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An
Osirak in the offing
By B Raman
Since September 11, 2001, the government of Iran has been cooperating with the
international coalition led by the United States in its "war against terrorism"
originating from Afghanistan. Such cooperation is in the form of effective
sealing of Iran's borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan to prevent the crossing
over of al-Qaeda remnants from Afghanistan into Iran, assurances of assistance
to the US in missions undertaken by its armed forces for the rescue of any
American air crew forced to land in Iranian territory due to hostile ground
fire in Afghanistan, etc.
Geneva-based diplomats of the different countries that constitute the coalition
against terrorism have been meeting periodically to compare notes on the war.
They are referred to as the Geneva Group. Iran has not actively participated in
its meetings, but also has direct interaction with American diplomats in the
margins of the group meetings.
Despite this, the US has, from time to time, expressed concerns over what it
perceived as a lack of satisfactory cooperation from Iran. There have been
mainly three irritants. The first was the presence in Iranian territory of
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Hizbe Islami (HI) associates after they were
defeated by the Taliban in Afghanistan. In view of the Pakistan government's
pre-September 11 support to the Taliban, Gulbuddin and his associates feared
for their lives if they took sanctuary in Pakistani territory. They therefore
crossed over into Iran.
Tehran welcomed the HI in the apparent hope of using them against the Taliban.
At the same time, Tehran ensured that they did not indulge in any anti-US
activities from its territory. After September 11, under US pressure, the HI
were expelled. This has proved counter-productive to the US as the HI has been
welcomed by the Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan and sympathetic serving and retired
officers of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who have given them
sanctuary in Pakistan's tribal belt. The HI remnants have joined hands with the
Taliban and al-Qaeda and have been indulging in hit and run raids on US and
Afghan troops in Afghan territory.
The second point of friction was and continues to be what the US perceives as
Iranian encouragement for the activities of Ismail Khan, the warlord of the
western province of Herat in Afghanistan, in defiance of the Hamid Karzai
regime in Kabul. Ismail Khan and his followers, who are viewed by the US as the
surrogates of Iranian intelligence, have resisted the efforts of the Karzai
government to extend its authority to the Herat region. Without central control
over the Herat region, proposals for oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan to
Pakistan via Afghanistan will remain pipe dreams. Ismail Khan, who calls
himself the Amir of Herat, has refused to share local tax revenue with the
Kabul government and resists efforts to bring the armed men serving under him
under the effective control of the Afghan army. Last year, during a visit to
Afghanistan, Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary, complained that Iran
was passing on its contribution to the reconstruction assistance of the country
directly to Ismail Khan, instead of routing it through the government in Kabul,
thereby undermining its authority.
The third irritant, which has recently been aggravated by the explosions by
suspected al-Qaeda suicide bombers in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia on May 12, relates
to US allegations of al-Qaeda survivors taking sanctuary in Iranian territory
and the failure of Iranian authorities to prevent this and to arrest and hand
over to the US those already in Iranian territory. The US has not given any
details of the al-Qaeda survivors who have allegedly taken sanctuary in Iran or
where they are located. Last year, there were unconfirmed reports of Ayman
al-Zawahiri, the number 2 of al-Qaeda, who is an Egyptian, having crossed over
into Iran, but his present whereabouts are not known.
It is very unlikely that Iran would knowingly give shelter to al-Qaeda or
Taliban survivors. Both of them have been strongly anti-Shi'ite (Iran is nearly
90 percent Shi'ite) and were responsible for the massacre of the Shi'ites
(Hazaras) in central Afghanistan in the 1990s and for the slaughter of Iranian
diplomats posted in the 1990s in Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.
Iranian intelligence had always helped the Northern Alliance in its fight
against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. It would not, therefore, be in Iran's
national interest to allow al-Qaeda survivors to take shelter in its territory
and operate from there against Saudi Arabia, as alleged by the US.
At the same time, one cannot rule out the possibility of some of the Taliban
and al-Qaeda survivors finding shelter among Iranian Sunni Balochis, who live
in the region bordering Pakistan's Balochistan. In the 1980s and the early
1990s, the US's Central Intelligence Agency, Pakistan's ISI and the Iraqi
intelligence collaborated in instigating the Iranian Balochis to rise in revolt
against Teheran. The Iranian army was able to crush this revolt, but its
control over this area is still not very effective. Taking advantage of this
and of the continuing feelings of alienation of the local people against
Teheran, it could be possible for some of the Taliban and al-Qaeda survivors to
have taken shelter among the Sunni Balochi tribes on the Iranian side of the
border, just as many of them have taken shelter among the Balochi and Pashtun
tribes of Pakistan.
