs – reformists among them in particular – seek to engage and head to the negotiation table with Barack Obama, yet without relinquishing the crux of the issue – its nuclear aspect as well as that pertaining to the support of the likes of Hezbollah and Hamas – with complete readiness to benefit from the US leaving the negotiation table. All of these issues – in light of the current struggle for power in Iran – have another dimension, color and meaning. Iraq is open to interferences and attempts to destabilize it in order to turn eyes away from the internal situation, and it is also a candidate for reviving the infiltration of fighters to it through Iran's borders. Thus, and because the regime in Iran is weak, tense and divided to the point that the Iranian army is affected by the division, this could be an opportunity for US military leadership in Iraq to act from a position of power and superiority, in order to pull the rug from under the feet of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The opportunity may be ripe for reaching an understanding with Syria, not only over the necessity of clinging to the arrangements regarding the Syrian-Iraqi borders, but rather over the necessity of implementing similar understandings at the Syrian-Lebanese borders to prevent adventures some Iranian parties might wish to venture into, using the Syrian-Lebanese borders for the purpose of implication. It is very important for the US President not to interfere, as did his predecessors, in Iran. However, it is equally important for him not to seem as if he wishes the suppression of the Iranian uprising, so as not to have to antagonize the regime or to change his notion of the Iranian strategy before the surprises.
