Asymmetric Diplomacy

SPIEGEL ONLINE - May 11, 2006, 03:41 PM

Iran's Foreign Policy

By Henryk M. Broder
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has shown he knows how to keep the international community on its toes. But to put his unpredictability down to insufficient diplomatic experience is to miss the point -- he's simply improvising as he goes along.
Shortly after coming to power, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Israel should be wiped off the map and that Germany should provide a part of its national territory to the Jewish people as compensation for the Holocaust. Udo Steinbach, the director of Hamburg's Oriental Institute, immediately spoke out in defense of Ahmadinejad, citing the Iranian president's "lack of diplomatic experience." Steinbach would probably think twice about making such a statement today.

Ahmadinejad is proving, on an almost daily basis, that for all his lack of experience, he's a talented and inventive amateur, capable of baffling experienced politicians and political efforts time and time again. Ahmadinejad may not be a great theoretical thinker -- he's more like a spontaneous natural talent, with a feel for the right moment. One day he is threatening to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the next he re-opens the nuclear facilities sealed off on the orders of the United Nations, announcing that his country isn't interested in international resolutions.
He does an about-face by saying foreign inspectors may be allowed back into Iran, and presents a list of conditions. And then goes on to urge the UN to take action against the USA and suggests Germany might serve as a mediator in the ongoing dispute over his country's nuclear ambitions. Then he goes back to threatening the UN Security Council, arguing that its actions are "changing the path of cooperation to confrontation." In short, Ahmadinejad improvises as the need arises.

Now he's given the US President George W. Bush the real scoop on how to get from confrontation to cooperation. In fact, the letter he sent -- and which he didn't even bother to have translated into English -- is not a letter at all, but a sermon. That's why it took longer than usual for the content to become public. The letter contains only familiar banalities and platitudes. Liberalism and Western democracy have failed, he says; the Sept. 11 attacks were carried out with the support of intelligence services; the state of Israel was created in defiance of international law and the invasion of Iraq justified by lies.
But it's not the content of the letter that's important; it's the fact that the Iranian president is directly addressing his American colleague for the first time in 27 years, in order to make suggestions that aren't suggestions at all -- like the one to stand up for a better world together. It's enough to make headlines all over the world.
Ahmadinejad's bravado
Ahmadinejad has done it again. He's controlling the rhythm of events. The world is confused, and Ahmadinejad -- who holds a doctorate in transportation planning, but whose diplomatic experience is nil -- is filled with the perverse joy of a driver speeding down the wrong lane so quickly that everyone moves out of his way at the last moment. Like him or not, you have to admire his bravado.
In the military world, this way of dealing with your enemy already has a name. It's called asymmetrical warfare. The best example is terrorism. They don't wear uniforms, spare civilians or respect the rules of warfare, but when terrorists are captured they ask to be treated according to the Hague Convention on the Laws and Customs of War. They know a constitutional state can't afford to treat them the way they deserve.
Ahmadinejad might be seen as practicing asymmetrical diplomacy. The European Union, the US and international organizations, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN, are bound by rules and have to carefully coordinate their decisions. But he does what he wants -- and manages to keep everyone in check. Like a child raised by believers in anti-authoritarian education, he knows he can treat everything as his toy, because his parents won't intervene until he starts playing with burning matches. Ahmadinejad is testing how far he can go.

So far everything has been going according to plan. The US, the West, the UN, even Russia are reacting in the same way that a therapist would faced with an out-of-control patient -- by keeping quiet, and trying not to provoke him.
But Ahmadinejad isn't crazy; he's just unpredictable. He doesn't have a master plan. He only thinks in the short term: one step at a time. That's his strength. One day he threatens the US, the next he proposes a diplomatic partnership to Bush. It's not important whether he'll really come to the soccer World Cup in Germany. He's made Germany nervous just by saying he would come.
And yet he has to be taken seriously. A man responsible for sending half a million Iranian children out to track down landmines during the Iran-Iraq war is surely capable of anything.