by Farideh Farhi
During my childhood days in pre-revolutionary Iran, I played the game Telephone often. It began with one kid whispering a phrase to the person beside them. Each child then whispered the same phrase until it reached the last person, who revealed a phrase invariably quite different from the [...]]]>
by Farideh Farhi
During my childhood days in pre-revolutionary Iran, I played the game Telephone often. It began with one kid whispering a phrase to the person beside them. Each child then whispered the same phrase until it reached the last person, who revealed a phrase invariably quite different from the original. We had good fun.
I thought about that game when I read Elliott Abrams’s piece about having Breakfast with the Supreme Leader. My curiosity naturally peaked at the thought of neoconservative extraordinaire Abrams having breakfast with Iran’s leader. Wouldn’t I want to be a fly on the wall for that conversation! But alas, no such event took place at all.
Abrams merely reported what Rafael Bardaji — former national security advisor to the Spanish Prime Minister — said at a joint meeting hosted by the Henry Jackson Society and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in London last week. According to Abrams, this is the story:
The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, invited then-Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar to breakfast while he was visiting Iran. The Spanish official party decided to begin by asking the ayatollah a friendly or neutral question rather than a hostile or critical one. The idea was to get the meeting off on a better footing, so they began with a question about the complex government and religious power structure in Iran. Given all the official civil and religious bodies and positions and their various responsibilities, they asked him to describe what exactly is his job. ‘My job’, the Supreme Leader replied, ‘is to set Israel on fire.’
Wow! Abrams claims this happened in 2001, but it should have been 2000, since Aznar visited Iran in October of that year (well before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president of Iran) and yet, we hear about this rather nasty stuff now? Abrams assures us that there was previous reporting of this event “elsewhere”. But “elsewhere” was merely May of 2012 when Mr. Aznar spoke to journalists and diplomats at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and said this:
Israel to him [Khamenei] was a kind of historical cancer and anomaly, a country … condemned to disappear. At some point he said very clearly, though softly as he spoke, that an open confrontation against the US and Israel was inevitable, and that he was working for Iran to prevail in such a confrontation. It was his duty as the ultimate stalwart of the Islamic global revolution.
And this:
Khamenei said Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution sought to rid the world of two evils, the US and Israel, “and to preserve unhurt the virtues of the religious regime of the ayatollahs,” according to Aznar. The existence of Israel and the US seriously threatened to pervert the religious society the Supreme Leader envisioned for Iran, and that is something he could not allow to happen, Aznar continued.
There is nothing about setting Israel on fire in this Times of Israel piece, though it’s still pretty damning. One doesn’t need private reference to know that Khamenei likes to use the cancerous tumor analogy for Israel. In fact, a couple of months ago he repeated it during a public speech. But describing “his job” as committed to the destruction of Israel to a European leader is pretty out there and Abrams wants us to accordingly think through “the likelihood of arriving at a good negotiated solution with Iran, and the possibility of persuading and pressuring the Supreme Leader to abandon his nuclear weapons program,” while “keeping this rare encounter with him by a Western democratic leader very much in mind.”
Still, I remained curious as to whether Aznar had spoken of this encounter before. And indeed, in 2006, according to Haaretz, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Aznar five years ago that “setting Israel on fire” was the first order of business on the Iranian agenda.
Haaretz chose to pursue the veracity of this rather inflammatory comment with Aznar’s aides, who apparently refused to provide the exact quote, but mentioned that Aznar had written about his meeting with Khamenei in the past:
“He received me politely,” Aznar wrote, “and at the beginning of the meeting he explained to me why Iran must declare war on Israel and the United States until they are completely destroyed. I made only one request of him: that he tell me the time of the planned attack.”
I am unable to find the source from which this quote is taken, but there is no prior reference to Aznar’s meeting with Khamenei and anything that was said between them prior to 2006.
