by Henry Johnson
The group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS), beyond its doctrinaire propaganda and lurid beheadings, is beginning to uproot the foundations of order in the Middle East, and the United States has decided to not sit idly by. In conjunction with an airstrike campaign of uncertain value in Syria, President Obama has gained congressional authority for the equally dubious plan of arming and training moderate Syrian rebels in order to wage counteroffensives specifically against IS (aka ISIL or ISIS). For every recruit this moderate force picks up, IS will surely double that number as long as Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad stays in power. The incineration of civilians by his barrel bombs, the rape of Syrian women by pro-Assad militants, and America’s seeming unwillingness to do anything has produced despairing conditions in which segments of the Syrian population welcome or at least tolerate the rule of a group like IS. Assad has also so far refused to resign or share power, thereby sabotaging past attempts to solve the crisis politically. His uncompromising position and aptitude for merciless civilian targeting has at once derailed diplomatic efforts and radicalized Syrians. To stabilize the country, the US must convince Iran to end its support for the regime, support which, under close examination, is less than assured. Indeed, Iran has structured its outsized involvement in Syria by decentralizing power away from Assad while nonetheless strengthening his regime. This strategy has given Tehran the option of eventually discarding Assad without forfeiting instruments of power.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has mobilized a network of Shia militias to intervene in Syria. Calling upon Hezbollah, as well as smaller yet no less deadly militias from Iraq, Iran bolstered Assad’s military in time for IS and other extremist rebels to fracture the opposition and retard its momentum. This militant network answers to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and, under his jurisprudence and the patronage of the IRGC, fights for a Shia cause quite distinct from Assad. This strategy has safeguarded Iran’s power in the country without tying it to the Assad government, resulting in significant space for diplomatic maneuvering. Iran spent years refining this strategy in Iraq, where it built small, highly loyal militias to drive Iranian interests in the country without committing it to any one particular Iraqi party. This enabled Iran to engineer the election of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, finesse his resignation, indirectly attack US forces, and unofficially support US airstrikes this August. Iran will abandon Assad if the US can guarantee its interests better than the Syrian leader.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani intimated as much in a speech at the recent United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). President Rouhani proposed as leaders of a coalition against extremism certain “moderate politicians” in the region, who “are neither anti-Western nor pro-Western…They do not absolve the West from its misdeeds, but are also aware of their own failings.” He added, “The right solution to this quandary comes from within the region…with international support.” His conciliatory tone transcended the conventionally rancorous discourse vis-à-vis the West of post-revolution political elites in Iran. Significantly, he did not so much as mention the Syrian government, let alone present it as integral to a successful anti-IS campaign. This omission demonstrated Iran’s growing detachment from the Assad regime. By contrast, in his bristling UNGA speech, Russia’s foreign minister spared no sentence in censuring US policies and insisted, “the struggle against terrorists in the territory of Syria should be structured in cooperation with the Syrian government.”
However important an anti-IS campaign is to its security, Iran’s conflicted political establishment might rebuff an invitation to join the US-led fight. In a blustery interview with state-run television, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei divulged that US State Department officials had privately asked Iran to join the coalition—a claim denied by the US—and proudly iterated the government’s negative reply. His statements may form part of a negotiating strategy to link Iranian assistance in regional security to more favorable terms on Iran’s nuclear program. Or they may reflect Khamenei’s fear that the US will ultimately turn its rebel allies in the Free Syrian Army against Assad without consulting the Islamic Republic. Although defending Assad is Iran’s default position, even the IRGC commanders advising him must question the utility of his hollowed state apparatus and tattered military; they cannot endlessly compensate for his losses. At this point, Iran presumably pursues two strategic goals in Syria—arresting the growth of extremist Sunni ideologies (i.e. IS) and preserving convenient access to Hezbollah through partial territorial control of the country. Under the rising political and financial costs of propping up a regime increasingly unable to achieve either goal, Iran will look more favorably in the coming year upon cooperating with the US and reaching a settlement with the moderate opposition. If tacitly allowing Iran to preserve strategic options in Syria sounds unpalatable, one might consider the likelihood that Iran would rather burn the country to the ground than lose its foothold.
The Iranian government, steeped in a revolutionary legacy of anti-imperialism and enmity to the US, will never submit to a US-dominated framework addressing the volcanic problems of the Middle East. At best, the two powers can strike a détente, depending upon the outcome of nuclear negotiations. The timing for a minimal reconciliation between the US and Iran is, nevertheless, opportune. Mounting pressure in the US to pass off responsibility for regional order suggests so, demonstrated by public aversion to, first, humanitarian intervention in Syria and, second, to a US combat mission against IS. In order to successfully manage this trend, the US must include Iran in its plans for the future of Middle East security. To not do so risks engulfing the region in greater chaos. Barring Iran from any attempts to combat IS or depose Assad will only lead the country to operate independently and in opposition to those efforts. Such exclusion will exalt Assad’s value to the Iranians, prolonging his longevity and further embittering a Sunni population already preyed upon by IS and its lesser variants. As remote of a possibility as stability in Syria is, it will come at a price no lower than US-Iranian cooperation.
Henry Johnson is a writer and analyst of Middle East affairs with a focus on Iranian foreign policy and politics.
]]>by Derek Davison
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s recently concluded trip to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly offered signals that Iran’s complex political establishment is, at least right now, quietly going along with the push toward an internationally agreed deal over Iran’s nuclear program. This was the message of two experts on Iran, independent scholar Farideh Farhi, and business consultant Bijan Khajehpour, who offered their assessment of Rouhani’s visit in a Sept. 29 discussion sponsored by the Wilson Center.
The messaging around Rouhani’s UN trip began before he left Iran, with a two-hour meeting between the Iranian President and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that Farhi, a Lobelog contributor, characterized as “a concerted, public effort to suggest unity,” adding that “the public representation of the two executives of Iran’s political system…consulting and strategizing is a powerful signal regarding unity at the top, at least on the particulars of the nuclear issue.” This show of unity, she argued, was both an effort to show support for the negotiations and to lay the groundwork for a domestic narrative that would blame excessive US demands, rather than internal political dissention, if the negotiations fail to reach an agreement
In fact, Farhi pointed out that the recent public displays of a harmonious Iranian leadership actually began when Khamenei was hospitalized for prostate surgery in early September. The “unprecedented” coverage of the Supreme Leader’s hospital stay included interviews with Khamenei himself both before and after his surgery as well as a parade of public hospital visits from high-profile moderate political figures like Rouhani and Expediency Council Chairman Hashemi Rafsanjani, as well as conservatives including judiciary chief Sadeq Larijani and Guardian Council Secretary Ahmad Jannati.
Farhi also described the high level of optimism over the prospects of a final deal that she encountered while in Iran, saying that she “has yet to meet a person [in Iran] who says that there will not be a nuclear deal.” She attributed this optimism to “the honest belief, on the part of the Iranian population at least, that a systemic decision has been made to resolve this issue, and since that systemic decision has been made, it is going to happen one way or another.”
The fact that Rouhani made the trip at all could be taken as a sign that he believes a deal is possible. “He would not have come to New York City if he did not think that an extra effort to push for a resolution to the Iranian nuclear dossier was worth a try,” said Farhi, who teaches at the University of Hawaii. She noted that the threat posed by the group that calls itself the Islamic State “has given Tehran yet another boost in its effort to try to convince the United States to move away from policies that in the Iranian discourse are identified as an American thinking that relies on force and pressure to change Iranian policy.” Rouhani’s UNGA speech envisioned that once the nuclear issue was resolved, “an entirely different environment would emerge for cooperation at regional and international levels.”
Yet the lack of progress in the talks held on the sidelines of last week’s UNGA may have changed Rouhani’s mind, and his final press conference before returning to Iran struck a relatively pessimistic tone. He noted that “time is short” and that whatever progress was made at the UN, the steps taken “haven’t been significant.”
