by Jahandad Memarian
According to a recent special report on Iran in The Economist: “The revolution is over.” The article concludes by suggesting that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s approach to the country’s controversial nuclear program and international relations is a departure from that of his predecessors. While the piece makes several noteworthy points, it fails to mention some important nuances of Iran’s foreign policy paradigm shift, a movement three decades in the making.
Ruhi Ramazani, a veteran scholar on Iranian affairs, has long demonstrated that since Iran’s 1979 revolution, the country’s foreign policy-makers have broken away from a doggedly spiritual paradigm in varying degrees, at times acting directly in opposition to long-held religious, moral, and ideological values. Indeed, the intervening years since the Iranian Revolution have facilitated an evolution of the country’s foreign policy, which has culminated as a hybrid political construct framed by both pragmatism and spirituality, as Ramazani asserts in his book, Independence Without Freedom.
The leader of Iran’s revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, a super-idealist, led the charge toward a more aspirational foreign policy paradigm based on ideals rooted in what Ramazani describes as spiritual pragmatism. To achieve this, Khomeini, at times, allowed deviations from “his ideological line” (Khatti Imam) and adjusted his worldview in response to social and political circumstances. Whether in regard to declaratory or practical policies, no one altered Khomeini’s line more than Khomeini himself.
For example, after the 1979 American hostage crisis in in Tehran, which began the era of ever-increasing US sanctions on Iran, Khomeini declared, “We must become isolated in order to become independent.” Yet following the release of the hostages in 1981 and the liberation of the Iranian port city of Khorramshahr from Iraqi forces in 1982, Khomeini saw his power consolidated at home and turned the lens on his ardent followers. He placed the blame for Iran’s “hermit” status on the international stage squarely on their shoulders. In one markedly critical accusation of his hard-line supporters, Khomeini even went so far as to cite the prophet Muhammad as an example of someone who sent out ambassadors to establish conciliatory relations with the outside world. To demand that Iran permanently cut ties with other countries made no sense, said Khomeini, because for Iran “it would mean defeat, annihilation, and being buried right to the end.”
Perhaps the most salient example of Khomeini’s pragmatism was Iran’s decision to secretly purchase arms, for its defensive war against Iraq (1980-88), from both the United States and Israel in what came to be known as the Iran-Contra Affair (1985-87). By striking a deal through intermediaries, American and Israeli military supplies were provided to Tehran in return for its cooperation and assistance in securing the release of Western hostages in Lebanon. In negotiating with his adversaries, Khomeini’s pragmatism proved he was focused on the bigger picture for Iran.
Many Iranian leaders have attempted following in Khomeini’s footsteps. Even president Sayyid Ali Khamenei, now the country’s Supreme Leader, adopted similar views under Iran’s “open door” foreign policy and declared, in the summer of 1986, that “Iran seeks a rational, sound, and healthy relations with all countries.”
What would these healthy relations look like for Iran? Consider the example of the high point in US-Iran relations that occurred during the two countries’ decision to cooperate in response to the war in Afghanistan. In late 2001, Iranian diplomats (and even some members of the Revolutionary Guard) domestically lobbied for working with the United States to deliver the mutual benefit of toppling the Taliban and implementing a new political order in Afghanistan. Ayatollah Khamenei conceded and as a result Iran offered airbases, search-and-rescue missions for downed American pilots, the tracking and killing of al-Qaeda leaders, and assistance in building ties with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. But this warming in relations was short-lived. Not long after taking advantage of Iran’s assistance, then-President George W. Bush declared Iran as part of an “Axis of Evil,” thereby instantly destroying the tenuous goodwill the two discordant countries had been working to build.
In another example, during his first two terms, President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani pressed for military reconstruction and economic development as a means of emphasizing the country’s practical needs following the end of the Iran-Iraq war. During his time in office, Rafsanjani invited Conoco Oil, a US company, to bid for the Sirri oil field development project (the largest in Iran’s history at that time). With Khamenei’s approval, Rafsanjani worked to close the Conoco deal, understanding that this act would significantly increase economic relations between Iran and the United States. But not long after the $1 billion deal was awarded to Conoco, the Clinton administration blocked the contract as a “threat to national security.”
There are of course other events in the Islamic Republic’s history proving that from Ayatollah Khomeini to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, many Iranian leaders have genuinely attempted to—even in the face of powerful internal and external impediments—implement a hybrid paradigm, with each leader assigning different weights to practical and spiritual considerations. Considered with this history in mind, Rouhani’s efforts to facilitate compromises in regard to the Iran’s nuclear program are not, as The Economist suggests, a turning point in Iranian politics. They’re merely a continuation of an ongoing trend that should have been noticed by Western analysts long before now.
Jahandad Memarian is a research associate at the West Asia Council and a senior research fellow at Nonviolence International as well as a contributor to Al-Monitor and the Huffington Post. He holds an M.A. in Western Philosophy from the University of Tehran and was previously an Iranian Fulbright scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 2010-11. Prior to that, Mr. Memarian was a researcher at the Iranian Parliament Research Center and worked as a journalist for the Iranian news daily, Hamshahri.
