Persian Shadows

In less than a week, the U.S.-Iran escalation has resulted in 226 deaths, counting both direct targets and collateral victims of a complex confrontation that is spiraling out of control in both the Middle East and the United States.

The Middle East is a shadow theater, like the Teatro Gioco Vita, where projections create the illusion of larger, more dramatic characters and, like the myths transposed from this Chinese shadow art, signal a disastrous end. And from these projections flow heterogeneous representations of regional geopolitics.

Let’s start with the United States, which is stuck playing a sinister game of mikado: Their withdrawal, repeatedly announced and postponed by the current president, could precipitate the collapse of the entire structure—and lead to even more chaos. As they try to put the lid back on a Pandora’s box opened 17 years ago, regional mapping shows Iran’s growing influence through active intermediaries, such as Kata’ib Hezbollah and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, the al-Ridha forces and the al-Baquir brigade in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movement in the Gaza Strip. Assassinated Gen. Qassem Soleimani was undeniably an artisan with respect to this influence, which the U.S. and its allies both hated and frequently used, notably against the Islamic State. In this sense, Americans’ fears are well founded.

But another look at the region offers a different perspective, one of Iran, a once great Persian power, a regional giant with clay feet, struggling with an anxiety-provoking geopolitical situation. Its territory is surrounded: within striking distance by Israel; facing its great regional rival, Saudi Arabia; and bordered on all sides by a constellation of U.S. bases. It is this perception of encirclement on which Soleimani built his rise. He had been a key player in the regime since the Iran-Iraq War, propelled onto the regional scene by the 2003 American invasion. American political scientist Ian Bremmer has explained that in assassinating Soleimani, the Americans killed the “Iranian Patton.” Iranians’ fears are tangible.

The security dilemma is real. Not least because the president’s perceptions are largely shaped by Fox News, especially if he is stuck in front of his television at Mar-a-Lago on a rainy day, like the day he made the decision to assassinate Soleimani. There are few safeguards. Partly because members of Congress—the natural counterpoint—have neither the will nor the ability to curb presidential action in cases like this.

Indeed, with few exceptions, Republicans are closing ranks behind him; the president has the Constitution on his side, as he is commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, and he can also rely—they say—on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists act, passed in 2002 to allow the use of military force in Iraq, and now invoked by the president as a blank check. Because the White House cited an imminent threat (without truly demonstrating it, say some critical Republicans) his decision is legitimate under both domestic law (crisis powers) and international law (Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations concerning imminent danger).

For their part, the Democrats stress that the president has the constitutional power to start a war only with legislative authorization. In support of their contention, they refer to the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which restrains the president’s ability to use military force abroad. Instead, the president must consult Congress 48 hours in advance and keep it regularly informed; he can continue military operations beyond 60 days only with the explicit consent of Congress. The president was required to end matters if Congress forced him to do so in a concurrent resolution, but this provision was invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1983, depriving the mastiff of its teeth (for now).

Importantly, the resolution adopted Thursday by the (Democratic) House of Representatives to limit the exercise of presidential power is purely symbolic. Even without the president’s strict adherence to it, the War Powers Resolution is certainly an important tool, since it allows Congress to regularly remind the executive of the importance of constitutional limitations. But it is not useful, because it does not stop presidential hypertrophy or even control his powers. And legislators opted for a nonbinding resolution, avoiding confronting the real problem of this regime’s hyperpresidentialism, something that has been present from George W. Bush to Donald Trump through Barack Obama, an uncontested drift of presidential prerogatives. Courts have traditionally stayed outside of this debate, as they don’t consider it to be their own; they have invoked the “political question doctrine” to get rid of it. And public opinion is partially useless because a large majority of Americans (77%, according to a Morning Consult/Politico poll) struggle to find Iran on a map.

Thus, against the background of the impeachment proceedings, with deadlocked institutions and polarized blocs, the volatility and unpredictability of U.S. foreign policy is heightened. And 2020 has only just begun.