For his part, Khajehpour suggested that Rouhani, who was elected with the triple mandate of negotiating a nuclear deal, improving Iran’s international relations, and turning the economy around, has begun to shift the emphasis from the nuclear portfolio to Iran’s economic improvement, touting, for example, a significant turnaround in Iran’s GDP growth since he took office last year. He also cited a recently signed trade accord between Russia and Iran, which Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh claims will “boost current bilateral trade from around $1.5 billion annually by tenfold over the next two years,” as a sign that Iran is not waiting for the conclusion of the nuclear talks to improve its international standing. Khajehpour argued that closer ties with Russia accomplish a number of Iranian aims: they offer Iran a “plan B” if the talks fail, they give Russia an incentive not to block a deal with the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany), they show the rest of the powers that Iran is not desperate to reach a deal, and they quiet internal critics who fear that a nuclear deal would leave Iran dependent on the West for its continued economic development.
Regardless of the eventual outcome of the nuclear talks, Farhi argued that Rouhani and Khamenei need to work together—Rouhani because he will have to find a way to advance his presidential agenda at least through the 2017 elections, and Khamenei because he will need the support of Rouhani’s team of technocrats in managing Iran’s economy (if only to share the blame should it begin to decline again).
Farhi countered the suggestion that Rouhani may find himself marginalized, as reformist president Mohammed Khatami was in his second term (2001-05), in part by arguing that reformists have learned from Khatami’s experience and will temper both their demands for and criticism of Rouhani’s performance. She also predicted that Iran must “return to an internal discussion, negotiation, and conflict about how to repair the wounds that were caused by the 2009 elections.” According to Farhi, the process of “recreating a state that is better reflective of the diverse population makeup of Iran, and the sentiments of the country, and ultimately establishing a less chaotic political and electoral process will have to begin, and may already have begun.”
]]>Last week I commented on the unhelpful habit of throwing everything Islamist, no matter how extreme or moderate, into a single conceptual bucket and writing off the whole lot as incorrigible adversaries. That habit entails a gross misunderstanding of events and conflicts in the Middle East, and has the more specific harm of aiding extreme groups at the expense of moderate ones. Shortly afterward Dennis Ross of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy presented a piece titled “Islamists Are Not Our Friends,” which illustrates almost in caricatured form some of the misleading attributes of the single-bucket attitude that I was discussing.
Ross’s article probably is not grounded in Islamophobia, although it partly appeals to such sentiment. The piece ostensibly is about how “a fundamental division between Islamists and non-Islamists” is a “new fault line in the Middle East” that provides “a real opportunity for America” and ought to guide U.S. policy toward the region. In fact it is a contrived effort to draw that line—however squiggly it needs to be—to place what Ross wants us to consider bad guys on one side of the line and good guys on the other side. The reasons for that division do not necessarily have much, if anything, to do with Islamist orientation. Thus anyone who has been unfriendly to Hamas or to its more peaceful ideological confreres in the Muslim Brotherhood are placed on the good side of the line, Iran and those doing business with it are put on the bad side, and so forth.
Ross tries to portray something more orderly by asserting that “what the Islamists all have in common is that they subordinate national identities to an Islamic identity” and that the problem with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was that “it was Islamist before it was Egyptian.” What, exactly, does that mean, with particular reference to the short, unhappy presidency of Mohamed Morsi? There were several reasons that presidency was both unhappy and short, but trying to push an Islamist-more-than-Egyptian agenda was not one of them. (And never mind that Ross is risking going places he surely would not want to go by making accusations of religious identification trumping national loyalty on matters relevant to U.S. policy toward the Middle East.) It would make at least as much sense to say that the current president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, was more authoritarian and more in tune with fellow military strongmen than he was Egyptian.
Where Ross’s schema completely breaks down is with some of the biggest and most contorted squiggles in the line he has drawn. He places Saudi Arabia in the “non-Islamist” camp because it has supported el-Sisi in his bashing of the Brotherhood and wasn’t especially supportive of Hamas when Israel was bashing the Gaza Strip. Saudi Arabia—where the head of state has the title Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, the country’s constitution is the Koran, and thieves have their hands amputated—is “non-Islamist”? Remarkable. Conversely, the Assad regime in Syria, which is one of the most secular regimes in the region notwithstanding the sectarian lines of its base of support, is pointedly excluded from Ross’s “non-Islamist” side of the line because of, he says, Syrian dependence on Iran and Hezbollah. Of course, any such alliances refute the whole idea of a “fundamental division” in the region between Islamists and non-Islamists, but Ross does not seem to notice.
Getting past such tendentious classification schemes, we ought to ask whether there is a more valid basis on which we ought to be concerned about states or influential political movements defining themselves in religious terms. If we are to be not merely Islamophobes but true children of the Enlightenment, our concern ought to be with any attempt, regardless of the particular creed involved, to impose the dogma of revealed religion on public affairs, especially in ways that affect the lives and liberties of those with different beliefs.
Such attempts by Christians, as far as the Middle East is concerned, are to be found these days mainly among dispensationalists in America rather in the dwindling and largely marginalized Christian communities in the Middle East itself. In a far more strongly situated community, that of Jewish Israelis, the imposition of religious belief on public affairs in ways that affect the lives and liberties of others is quite apparent. Indeed, the demographic, political, and societal trends during Israel’s 66-year history can be described in large part in terms of an increasingly militant right-wing nationalism in which religious dogma and zealotry have come to play major roles. Self-definition as a Jewish state has been erected as a seemingly all-important basis for relating to Arab neighbors, religion is in effect the basis for different classes of citizenship, and religious zeal is a major driver of the Israeli colonization of conquered territory, which sustains perpetual conflict with, and subjugation of, the Palestinian Arabs.
When religious zealotry involves bloodshed, especially large-scale bloodshed, is when we when ought to be most concerned with its infusion into public affairs. The capacity for zealotry and large-scale application of violence to combine has increased in Israel with the steady increase of religiosity in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and its officer corps. A prominent exemplar of this trend is Colonel Ofer Winter, commander of the IDF’s Gilati Brigade, who has received attention for the heavily religious content of his instructions to his troops. With his brigade poised near the Gaza Strip before the most recent round of destruction there, Winter said in a letter to his troops that he looked forward to a ground invasion so that he could be in the vanguard of a fight against “the terrorist enemy that dares to curse, blaspheme and scorn the God of Israel.” After Winter’s brigade did get to join the fight, he said that a mysterious “cloud” appeared and provided cover for his forces, an event he attributed to divine intervention. Quoting from Deuteronomy, he said, “It really was a fulfillment of the verse ‘For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to give you victory.’”
Winter’s brigade was involved in what could be described as a culmination of the synthesis of zealotry and bloodshed. When an Israeli soldier was missing and suspected (incorrectly, as it later turned out) to have been captured alive by Hamas in a battle at Rafah, Winter executed the “Hannibal” directive, an Israeli protocol according to which as much violence as necessary is used to avoid having any Israeli become a prisoner, no matter how many civilians or others are killed and no matter that the captured Israeli soldier himself is killed. Over the next several hours a relentless barrage of artillery and airstrikes reduced this area of Rafah to rubble, while Israeli forces surrounded the area so that no one could escape it alive. This one Israeli operation killed 190 Palestinians, including 55 children. There may have been other implementations of the Hannibal directive in the recent Israeli offensive in Gaza; this one is confirmed because Winter himself later spoke openly and proudly about it. Although some secular-minded private citizens in Israel have objected to the heavily religious content of Winter’s leadership, officially there does not appear to be anything but approval for anything he has said or done. He is an exemplar, not a rogue.
In short, an operation officially sanctioned and led in the name of a national god was conducted to slaughter scores of innocents as well as one of the operators’ own countrymen. We ought to think carefully about this incident and about what Colonel Winter represents when we decide how to conceive of fault lines in the Middle East, what it means to insert religion into politics or to be a religious zealot, exactly what it is we fear or ought to fear about religiosity in public affairs, and which players in the Middle East have most in common with, or in conflict with, our own—Enlightment-infused, one hopes—values.
This article was first published by the National Interest and was reprinted here with permission.
]]>A successful agreement on Iran’s nuclear program could significantly enhance US leverage and influence throughout the greater Middle East, according to a new report signed by 31 former senior US officials and regional experts released here Wednesday.