As I mentioned above, Aznar did go to Iran in October 2000, and apparently had a lovely time, saying in a joint press conference with then president Mohammad Khatami that “fruitful” negotiations “on objectives pursued by Tehran and Madrid” were held. He appreciated “the initiative of Dialogue among Civilizations put forward by President Khatami” and discussions on “political, economic, cultural and scientific areas.” He said that progress had been made in relations and that he hoped they “will become even better.”
Aznar apparently appreciated his two-day visit to Iran (including his sightseeing trip to beautiful Isfahan) so much that he forgot all about the stuff Khamenei had told him for a good 6 years. Perhaps Ahmadinejad’s infamous words about Israel, which went viral in 2005, jolted his memory!
But going back to Abrams’ reporting of Aznar’s words, it’s interesting that the former somehow manages to avoid mentioning that even in the Times of Israel article he refers to, when Aznar was reportedly pressed by the audience, Aznar somewhat changed his tune:
Pressed by members of the audience to specify whether Khameini explicitly called for Israel’s destruction, Aznar said the Iranian leader told him it was necessary to eliminate the threat that Israeli [sic] poses. “And that means obviously the elimination of Israel,” said Aznar. “If Israel is alive the threat survives. They’re trying to eliminate the threat. The elimination of the threat means Israel must be eliminated.”
So Khamenei told him that it was necessary to eliminate the threat that Israel poses. And this, in Aznar’s telling, must have meant eliminating Israel “since the elimination of threat means Israel must be eliminated.”
But wait, did Khamenei really use the word eliminate? Affirmative is the answer, Aznar noting “however that he spoke to the Iranian leader through an interpreter.”
And there you have it! After 12 years, a whisper that possibly began with a translation about the need to eliminate the Israeli threat, with the help of Aznar, his aides and advisors, and now Abrams, turns into “Khamenei said it is my job to set Israel on fire.”
Some people apparently never outgrow the game of Telephone.
]]>Weekly Reads/Watch:
News: U.S. Iran Hawks in Congress in Some DisarrayWeekly Reads/Watch:
UANI, Wall Street Journal: You can argue that sanctions aid diplomacy, certainly, that’s the broken record we’ve been hearing for years. But the reverse argument–that sanctions can lead to war or fail to prevent it while harming the sanctioned country’s population–is equally valid or more so when we consider the case of Iraq. Enter United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), a private sanctions-enforcement group that strives to market itself as bipartisan but includes several prominent Iran hawks and neoconservatives on its advisory board. It believes Iran is led by “radical rulers seeking nuclear weapons” and “threatening the world”, so surely they would agree that a seriously threatened Iran might fight for its life in aggressive ways when being strangled? Yet there’s no acknowledgement of that in a WSJ op-ed penned by a number of well-known hawks from UANI urging “liked-minded nations” to “immediately…deliver a potentially decisive economic blow to the regime” by “passing the most robust sanctions against Iran in history.” They are not convinced that this extremely confrontational approach will bring about positive results, but say it’s a final step that needs to be taken before war:
… it’s common sense that before undertaking military action against a country, we should first try to dissuade it from its current course by applying decisive economic pressure. Doing so will show the regime that the world is serious and committed, willing to do whatever it takes to stop Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Dan Shapiro/Shmuel Bar, New York Times: At a time when hopes are high for any kind of diplomatic progress with Iran and the West, Dan Shapiro, the U.S.’s ambassador to Israel, reminded the world that the military option is not only on the table, “necessary planning” has also been done “to ensure that it’s ready.” That wasn’t adequate for Shmuel Bar, director of studies at the Institute for Policy and Strategy in Herzilya, also quoted in the NYT piece:
“Saying it is not enough,” Mr. Bar said. What would have more significant effect, he said, is to show actual preparations for a military option by, for example, increasing deployment in the Persian Gulf.
“What actually the U.S. administration is doing is blowing hot and cold,” said Mr. Bar, who previously worked as an intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Force and in the prime minister’s bureau. “Actions do speak louder than words. The actions say the U.S. has a very strong aversion to any kind of military action.”
