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Underlying motives to Iran's
U-turns
By Safa Haeri
PARIS -
The Islamic Republic of Iran, feeling the chilling
contact of the American knife at its throat, is
seriously considering its reintegration into the
international community by dramatically changing its
policies.
This process of transformation is set
to begin with the shelving of some of the 1979 Islamic
revolution's fundamental principles, as highlighted by
accepting humanitarian relief missions from the United
States for the earthquake-stricken people of Bam,
followed by the resumption of relations with Egypt - the
first Arab state to have officially recognized the state
of Israel, while considering seriously the possibility
of resuming open dialogue with the United States, aka
the "Great Satan".
As Iran's vice president for
legal and parliamentary affairs, Hojjatoleslam Mohammad
Ali Abtahi, announced that Iran and Egypt have decided
to restore ties, government spokesman Abdollah
Ramezanzadeh informed journalists that the "topic" of
Iran-American relations was "debated" at the Supreme
Council for National Security, the regime's highest
decision-making body, supervised by strongman Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei.
"The government could not give the
green light to these dramatic decisions, such as
normalizing with Egypt, the United States's closest Arab
ally in the region, and to American relief missions
without prior authorization from the leader, a staunch
adversary of normalization with the Great Satan," a
Tehran-based Iranian analyst observed, speaking to Asia
Times Online on condition of anonymity.
His view
was confirmed indirectly by Habibollah Asgar Owladi, the
general secretary of the Association of Islamic Leagues
- an old and powerful Iranian group cloaked in secrecy
to which most present Iranian ruling conservative
clerics are members - reminding that "antagonistic
relations among nations are not a fixed criteria and
could change according to [different] situations".
"Today, as the power balance between nations is
changing and evolving rapidly, if there is a listening
ear in Washington, it can go through the thick book of
Iran-American hostile relations and look for a new,
blank page for our future ties," Owladi noted in support
of the new initiatives taken by the hardliners.
Iran-Egypt relations
The announcement
of resumption of relations with Egypt came one day after
Tehran's city council, controlled by pro-conservatives
since last February's municipal elections, agreed to
remove the name of Khaled Eslambouli, the Muslim
terrorist who assassinated Egyptian president Mohammad
Anwar Sadat 24 years ago, from a Tehran street, thus
removing a major obstacle standing in relations between
the two great Muslim nations.
Speaking to
reporters on Tuesday, Hamid Reza Asefi, the senior
spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry who
personally took part in the council's stormy meeting,
said that the removal of the name was "crucial" if the
Islamic world was to stand up to Israel, the Middle East
state that Iranian ruling ayatollahs have wowed to
annihilate.
Several members of the council spoke
out against the move, but in the end they accepted to
rename the street to "Intifada", the Palestinians'
"Stone Revolution", after they were told that Cairo had
reciprocated in changing the name of Pahlavi Street -
named after the late Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran who
was deposed in the Islamic revolution - to that of Dr
Mossadeq, Iran's popular prime minister who nationalized
the Iranian oil industry in 1953. But observers said no
streets in Cairo or in any other Egyptian city had in
fact ever been named after the Iranian royal dynasty.
Cairo made a sine qua none condition that
the removal of the name "Eslambouli" from the street was
essential to normalizing relations with the Islamic
Republic, ties that were severed on order from the late
grand ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader and
founder of the Islamic Republic, to "punish" the
Egyptians for officially recognizing Israel and for
offering exile and badly needed medical treatment to
Pahlavi, the deposed Iranian monarch, who died some
months later of an acute cancer.
In a vicious
article published only last month, the daily Jomhuri
Eslami (Islamic Republic), the mouthpiece of Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, called on the Egyptian people to
assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. "Examining
the consequences of the Iran-Iraq war, it becomes
apparent that Hosni Mubarak, the cold-blooded Butcher of
Cairo and the arch-slaughterer of Cairo's Camp David
regime, is the first on a long list of sickening
personalities and among the first who should be brought
to trial in the court of Islamic justice," wrote
Jomhouri Eslami.
But a possible sign that
relations between Iran and Egypt could be on the mend
came from spokesman Asefi, who welcomed a statement made
in Cairo on Monday by Ahmad Maher, the Egyptian foreign
affairs minister that suggested "past ups and downs in
Iran-Egypt relations, including the Camp David issue, be
buried to prepare the future for better relations
between the two nations."
