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

38 Manoutchehr M. Eskandari-Qajarthe Ottoman Empire and Russia and instead to forge alliances with Englandand France in order to fend off further wars. 48 Prospect theory’s further pointthat decision-makers will “take fewer risks to acquire territory than to preventthe loss of territory,” also helps explain some of Abbas Mirza’s actionsthat resulted in the defeat at Aslanduz, and the actions of both Fath-Ali Shahand Abbas Mirza that resulted in the defeat in 1828 and the subsequentTurkomanchay treaty. Abbas Mirza’s risk-taking strategy, running counterto his father’s risk aversion, was dictated by the circumstances he found himselfin and by the prospect of reconsolidation through one decisive victorythat could have restored a balance that had been disturbed by Russia. Fate,of course, would have it otherwise.Just as Odysseus’ troubles were not over when he survived the sea passagebetween the twin monsters Scylla and Charybdis, neither were those ofthe Qajars after Golestan and Turkomanchay. The stranglehold by Persia’stwin foes continued well into the twentieth century, with ill results for theQajars and for the Pahlavis who followed them. What rational decisionmakingtheory and prospect theory allow us to conclude, however, is that theearly Qajars were not hapless victims of circumstance. They were initiatorsof policies and acted rationally, though on a calculus difficult to discern withoutthe insights these theories make possible.Notes1 Book XII of the Odyssey relates the encounter of Odysseus with the monsterssuccinctly as follows: “Next came Charybdis, who swallows the sea in awhirlpool, then spits it up again. Avoiding this we skirted the cliff where Scyllaexacts her toll. Each of her six slavering maws grabbed a sailor and wolfed himdown.” In Greek mythology Scylla was the daughter of Phorcys and the TitanCeto, and Charybdis the daughter of Poseidon and Gaia. Both were beautifulwomen, turned by Circe and Zeus, respectively, into these monsters. As monsters,Charybdis was more dangerous, but Scylla was more terrifying.2 By early Qajars are meant the first two rulers of the Qajar dynasty, AghaMohammad Khan and Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, but this description of course alsoincludes Abbas Mirza, Fath-Ali Shah’s son, heir, and chief military commander,and, in certain aspects of the article, applies as well to Mohammad Shah and NasseredinShah until the conquest of Herat in 1856.3 What economists refer to as “utility maximization,” political scientists call the“pursuit of national interests.” While in economics the assumption, both normativelyand empirically, is that the actor in the marketplace acts with individual goals inmind, in international politics the assumption is that the actor acts with the interestof the state, or national interest, in mind. In this context, actor refers to nationallevel decision-maker such as monarch, prince, general, prime minister, or president,and this distinction between the requirements of rational private action andthe dictates of rational public action is best and most memorably explained inNiccolò Machiavelli’s treatize, The Prince.4 In politics as in economics, scarcity, not plenty, is the fundamental premise, andthough this is more easily understood with regard to wealth over which economiccompetition occurs, this is no less true of power, over which political competitionunfolds. As in economics so also in politics, means for the acquisition of the