Mr. Bar pointed to a recent post on the Web site of the Iranian supreme leader that he described as “an analysis of why the U.S. cannot and will not go to war.”
“That is their candid evaluation of the situation,” he said. “When the Iranians see this, they say the Americans are doing everything they can to prevent Israel from attacking.”
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: Never one to be shy about her militant support for Israel, the Washington Post blogger paints a picture of the people who are pushing for hawkish measures against Iran in Washington (be sure to read Jim Lobe’s report for context) and reinforces her hawkish views at the same time. First is a quote from a regular source on her blog, Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who warns against the potential easing of crippling sanctions during negotiations:
As eager, however, as President Obama is for a deal that will get Iran off the front pages — and all but eliminate the possibility of an Israeli strike ahead of the November election — he cannot take the political risk of offering too much relief for too few concessions. Once sanctions start to unravel, the fear of U.S. penalties that held them together will become difficult to reestablish, and the multilateral sanctions regime — the centerpiece of the president’s Iran strategy — will be gone. This may also persuade the Israelis that the time for diplomacy has passed, and only military action can stop Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.
She then gratefully reminds us that Congress is pushing confrontational measures against Iran in spite of the “wimpy” U.S. President. (Thanks to Israel lobby organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee):
Precisely because Congress feels Iran is engaged in a rope-a-dope game and/or Obama will make a foolhardy deal that fails to halt the Iranian nuclear weapons program, efforts are underway to craft maximalist sanctions in advance of May 23. The House passed such a bill by a lopsided vote of 410-11.
But the problem is that some people want to prevent bills that bring the U.S. closer to war with Iran from being passed:
The Senate is a different matter. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) who says he is in favor of sanctions could have put the House bill on the floor and given it an up or down vote. Instead he opted for a watered down version of the bill. He entertained language from isolationist Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would specifically state the bill was not an authorization for use of force. He then proceeded to shut Republicans out of the process.
A senior GOP congressional aide with close knowledge of Iran sanctions legislation told me, “Neither Leader Reid nor Chairman [Sen. Tim] Johnson’s staff ever agreed to a single meeting with Sen. [Mark] Kirk’s office to address the senator’s proposed amendment. E-mails and phone calls went unreturned for weeks. The first time Democrats ever discussed the Iran bill with Republicans was last night when Reid’s office dropped off the manager’s amendment he negotiated with himself.” The Democrats characterized the Republicans as refusing to move forward; Republicans explain they are not about to pass toothless sanctions bill that would be buried in the conference committee.
Elliott Abrams, Council on Foreign Relations: The well-known neoconservative and former key mideast advisor to George W. Bush worries that France’s new President may waiver from the confrontational path on Iran set by by former President Nicolas Sarkozy:
It is difficult to exaggerate how significant a softening of France’s hard line would be. France has been tougher than Russia and China of course, but has also stiffened the position of the “EU 3″ by being tougher than Germany and the UK. More important, it has at many junctures been tougher than the United States, sharply asking the difficult questions, highlighting logical deficiencies in arguments, and slicing through wishful thinking. If France is now to abandon this stance and simply agree with the UK, Germany, and the United States, the negotiations with Iran are more likely than ever to produce an unsatisfactory result that will be labelled adequate by its proponents.
Lindsey Graham, Fox News: Among the U.S.’s top Republican Hawks, the South Carolina senator flouted the “time is running out” card to Fox News viewers and publicly contradicted U.S. intelligence assessments showing that Iran has NOT made a decision to build a nuclear weapon. He also declared that President Obama must be more confrontational with Iran:
]]>“So President Obama, if you are listening out there, please convince the Iranians that all options really are on the table,” Graham said.
…
“The only way they will stop marching toward a nuclear weapon is if they believe the regime’ life is at stake and their livelihood being at risk, and that means a strike by the United States,” the senator added.He said it’s time to tell the Iranians, “No negotiations. . . . You are not going to get to enrich uranium any more, period.”