Iran-United States
relations
Tehran's quick acceptance of American
relief missions for the quake-stricken people of Bam,
the city and region in south eastern Iran that was hit
by a strong earthquake on December 26, killing close to
50,000 people and destroying 80 percent of the houses
and infrastructure, prompted speculation that the
disaster might help warm relations between Tehran and
Washington, cut since the victory of the Islamic
revolution of 1979.
"The topics of relations
with the United States are debated at the Supreme
Council for National Security, [SCNS] the regime's
highest decision-taking body," spokesman Ramezanzadeh
told reporters when asked about the need to study
Iran-US relations. "Of course, Tehran-Washington
relations are complicated and full of problems which
require appropriate time and atmosphere," he added.
Iran has also welcomed US President George W
Bush's decision to lift some American sanctions against
the Islamic Republic, allowing American non-governmental
organizations and Iranians living in the US to send
money and other equipment to the needy people of Bam.
According to an Iranian scholar who did not wish
to be named, this Iranian volte face is dictated
by the "syndrome of surviving, just like the situation
of someone who, abandoned in a tumultuous sea, would, in
order to save his life, cling to a shark".
"The
original idea of dialogue with Washington is aimed
mostly at buying time to the date the Americans get
fully engaged in the electoral process ... a time period
where America is totally paralyzed politically," the
scholar noted, reminding that the Americans sent relief
and rescue teams to Bam only after Ayatollah Khamenei
gave authorization.
In fact, prior to
dispatching the teams, Iranian ambassador to the United
Nations Mohammad Javad Zarif was contacted by US Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who received a
prompt reply from Zarif, after he received a positive
answer from the office of the leader in Tehran.
According to well-informed sources in Tehran,
the scenario worked out by the trio of Hojjatoleslam
Hasan Rohani, the influential secretary of the SCNS, Dr
Ali Akbar Velayati, special adviser to the leader on
foreign affairs and Mohammad Javad Ardeshir Larijani,
also a senior adviser to Khamenei for international
relations, envisages that the conservatives will win
control of the next majlis - Iran's 290-seat parliament
- following legislative elections next month - in turn
keeping Khatami's hands tied for the rest of his final
term of office, which expires in 2005. In this very
likely case; the next speaker will be Rohani. The majlis
would then give the go-ahead to the start of open
negotiations with the Americans, the Iranian delegation
being led by Larijani. This process is necessary to
prepare the public for accepting the change of heart by
the leader and the conservatives, until now, stubbornly
opposed to any dialogue with the Great Satan.
It
is interesting to note that it was Rohani, in tandem
with Larijani, who conducted the talks with the
International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as with the
envoys of Europe's Big Three, namely the foreign affairs
ministers of Britain, France and Germany, leading to
Iran's signing of the Additional Protocol to the
Non-Proliferation Treaty, allowing international nuclear
inspectors to visit, at will, any Iranian
nuclear-related site or project without the slightest
restrictions from the Iranian authorities.
Of
the three American preconditions for normalizing
relations with the Islamic Republic, namely giving sound
assurances that they are not after weapons of mass
destruction, stop supporting terrorist groups and stop
supporting Arab and Palestinian organizations opposed to
peace with Israel. Tehran has directly and indirectly
fulfilled two of them by signing the protocols and
normalizing ties with Egypt, leaving the issues
surrounding hostilities with the Jewish state.
The surprise decision of Libyan maverick
President Muammar Gaddafi last month to abandon all
projects for building an atomic arsenal and open the
nation to unrestricted international inspections as well
as granting Libyans the freedom to travel anywhere,
including Tel Aviv - moves that quickly won him
international acclaim, including from Washington - did
not go unnoticed by the Iranian leaders.
"As
things are unfolding in Tehran, maybe Khamenei might
become an ally to Washington, as Gaddafi is becoming,
just in order to survive," the Iranian analyst
suggested.
But it is speculated that such
efforts by Tehran to gain Washington's approval will be
counterproductive - particularly in terms of enhancing
the lives of the Iranian people.
"It is an irony
of history that for 25 years the gentlemen that have
ruled Iran have suppressed freedoms and imprisoned
dissidents in the name of hostility with the United
States and foreign threats, and now they try to continue
oppression and opposing freedom by buying American's
friendship," said Ali Keshtgar, editor of the
Paris-based monthly Mihan (Motherland), adding that the
change of policy by Iran was "dictated" by the fear of
drawing the same fate as disposed Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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