If this has happened, the Iranian government can by no stretch of imagination
be blamed for it. Despite strong evidence that Pakistani religious parties and
serving and retired officers of the ISI have been helping the Taliban and
al-Qaeda elements who have been operating from the Pakistani territory, the US
government has refrained from blaming the government of President General
Pervez Musharraf for their activities. Instead, it prefers to project their
presence and activities in Pakistani territory as due to circumstances beyond
the control of the Islamabad regime.
It is disinclined to take a similar generous view in respect of any terrorist
elements which might have taken shelter in Iranian territory without the
knowledge of the Teheran government. The Bush administration kept its
anti-Tehran rhetoric low, if not muted, until the war in Iraq was over because
it believed that it needed the support of the Shi'ites of Iraq in overthrowing
the Saddam Hussein regime. After occupying Baghdad, Washington has stepped up
its anti-Tehran psychological warfare (psywar) campaign. There has been an
added cause for it, namely, signs of increasing hostility of the Shi'ite
population of Iraq to the US occupation of their territory. The mullahs and
imams - the clerics of the Sunni and Shi'ite components of the population -
have been increasingly seeking to play a political role in the assertion of
Iraqi independence. Their calls for a greater role for religion in politics
have been finding a sympathetic response from the population. Hit and run
attacks on US troops in Baghdad and other parts of the country are ominous
indications of a likely Lebanon in the making. The US, without evidence, sees
the hand of the Iranian intelligence in these developments.
The beginning of this psywar campaign was marked by two significant events. The
first was the reported decision of the US Central Command not to arrest the
leaders of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), an anti-Tehran Iranian terrorist
organization, who operate against Iran from sanctuaries in Iraq provided by the
Iraqi intelligence. Among the pretexts cited by the US and the United Kingdom
for invading Iraq and overthrowing the Saddam regime was its alleged nexus with
terrorists. The MEK is designated by the US State Department as a foreign
terrorist organization under a 1996 US law which entails punitive consequences,
such as freezing bank accounts etc. The annual report of the State Department
on Patterns of Global Terrorism during 2001 said of the MEK: "Since resettling
in Iraq in 1987, the group has conducted internal security operations in
support of the government of Iraq."
It was an international crime for the Saddam government to use the MEK against
Iran to serve Iraqi national interests, but it would not be a crime for the US
to similarly use the MEK to serve US national objectives against Tehran. That
seems to be the belief of the Bush administration. It is apparent that it is
keeping the MEK as a reserve for possible use against Tehran should it decide
to bring about a change of regime in Iran, as it used Kurd terrorists against
the Saddam regime.
The second stage of the psywar campaign was the strong condemnation of Iran in
the report on the Patterns of Global Terrorism during 2002 released by Colin
Powell, the Secretary of State, in April. The language used was much stronger
than that used last year. It said: "Iran remained the most active state sponsor
of terrorism in 2002. Its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ministry of
Intelligence and Security were involved in the planning of and support for
terrorist acts and continued to exhort a variety of groups that use terrorism
to pursue their goals. Iran's record against al-Qaeda has been mixed. While it
has detained and turned over to foreign governments a number of al-Qaeda
members, other al-Qaeda members have found virtual safe haven there and may
even be receiving protection from elements of the Iranian government. Iran's
long, rugged borders are difficult to monitor, and the large number of Afghan
refugees in Iran complicates efforts to locate and apprehend extremists.
Nevertheless, it is unlikely that al-Qaeda elements could escape the attention
of Iran's formidable security services. During 2002, Iran maintained a
high-profile role in encouraging anti-Israeli activity, both rhetorically and
operationally. Supreme leader [Ali Hoseini] Khamenei referred to Israel as a
'cancerous tumor', a sentiment echoed by other Iranian leaders in speeches and
sermons. Matching this rhetoric with action, Iran provided Lebanese Hizbollah
and Palestinian rejectionist groups - notably Hamas, the Palestine Islamic
Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command -
with funding, safe haven, training and weapons. Tehran also encouraged
Hizbollah and the Palestinian rejectionist groups to coordinate their planning
and to escalate their terrorist activities against Israel. Iran also provided
support to extremist groups in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iraq with ties to
al-Qaeda, though less than that provided to the groups opposed to Israel."
