26.03.2015

The crown under the turban

Who will come out on top, as the deadline for a nuclear deal approaches? Yassamine Mather looks at the latest claims being made about the Islamic regime

Throughout the last two weeks of the Iranian year 1393 (March 8-21) the foreign and energy ministers of Iran and their US counterparts held a series of intensive talks in Switzerland to progress this crucial stage in the negotiations. They had started back in November 2013 between the P5+1 powers and Iran, and ended up as direct negotiations between Iran and the US.

By Friday March 20 it was clear that, for all the claims made by both sides that “substantial progress had been made in key areas”, no agreement could be signed. Last week the Iranian media went into a frenzy, one minute predicting a final resolution of the conflict and the next talking of a complete breakdown. When the talks were interrupted on March 20, some blamed the death of president Hassan Rowhani’s mother, but the reality is that both sides needed time to consult their respective governments.

On the same day, in a speech to the Iranian people on the occasion of the Persian new year, president Barack Obama said: “I believe that our nations have a historic opportunity to resolve this issue peacefully - an opportunity we should not miss … This year, we have the best opportunity in decades to pursue a different future between our countries.”¹ The response of supreme leader Ali Khamenei a day later was predictable: no-one in Iran opposed a diplomatic solution. What they opposed was “American bullying” - Obama’s claim to desire friendship was “not sincere”. Subsequent statements from Obama and Khamenei make it clear that the deal is far from done. Both sides are attempting to garner public opinion behind them and preparing to blame their opponents if the talks fail.

A week is a long time in politics and this week has indeed been a perilous one for both Iranian and US negotiators. In the US the Republican-dominated Senate and Congress are set on stopping the negotiations for two important reasons: their commitments to Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to do just that; and their determination to deny Obama a much needed ‘historic foreign policy achievement’. On March 24 Mark Kirk, a Republican senator, said he would propose a “symbolic” vote on increased US sanctions against Iran during this week’s debate on the federal budget. He argued that such a move was not premature, as the original deadline for a deal has now passed.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Israeli government used European officials to spy on the negotiations in order to “help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal”.² Meanwhile, the French ambassador to the United Nations, François Delattre, echoing Netanyahu’s position, told the UN security council that “insufficient progress” had been made towards a nuclear deal.

The negotiations between P5+1 and Iran have been held in secret, so no-one but insiders know the details of what has been agreed and where the differences remain. However, it is clear from unofficial briefings that most technical issues regarding Iran’s nuclear installations have been resolved, including over uranium enrichment, Iran’s heavy water plant in Arak, International Atomic Energy Agency inspections and the number of centrifuges Iran can keep. The only remaining issue seems to be Iran’s development of advanced centrifuges, which may be used for nuclear weapons. The US and P5+1 would like to stop Iran’s research into uranium enrichment for 10 years, while France, with Israeli support, wants this period to be 15 years. Iran claims this research will be purely for non-military purposes.

Of course, those of us who do not trust the Islamic regime’s civilian nuclear programme, considering it a threat to the safety of the population (the country’s health and safety record being seriously flawed), would be horrified at the prospect of development of nuclear power in Iran. However, the P5+1 demand is ridiculous when you consider the fact that Israel already has nuclear weapons and is not a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty. It is such double standards that feed hatred of the US and its allies in the Middle East. This blatant neo-colonialist attitude allows Islamist groups, Shia or Sunni, to ‘radicalise’ and recruit young Muslims.

There is also the thorny issue of sanctions. The Iranian position is that all sanctions must be lifted immediately after the deal is signed, but there is disagreement over the meaning of ‘all sanctions’. Does it refer to sanctions imposed as a result of Iran’s nuclear programme or does it include those previously imposed by the US in the early 1980s, as conservative factions of the Islamic Republic insist? The US and its allies want the sanctions to be lifted gradually, in accordance with Iran’s continued compliance with the deal. Again this seems an unnecessary complication, given that Iran has so far complied with most of the demands put forward by P5+1 regarding its nuclear programme.

Ayatollah Khamenei used his new year speech to state that any deal with the US will not include agreement on Iran’s Middle East foreign policy and here lies another conundrum for the world hegemon power. If the US was serious about defeating Islamic State, then resolving the conflict with Iran would be a priority and the US administration could ignore protests by the usual suspects: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Dubai … not forgetting Israel.

However for all its rhetoric against IS, current US policy in the Middle East seems confused, muddled and ineffective. After each atrocity, Obama and secretary of state John Kerry tell the world the group is a major threat to civilisation, yet what exactly has the US done to weaken it? In Syria the regime of Bashar al-Assad remains the main enemy - at least according to former CIA director David Petraeus, who, in what sounded like a Likud election broadcast, said on March 22 that Iran is more of a threat than IS.

Iran and Iraq

In some ways, the current political situation in the Middle East is a disaster for the US. Yet the reality is that the current mess is the inevitable consequence of US policy in the region for the last two decades. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the complete deBa’athification of Iraq, the destruction of the Iraqi army, the support for Islamists in Syria and Yemen - all had their consequences. The main beneficiary has been Iran’s Islamic Republic, resulting in a dramatic change in the balance of forces in the region. So after a war that cost so many lives, including the lives of thousands of Iraqi civilians, a war that was supposed to bring stability to the region, there is now increasing chaos.