]]>My dear friend and colleague, Henry Precht, in his discussion Wednesday about the sad path of US-Iran affairs in the last 30 years, did not mention that a day after his snowy trip to the State Department, the Embassy in Tehran was under heavy [...]]]>
The attack was not totally unexpected because there was evidence of someone listening to our Marines’ communications and a small compound that we had considered retreating to in the event of attack was destroyed by bombing two days previously. Not much preparation, however, could realistically be done in the chaos of early revolutionary enthusiasm. The Iranian police guard force that had been with us for years had been removed. Cinema was useless guidance; there was no cavalry riding hard in our direction nor flight of additional marines landing with flags flying. As Ambassador William Sullivan said to me, we had to suck it up and pray.
The previous evening in his office, the Ambassador reviewed instructions to the small marine force that basically had the marines retreat slowly from guard posts without engaging in combat against the heavily armed invaders and to fall back into the chancery. We were aware that many years previously, when the Russian embassy was invaded, they had fought and perished.
Within the Embassy, the Ambassador and the Lieutenant General in charge of the assistance program very narrowly escaped being killed as bullets swept through the front office. Shock, fear and near panic. And then widespread telephoning to just about any person you might happen to have come to know in the five days of the new post-revolutionary government. In the meantime, we were letting onto the second floor staff and marines who went through clouds of tea gas as the invaders slipped into the basement and first floor. Documents that had not been destroyed and sensitive communications were being torn apart. Finally when the attackers, who were standing outside a 1/4 inch steel door that had been repeatedly penetrated by gunfire, threatened to set the chancery on fire, we opened the door and two Keffiyeh-clad young men entered with their kalashnikovs. Not long later, an informal rescue force was sent by Deputy Prime Minister Ibrahim Yazdi and after a bit of palaver the leftists departed.
We were extraordinarily lucky that the official from a five day-old government recognized the danger we were in, the possibility that any ties with the US were at stake and that he had the courage to send a force from his party element to save us — Americans, of all people.
Ten months later, when hundreds of students again invaded the chancery grounds, that same government was not in a political position to repeat their act of courage and the hostages endured their long imprisonment. This became known as the Iran hostage crisis.
These two examples of the seizure of the same embassy with a few of the same people and with the same government in power and other actual take-overs made me wonder whether the Senate had learned anything from past experiences and whether in the Benghazi hearings they even called upon those who have been unfortunate enough to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Senator McCain has been a man of true guts and perhaps the others close to him are as well, but quite obviously they were more interested in trying to make political points from the tragedy, which they hoped might affect the election. McCain at one point appeared indignant that we apparently were not certain about the identity of the group that was firing all sorts of weapons. Well, Senators, no one was going to go out into the street and enquire; keeping your head down and figuring how to survive and hoping some friendly force might arrive in time was, I imagine, the driving force.
The number of appalling questions on this tragedy was quite disturbing. It has not been a shining period by the Senate; perhaps their official background makes it all somewhat understandable. When they make their trips abroad, they are met at the plane, and hastened to town by armed convoy trying to avoid all dangerous and unpleasant spots in the itinerary.
Another more serious problem we face is the unwillingness of so many on the hill to realize that we are going through a period of great transformation of power and attitudes toward the United States. They can fight it all they want but that only adds to the difficulty of life abroad.
In recent decades, the destruction by bombing or the attacks by cadres of anti-American terroists have neared common-place; Pakistan, Beirut, East Africa, Kuwait, Bogota, Ankara the other day (check google, the list is too long to produce here.) Rather than spending time looking for some avoidance of responsibility and threatening to hold up the appointment of John Kerry as Secretary of State, the Senate Committee could have taken a serious look at the entire range of possible help that was available.
One thing remains clear and deserves repetition: if the government to which our envoys are accredited finds itself unable or not daring enough to risk sending counter forces, your embassy is as good as gone. There may be an example awaiting us of dispatching a well-armed rescue force, but that will be the unusual one. Bombing can only be avoided if the chancery is isolated and immune from daily traffic. Some governments are very reluctant to agree to special traffic arrangements since our embassies are frequently located in busy neighborhoods. When governments are dealing with major political disorder, our facilities are in danger and that seems to cover much of the Middle East and areas further east.
Two issues should predominate in our search for more safety. When we are aware of local insecurity and there is some history of anti-Americanism sentiment, do we try to continue to maintain normal relations, reduce staff, or in extremis close the facility? Budget questions may also intrude.
In pre-revolutionary Tehran I recommended a sort of half-staff that would permit much of the more important duties to be met, but one experienced political officer thought that three men and a vicious dog would suffice! In view of the course of events there, he may have been right.
What do you do when a government like Pakistan sits idly by until the embassy staff was in dire danger from fire. Should we continue any special programs with a country that does little to help? Should we take commensurate military action? There are many variations of these questions that deserve careful thought, but this will not occur if political maneuvering is the main ambition.
Photo: President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton honor the Benghazi victims at the Transfer of Remains Ceremony held at Andrews Air Force Base, Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, September 14, 2012. An attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya claimed the lives of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and security personnel Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty on September 11, 2012. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
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