The 115-page report, “Iran and Its Neighbors: Regional Implications for US Policy of a Nuclear Agreement,” argues that a nuclear accord would open the way towards cooperation between the two countries on key areas of mutual concern, including stabilising both Iraq and Afghanistan and even facilitating a political settlement to the bloody civil war in Syria.
“A comprehensive nuclear agreement would enable the United States to perceive (regional) priorities without every lens being colored by that single issue,” according to the report, the latest in a series published in the last several years by the New York-based Iran Project, which has sponsored high-level informal exchanges with Iran since it was founded in 2002.
“If the leaders of the United States and Iran are prepared to take on their domestic political opponents’ opposition to the agreement now taking shape, then their governments can turn to the broader agenda of regional issues,” concluded the report, whose signatories included former US National Security Advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, as well as more than a dozen former top-ranking diplomats.
Conversely, failure to reach an accord between Iran and the so-called P5+1 (the US, UK, France, Russia, China plus Germany) could result in “Iran’s eventual acquisition of a nuclear weapons, a greatly reduced chance of defeating major threats elsewhere in the region, and even war,” the study warned.
The report comes as negotiations over a comprehensive nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 are set to formally resume in New York Thursday, as diplomats from around the world gather for the opening of the UN General Assembly, which will be addressed by both Presidents Barack Obama and Hassan Rouhani, among other world leaders, next week.
The parties have set a Nov. 24 deadline, exactly one year after they signed a Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) in Geneva that eased some economic sanctions against Tehran in exchange for its freezing or rolling back key elements of its nuclear program.
While the two sides have reportedly agreed in principle on a number of important issues, large gaps remain, particularly with respect to proposed limits on the size of Iran’s uranium enrichment program and their duration.
The study also comes amidst what its authors called a “tectonic shift” in the Middle East triggered in major part by the military successes of the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (IS, ISIS or ISIL), a development that has been greeted by virtually all of the region’s regimes, as well as the US—which is trying to patch together an international coalition against the Sunni extremist group—as a major threat.
“The rise of ISIS has reinforced Iran’s role in support of the government in Iraq and raises the possibility of U.S.-Iran cooperation in stabilizing Iraq even before a nuclear agreement is signed,” according to the report, which nonetheless stressed that any agreement should impose “severe restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities… (to reduce) the risks that Iran could acquire nuclear weapons.”
Still, the thrust of the report, which includes individual essays by recognised experts on Iran’s relations with seven of its neighbours, focuses on how Washington’s interests in the region could be enhanced by “parallel and even joint U.S. and Iran actions” after an agreement is reached.
Such cooperation would most probably begin in dealing with ISIL in Iraq whose government is supported by both Washington and Tehran.
Indeed, as noted by Paul Pillar, a former top CIA Middle East analyst, both countries have recently taken a number of parallel steps in Iraq, notably by encouraging the removal of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and by taking separate military actions—US airstrikes and Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) advisers—to help break ISIL’s months-long siege of the town of Amerli.
“There’s ample potential here for more communication on a source of very high concern to both of us,” Pillar said at the report’s release at the Wilson Center. “[The Iranians] see the sources of instability in Iraq; they see it is not in their interest to have unending instability [there].”
A second area of mutual interest is Afghanistan from which US and NATO troops are steadily withdrawing amidst growing concerns about the ability of the government’s security forces to hold the Taliban at bay.
It is no secret that the US and Iran worked closely together in forging the government and constitution that were adopted after coalition forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001, noted Barnett Rubin, an Afghanistan expert who after the 9/11 attacks served in senior positions at the State Department and later the UN.
Lesser known is the fact that “the IRGC worked closely on the ground with the CIA and US Special Forces” during that campaign, he said.
With political tensions over recent election results between the two main presidential candidates and their supporters on the rise, according to Rubin, some cooperation between Iran and the US is likely to be “very important” to ensure political stability.
“A nuclear agreement would open the way for a diplomatic and political process that would make it possible to retain some of the important gains we have made in Afghanistan over the past 13 years,” he said.
As for Syria, Iran, as one of President Bashar al-Assad’s two main foreign backers, must be included in any efforts to achieve a political settlement, according to the report.
Until now, Iran has been invited to participate only as an observer, largely due to US and Saudi opposition.
“The Iranians are not wedded to …the continuation of the Baathist regime,” said Frank Wisner, who served as ambassador to Egypt and India, among other senior posts in his career.
In talks with Iranian officials he said he had been struck by “the degree to which they feel themselves over-stretched,” particularly now that they are more involved in Iraq.
The report anticipates considerable resistance by key US regional allies to any rapprochement with Iran that could follow a nuclear agreement, particularly from Israel, which has been outspoken in its opposition to any accord that would permit Iran to continue enriching uranium.
“It goes without saying that this is of primordial importance to Israel,” noted Thomas Pickering, who has co-chaired the Iran Project and served as US ambassador to Israel and the UN, among other top diplomatic posts.
Washington must make it clear to Israel and its supporters here that an agreement “would certainly improve prospects for tranquillity in the region” and that it would be a “serious mistake” for Israel to attack Iran, as it has threatened to do, while an agreement is in force.
Washington must also take great pains to reassure Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-led Gulf states that a nuclear agreement will not come at their expense, according to the report.
“Such reassurance might require a period of increased U.S. military support and a defined U.S. presence (such as the maintenance of bases in the smaller Gulf States and of military and intelligence cooperation with the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] states),” the report said.
“Riyadh would be willing to explore a reduction of tensions with Tehran if the Saudis were more confident of their American ally,” according to the report.
Photo: US Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks to the press in Baghdad, Iraq on Sept. 10, 2014. Credit: State Department
]]>by Adnan Tabatabai
The negotiations in Vienna between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program are in the home stretch even if the July 20 deadline to reach a final deal set by last year’s interim accord will not be met.
Few expected a deal to be reached so quickly, less than [...]]]>
by Adnan Tabatabai
The negotiations in Vienna between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program are in the home stretch even if the July 20 deadline to reach a final deal set by last year’s interim accord will not be met.
Few expected a deal to be reached so quickly, less than one year after last year’s historic agreement, the Joint Plan of Action. Experts argued early on that there would be an extension. Even Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araqchi said on July 12 that “there is a possibility of extending the talks for a few days or a few weeks if progress is made.”
While the possibility of a final deal being reached any time soon is far from guaranteed, one thing is certain: the Rouhani government’s most important task will be effectively framing the outcome of these talks at home.
Zarif Makes Iran’s Case
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his team made two significant moves in presenting Iran’s position more clearly than ever before during this marathon round of talks, which began on July 2.
First, Zarif offered details, for the first time, about Iran’s proposal in an interview with the New York Times.
Second, Zarif’s team published a document clearly outlining Iran’s view of its practical needs for its nuclear program in English, which it distributed through social media.
Prior to this latest round of talks, Zarif also again emphasized his country’s willingness to reach a comprehensive agreement with world powers in a video message released by the Foreign Ministry.
This commitment is based on a number of domestic incentives.
In order to gain more strength in his critical second year in office, President Hassan Rouhani needs a policy success story. Solving the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program was among his top campaign promises, and so far he has yet to achieve any of them.
A nuclear deal would embolden him to push for ambitious policy decisions to pursue his other campaign promises.
Rouhani — to use his own words — has to “break” the devastating sanctions imposed on Iran before any meaningful economic reconstruction and development can be implemented.
With a nuclear deal in his pocket, Rouhani could begin to counter Iranian hard-liners’ and conservatives’ deep-rooted scepticism towards the West. Indeed, a nuclear deal would fly in the face of those who argue that the West cannot be trusted. Rouhani could prove that moderation and reconciliation, when strategically applied, can be extremely beneficial.
A no-deal scenario, one could therefore conclude, would considerably weaken Rouhani while strengthening his opponents at home. But this train of thought is highly simplistic.
Framing the Outcome
Regardless of what these negotiations lead to, more than half the battle will involve controlling how the outcome is framed and perceived at home.
Rouhani and Zarif will have to respond to two forms of criticism: factual and ideological.
