War and Peace in Qajar Persia: Implications Past and ... - Oguzlar.az

Between Scylla and Charybdis 29“Persia’s boundaries are those of the Safavid Empire now reborn as the QajarEmpire.” It is noteworthy that he only accepted the crown after the conquestof Tiflis and the Khanates of the southern Caucasus, and when he didhe accepted it as Shahanshah, Emperor, much as the Safavids had done beforehim. 34 Thus, the question of the territorial integrity of Persia comprising theKhanates of the southern Caucasus, and the provinces of Khorasan and Heratwas a matter reinforced by Agha Mohammad Khan, though it was far fromclear cut at the time of his accession. From the death of Nader Shah to thesack of Tiflis by Agha Mohammad Khan, dominion over the lands north ofthe Aras to the Kura remained an open question. Historically, they had beenpart of Persia for centuries, but the facts on the ground had changed quitea bit immediately prior to the advent of the Qajars. Agha Mohammad Khanthus forced the territories back into the equation, and when Fath-Ali Khan(Baba Khan) became Shah in 1798, he considered those territories an integralpart of the empire he was now going to rule.Given the positive outcome of Agha Mohammad Khan’s struggles, no seriousquestion has ever been raised on either the logic of his actions, or onthe decision-making process leading to this outcome. Agha Mohammad Khanseemed to have had an intuitive understanding of the requirements foraction in the arena of politics of his time. He also had an accurate measureof the strength of his armies as compared to those of his opponents. Observersagree that he did nothing without calculation and purpose and that hemade his calculations well in advance, with a shrewd cost-benefit calculusworthy of the best tacticians, as, for instance, the account of his encounterswith Count Zubov, Catherine’s general for the Caucasus campaign, attests. 35Thus, because Agha Mohammad Khan’s actions accorded with what wasapparently accepted tradition that understood the territory of Persia asincluding the southern Caucasus, Khorasan, and Herat, Fath-Ali Shahinherited not only the territories acquired and consolidated by his uncle, butequally importantly, the tradition of including them under the “GuardedDomains” of Persia, which was the justification for those acquisitions in thefirst place. Based on this tradition and on the political reality of having incorporatedthese territories back into Persia proper, a “hunger for empire” notonly “emerged” in Qajar era narratives, as Kashani-Sabet relates, but wasfanned and nurtured by these narratives to become the accepted baseline forall assessments of effective policy-making for the rest of the dynasty’s rule,and into the Pahlavi era as well. 36This parameter for, or limitation on, policy initiatives by the heirs of AghaMohammad Khan constitutes an example of the constraints on decisionmaking.Constraints, in this context, refer to factors outside of the controlof decision-makers with which they must contend, but over which they havelittle, if any, say. Constraints limit the options decision-makers have at theirdisposal, and thus, in a sense, mirror the concept of scarcity in economicsand politics. The presence of constraints does not, however, change the natureof decision-making itself, though it may change its scope, that is, constraints