On 20 August Al-Monitor published a perceptive article about the upcoming Iranian three-year presidency of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM). The authors were Abbas Maleki, who was a deputy foreign minister of Iran for many years, and Kaveh Afrasiabi. One of the authors’ points was that any nuclear “missteps” by [...]]]>
On 20 August Al-Monitor published a perceptive article about the upcoming Iranian three-year presidency of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM). The authors were Abbas Maleki, who was a deputy foreign minister of Iran for many years, and Kaveh Afrasiabi. One of the authors’ points was that any nuclear “missteps” by Iran would be seen by many of Iran’s NAM partners as a betrayal of trust. This is a shrewd observation.
I was serving in Vienna in 2003 when Iran’s nuclear safeguards violations over several years were reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors. NAM countries, with few exceptions, were not amused. They felt that Iran had let their side down.
This may surprise Western readers who are used to hearing it implied that the NAM is feckless and irresponsible (because it refuses to toe Washington’s line). But that image of the NAM can be misleading. In my experience, most NAM members take seriously their responsibilities as parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and value the moral high ground that compliance with the Treaty’s provisions confers.
Why? Not least because that moral high ground can be used to condemn some of the practices of the three western nuclear weapon states (NWS), which the NAM see as a bad lot: dragging their feet on nuclear disarmament; denying the non-nuclear weapon states the nuclear fuel cycle technology to which the NPT appears to entitle them, provided they place all their nuclear material under safeguards and refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons; and turning a blind eye to the nuclear threat posed by the greatest rogue state (to NAM eyes) in the Middle East: Israel.
So Iran’s three-year leadership of the movement is likely to be two-edged. Should any fresh Iranian non-compliance with its NPT safeguards obligations come to light during this period, the odds are that NAM members will once more put Iran under pressure to correct the failures and come back into compliance with its NPT obligations.
An interesting question is whether NAM members would also be ready, as in 2003, to press Iran to suspend all enrichment and reprocessing-related activities and to re-apply the IAEA’s additional protocol (providing enhanced assurances as to nuclear material remaining in non-weapons use).
On the one hand, NAM members are likely to take a second betrayal of trust by Iran even more badly than the first, given Iran’s representational role as leader of the movement, and given the frequency with which Iran has assured NAM partners that its nuclear activities are blameless and that it is the victim of a vendetta.
On the other hand, the NAM view of the three western NWS is even darker than it was in 2003. NAM members did not appreciate the 2004 Bush administration’s proposal to divide the nuclear world into “haves” and “have nots”, nor a consequent tightening of the guidelines observed by members of the nuclear suppliers group. All but India and its closest friends disliked the same US administration’s decision to make nuclear technology available to one of only three states that have refused to adhere to the NPT: India.
Many NAM members consider the sanctioning of Iran by the UN Security Council, at western NWS instigation, to have been disproportionate to Iran’s pre-2003 safeguards failures, and therefore unjust. They note only modest NWS movement towards nuclear disarmament (though the Obama administration’s record is a big improvement on the back-sliding of the Bush administration). They also deplore continuing Israeli refusal to countenance proposals for a Middle East nuclear weapon-free zone, which would complement such zones covering Latin America, Africa and much of the Asia/Pacific region.
Moreover, the battle between the West’s candidate to succeed Mohamed ElBaradei as director general of the IAEA and the NAM candidate was bitter and divisive, and won by the West’s candidate.
This is a long list. Nonetheless, my hunch is that NAM members would want to give Iran a hard time if credible evidence of current (not pre-dating 2003) non-compliance were to be laid before the IAEA board by a credible IAEA member state (not Israel, the political leadership of which is seen as unscrupulous, and possibly not the US, UK and France, none of whose reputations for integrity have prospered in recent years).
So fate may be handing the West the best opportunity in years to achieve renewed Iranian suspension and reapplication of the additional protocol. There’s a twist, though.
