How Britain botched the Iran
stand-off By Mahan Abedin
As anticipated, the British government
officially accused Iran of complicity in the
targeting and killing of its troops in southern
Iraq. However, the accusations are weak and
clumsily constructed, to the point of being silly.
The bomb technology that the British refer to is
more than 50 years old, has been used in a variety
of conflicts around the world, and is also known
to have been in the possession of the former Iraqi
military intelligence service.
The real
concern is that the Blair government is using Iran
as a smokescreen for its increasingly desperate
plight in Iraq. The British dilemma in Iraq is
simple but also intractable: they have devoted
significant resources to the conflict, but have only
marginal influence on the real
decision-making (which is done by the Americans).
Moreover, there is every reason to believe
that the United Kingdom is using the excuse of
Iranian meddling in Iraq as a subterfuge for its
own plans for a long-term intelligence presence in
Iraq and as a device for applying further pressure
on the Islamic Republic over the nuclear
stand-off.
Odd accusations The
accusations of the British government are odd for
principally four reasons. Firstly, the manner in
which the accusations were
"The
secret intelligence war between the two sides
[Britain and Iran] in Iraq is currently
manageable. Whether it remains that way depends,
to a large extent, on how Britain manages its
relations with Iran over a number of issues
..."
announced to
the world was unusual. They were first disclosed
by an "anonymous" senior official to a group of
correspondents in London on October 5.
The
"anonymous" official claimed, in no uncertain
terms, that Iran was helping to kill British
troops by providing bomb technology to Shi'ite
insurgents, possibly through the Lebanese
Hezbollah. But the very next day, Prime
Minister Tony Blair was more diplomatic about
Iranian complicity, claiming that the evidence led
either to Iran or its Lebanese militant allies
Hezbollah, but adding, "We can't be sure of this."
There was also disquiet in the British
military establishment, with the Guardian
reporting on October 6, "Defense sources suggested
that blaming the Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps for supplying the explosives technology was
going too far."
Secondly, bringing the
Lebanese Hezbollah into the equation simply makes
no sense. Iran has direct access to southern Iraq
and, moreover, has many official representatives
(not to mention hundreds of covert operatives) in
the Basra area alone. Given this impressive
presence, it is difficult to see why the Iranians
would want to involve a Lebanese political
party/militia in their dealings with Shi'ite
forces in the south of Iraq. The British, it
seems, have unwisely copied Israeli disinformation
methodology. Indeed, whenever Israel levels an
extraordinary allegation against Iran, it almost
invariably involves the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Thirdly, the accusation that "rogue"
elements in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps
(IRGC) are behind the transfer of technology
seriously undermines the British government's
position. Either the British know very little
about Iranian security policy or they are
deliberately employing a deceptive argument.
The fact is that there are no "rogue"
elements in the IRGC. The IRGC is, first and
foremost, an ideological military organization
with its own independent command, comprised of
ground, naval and air forces. This makes Iran the
only country in the world to operate two
completely independent military structures (ie,
the regular military and the IRGC).
Moreover, aside from being a military
organization, the IRGC has security/intelligence
capabilities and other civilian infrastructure.
For instance, the best specialized medical clinics
in Iran (particularly those pertaining to
dentistry and laser eye surgery) are owned and
operated by the IRGC.
Overall, the IRGC
directly employs up to 350,000 personnel, 120,000
of whom serve in its ground, naval and air forces.
The IRGC is a vast organization, and as such it is
subject to intense discipline.
The idea
that "rogue" elements within this organization are
actively engaged in undermining Iranian foreign
policy is simply a non-starter. These deceptive
arguments are usually deployed to buttress
unsubstantiated accusations against the Islamic
republic.
Last, but not least, the
transfer of bomb technology (which is at the heart
of the British government's accusations) simply
makes no sense from a technical perspective. The
technology in question (which involves specially
shaped charges capable of penetrating armor) is up
to 50 years old and there is nothing particularly
"Iranian" about it.
It has been used in a
variety of conflicts, notably in Sri Lanka, where
it has been deployed by the Tamil Tigers. While it
is true that the Lebanese Hezbollah deployed these
types of devices against the Israeli Defense
Forces (IDF) in southern Lebanon in the 1990s, it
is equally true that the technology was widely
known to the Istikhbarat, the former Iraqi
military intelligence service.