The factual criticism will be concerned with the actual details of the negotiations — particularly those determining the scope and future prospects of Iran’s nuclear program.
The ideological criticism will be related to Zarif’s negotiating strategy. For Iran’s far-right principlist faction, Zarif’s reconciliatory approach toward world powers is not in line with Iran’s revolutionary ideals.
Many of them former supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, these parliamentarians and archconservative clerics prefer a more confrontational foreign policy approach through which Iran maintains its position of resistance, is the main regional powerhouse and pursues its nuclear program without seeking approval from the international community.
The latter dimension was stressed in a follow-up meeting of the “We’re concerned” conference in Tehran, which I discussed in May. The very same figures who launched the first event gathered again in a “Red lines” session July 15 to set clear limits on what is and is not negotiable.
In many ways, these hard-liners resemble hawks in the US Congress. Both groups are trying hard to impose themselves into the negotiating process and express their discontent at being side-lined through emphatic opposition to reconciliation and prospects for normalized relations.
In fact, deal or no deal, Rouhani and Zarif will have to convince critics at home that they safeguarded Iran’s national interests — especially in terms of scientific progress and security — and maintained Iran’s position as an important regional actor.
Successfully framing the post-negotiations environment will mean that neither Rouhani nor Zarif will be able to maintain their considerable political capital even in a no-deal scenario.
A “Win-Win” for the Supreme Leader
Rouhani and Zarif have not only proven themselves as adept negotiators (Rouhani was Iran’s chief negotiator from 2003-05), they have also been skilfully manoeuvring Iran’s domestic political scene in the following ways:
“Khamenei’s personal win-win,” as a Tehran-based political analyst recently told me, would also eliminate a lot of pressure from the Supreme Leader’s shoulders, which — as the past 25 years have shown — has always led to less domestic turmoil.
Indeed, when under pressure, Supreme Leader Khamenei approves tighter security measures. Not only was this the case during the 2009 post-election crisis when crackdowns on protests and the arrests of prominent critics escalated, but also during the final year of the Ahmadinejad presidency when some of his aides were verbally and, in the case of Ali Akbar Javanfekr, even physically attacked.
Thus, Iran’s negotiating partners should keep in mind that while Zarif’s negotiating team is committed to achieving a comprehensive agreement, and Rouhani would gain considerable political clout in the event of one, it would be wrong to operate on the assumption that they are desperate for it. Their careers do not depend on the outcome of the talks.
]]>by Shireen T. Hunter
For some time, the problems of Iraq and indeed of all of the Middle East have been blamed on Iran for its interference and meddling, especially for exporting its ideology and attempting to establish hegemony over the region.
Like any other state, Iran is not immune to the [...]]]>
by Shireen T. Hunter
For some time, the problems of Iraq and indeed of all of the Middle East have been blamed on Iran for its interference and meddling, especially for exporting its ideology and attempting to establish hegemony over the region.
Like any other state, Iran is not immune to the temptation of spreading its world view to neighboring areas and beyond, or to seeking as much influence as possible over both near and more distant environments. Other regional countries have acted similarly during different periods of recent history. Thus Egypt worked to spread Arab nationalism and socialism, as Iraq did with Baathism, and Saudi Arabia with its particular version of Wahhabi Islam. These states have also tried to increase their regional influence. States often behave in this way; competition for influence is a truth of international relations.
That said, since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in August 1988, and especially after Iran’s transition to the post-Khomeini period in 1989, for obvious reasons, Iran’s primary concern has been to maintain security on its borders and effectively shield itself from the disruptive effects of turmoil in its neighborhood. The main reason for this shift was the heavy human and material costs Iran incurred during the Iran-Iraq war, followed by the need to rebuild after wartime devastation.
Turbulent relations
Due to Iran’s turbulent history with Iraq, Tehran has become particularly concerned with stabilizing its relations with Baghdad.
Since Iraq emerged as an independent state after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Iranian-Iraqi relations have gone through several phases, mostly but not entirely characterized by tension. In the decades following Iraq’s indepedence, Iran’s relations with the country were dominated by the British presence in Iraq and broader British regional policies.
When the Iranian parliament refused to ratify the 1919 British-Iranian agreement, which would have made Iran a virtual British protectorate, Britain followed a pro-Arab and anti-Iran policy in Iraq and the rest of the Persian Gulf. Iraqi Sunnis were given dominant positions, Iranians residing in Iraq were prevented from properly registering and denied the rights granted to other foreign nationals, and, most importantly, Britain ruled in favor of Iraq in the demarcation of the Shatt al-Arab (Arvand Rud) river on the Iran-Iraq border, after efforts through the League of Nations failed to resolve differences. On the basis of a 1937 agreement, Britain put the entire waterway under Iraq’s control, except a small area around Abadan in Iran’s Khuzestan province. According to this treaty, Iran had to pay tolls to Iraq when its ships used the waterway.
In Bahrain, meanwhile, from the 1920s onward the British began an Arabization policy that ultimately led to its quasi-independence from Iran.
At that time, Iran and Iraq were part of a Western-sponsored alliance, first under the British and later in the context of the 1955 Baghdad Pact, so these differences did not cause major conflicts in bilateral Iranian-Iraqi relations, although the status of Iraqi Shias and Iraqis of Iranian origin, along with the question of Shatt al-Arab, were always sources of concern for Iran and of tensions in bilateral relations.
That situation changed when the Iraqi monarchy fell in 1958, and Abdul Karim Qasim formed a revolutionary government. This development was frightening to Iran and its leaders. Already, the Nasserite revolution in Egypt, with its pro-Soviet tendencies, and the march of pan-Arabism, with its anti-Iran flavor, had created problems for Iran. Nasser, as is now well documented, supported a variety of anti-Shah groups, including Iran’s Islamists and leftists. Moreover, Egypt, later joined by Iraq, engaged in subversive activities in Iran’s Khuzestan province, forming groups such as the Front for the Liberation of Ahwaz. Iraq also referred to Iran as the “Persian occupier” and supposedly tried, with the help of the Iranian Tudeh Party, Egypt, and the Soviet Union, to bring about an Iraq-style coup in Iran. At the same time, the Arabs began campaigning to change the name of the Persian Gulf.
These tensions were reflected in military skirmishes between Iran and Iraq over the Shatt al-Arab. Iran tried to change the status quo by declaring the 1937 treaty no longer valid due to changed conditions.
There was a brief thaw in relations when Adusalam Arif became Iraq’s leader in 1963, following a coup that brought down Qasim. However, broader Arab, regional, and Cold War politics interfered. After the Baathists took power in Iraq, relations with Iran entered their worst period. During the 1970s, Iran and Iraq fought a proxy war in Iraqi Kurdistan, with the US helping Iran. The result was Iraq’s capitulation and the signing of the 1975 Algiers Agreement, which resulted in Iraq having to share control of the waterway with Iran and seemed to resolve the Shatt al-Arab dispute based on the principle of thalweg.
The tables were turned in 1979 with the Islamic revolution. The Arabs got their wish and the Shah fell. But they soon discovered that Ayatollah Khomeini was a far more formidable foe than the Shah. His discourse of revolutionary Islam was much more dangerous than the Shah’s so-called imperial delusions.
Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had never forgotten or forgiven being bested by Iran, as exemplified by the Algiers Agreement. Sensing Iran’s turmoil and isolation, and possibly egged-on by regional and international actors, he attacked Iran in 1980. By calling this invasion another “Qadisiyya” — a reference to the decisive battle during the Arab invasion of Iran in 642 AD — he reminded the Iranians that no matter how pro-Islam and pro-Arab they become, they will never be accepted as legitimate players in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the Iranian revolutionaries took hostage American diplomats in Tehran and were later implicated in similar activities in Lebanon. By this behavior, they antagonized the United States and a good part of Europe and exacerbated anti-Iranian sentiments in the Arab world.