The trigger for NAM pressure on Iran would be credible evidence of a second Iranian betrayal of NAM trust. That same second betrayal of trust would deepen Iran’s confidence deficit with the rest of the world and would increase the number of Westerners – including me, I suspect – who would be convinced that Iran cannot be left in possession of enrichment technology, even with the best guarantees in place against diversion of nuclear material. A long-term settlement based on the NPT, at the end of a suspension during which the IAEA completes its additional protocol investigations, would probably turn out to be as elusive as ever. We still would not be out of the thickets into which the Islamic Republic’s insecurity has driven us.
]]>Turkish-Iranian relations have been rocky since the deepening of the Syrian imbroglio. But the latest row suggests a new low. In no uncertain terms both the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, expressed displeasure with recent harsh statements coming out of Tehran regarding Turkish culpability in [...]]]>
Turkish-Iranian relations have been rocky since the deepening of the Syrian imbroglio. But the latest row suggests a new low. In no uncertain terms both the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, expressed displeasure with recent harsh statements coming out of Tehran regarding Turkish culpability in the quagmire Syria has become. The Turkish leadership was particularly upset with the recent remark by Iran’s chief of general staff who has said that “it will be its turn” if Turkey continues to “help advance the warmongering policies of the United States in Syria.”
Seeking Turkey’s help for the release of some 48 Iranians kidnapped by the insurgents in Syria, Iran’s foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi tried hard to soften the angry language that is coming out of Iran’s hawkish foreign policy wing. Davutoglu nevertheless warned him “in a frank and friendly manner” against blaming Ankara for violence in Syria.
On the ground, the reality in Syria is taking its toll on the relationship. Along with the exchange of unprecedented accusations, Iran has reportedly decided to suspend a visa-free travel arrangement with Turkey. This arrangement, in force since 1964, was suspended last week under the pretext of concerns for the run-up to the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) which will commence at the end of August in Tehran. It will be reinstated after the NAM meeting in September, but the reasoning has been treated with suspicion by the Turkish press. Meanwhile, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç slammed Iran, implying that the recent surge of terror attacks in Turkey’s Southeast has Tehran’s backing. “We have received information that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party [PKK] terrorists infiltrated from the Iranian side of the border and that they were stationed in the Şehidan camp [in Iran] and crossed into Turkey from the region of Harkuk in northern Iraq,” he said.
What explains Iran’s most recent vocal offensive against Turkey and the Erdogan government’s testy response? Tehran has obviously been unhappy with Ankara’s role in supporting the insurgency in Syria. But assessing that Erdogan’s Syria policy is not that popular at home – at least among some key stakeholders – Iran seems to have made the decision to highlight the dangers of what it considers to be a Turkish policy of reckless involvement in the Syrian crisis for Turkey itself and eventually for the political standing of the Justice and Development Party.
It should be noted that Tehran is not that off the mark regarding the unpopularity of Erdogan’s policy and as such, there is a method in the madness of offending a government that in Erdogan’s words “stood by Iran when no one was at its side.” Tehran is banking on the fact that with the spilling of the Syrian crisis into Turkey, Erdogan’s Islamist government will be facing increasing criticism from secular forces for jumping on the Assad bandwagon without thinking carefully about the implications of Syria’s disintegration as a country. Tehran is also banking on the belief that in a contested political environment like Turkey’s, public opinion matters.
Tehran’s logic in assessing Erdogan’s domestic vulnerability on his Syrian policy is simple. Bashar al-Assad’s fall may make Iran a loser in the proxy fight over Syria, but Turkey will be an even bigger loser if the motley crew of forces that have come together to dislodge Assad end up destabilizing the borders that were imposed by external forces in the first half of the twentieth century. (The Turkish border with Iraq was negotiated with the British government in 1926 and was established with Syria in 1938 when, after the expiration of the French mandate, the people of the border province of Hatay voted to be a part of Turkey rather than Syria).
Tehran thinks that insecurity resulting from ethnic and religious disputes in Syria and countries like Iraq will deal the greatest and most drastic blow to Turkey among all the regional countries. While Iran may eventually lose a key ally in Assad and find its position weakened in the region, it is Turkey that has to deal with its own angry Arab Alevis residing near the Syrian border (and potentially the much larger Turkish and Kurdish Alevi population frightened by aggressive Sunni acts), opportunistic Kurdish nationalism, and the mayhem that refugees invariably bring into border areas. Tehran feels that such potential costs – some of which are already in evidence – will be the source of political divisions within Turkey and that highlighting them may increase domestic pressure on Erdogan to change course.
