Forecasting the Future of Iran: Implications for U.S. Strategy and Policy.

摘要

Strained relations between the United States and Iran have persisted for more than three decades. Iran's potential influence on U.S. interests in Afghanistan and Iraq, and stability in the broader Middle East, make informed US strategy vis-a-vis Iran critical. This study looked at 12 issues that will shape U.S.-Iran relations -- three political issues, four economic and civil society issues, and five foreign policy and national security issues -- and forecast how each issue was likely to develop in the next three to five years. The study used sensitivity analysis to explore the effects that changes in U.S. policy, the Supreme Leader, Iran's President, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) could have on Iran's policy development. With this knowledge, the range of U.S. policy responses was reviewed, and it was concluded that additional U.S. effort would be best employed seeking to expand diplomatic communication over Afghanistan and Iraq. The issue forecasts were produced using an Agent-Based Rational Choice (ABRC) model guided by Expected Utility (EU) theory, with data collected in January 2011. By using a general model the analysis reduces the introduction of biases and error by focusing on expert input, ignoring the unique or special features of the Iranian situation. This strength of the modeling approach will be the flaw some may point to as this study's major shortcoming. However, the model class used here, when applied to situations exactly like this (according to both CIA and independent studies) is accurate at upwards of 90 percent, and twice as accurate as area expert forecasts (Feder 1987; Mesquita 2009).