Iran as a status quo power
Irrespective of Iranian government claims, Iran lost its war with Iraq. When the ceasefire agreement was signed in August 1988, Iraq still occupied Iranian territory and was unwilling to sign a peace agreement. Iran was only saved from further Iraqi threats by Saddam’s ceaseless ambitions, when he invaded Kuwait in 1991 and brought upon Iraq the wrath of America and its allies.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Iran was a net loser of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Had the Soviet Union not collapsed, the situation might have been different. But following the Soviet Union’s fall, the US became able to begin its policy of “dual containment,” which culminated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Saddam’s removal did not particularly improve Iran’s security environment. Indeed, a weakened Saddam would have been much better for Iran than living with US troops on its western borders after they had already closed in on Iran’s eastern borders following the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. For several years, the goal of US policy in Iran, both stated and non-stated, became regime change in Tehran.
Iran’s relations with post-Saddam Iraqi governments have also not been easy. Even during times of relative calm in Iraq, some Shia leaders, like Muqtada al-Sadr, tried to woo other Sunni Arab states. The new Iraqi government also openly declared it would never reinstate the Algiers Agreement, and it stuck to traditional Iraqi nationalist policies. Relations between Iran and Iraq only improved after the latter’s Shia government was almost totally isolated by other Arab states and following the onset of unrelenting Sunni extremist attacks, the shock of events in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s intervention there, and the crisis in Syria since 2011.
Meanwhile, some Sunni members of the Iraqi government stated that Iran still remained the greatest security threat to Iraq.
In light of this history, Tehran anxiously desires non-hostile governments in Iraq. If it can, Iran will try to prevent the rise of an Iraqi government dominated by ex-Baathists or by those who harbor strong anti-Iranian sentiments. Even under perfect conditions, any independent and united Iraqi state will be in competition with Iran; hostility and competition are of course two different things.
Iran’s other primary interests in Iraq are economic and environmental. Iran has been subject to sandstorms that have been causing serious damage and endangering people’s health. To remedy this, Tehran needs the cooperation of Arab states where the sands originate. Thus far, Iraq has not done much to help; its many other problems have interfered with addressing this problem. Continued instability will further delay solving this problem. Meanwhile, by damming the Euphrates and consequently drying up the land, Turkey has exacerbated the sandstorm problem.
Iran, like Turkey, also wants a share of the Iraqi market and cooperation on transportation and energy. Tehran is also obviously concerned about the future of Shia holy sites in Iraq. However, in attempting to back up its claims to broader leadership in the Muslim world, Iran has not played a purely Shia card in Iraq. Iranian statements always pin blame on the “Takfiris” (Muslims who accuse other Muslims not agreeing with them of being unbelievers) and not the Sunnis for sectarian problems, while the Sunnis often equate the Shias with the so-called “Safawis”, referring to Iran’s Shia Safavid dynasty. Indeed, if Iran’s dialogue with the Sunnis has not developed, it has been because of the latter’s unwillingness.
In sum, because of its own vulnerabilities, fault lines and enormous domestic needs, Iran — despite its rhetoric — is essentially a status quo regional power. Iran, like all states, will try to capitalize on advantageous circumstances should they develop, but it has not been pursuing fundamental changes in the region’s makeup. Iran’s so-called regional gains, which are highly exaggerated, have not been the result of its own actions but of the policies of other states and their mistakes.
Policy options
What is to be done now, after Iraq has once again erupted into extreme violence? In dealing with Iraq and Iran’s role in it, Iraq’s realities must be kept in mind. Iraq’s post-Ottoman structure was both unfair and unrealistic and, hence, intrinsically unstable. It ignored Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian character. Any effort to restore that model would be dangerous and would fail. Like it or not, Iraqi Shias will want reasonable relations with Iran in order to balance the pull of the Sunni Arab world. But sectarian affiliation will not mean that Iraqi Shias will accept subservience to Iran; they are Arab and Iraqi and nationalistic.
Second, the Arab and Western policy of delegitimizing an Iranian role in the region, as was done both under the Shah and after the revolution, is not workable. In pursuing security in the Middle East, powers should acknowledge Iran’s security concerns instead of simply viewing Iran as a predatory actor. Achieving basic friendly relations with Iran and Arab states will serve Iraq’s interests and that of the entire region.
Lastly, Western regional policies centered on countering Iran, which have led to ignoring the disruptive actions of other actors, have harmfully distorted regional dynamics, just as excessive concern with the Soviet/Communist threat did during the Cold War. Yet these western policies have not helped resolve the region’s perennial problems, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict. There is, therefore, an urgent need for a new paradigm to guide Western policies towards the region and Iran. Iraq could be a good starting point.
This article was published in LobeLog and was reprinted here with permission. Follow LobeLog on Twitter and like us on Facebook
]]>via IPS News
While U.S. and Iranian negotiators prepare for another round of nuclear talks in Geneva next month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been silent about another matter that could be even more indicative of his willingness to take on hardline conservatives.
On Sept. 22, the Iranian [...]]]>
via IPS News
While U.S. and Iranian negotiators prepare for another round of nuclear talks in Geneva next month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been silent about another matter that could be even more indicative of his willingness to take on hardline conservatives.
On Sept. 22, the Iranian parliament passed a law with an innocuous title but frightening potential. The “Protection of Children and Adolescents without Guardians or with Bad Guardians” allows a man to marry his stepdaughter or adopted daughter, in effect legalising child abuse.
The law repeals a previous piece of legislation passed by parliament in February that forbade such marriages. However, the Council of Guardians, a clerical body dominated by hardliners, disapproved the earlier law, finding it against sharia.
The latest iteration added an article (27) which says that a father may marry his stepdaughter or adopted daughter if the marriage is approved by the State Welfare Organisation and a court. In spite of this addition, many Iranians fear the new law will undermine the welfare of thousands of families with stepdaughters and adopted daughters.
Iranian women’s organisations and human rights activists both inside Iran and in the diaspora have organised massive protests against the law on Facebook. The rights groups and activists assert that the law legalises pedophilia, child abuse and rape under the guise of protecting children. Most Iranians were not aware of the controversy until the second bill passed in parliament last month.
Women’s sexuality is one of the most sensitive battlefields within the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Iran, women’s bodies are a political subject; control over their bodies is a reflection of political power. Women’s sexuality is a tool for Islamic conservatives to demonstrate their interpretation of Islamic ideology and identity.
While President Rouhani has talked repeatedly of his respect for women’s rights, he has been silent about the new law. In ratifying the law on Oct. 2, the 12 Islamic conservatives who make up the Council of Guardians demonstrated that they still have power and control over the most sensitive political matters. These are the same individuals who, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will approve or reject any nuclear compromise Rouhani makes with the United States.
Women’s rights activists are wondering whether Rouhani will speak out about the marriage law in the near future. If the president and his cabinet oppose this radical and immoral law, he will show that he supports democracy and equal rights for women. If he is silent, it will show that he either will not or cannot oppose the Islamic conservatives on a crucial matter.
Iranian women have shown that they have potential power to affect change in Iran in the direction of more democracy and human rights. Iranian women have been fighting for their rights for more than a century and the women’s movement began with the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906. Beginning in the 1920s, women began to attend universities although they did not achieve the right to vote and be elected to office until 1963.
Women were also in the front lines of the 1979 revolution against the Shah. But the Islamic government that replaced the monarchy diminished women’s rights, scrapping the Shah’s progressive family law and reducing the legal age of marriage from 18 to nine.
A re-invigorated movement succeeded in raising the age to 13. Today the average age of marriage for girls is 24. Iranian women have also attained a high educational standard, comprising more than 60 percent of university students. Population growth has slowed as women have become more educated; the average number of children women bear has dropped from seven in 1960s to two in 2010.
Women are also the most organised element of Iranian society, with about 5,000 women’s groups. They work together to promote their rights despite differences in religious beliefs, ethnic identity and political factions.
The best known effort is the One Million Signatures Campaign for Gender Equality, which has been promoted by key figures including human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. The campaign has mobilised several thousand women debating women’s rights and collecting signatures to change laws that discriminate against women.
More than 70 women’s activists were arrested and sent to prison for their participation in this campaign, which was the most organised element during the 2009 Green Movement. “Women will build democracy in Iran,” Ebadi has said.
A victory for Iranian women is a failure for Islamic conservatives who view controlling women’s sexuality and oppressing women’s organisations as part of conservatives’ fight for survival.
