The historical backdrop to the Middle East’s many and seemingly everlasting conflicts has roots reaching back to the split between Sunni and Shia Islam in the seventh century, in feudal tribal and clan traditions, and in the legacy of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, when the European colonial powers ignored history and drew new and artificial borders.
The potential for conflict was further intensified when oil became the world’s most important energy source in the early twentieth century. This led to intense great-power rivalry, while Arab nationalism and extreme versions of political Islam also emerged.
It was within this patchwork of intersecting and complicated local historical, religious and political interests interwoven with the geopolitical rivalry of the great powers in the region that the Oslo Process was initiated in 1992.
It began more or less as a private initiative by the LO-financed FAFO with Terje Rød Larsen at the helm. This marked the beginning of the so-called ‘engagement policy’ in Norwegian foreign policy, with the emergence of an ever-growing humanitarian-political complex financed by Norwegian taxpayers.
The ambition was nothing less than to build Norway’s reputation as a humanitarian superpower through aid, peace mediation and Norwegian oil money. The results, however, have been slow to materialise. On the contrary, Norway’s international reputation has been severely weakened. This is both a consequence of the meagre results, and of the revelations in the wake of the Epstein affair.
The three institutions of greatest significance for Norway’s reputation abroad – the Foreign Service, the Nobel Institute and the Royal House – are all compromised.
The warnings came early. Several negotiation tracks based on professional diplomacy and robust expert environments with extensive knowledge of local culture, the region’s geopolitics and military-strategic conditions were already well under way in an attempt to find a possible solution to the Palestine conflict.
The warnings that the Norwegians ought to exercise caution, and that peace would not necessarily result merely from showering money upon the parties, rolled off enthusiastic Norwegian politicians and politically appointed civil servants like water off a duck’s back.
But what the Norwegian negotiators lacked in competence and knowledge of the Middle East, they compensated for with an extraordinarily generous use of Norwegian taxpayers’ money. Financial flows were created of which very few Norwegians are aware.
Norwegian engagement policy in the Middle East may be reminiscent of the fourth act of Peer Gynt. Norwegian peace mediation and the uncontrolled use of Norwegian oil money have their counterpart in Peer’s vision of establishing ‘Gyntiana’ and transforming the Sahara into a ‘fertile oasis by virtue of gold’, which Peer had earned through the slave trade.
Peer and his lofty visions ended in the madhouse in Cairo. Should the Epstein Commission do its job, it will probably send the Oslo Process, the engagement policy and Norwegian peace mediators to a similar place.
There has been no shortage of money. What has been lacking is knowledge of local conditions, self-awareness, and an understanding that peace diplomacy without the necessary political and military weight behind it has little to contribute in existential conflicts of this kind.
Showering money upon parties to a conflict may provide access and international attention, but it can also lead to pressures compromising impartiality and to corruption, prolonging conflicts with parties more concerned with keeping the processes and financial flows going than with negotiating political solutions.
The carpet merchants whom Peer encountered in the Sahara in the mid-nineteenth century were not very different from those whom naïve Norwegian peace mediators encountered in Palestine in the 1990s.
And if the conditions Norwegian peace mediators encountered in Palestine were complicated, the counterparts Trump is facing in Iran in 2026 are no less unpredictable. But there is one essential difference. The United States can place military force behind its demands, and therefore possesses an entirely different degree of leverage.
Nevertheless, the theocratic and totalitarian Shia-Muslim clerical regime that today governs Iran has an entirely different approach to state-building, modernity and rationality than we have in the West.
The Shia-Muslim apocalyptic cult and the bearded dark forces in Tehran despise everything Western as decadent and contrary to the teachings of the Qur’an. They possess clearly expansionist ambitions extending far beyond Iran’s borders and dominance within its own region.
On the other hand, we ignore central historical facts in the relations between the West and Iran. The Revolution of 1979, the regime that followed, and the war it has resulted in, are to a large extent the result of Western expansionism and interference in Iran’s internal affairs.