Much to the concern of the US and Israel, Iran has an active nuclear power
program. Resisting US pressure not to complete the project, the Russian
government is going ahead with assisting Iran in the construction of a nuclear
power station at Bushehr. There have been allegations from the US of Iran also
trying to acquire a military nuclear capability through a factory allegedly
under construction for the enrichment of uranium. The specter of Iran's weapons
of mass destruction one day being used against Israel or getting into the hands
of terrorists is being raised. The informal bilateral interactions in the
margins of the Geneva group meetings are reported to have been discontinued,
but it is not clear whether it was the US or Iran which took the initiative in
this matter. While the Washington Post has said that it was the US which
decided to call off the interactions, there are other reports blaming Iran for
it.
The Washington Post reported on May 25 that "the White House appears ready to
take on an aggressive policy of trying to destabilize the Iranian government".
In chat shows on US TV, one can already hear orchestrated drums beating for a
regime change in Iran.
After a meeting with the Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on May
25, Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi called al-Qaeda a "dangerous
organization" and said that Iran was serious about combating it. He claimed
that Iran had already arrested and deported many al-Qaeda members who had
crossed illegally into the country and was interrogating other suspects. "There
is no way that Iranians would support al-Qaeda because we have been fighting
against al-Qaeda since before even the Americans were engaged with [fighting]
them," he said.
Disregarding his assurances, Richard Myers, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs
of Staff, told NBC TV on May 26: "The issue with Iran is pretty clear. We have
to eliminate the safe havens where the terrorists are, and Iran of course has
some of the al-Qaeda members. The reports are that al-Qaeda has been in Iran
off and on for some time, particularly after our actions in Afghanistan. Some
portions of Iranian-backed forces and organizations are in Iraq right now
trying to influence events there, to the coalition's detriment."
Until now, there are no indicators that apart from keeping up the psychological
pressure on Iran, the US is planning any other action, of either an overt or
covert nature. Overt military or covert para-military action would require time
for preparation. Surrogates, who will do the US bidding, have to be identified,
motivated and trained. Bases from which covert actions could be mounted have to
be found. The ideal locations for such bases would be Iraq and Pakistan. Since
Musharraf's visit to the US in February last year, there has been speculation
that he has agreed to the US intelligence agencies setting up clandestine
stations in Balochistan for monitoring developments in Iran and that it was due
to unhappiness over this that Abdul Sattar, the then foreign minister,
resigned, ostensibly on health grounds.
It is understood that this subject figured during the recent discussions of
Lieutenant-General Ehsanul Haq, the Director-General of the ISI, with US
intelligence officials in Washington and that there would be further
discussions on it during Musharraf's forthcoming visit to the US in the second
half of June. The Pakistani collaboration with the US in this matter is being
projected as part of the war against terrorism, intended to monitor the
activities of al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists on Iranian territory and not as
part of any destabilization project directed against Tehran. In its present
unsettled state, Iraq is unlikely to be of any major use to the US, though the
MEK terrorists could prove handy.
A more likely possibility is a preventive strike to destroy the Iranian nuclear
establishments before they are completed and commissioned next year. It would
be similar to the Israeli preemptive strike against the Osirak nuclear reactor,
which was being constructed in Iraq in the early 1980s with French assistance.
Either the US could itself carry out the strike, or encourage Israel to do so.
The Israeli government would be only too happy to oblige. The US calculation
would be that a preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear establishments would
convey a suitable warning to Tehran to act more rigorously against terrorists
and to keep off Iraq, and at the same time prove immensely popular in the US in
the run-up to next year's presidential elections, and without getting the US
involved in a messy and protracted war before the elections.
B Raman is Additional Secretary (ret), Cabinet Secretariat, Government of
India, and presently director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai; former
member of the National Security Advisory Board of the Government of India.
E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com. He was also head of the counter-terrorism division of
the Research & Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency, from
1988 to August, 1994.
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