In negotiating with Iran about its nuclear program, the Obama administration should not forget about women’s rights and the need to strengthen civil society and support for human rights and democracy in Iran.
– Fariba Parsa is a visiting scholar at the Centre for the Study of Gender and Conflict, George Mason University School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution.
]]>by Marsha B. Cohen
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as of last week, planned on hitting the “refresh” button on the Iranian threat to Israel and the world, juxtaposing the callow grimace of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s ubiquitous smile.
Israeli media on Sunday — after President [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as of last week, planned on hitting the “refresh” button on the Iranian threat to Israel and the world, juxtaposing the callow grimace of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s ubiquitous smile.
Israeli media on Sunday — after President Barack Obama’s historic 15-minute phone call with Rouhani — reported Netanyahu was furiously rewriting his UN speech, “vowing to expose ‘the truth’ in the wake of Iranian President Hasan Rouhani’s recent overtures to the United States.”
“Like North Korea before it, Iran will try to remove sanctions by offering cosmetic concessions, while preserving its ability to rapidly build a nuclear weapon at a time of its choosing,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement explaining the Israeli delegation’s decision to boycott Rouhani’s address last week to the UN General Assembly (UNGA).
Can Netanyahu successfully revive the Bush administration’s lumping together of Iran with North Korea into a new “axis of evil”? He’s done it before, and, according to numerous reports, he’s certainly going to try again on Tuesday. At least this was the plan prior to the phone conversation between Obama and Rouhani on Friday, about which Netanyahu has not commented on and banned his government’s ministers, staff and Israel’s ambassadors from discussing. Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Saturday night that Israel was advised in advance that the phone call would take place, but “there was no advance coordination of positions” between Israel and the US on the content of the talk, according to the Times of Israel.
Netanyahu’s own UNGA speech on Oct. 1 is expected to chronicle the failure of diplomacy to deter North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons, arguing that North Korea’s case demonstrates the futility of diplomatic engagement with Iran. The Israeli daily Israel Hayom reports:
Netanyahu will try to teach the Americans a history lesson involving a not so distant affair that culminated with another big con job: North Korea. The West held talks with that country as well. Promises were made. Then, one morning, the world woke up to a deafening roar of thunder: the regime had conducted a nuclear test. The North Koreans proved that a radical regime can fool the world. Do not create a new North Korean model, Netanyahu will say.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the New York Times last week, “Iran must not be allowed to repeat North Korea’s ploy to get nuclear weapons””
“Just like North Korea before it,” he said, “Iran professes to seemingly peaceful intentions; it talks the talk of nonproliferation while seeking to ease sanctions and buy more time for its nuclear program.”
The official said Netanyahu’s speech would highlight the active period of diplomacy in 2005 when the North Korean government seemingly agreed to abandon its program in return for economic, security and energy benefits.
A year later, North Korea tested its first nuclear device. Israeli officials warn something similar could happen if the United States were to conclude too hasty a deal with Mr. Rouhani. As Iran is doing today, the North Koreans insisted on a right to a peaceful nuclear energy program.
To make his case, Netanyahu’s talking points may well refer to some of the parallels he has drawn in the past between North Korea and Iran. Whether he focuses on the North Korea parallel or not, Netanyahu’s arguments will boil down to: 1) Diplomacy isn’t bad, but it won’t work; 2) we need more sanctions; 3) only a credible threat of force will stop Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons; and 4) the talks will be used by the Iranians to delay and deceive. Let’s dig a little deeper into these points.
Diplomacy won’t work:
Immediately after North Korea’s underground nuclear test on May 25, 2009, and less than a month before Iran’s contentious 2009 presidential election, Netanyahu declared that North Korea was a textbook case of what Obama could expect if he insisted on wasting time engaging in dialogue with Iran. Taking no chances about the outcome of the election, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rivals included two reformist candidates, Netanyahu said the latest Israeli intelligence estimate showed that Iran was engaged in a “national nuclear project” that was more than a one-man show. In other words, even if Ahmadinejad were to lose, Iran’s nuclear weapons program would continue. Netanyahu expressed no hope that Obama (at that point in office for just over 3 months) would ever succeed in talking Iran out of its pursuit of nuclear weapons. However, he generously agreed to give the U.S. President until the end of the year to try.
Sanctions don’t work — but we need more:
Netanyahu has flip-flopped about the efficacy of sanctions in stopping Iran’s alleged quest for a nuclear weapon. In January 2012 he told The Australian that there were signs that sanctions were finally working: “For the first time, I see Iran wobble under the sanctions that have been adopted and especially under the threat of strong sanctions on their central bank.” A week later, he complained to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that “The sanctions employed thus far are ineffective, they have no impact on the nuclear program. We need tough sanctions against the central bank and oil industry. These things are not happening yet and that is why it has no effect on the nuclear program.”
According to an issue brief on “The Global Nonproliferation Regime” published by the Council on Foreign Relations this past June:
Although three states (India, Israel, and Pakistan) are known or believed to have acquired nuclear weapons during the Cold War, for five decades following the development of nuclear technology, only nine states have developed—and since 1945 none has used—nuclear weapons. However, arguably not a single known or suspected case of proliferation since the early 1990s—Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, or Syria— was deterred or reversed by the multilateral institutions [i.e. sanctions] created for this purpose.
The question then becomes, if sanctions haven’t historically deterred states from seeking nuclear weapons, why invest so much time and energy imposing and demanding more of them on Iran?
The credible military threat:
In February 2013, a week after North Korea carried out its third nuclear test (UN resolutions notwithstanding), Netanyahu warned the Jewish Agency’s International Board of Governors that sanctions, no matter how crippling, could not stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. “Have sanctions, tough sanctions, stopped North Korea? No. And the fact that they produced a nuclear explosion reverberates everywhere in the Middle East, and especially in Iran.” Without a “robust, credible military threat,” backing up economic sanctions, Iran could not be deterred from seeking nuclear weapons, he argued.
Yet Netanyahu’s repeated calls for sanctions against Iran to “be coupled with a robust, credible military threat” fail to point out a single example where the threat — or actual use — of military force with or without sanctions has successfully deterred any state, including North Korea, from developing nuclear weapons. That’s because there are none.
“Operation Opera,” in which Israeli planes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in Osirak, is often cited by hawks as a precedent for a similar attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Numerous security studies experts and counter-proliferation specialists agree that the operation was not nearly as successful as the Israelis claimed in preventing Saddam Hussein’s access to weapons of mass destruction. In fact, it may have accelerated, rather than stymied, Hussein’s quest for nuclear weaponry. (As a related side note, it’s doubtful Netanyahu will claim credit in his UN speech for Israel’s alleged counter-proliferation efforts in Syria, or invoke them as a model for dealing with Iran, but one never knows.)
Talks a tactic to “delay and deceive”:
Speaking during a visit to Prague in May 2012, Netanyahu stated that he had seen “no evidence whatsoever” that Iran was serious about halting its nuclear weapons program:
“It looks as though they (Iran) see these talks as another opportunity to deceive and delay, just like North Korean did for years,” Netanyahu said. “They may try to go from meeting to meeting with empty promises. They may agree to something in principle but not implement it. They may even agree to implement something that does not materially derail their nuclear weapons program,” he said.
But no credible US or Western intelligence estimate has provided evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, or that it is pursuing a nuclear weapon. According to the US intelligence community’s annual worldwide threat assessment, the US believes Iran has the technical capability to make nuclear weapons, but does not know if Iran will decide to do so. However, the assessment also states that the US would know in time if Iran attempted to break out to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb (implying that Iran has not made the decision yet). It goes on to note that Tehran “has developed technical expertise in a number of areas—including uranium enrichment, nuclear reactors, and ballistic missiles—from which it could draw if it decided to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons,” making “the central issue its political will to do so.”
Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes was widely quoted last week by numerous media sources including the New York Times in such a way as to imply the U.S. also saw significant similarities between the Iranian and North Korean cases. Only the South Korean News Agency Yonhap quoted enough of Rhodes’ statement to convey his entire message. In fact, Rhodes actually said that the two cases require different strategies: “the international community needs to take different approaches toward North Korea and Iran with regard to their nuclear programs.”