The events of summer 2014 showed that, for all the billions of dollars spent since the occupation on training and equipping the Iraqi army it was so weak that it was incapable of taking on IS. Half of it was wiped out when IS took over major Iraqi cities. This desperate situation, as well as threats to Shia shrines in Samarra, Karbala and Najaf, prompted the mobilisation of Shia militias, such as Badr and the Asaib Ahl al-Haq. Once they became involved, Iran’s support was inevitable.

Nominally it is the Iraqi army, air force and police that have been mobilised in this month’s campaign to recapture the town of Tikrit, but in reality Shia militias, using heavy artillery sent from Iran, have played a more significant role - although, according to some reports, Sunni tribal fighters have contributed to the fight against IS, pushing the jihadists out of much of Tikrit.

Iran is not going out of its way to advertise its involvement to the outside world. However, military officials have not tried to hide the dispatch of heavy artillery to the war zone. As early as August 2014, Iranian M-60 tanks were sent to Iraq and during the last few weeks the presence of Iranian T-72S tanks have been recorded near Tikrit. The 25,000 or so Shia militia are also using an Iranian-made BM multiple launch rocket system, the Hadid (ironically a product of Shahid Bagheri Industrial - like the rest of Iran’s aerospace industry under sanctions). Add to this the tactical vehicles equipped with light rocket launchers.

Last week, CIA director John Brennan spoke of heavy artillery sent from Iran to help Shia militias and noted the presence in Iraq of Iran’s general Qasem Soleimani as leader of the forces battling IS. There can be no doubt that such heavy-handed involvement has revived claims from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf that Iran is trying to control a belt from Tehran to Baghdad, from Damascus and Beirut - not to mention consolidating current gains by the Houthis in Yemen. Last week Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal said Iran was expanding its “unacceptable” occupation of Iraq: “Iran is already a disruptive player in various scenes in the Arab world, whether it’s Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Palestine or Bahrain.”³

The question is, who has paved the way for this situation? The answer is clear: the world hegemon power, the United States, and its allies; not just because of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but because of its meddling on the side of Saudi-financed jihadists in Libya and Syria, because of its continued unwillingness to take on the financial backers of IS in Saudi Arabia, etc, because of its failure to deal with the complicit support of its Nato ally, Turkey, for IS.

Empire

As I have argued before, the foreign policy of Iran’s Islamic Republic is not very different from that of the shah, in that it seeks Persian/Shia dominance over Arab territories for all its Islamic rhetoric - French author Olivier Roy has referred to “the crown under the turban” worn by Iran’s religious leaders. And if anyone needed a reminder of all this, they got it in the controversial comments made on March 8 by ayatollah Ali Younessi, senior advisor to president Rowhani and former minister of intelligence:

At present, not only is Iraq under the influence of our civilisation, but it is our identity, culture, centre and capital. This is the case today and has been the case in the past because the geography of Iran and Iraq is inseparable and our culture is inseparable. Thus, we either have to fight each other or become one.⁴

His comments sparked controversy and criticism from Arab leaders and the Arab-language media, with claims that they amounted to an attempt to revive Iran’s ancient empire. The Saudi-financed Al-Arabiya news agency claimed that Younessi had said: “Iran has become an empire, like it used to be through history.” This was followed by the Arabic version of CNN, with its controversial headline: “Iran is an empire and its capital is Baghdad.”

Former Iranian vice-president Mohammad Ali Abtahi criticised Younessi’s remarks: “Now that the Arab countries in the region have reached a relative unity with Israel on fears about Iran, these comments will be construed as the same threatening talk as [former president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad’s.”⁵

Younessi was forced to issue clarifications, while accusing Iran’s enemies of creating propaganda by misconstruing his comments. Rowhani’s advisor said that he was simply referring to “cultural and historic unity” between “certain countries in the region” and that his support for a “union” did not mean “an empire should be reborn”, but rather that neighbours should cooperate to “confront mutual threats”. No doubt the Saudis will use the comments as further signs of Iranian ‘arrogance’ in trying to stall the nuclear negotiations.

As we approach the March 31 deadline, the Iranian negotiators hope the disastrous situation in the region - civil wars in Iraq and Syria, IS gaining ground in north Africa, civil war in Yemen, the continuing uncertainties in Afghanistan - will convince the US of the need to make concessions regarding nuclear research and the lifting of sanctions. They are correct in their assessment that the US, at a time when it appears weak and lacking direction, is trying to bully Iran. However, they are mistaken if they rely on this alone. A weak, confused hegemon power can be more dangerous than a powerful superpower at the height of its political influence.

We will know soon who will come out on top in this particular battle - one of many in the conflicts currently ravaging the region.

yassamine.mather@weeklyworker.co.uk

Notes

1. www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/03/19/remarks-president-obama-nowruz.

2. www.wsj.com/articles/israel-spied-on-iran-talks-1427164201.

3. http://normanfinkelstein.com/2015/03/16/iran-is-already-a-disruptive-player-in-various-scenes-in-the-arab-world-whether-its-yemen-syria-iraq-palestine-or-bahrain-prince-satanic-jihadi-parasite-turki-said. See also www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4637406,00.html.

4. http://irannewsupdate.com/news/middle-east/2006-iranian-officials-boast-of-expanding-influence-in-middle-east.html.

5. www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/03/iran-iraq-rouhani-advisor-empire.html.