By A.J. Caschetta, JNS
The term was coined in 1971 to identify ideologically aggressive nations in pursuit of irrational or counter-rational goals. Iran is that state.
For weeks, debate over Israel's 12-day war with Iran has revolved around nuclear enrichment capabilities, damage assessment, and the relationship between U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Rarely does anyone pause to mention just how insane it is that the Islamic Republic exists almost exclusively to destroy Israel and America. As long as the current government controls Iran, neither Israel (the “Little Satan”) nor the United States (the “Big Satan”) is safe.
In 1971, Israeli political scientist Yehezkel Dror coined the term “crazy states” to identify ideologically aggressive nations in pursuit of irrational or counter-rational goals. Dror believed a “crazy martyr state” that was “not bound by the taboos surrounding a doomsday machine” was the most dangerous and misunderstood problem the world faced 25 years into the Cold War. The Islamic Republic of Iran is that crazy state.
In addition to popular conceptions of “crazy,” Dror’s definition focuses on national goals, risk propensity and style. Crazy states have aberrant “counter-reasonable goals,” he argues. They expend an enormous percentage of their economic output attempting to control, convert or absorb other states, even resorting to genocide. Risk tolerance is very high in crazy states, including a “readiness to sacrifice self-existence to achieve external goals.” Crazy-state style is characterized by “extreme deviation” from norms, including sabotage of peaceful civilian activities, extensive killing of diplomats and terrorism directed against schools, hospitals and recreation areas.
In his research, published as Crazy States: A Counterconventional Strategic Problem, Dror evaluated many different countries but didn’t even mention Iran. Were he to revise his book today, the 97-year-old emeritus professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem would probably include Iran in every chapter.
Dror pointed out 18 fallacies that rational states and their leaders must avoid when they are dealing with such states. No. 17 concerns “the historic incorrectness of the view that agreements are usually kept.” Crazy states rarely adhere to the agreements they sign.
Rational states must also beware of “the convex mirror effect,” the tendency to regard other nations as miniature versions of ourselves, “the assumption that every country wants for itself what the United States wants is a most insidious fallacy.”
Finally, Dror warns that “a crazy state can behave rationally in the instrumental sense, that is, it can pick instruments which are highly effective for achievement of its (crazy) goals.”
Rational states might desire nuclear weapons to deter attacks, but Iran has been forthright about its desire to use nuclear weapons against Israel and the United States. However, its pursuit of nuclear weapons is also “instrumentally rational.” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saw the fate of Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi following his forfeiture of Libya’s nuclear weapons program.
Many in the Trump administration, likely the president himself, would prefer to make a deal with Iran rather than defeat it. But making a deal means trusting Iran, and trusting a crazy state to adhere to any agreement is itself a kind of craziness.
Given limited options and having failed to “restrain, control and monitor” the crazy state, Dror believes the best option is a “substrategy designed to incapacitate a crazy state.”
He lists invasion and occupation as viable options, but given our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. participation in an invasion and occupation of Iran is out of the question. Only the rational Iranian people can overthrow the crazy Islamic Republic.
But the United States can help without putting boots on the ground. Dror advocates policies that “stimulate revolt.” The more people who perceive their oppressive, crazy leaders as weak and vulnerable, the more likely they will revolt.
Any effort to deprecate Khamenei and showcase the weakness of his regime could embolden rational Iranian people to take back their country from the crazy people who have been running it since 1979.
Fortunately, Trump is very good at deriding his enemies. He seemed to be on this track last week when he unloaded in a Truth Social post after Khamenei boasted that Iran won the 12-day war. “You got beat to hell,” the president wrote.
Trump ramped up the rhetoric the next day, sarcastically pointing out that, as “a great man of faith,” Khamenei, “is not supposed to lie.”
If the president can harness his personal animosity into a strategy that diminishes Khamenei in the eyes of all Iranians, including the generals and the police, it will be an awesome weapon.
He should press on, give in to his instincts and ridicule Khamenei as only he can.
I suggest giving the ayatollah a nickname. Berating the Supreme Leader, who went into hiding by calling him the “Hidden Imam,” is likely to play well with the Iranian people.
And just think how much fun it would be to watch Trump taunt Khamenei as the “Supreme Loooooser.”
Originally published by the Investigative Project on Terrorism.
