When President Ronald Reagan took office, the Soviet Union was at the height of its vigor- or so the prevailing belief held. An iron revolutionary system in possession of an enormous nuclear arsenal. Why, then, did it collapse a few years later?
Reagan saw what others did not. For all its appearance of strength, the Soviet Union was gripped by a deep crisis of political legitimacy and economic performance. For all its military power, the system was fragile within and eroding fast.
In his famous 1982 address to the British Parliament, Reagan invoked Marx, who had predicted a great revolutionary crisis in the West. The irony was that the crisis was unfolding not in the capitalist West but in the very home of Marxism: The Soviet Union.
Something similar can be said at the regional level when Iran and the Gulf states are compared.
On the surface, the Iranian regime looks like a powerful victor. It can hurt the Gulf states with missiles and drones, threaten them through militias, strike ships and oil facilities, shut airports for hours at a time, and menace shipping. But behind this military image, a regime bristling with ballistic missiles is gripped by deep political and economic crises.
Politically, the regime faced a large wave of protests before the war broke out- the most recent in January, in which thousands were killed. The regime itself acknowledged more than 3,000 deaths.
The causes of Iranian popular anger are more likely to persist after the war than to fade. Broad segments of Iranians are asking what use there was in a revolutionary ideology that brought their country isolation, sanctions, blockade, and wars- and what became of the money spent over decades on allies and proxies across the region.
The well-known Iranian chant- neither Gaza nor Lebanon, my life for Iran- that has echoed through wave after wave of protest for years is, in essence, a popular indictment of Tehran's regional priorities.
Iran's system of government suffers a manifest crisis of political legitimacy and public trust- one discussed even by figures within the political establishment and the reformist current, who are calling for deep and urgent reforms.
Economically, the picture is harder still. The Iranian economy endured long years of sanctions, mismanagement, and isolation, and then the war came to multiply the pressures on it.
The Gulf states, by contrast, enjoy high degrees of political stability and internal cohesion. The war has in fact drawn Gulf societies closer around their states in the face of an external threat.
These states have managed to avoid entering the war directly, to limit the damage from Iranian attacks, and to keep the external conflict from turning into internal strife among the components of their societies.
In practical terms, there is no comparing the crisis of legitimacy afflicting the Iranian regime with the political stability of the Gulf states. Whoever possesses political legitimacy, internal stability, and popular consent possesses the capacity to endure and carry on.
The same holds economically. While the Iranian economy faces mounting strangulation, the economies of the Gulf compete to attract capital, companies, and talent, to build robust infrastructure, and to diversify their sources of income.
The Gulf states have tied their economies to the global economy, and their cities have become centers for business, tourism, investment, and technology.
The Iranian attacks struck airports, frightened off some tourists, and damaged ships and facilities- but these, in the end, are damages that can be contained and repaired. They could not halt economic activity or derail development projects over the long term.
Human attractiveness is itself an element of a country's success and strength. Ask a citizen of any Arab country, or of Iran itself, where he would rather live and work- in Iran, or in one of the Gulf capitals- and large numbers will most likely choose the latter. This is no secondary matter.
Human attractiveness means drawing in more minds, more talent, more capital, more creative ideas. Iran itself possesses an enormous reserve of minds and talent, yet a great many of them have chosen emigration and a future abroad.
The essential point is this: The Iranian regime looks strong and obstinate because it launches missiles and drones, and stirs a state of elation among its supporters- even as it has impoverished its people, entered into repeated confrontations with them, and fallen into a crisis of political legitimacy and a worsening economic crisis.
The Gulf, by contrast, looks weaker when it is on the receiving end of attacks, but in fact holds the elements of strength and success over the long term: Political stability, popular cohesion, development, integration into the global economy, and human attractiveness.
Iran can hurt the Gulf states, disrupt their airports for hours, and strike their facilities and their ships. But that does not mean it has won.
Strategically, Iran is losing the most important battle: The battle to build a state capable of enduring and prospering. The Gulf states are placing themselves on the right road- even if dozens of projectiles and drones fall on them.
