The catch? For years the United States has been accused [...]]]>
The catch? For years the United States has been accused of lending support to Jundullah as a way of fomenting instability in Iran’s ethnic Baluchi southeast.
From State’s press release:
On November 3, 2010 the Secretary of State announced the designation of Jundallah, a violent extremist organization that operates primarily in the province of Sistan va Balochistan of Iran, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) [...]
Since its inception in 2003, Jundallah has engaged in numerous attacks resulting in the death and maiming of scores of Iranian civilians and government officials, primarily in Iran’s Sistan va Balochistan province. Jundallah uses a variety of terrorist tactics, including suicide bombings, ambushes, kidnappings and targeted assassinations.
Iran responded late last month to an invitation to the November P5+1 talks on its nuclear program. Whether the latest move by the U.S. is a concession or a confidence building measure, it’s worth noting the State Department recently seems to be taking aim at Iranian national pride, such as referring to the “Persian Gulf” as the “Arabian Gulf” (see here and here).
Nonetheless, the statement on Jundullah was welcomed in Tehran, even as it bashed U.S. covert support for anti-regime groups there. According to the Iran’s semi-official news service, ISNA:
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast called the US designation of Rigi group as terrorist a “right measure.”
“Fighting terrorism is a general responsibility of all nations and the Islamic Republic of Iran regards the US measure in blacklisting Rigi terrorist group as a right measure,” he added.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran will evaluate change in the US policy on supporting terrorist groups of Jundullah (Soldiers of God), PJAK and Tondar in practice.”
Politico foreign policy blogger Laura Rozen suggests that the designation of Jundallah as a terror group could be “signal” to Iran ahead of negotiations. She quoted an unnamed Washington Iran expert who said the move is clearly aimed at engaging Iran:
The designation of Jundullah shows “one bureaucratic fight in favor of engagement was won,” one Washington Iran expert said on condition of anonymity. “But whether it’s sufficient or not and how it is followed up remains to be seen.”
U.S. geo-strategists Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett, writing on their blog, called the move a “notable turn-around” and “long overdue.” They lay out some little known history that early-on the Obama administration had considered designating Jundullah, but didn’t do so in the wake of Iran’s disputed June 2009 election. The Leveretts point out:
Since then, the perception that the United States continues to have ties to Jundallah and other groups considered terrorists by most Iranians has had a deeply corrosive effect on Iranian assessments of the Obama Administration’s seriousness about strategic engagement with Iran and its ultimate intentions towards the Islamic Republic.
As the Leveretts report, Obama inherited the wide-ranging covert program against Iran from George W. Bush, whose administration had greatly increased funding for regime change activities and subversion on Iran’s nuclear program.
In July 2008 New Yorker, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote about the expansion of Bush’s program (with my emphasis):
One of the most active and violent anti-regime groups in Iran today is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, which describes itself as a resistance force fighting for the rights of Sunnis in Iran. “This is a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists,” [Council on Foreign Relations scholar Vali] Nasr told me. “They are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and they are also thought to be tied to the drug culture.” [...] According to [former CIA agent Bob] Baer and to press reports, the Jundallah is among the groups in Iran that are benefitting from U.S. support.
A blog post on the Wall Street Journal website sums up much of the (thin) evidence for U.S. support of Jundullah, and quotes an earlier unequivocal denial to the blog from the State Department that such support had ever occurred:
]]>“We have repeatedly stated, and reiterate again that the United States has not provided support to Jundallah,” a [State] spokesman emailed. “The United States does not sponsor any form of terrorism. We will continue to work with the international community to curtail support for terrorist organizations and prevent violence against innocent civilians. We have also encouraged other governments to take comparable actions against Jundallah.”
Whitaker picks up on some of clues from the State Department that I did when I wrote about this issue last week. He concludes that this is a policy change. It’s difficult to not see this the same way Whitaker does: “a rather petty gesture calculated to annoy Iran.”
]]>At an official level, the UN and various other international bodies recognise “Persian Gulf” as the established and recommended name – presumably based on historical usage. That is also the official position of the US. Or rather, it was until last week.
On 20 October, at a press briefing on arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Andrew Shapiro, an assistant secretary at the state department, referred to “the Arabian Gulf and broader Middle East”.
On its own, this might be brushed off as a slip of the tongue, though Shapiro does seem to have been referring to a prepared statement. And since the phrase “broader Middle East” clearly includes the contentious stretch of water, why was it necessary to mention the Gulf (Persian or otherwise) at all?
Almost immediately, Shapiro’s use of “Arabian Gulf” stirred the National Iranian American Council into action, and in protest they organised a letter-writing campaign to the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Their policy director, Jamal Abdi, also wrote an article about it for the Huffington Post, which appeared on Monday.
It’s difficult to imagine, therefore, that when Kurt Campbell – another assistant secretary at the state department – stepped into another press briefing on Tuesday he was totally unaware of the “Arabian Gulf” rumpus. But he then used the phrase himself, referring to “piracy issues in the Arabian Gulf”.
This is too much of a coincidence to be accidental; it suggests a change of policy. “Persian Gulf” has been the official American term since 1917 and in the absence of any explanation from the state department we can only speculate about why it has suddenly become Arabian. There’s no logical reason for it, except as a rather petty gesture calculated to annoy Iran.
At the press conference, the Persian Gulf, the widely accepted name for the body of water, was not mentioned at [...]]]>
At the press conference, the Persian Gulf, the widely accepted name for the body of water, was not mentioned at all. Iran itself was only mentioned once (the arms sale “is not solely about Iran,” Shapiro said).
I suspect that this was not simply a slip, as Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell used the phrase “Arabian Gulf” again today in his briefing to raise the curtains on Secretary Hillary Clinton’s upcoming trip to Asia.
The National Iranian American Council, writing before today’s briefing, said that Shapiro’s use of the term “Arabian Gulf” contradicts State Department policy and also could “fuel ethnic tensions.”
Jamal Abdi, NIAC’s policy director, wrote a blog post on the subject, and NIAC created a webpage with a form to send Secretary of State Hillary Clinton an e-mail demanding that State go back to using the term “Persian Gulf.”
“The term ‘Arabian Gulf’ first appeared fifty years ago as Pan-Arabism propaganda aimed at unifying Arabs against Iranians, Israelis, and other non-Arabs in the Middle East,” wrote Abdi at the Huffington Post, adding that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden had both used the term to win over Arab populations by appealing to ethnic chauvinism.
The NIAC letter campaign page says that the name “Persian Gulf” has been widely accepted for more than two millennia.
Abdi wrote:
]]>While it may sound like a mere matter of semantics to some (though one could predict the diplomatic uproar if the US began referring to the “Gulf of America” along its Southern coast), in a region marred by ethnic tensions, usage of “Arabian Gulf” is a serious signal that could portend a dangerous, counterproductive path for the US ahead. [...]
The State Department’s sudden use of “Arabian Gulf” can only stoke tensions in the region. The move could foreshadow deterioration back to the mutual demonization that characterized much of the previous Administration’s Iran approach. President Obama successfully reigned in much of that counterproductive rhetoric and, while there has been little reciprocation from Tehran, managed to earn back significant credibility necessary for US leadership on the global stage. But by flying in the face of protocol and using the term “Arabian Gulf”, the State Department risks backsliding to a posture in which the US once again bargains away its moral authority in exchange for caustic, emotionally satisfying insults.
Such an ethnically divisive term sends the wrong message, particularly coming just weeks ahead of planned talks with Iran.