Erdogan’s fierce response can also be understood with this domestic dynamic in mind. In fact, Erdogan has already issued other angry responses against the domestic critics of his Syrian policy, at times even calling them traitors for questioning his efforts. He took a dig at the Iranian leadership’s own domestic problems when he said last week that “250,000 Syrians have left the country [Syria]. Is this not the responsibility of Iran? Yet, before Iran takes responsibility for the situation in Syria, it must first hold itself accountable [for its own]. We always take responsibility for our actions.”
But Iran holding itself responsible will not solve Erdogan’s Syria angst at home. As Morton Abramowitz points out, Syria is a major domestic issue and there is significant complaining about Erdogan’s handling of the Syria crisis. There is nothing pretty for Turkey in the potential materialization of some form of a Kurdish entity in northern Syria and the emergence of a Syria mired in an ethnic and confessional civil war with different groups controlling different regions.
The activism of Iran in the past week (i.e. Saeed Jalili going to Syria, Salehi going to Turkey, and then the holding of an ambassadorial meeting on Syria in Tehran) must hence be understood as having the following objectives:
- 1. To make a public (and visually unsettling) case that Assad’s fall is not imminent as portrayed by his opponents. The intended message is that Assad may be in trouble, but pushing him out of power requires more than the current militarized approach. Jalili’s very public display of solidarity is reflective of the fact that the hawks in Iran really believe that the fight in Syria is as much a public relations war as a physical war. Jalili’s visit was in many ways a direct response to the US government’s public statement that the flight of the Syrian prime minister suggests Assad’s imminent fall.
2. To highlight Tehran’s position that continued support for the removal of Assad through foreign-backed armed insurgency is a wrong policy that is being pursued by other regional players as well as the US. The policy has so far failed to remove the regime but even if it does succeed, it will underwrite the country’s disintegration with no one having control over the regional implications. Hillary Clinton may be dreaming about keeping the Syrian state intact while getting rid of the regime, but the Iranians are making the case that this is a highly unlikely scenario unless the Assad-must-go-contingency – with Erdogan at its heart – reevaluates its policy.
3. To make the case that the resolution of the Syria problem will be not be possible without Iran’s involvement. Again, note that this is premised on the belief that the current imbroglio and escalation in Syria is much more of a problem for Syria’s immediate neighbors (Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and even Israel) than Iran, which doesn’t have a border with Syria and more significantly, whose borders are not the result of the post-World War I imperial arrangement that is now in danger of being undermined.
Also note that Iran’s assessment of Turkey’s predicament is not that different from many US assessments regarding the threat that the lengthening of the conflict poses for neighboring countries. As Stephen Walt points out, it is difficult not to notice the slew of published opinions from the past couple of weeks – ranging from the always hawkish Washington Post editorial board to liberal interventionists (oops, sorry, I meant liberal internationalists) such as Anne-Marie Slaughter, to even the usually conflict-weary Nicholas Kristof – calling for increased US involvement in order to presumably prevent the post-Assad Syria from spinning out of control. In Walt’s words, for the US, the impulse for more action eventually wins even if in this case “we will almost certainly be fueling a sectarian war whose longer-term regional implications are deeply worrisome; we simply cannot resist the pressure to get involved.”
Unlike the United States, Iran does not have the resources to become directly involved in the expanding Syrian conflict. But it is trying to capitalize publicly on the costly but so far unsuccessful attempt to dislodge Assad. And for now, it is Turkish public opinion that is being conceived as a battleground.
Given the powerful allies that are prodding Turkey to remain committed to the “number-one goal…to hasten the end of the bloodshed and the Assad regime”, Iran’s play is a pretty weak one. But Erdogan’s Syria policy is also turning out to be a gamble that will only be redeemed if Syria does not disintegrate as a country.
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