Ultimately though, the bottom line remains: however fervently and persuasively Netanyahu argues that Iranian nuclear weapons capability has been achieved or is imminent, he has yet to offer any solution that will effectively address the problem. Reframing the Iranian nuclear issue in such a way that allows a pragmatist like Rouhani to make substantial and effective nuclear, economic and political reforms in Iran offers the best — and perhaps the only — chance at achieving greater Middle East stability and security. That, unfortunately, will not be among Netanyahu’s recommendations on Tuesday.
]]>by Farideh Farhi
Iran’s cabinet confirmation hearings this week were painful, but not for its new president Hassan Rouhani, despite the rejection of 3 out of his 18 ministerial nominees. They were painful for Iran’s hardliners, whose mismanagement of the country was spotlighted along with their weakening form of political speech.
A [...]]]>
by Farideh Farhi
Iran’s cabinet confirmation hearings this week were painful, but not for its new president Hassan Rouhani, despite the rejection of 3 out of his 18 ministerial nominees. They were painful for Iran’s hardliners, whose mismanagement of the country was spotlighted along with their weakening form of political speech.
A good number of Iran’s political class and punditry must have watched in awe as the people who have been framing and dominating public discourse in Iran — particularly in the last 4 years — adopted the role of the opposition. As they spoke, what has gone wrong with the Islamic Republic became more and more evident: the ideological governance, which is quite distinct from ideological rule, that frames the Islamic Republic as a system. The tension between the ideological framing of the Islamic Republic and the technocratic exigencies of a developmentalist welfare state has existed in the Islamic Republic from day one. But it was dramatically on display in these public hearings.
The undoing of Iran’s hardliners
In rhetorical confrontations between national-level figures and parochial-like local politicians, it’s not hard for the former to outshine the latter. But something else was going on here as well. The questioning of the center-reformist cabinet nominees by the parliament’s hardliners was consumed with the relationship of the nominees to the so-called sedition (fetneh) and had nothing to do with the nominees’ proposed ministerial plans and polices. In other words, the nominees’ qualifications were overshadowed by a focus on what they did during Iran’s 2009 post-election unrest. To boot, the questioning was carried out in a street-talk manner, which is completely out of place in a public forum broadcast on national television. One member of parliament even spoke about the “club” Iranian Lurs use to treat those who do not walk a straight line. He had to apologize for imputing a tendency towards violence to his own ethnic group.
The contrast between the MPs and Rouhani’s nominees — who maintained their dignity while responding to their opponents without transgressing acceptable political speech — was striking. After all, if post-election protests are identified as fetneh in official discourse, one would have a hard time achieving a ministerial post while admitting they supported them. But one can defend one’s record while stating allegiance to the Islamic Republic and its institutions, including the office of the Leader Ali Khamenei. And although some were better than others, Rouhani’s nominees defended themselves well and even engaged in a degree of pushback regarding why they acted more properly and humanely than MPs who showed no sympathy for Iranian protesters who were harmed or even killed.
Again, the contrast between the way Rouhani’s nominees’ spoke in defense of their policies and political outlook and the accusatory language of the MPs was striking. Of course, public displays of official denunciatory language aren’t new for the Iranian public. Indeed, it has been the dominant form political speech in the past few years. What made the broadcasted hearings fascinating was the gradual public realization that the folks who have led Iran into disaster are now sitting in judgment of the folks the electorate voted for. They were voted in precisely because they promised to run the country with managerial expertise and to loosen the grip of ideology over decision-making.
As the hearings proceeded — on the first day sedition-related words were reportedly used over 1,600 times — it became clear that “sedition” is the only ammunition the hardliners have. A prominent conservative MP even said out loud that hardliners have become “merchants of sedition” who are making a living from applying the label. But the confirmation of four of Rouhani’s key nominees who were accused of cavorting with seditionists was a disaster for the discourse of sedition. It’s obvious that the hardliners’ favorite mode of attack is becoming increasingly weak.
Ultimately, out of the many effective speeches given by the nominees, two stand out for me because of the unraveling of tensions that accompanied them.
Iran’s new foreign minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif’s speech literally quieted the cacophonous parliament hall. Zarif has spent most of his adult life in the United States as a student and later as a diplomat. This by itself makes him suspect. He did not serve in the Iran-Iraq War even though he was at age for military service at the time. Among other things, he was accused of being educated in the West, meeting with American diplomats and Iranian civil society activists who reside in the US and even suspiciously losing a briefcase that included important documents while he was there. In short, he was portrayed as a man who lost his soul in the West. What Zarif said was not as important as the way he broke apart that image.
Many in the US have heard him publicly speak in English, which he is very good at, but neither the MPs nor the Iranian public had heard him give a speech in Persian. And they had never seen him recite so many Qoranic verses! But Zarif’s speech on Tuesday seamlessly combined expertise and religious rhetoric. In a rather blunt way, he also pushed backed against the accusations that were hurled against him. He reminded the MPs that the previous government had forced him into retirement at the age of 47 and even made teaching difficult for him but that he had not left the country in more than 6 years even for teaching opportunities that had arisen elsewhere. His body language, voice and speech-content confirmed that he was as much of a stakeholder in the Islamic Republic as those who were judging him and that he had every right to be the foreign minister of a president whose promises of a foreign policy involving both expertise and moderation aided his election. Zarif also made clear that the power of Iran’s foreign policy rests on the electorate’s popular confidence in their government at home. As I already mentioned, Zarif’s performance was so stunning that it quieted the Majles chamber — the only time this happened during the hearings.
A noteworthy loss
Another important speech was given by Mohammad Ali Najafi, Rouhani’s nominee for the Ministry of Education. Again, the contrast between his speech and demeanor and the accusations leveled against him was something to behold. His pushback was also telling. Najafi was accused of meeting the families of protestors who died in 2009, to which he essentially responded with: I went to see the aggrieved families in my capacity as a member of the Tehran City Council, which would have been unnecessary if you guys had done your job of at least comforting them.
Although Najafi failed to receive the required number of votes for confirmation, the yay votes outnumbered the nays and a one-vote switch would have made him the cabinet minister. This situates him as an important advisor or a candidate for other posts if he desires them.
Beyond this, Najafi’s near confirmation turned into an argument for some Tehrani voters. Had they not mostly abstained in the 2012 parliamentary election and, ignoring reformist disqualifications and disarray, voted for a moderate conservative slate — which did exist — Najafi would have been the education minister today. The leader of that moderate conservative slate — Ali Mottahari — was the only one who made it into Parliament in 2012 and was a key organizer of votes for the Rouhani cabinet. One more deputy from that slate — which was possible with more participation — would have made a small but important difference in the scheme of things. Of course, yesterday that difference didn’t appear as small to the many teachers who were hoping for Najafi’s successful appointment.
Several blunt exchanges involving the intelligence and judiciary ministries should also be listened to by anyone trying to understand the tensions and polarizations of today’s Iran. The focal point of these tensions is based on issues related to human and civil rights, dignity and the operation of Iran’s surveillance state.
Rouhani’s position
In his closing speech, Rouhani laid out his argument for how to leave behind or at least lessen the deep rifts that resulted from the 2009 election. He argued for an acknowledgment that both sides had made mistakes. He did this by mentioning two words in one sentence: Kahrizak and orduskeshi. He said both were mistakes, giving them equivalency.
Kahrizak is the prison in which many of Iran’s 2009 protesters were abused and several were killed. Ordukeshi is the word used by the Leader to negatively describe the 2009 protests. Instead of acknowledging the constitutionally protected right to peaceful protests, the term frames the events as something the losers of the election illegitimately did by turning the electoral competition into street confrontations. Rouhani surely knows that this is a highly offensive term to many people who voted for him particularly in the city of Tehran, in which protests lasted much longer than the rest of the country.