Prime Minister Mossadegh was democratically elected and Iran was moving towards a Western form of government. However, he wanted to nationalise the oil industry in 1951. This threatened the interests of British Petroleum. At the same time, the United States under Eisenhower was concerned about possible communist influence from the Tudeh Party. Declassified American documents confirmed in 2013 what we have long known: that both the CIA and MI6 were centrally involved when Mossadegh was overthrown in 1953 and Shah Reza Pahlavi’s puppet regime was installed instead.
The coup has parallels to the Maidan Revolution/coup in Ukraine in 2014, which was also encouraged through Western influence, primarily by the United States.
The lack of a consolidated state authority, as exists in most other countries, makes it difficult to predict the Iranian regime’s patterns of behaviour. It is not a parliamentary democracy with a separation of powers between the legislative, judicial and executive branches as we are accustomed to in the West.
The institutions flow into one another and are governed by the priorities and economic interests of various factions. Corruption is widespread, just as it is in Ukraine.
Different parts, wings and factions of the regime can therefore take the lead on different issues and in different situations in processes that appear fragmented and diffuse, and whose outcomes are difficult to influence through negotiations.
One factor that is easy to overlook when viewing Iran through Western eyes is the consistently strong Persian nationalism and exceptionalism, which unite and mobilise a ‘rally around the flag’. Together with the ‘revolutionary guards’ in the Revolutionary Guard and the fanatical Basiji militia, as well as the extensive and dense nationwide mosque network, the masses are mobilised and controlled effectively.
And few things mobilise religious fanaticism and Persian nationalism as strongly as the United States and Israel, ‘the Great Satan’ which seeks to take Iran’s oil, and ‘the Little Satan’, which advocates a religion the Shia Muslims despise.
Although Iranian opposition figures in the West, the urban elites in Iran, and large parts of the Iranian people are critical of the regime, hopes for an imminent regime change appear slim.
First and foremost, it is important to understand that Iran is governed as a full-blooded Shia theocracy. The state and political Islam are one. It is regarded as a temporary government pending the return in the end times of the hidden Twelfth Imam, Mahdi, who has been in occultation (that is, waiting to return) since AD 874, in order to fill the world with justice before Judgment Day.
The war with the United States and Israel, and the sacrifices Iran has suffered, are therefore not regarded as something negative, but rather as something inevitable and an event that may hasten Mahdi’s return. This is why martyrdom is glorified as the highest ideal. To die for the faith and the revolution is not considered a loss, but a ticket to eternal salvation in paradise.
And for the same reasons, Iranian assurances that the nuclear weapons programme is solely for civilian purposes are also not to be trusted. In Shia theology, and especially in the Twelver tradition (the Ja’fari school), it is not only permitted, but sometimes even obligatory to lie to or mislead (‘taqyya’) non-believers (‘kuffar’) so long as it serves Islam.
The Twelver Shia faith is an apocalyptic end-times cult. It cannot be understood through Western concepts. This makes the regime entirely unpredictable. If it gains access to nuclear weapons, it could prove fatal. They would probably not hesitate to use them. It is simply not a risk the rest of the world can take.
This is poorly understood in the West. But the Americans have finally understood that the Iranian regime says one thing and does something entirely different. Real control over the nuclear programme is therefore the principal driver behind the war of aggression against Iran. Regime change comes second.
It is contrary to international law, but the fact remains that only the United States possesses the means of power necessary to achieve a solution with which the international community can live.
Instead of supporting the United States and the efforts to gain control over Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, Norway, together with the EU countries, has distanced itself from the US-led warfare. This demonstrates a poor understanding of the Iranian regime and the threat it represents. On the contrary, the Norwegian government ought diplomatically to support the efforts to neutralise the Iranian nuclear weapons programme.
And, as a major maritime nation, we ought as soon as possible to contribute capabilities to a joint international engagement to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Beyond that, from the Norwegian side we ought to concentrate on our own immediate region, as our Nordic neighbours do, and not once again allow ourselves to be lured into endless wars in other parts of the world.
Iran cannot be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. Iran’s nuclear weapons programme must be subjected to effective international control. Everyone still in possession of reason wishes to avoid Armageddon, but also to avoid a new Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya in Iran. It appears that the Trump administration thinks likewise.