IT is remarkable that, despite three decades of extensive Western embargoes and sanctions, Iran has not only managed to avert ‘regime change’ but has emerged today as the dominant power player in West Asia and the Middle East. Iran has done so through national resilience, ruthless action, deft diplomacy and good luck.

Iran’s resilience was amply demonstrated during the long and murderous Iran-Iraq war and its unyielding endurance of multiple Western embargoes and sanctions.

Tehran’s ability to take ruthless action against adversaries has been equally demonstrated, such as its creation of Hezbollah in Lebanon; alleged recourse to ‘terrorist’ attacks; support for the ‘Northern Alliance’ in Afghanistan against Mullah Omar’s Taliban; sponsorship of the three main Iraqi Shia parties during Saddam Hussein’s rule; and financial and political assistance to Shia groups everywhere.

Tehran’s determination is matched by its deft diplomacy.

Iran’s determination is matched by its deft diplomacy. Although it did not directly support the Mujahideen insurgency against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Iran insisted on an influence-sharing arrangement with Pakistan after the Soviet withdrawal. Iran expressed public support for the Kashmiri insurgency when it erupted in the 1990s, until it secured several important concessions from India. After 9/11, despite official antipathy, Iran cooperated with the US in utilising the Northern Alliance to oust the Taliban and, at the Bonn Conference, Tehran convinced the Northern Alliance warlords to accept the then powerless but Pakhtun Hamid Karzai as Afghanistan’s president.

Iran’s adroit diplomacy was on full display during the long and complex negotiation of the nuclear deal with the six major powers. A joint comprehensive understanding, once endorsed by the UN Security Council, secured relief for Tehran from the most onerous UN and Western sanctions while preserving its technological infrastructure, essential to acquiring nuclear weapons capability if it chose to do so in the future.

Iran’s ascendancy owes a lot to good fortune, mostly in the form of America’s strategic errors. US military interventions removed two of Tehran’s regional adversaries: the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led regime in Iraq. Both were replaced by Iran’s friends: the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and Shia parties in Iraq.

Western blunders continued during the Obama era. A major Western objective in sponsoring the mainly Sunni revolt against Hafez Assad’s Alawite regime in Syria was to cut off Tehran’s direct land access through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and to Hezbollah, the only credible direct military threat to Israel. However, the ensuing Syrian civil war saw the resurrection of Al Qaeda in Iraq, rebranded as the Islamic State, which challenged both Iranian and Western objectives in Iraq and Syria.

History may offer a clearer explanation why IS emerged, almost overnight, as America’s primary enemy in Syria. Conspiracy theories abound. Did the secret US-Iran talks held over two years in Oman cover only the nuclear issue, or was an understanding also reached on Syria and Iraq? In any event, tactical military coordination between the US and Iran has existed for sometime in Iraq and may have been extended to Syria.

Whatever their antecedents, the nuclear deal and America’s tactical alignment with Iran’s goals in Iraq and Syria have created an unprecedented strategic divergence between the US and Saudi Arabia and its GCC allies. Far from being the possible target of US military strikes, Tehran has emerged as an informal US ally in the region. Officially sponsored Shia militias are triumphant after Aleppo and the recent battles around Mosul, while extremist Sunni entities (IS, Al Qaeda) are outlawed and ‘moderate’ groups face defeat in Syria and exclusion in Iraq.

Fortune has continued to smile on Tehran. Russia’s confrontation with the US over Ukraine and Crimea has reinforced Moscow’s de facto alliance with Iran. The use of Russian air power and special forces, combined with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hezbullah and Shia militias, have tipped the civil war in favour of Assad. The US and its allies failed to either adequately support their proxies or to oblige them to make pragmatic compromises with Damascus and its patrons.

Iran has also benefited from the sharp differences between Turkey and the US over Western support for the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds in the fight against IS. Turkey’s strategic aim is to prevent a consolidated Kurdish enclave on its borders with Syria and Iraq, which could link up with Turkey’s Kurdish insurgency. Ankara’s suspicions about the US have been exacerbated by Washington’s alleged support to the Gulenist coup against President Erdogan. Turkey has made the best of a bad situation by joining Russia and Iran in imposing a ceasefire in Syria, which implies the survival of the Assad regime and the sacrifice of the ‘moderate’ Sunni rebels. One unintended consequence of the Aleppo defeat may be to drive these ‘moderates’ into the arms of IS and Al Qaeda.

Iran has sought to intensify Saudi Arabia’s pain through discreet support to the (Shia) Houthis in Yemen who, in coalition with former president Saleh, have expelled the Saudi-supported government of president Hadi from Sana’a. So far, the Saudi-led Arab coalition has been unable to defeat the rebel forces despite a massive bombing and military campaign by the ‘Arab coalition’. Riyadh now faces a direct threat on its northern and southern borders.

Some commentators believe the new US president will scuttle the Iran nuclear deal as desired by hawkish Republicans and Israel. Indeed, Trump’s impromptu positions may revive tensions with Iran. But his nominees for secretary of state and defence have expressed a preference for keeping the Iran nuclear deal alive. Trump also wishes to join Russia to fight IS rather than Assad in Syria. This would bring US policy in sync with Iran’s priorities. US-Iran relations may thus turn out to be less turbulent than currently anticipated by Western and Arab analysts.

However, Iran is unlikely to be powerful enough to impose its dominance over West Asia and the Gulf. It will be challenged from within and outside the region, generating further strife and instability. A new security order should be evolved through dialogue by the regional states, an order that assures the security and territorial integrity of all regional states. It is in Pakistan’s interest to take the lead in promoting such an equitable collective security arrangement.

The writer is a former Pakistan ambassador to the UN.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2017