By saying that mistakes were made in both Kahrizad Prison and by ordukeshi, Rouhani’s message seemed clear: rightly or wrongly, neither side can play the game of political righteousness. Stop asking each other for apologies, which will not be forthcoming from either side; learn to live with this reality. Let’s just move on based on the premise that the time for the continuation of the purge game is over because it is a dangerous game to play when the country is in dire need of civil interactions in the face of external pressures. This was not moral posturing; it was a plea for all to search for their pragmatic side.
These words can only be taken as serious advice if there is some movement on the front of reintegrating those who were purged because of the events of 2009, which will be a challenge for Rouhani. The ministerial confirmation of several former advisors to Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is still under house arrest, is a step in that direction. But it is not enough even if public tolerance for gradualism and moderation — and taking things slowly — seems relatively high at the moment.
Photo Credit: Amir Kholousi
]]>by Marsha B. Cohen
The New York Times’ op-ed page headlined “Hopes for Iran”, which offers half a dozen cautious to negative views on Iran’s president-elect Hassan Rouhani, unexpectedly links to a “Related Story” published last year: Should Israel Accept a Nuclear Ban? Linking the online discussion — intentionally or not [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
The New York Times’ op-ed page headlined “Hopes for Iran”, which offers half a dozen cautious to negative views on Iran’s president-elect Hassan Rouhani, unexpectedly links to a “Related Story” published last year: Should Israel Accept a Nuclear Ban? Linking the online discussion — intentionally or not — to a debate over Israel’s own nuclear program and policies may be more remarkable than any of the op-eds’ arguments.
One of the most overlooked and under-discussed aspects of the Iranian nuclear program, at least from an Iranian point of view, is the double standard that’s applied to it: while Israel has an estimated 100-200 nuclear weapons that it has concealed for decades, Iran is treated like the nuclear threat — and Iran doesn’t possess a single nuclear weapon. Adding insult to injury, Israel is usually the first, loudest and shrillest voice condemning Iran and demanding “crippling sanctions” while deflecting attention away from its own record.
“Iran has consistently used the West’s willingness to engage as a delaying tactic, a smoke screen behind which Iran’s nuclear program has continued undeterred and, in many cases, undetected,” complained former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold (also president of the hawkish Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) in a 2009 LA Times op-ed entitled “Iran’s Nuclear Aspirations Threaten the World“:
Back in 2005, Hassan Rowhani, the former chief nuclear negotiator of Iran during the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami, made a stunning confession in an internal briefing in Tehran, just as he was leaving his post. He explained that in the period during which he sat across from European negotiators discussing Iran’s uranium enrichment ambitions, Tehran quietly managed to complete the critical second stage of uranium fuel production: its uranium conversion plant in Isfahan. He boasted that the day Iran started its negotiations in 2003 “there was no such thing as the Isfahan project.” Now, he said, it was complete.
Yet half a century ago, Israel’s Deputy Minister of Defense, Shimon Peres — the political architect of Israel’s nuclear weapons program — looked President John F. Kennedy in the eye and solemnly intoned what would become Israel’s “catechism”, according to Avner Cohen: “I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons to the region, and certainly we will not be the first.” Fifty years and at least 100 nuclear weapons later, Peres is awarded the U.S. Medal of Freedom, with no mention of his misrepresentation of Israel’s nuclear progress.
According to declassified documents, Yitzhak Rabin, another future Israeli prime minister (who would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994) also invoked the nuclear catechism to nuclear negotiator Paul Warnke in 1968, arguing that no product could be considered a deployable nuclear weapons-system unless it had been tested (Israel, of course, had not tested a nuclear weapon). Warnke was unswayed by Rabin’s talmudic logic but came away convinced that pressuring Israel would be futile since it was already a nuclear weapons state.
In a BBC Radio June 14 debate between Gold and former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw about the prospects for improving relations with Iran after Rouhani’s election, Straw pointed out that Israel has a “very extensive nuclear weapons program, and along with India and Pakistan are the three countries in the world, plus North Korea more recently, which have refused any kind of international supervision…”:
JOHN HUMPHRYS (Host): Well let me put that to Dr Gold; you can’t argue with that, Dr Gold?
DORE GOLD: Well, we can have a whole debate on Israel in a separate program.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well, it’s entirely relevant isn’t it? The fact is you’re saying they want nuclear weapons; the fact is you have nuclear weapons.
DORE GOLD: Look, Israel has made statements in the past. Israeli ambassadors to the UN like myself have said that Israel won’t be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.
JACK STRAW: You’ve got nuclear weapons.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: You’ve got them.
JACK STRAW: You’ve got them. Everyone knows that.
DORE GOLD: We have a very clear stand, but we’re not the issue.
JACK STRAW: No, no, come on, you have nuclear weapons, let’s be clear about this.
National security expert Bruce Riedel is among those who have observed Washington’s “double standard when it comes to Israel’s bomb: the NPT applies to all but Israel. Indeed, every Israeli prime minister since David Ben-Gurion has deliberately taken an evasive posture on the issue because they do not want to admit what everyone knows.” Three years ago, Riedel suggested that the era of Israeli ambiguity about its nuclear program “may be coming to an end, raising fundamental questions about Israel’s strategic situation in the region.” Thus far that hasn’t happened. Instead, Israeli leaders and the pro-Israel lobby use every opportunity (including Peres’ Medal of Freedom acceptance speech) to deflect attention from Israel’s defiant prevarication about its own nuclear status and directing it toward Iran.
This past April, Anthony Cordesman authored a paper for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) arguing that Israel posed more of an existential threat to Iran than the other way around. “It seems likely that Israel can already deliver an ‘existential’ nuclear strike on Iran, and will have far more capability to damage Iran than Iran is likely to have against Israel for the next decade,” Cordesman wrote. (The paper has since been removed from the CSIS website, but references to it persist in numerous articles.)
This double standard, and refusal to recognize Iranian security concerns, is not news to Iranians. Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament), assured the Financial Times last September that talks between the U.S. and Iran “can be successful and help create more security in the region. But if they try to dissuade Iran from its rights to have peaceful nuclear technology, then they will not go anywhere — before or after the US elections.” Larijani, who was Iran’s nuclear negotiator between 2005-2007, proposed that declarations by U.S. political leaders that Iran has a right to “peaceful nuclear technology” be committed to in writing.
“Many times the US president or secretary of state have said they recognise Iran’s right to nuclear energy,” Larjani said. “So, if [they] accept this, write it down and then we use it as a basis to push forward the talks…What they say during the talks is different from what they say outside the talks. This is a problem.” Larijani also denied that Iranian leaders were discussing withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) even though the benefits of Iran remaining a signatory — in the face of mounting international pressure campaigned for by Israel while Israel itself faced little to no criticism — seemed unclear. “The Israelis did not join the NPT and they do not recognize the IAEA,” he said. “They are doing what they want — producing nuclear bombs, and no one questions it.”
This past weekend, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour bluntly suggested that up until now, the U.S. has offered Iran few incentives to comply with the international community’s demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program: “Let’s just call a spade a spade. I’ve spoken to Iranian officials, former negotiators, actually people who worked for Dr. Rouhani earlier, and they said that so far the American incentives to Iran in these nuclear negotiations amounts to demanding diamonds for peanuts.”
Ben Caspit, writing in al-Monitor last week week, notes that as soon as the Russians hinted Iran would be willing to suspend uranium enrichment and keep it at the 20% level, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blew off the suggestion as merely cosmetic. The Israeli demand will continue to be uncompromising, Caspit says, insistent that “…nothing short of complete cessation of uranium enrichment, removal of all enriched uranium out of Iran; termination of nuclear facility activities and welcoming the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would provide sufficient guarantee of Iran’s willingness to abandon the nuclear program. Needless to say this will never happen.”
As Jim Lobe pointed out the other day, Rouhani outlined an 8-point blueprint for resolving the nuclear standoff between the U.S. and Iran in a letter to TIME in 2006. Rouhani stated:
]]>In my personal judgment, a negotiated solution can be found in the context of the following steps, if and when creatively intertwined and negotiated in good faith by concerned officials…Iran is prepared to work with the IAEA and all states concerned about promoting confidence in its fuel cycle program. But Iran cannot be expected to give in to United States’ bullying and non-proliferation double standards.