Imagine that you have between $3 to $5 billion to spend on seeking and securing clients for your product in a variety of markets, Not bad, eh?
But what happens when events beyond your ken suddenly close those markets to you? One solution is to try and develop new products capable of making inroads in different markets. Another is to seek new markets for the old product.
This is the conundrum that the ruling mullahs in Tehran face today.
Thanks to the late Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, who opened the gates of hell on October 7, 2023, Tehran, a self-designated exporter of revolution, lost its markets not only in Gaza and the West Bank but also in Lebanon and Iraq. Then it was the turn of the then unknown Ahmad al-Sharaa to cakewalk his way into Damascus and force the peddlers of Khomeinist revolution to run for cover.
Next, the Khomeinist product lost its market share in Iraq and the chunk of Yemen held by Houthis.
"Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei describes the past 12 months as "a year of victories for Islamic Resistance" led by his government. But some of his aides disagree. Brigadier-General Muhammad Baqer Qalibaf, Speaker of the Islamic Assembly (sort of parliament), says no one should deny the "setbacks" suffered across the Middle East.
His advice is that Tehran should look for new "battlefields," that is to say markets, to promote its revolutionary product.
But where to go? No Middle Eastern nation would unroll the red carpet for an Iranian delegation coming to foment revolution. In Europe, even those who once did seek the mullahs now shun them with disdain. No one in Asia expresses an interest in seeking revolutionary instruction from Tehran. Even those Latin American regimes that presented themselves as allies, albeit in exchange for wads of cash from Iran, show no enthusiasm for receiving Iranian guests at this time. Exporting revolution to Antarctica or the North Pole is also a non-starter.
That leaves Africa, designated by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi as the future hub of global power. But even there, the market that Tehran seeks for exporting revolution is not as wide as the continent. Egypt is excluded, if only because the mullahs cannot ignore the late Khomeini's "fatwa" forbidding diplomatic ties because of the Camp David peace accords.
Libya is out of the Iranian loop because both authorities that compete for power there regard Tehran as a pain in the neck rather than a helping hand.
Seen from Tehran, Tunisia is too far gone in Westernization to be receptive to a doctrine of hijab, hand-chopping and stoning to death in the name of opposing the "Great Satan."
In the 1990s, Tehran tried to hitchhike into the Algerian civil war by helping the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) through its sympathizers in Germany. Then Iranian Ambassador to Germany Hussein Mussavian met a couple of FIS activists to offer them "seed money," but failed to establish reliable links with the rebel groups inside Algeria.
Tehran has always seen Morocco as a hard nut to crack. For a while Mauritania, which also calls itself an Islamic Republic, kept its door open to the Iranian mullahs but never allowed them to foment sedition or preach their version of "pure Islam."
For about a decade, Sudan under President Omar al-Bashir and his erstwhile ally Hassan al-Turabi was a welcoming land to Tehran's mullahs.
Today, however, none of the countries mentioned above offers a welcoming profile to Tehran. Some have normalized relations with Israel and seek closer ties with Western democracies. Others prefer to focus their energies on economic development rather than "anti-Imperialist" shenanigans. Others fear that Khomeinism could bring with it the seeds of religious schismatism.
In southern Africa, relations with Zimbabwe went awry when Khamenei, then president, visited Harare and quarreled with him officials there.
Nevertheless, Harare is one of the first targets of what Tehran calls its "Opening to Africa." Several political, economic and security teams have already visited to prepare the ground for a grand tour of Africa for President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Meanwhile, Araqchi has already sent teams to West Africa where several states have severed or lowered ties with Israel, expelled French and American military advisers, and replaced them with Russian elements from the newly created Russian Africa Corps.
Qalibaf has also visited Ethiopia as part of a plan to build a diplomatic profile in the hope of one day entering the presidential race in Tehran for the fourth time.
A big target is Nigeria, where Tehran claims that its surrogates led by Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zakzaki have converted over 20 million people to the creed of Twelver Shiism over the past decades, at a low cost of $1 billion.
Tehran hopes to act as Man Friday to its two giant allies, China and Russia, that have also chosen Africa as the future battleground against Western hegemony.
The trouble is that Tehran tries to enter the game at a time both Beijing and Moscow are losing ground in Africa for a variety of reasons, while several emerging African "tigers," notably Senegal and Ghana, try to adopt the Western model of capitalist democracy rather than the brands offered by Russia and China, let alone the Khomeinist republic.
For almost three decades, Tehran spent over $30 billion "exporting revolution" and ended up with nothing. In the process, hundreds of individuals, including the late General Qassem Soleimani and associates like Hassan Nasrallah and Bashar al-Assad, made huge sums of money. With that gambit closed, we witness new efforts to keep the gravy train on the rails, this time with destination Africa.
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.
Gatestone Institute would like to thank the author for his kind permission to reprint this article in slightly different form from Asharq Al-Awsat. He graciously serves as Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
Moisés Benmuhar Baruh