In fact,
the Istikhbarat closely tracked Iran's military
relationship with Hezbollah, and had even sent a
specialized team to Lebanon in 1995 to study
Hezbollah tactics against the IDF. This expertise
is being widely used by Iraqi Arab Sunni
insurgents (who are mostly led by former
Istikhbarat and Mukhabarat officers) against US
forces in the western, central, north-central and
northern regions of Iraq.
Given that this
technology is widely available to and exploited by
the Arab Sunni guerrilla movement, there is no
reason why it should not travel further south to
benefit the emerging Shi'ite insurgency against
the British presence.
In any case, the
circuitous route through which this old and
well-known technology is supposed to have been
transferred (ie from Iran to Hezbollah and then to
the Iraqi Shi'ites) is implausible, if not
downright spurious.
Iran strikes
back Taken aback by the British
accusations, the Iranian government has hit back
by implicating Britain in the twin bombings that
occurred in Ahwaz (the capital of Iran's Khuzestan
province) on October 15, killing four people.
Although the Iranian government has provided no
solid evidence to implicate the British, these
accusations are not altogether extraordinary.
The consensus in Iran (both in the
security/intelligence community and the media
establishment) is that the bombings in Ahwaz, as
well as six bombings in June, are the work of very
small Arab separatist groups that are ultimately
controlled by elements in the (former) Iraqi
military intelligence service.
Privately,
Iranian officials are worried that the events in
Khuzestan signal the export of the Iraqi
insurgency to Iran. But there is a British
connection, albeit one which is not necessarily
decisive. The Khuzestani Arab separatists (who
call this southeastern Iranian province
"Arabistan") were closely nurtured by the former
Ba'athist government in Iraq and were an integral
part of (former) Iraqi intelligence operations in
Khuzestan. But they have also had a presence in
Britain since the late 1970s.
Indeed, they
seized the Iranian Embassy in 1980, prompting the
British authorities to deploy the Special Air
Services against them. But throughout much of the
1980s, Iranian Arab separatists were able to
operate freely in the UK, even though the British
authorities were well aware of their Iraqi
intelligence connections. The atmosphere changed
in 1990, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and
the end of the prolonged honeymoon between the
West and Saddam Hussein.
Indeed, during a
number of occasions in the 1990s, Iranian Arab
separatists based in the UK were intercepted at
Heathrow airport by UK security service (MI5)
officers as they were about to board flights to
locations such as Larnaka, Athens and Istanbul,
where they would meet Iraqi intelligence officers.
The message from the British was clear:
Iraqi intelligence activity on UK soil would not
be tolerated (as it had been in the 1980s). But
since the downfall of Saddam, Iranian Arab
separatists are back in favor in London. They have
met Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, on at least
one occasion and the Iranian government alleges
that many more secret meetings have taken place.
Interestingly, Iranian Arab separatists have also
been openly courted by the Canadian government.
None of this implicates the British
government in the bombings in Ahwaz, but the very
fact that UK officials are showing greater
hospitality to elements which, at the very least,
applaud these bombings, makes the Iranian
government understandably nervous. Seen from this
perspective, Iranian accusations pointing to
British complicity in the bombings in Ahwaz have
more merit than British accusations implicating
Iran in the emerging Shi'ite insurgency.
Moreover, the Iranians are increasingly
concerned over British intelligence activity in
Khuzestan, despite the fact that the pattern of
British military intelligence activity in the
province since the summer of 2003 points to
irregular, amateurish and in some cases completely
pointless operations.
For all the legend
erected around British intelligence over the past
100 years, on the ground in today's Iraq and Iran
their methodology and operations are amateurish
and least suited to generating quality long-term
intelligence. While the British military in Iraq
has been able to access useful short-term
intelligence and has exploited it to quell any
serious resistance to their increasingly unpopular
presence, the wider UK intelligence community has
failed to lay the foundations for a long-term
intelligence presence in Iraq. However, the
Iranians fear that as they stay longer in the
region, the British will correct their mistakes
and be able to operate more successfully.
In order to deter British penetration, the
Iranians initially resorted to heavy-handed
tactics. This was best exemplified by the seizure
of three Royal Navy vessels and eight marines and
sailors by IRGC naval units in the Arvand River
(Shatt al-Arab) in June 2004. Although it is not
clear if the marines had strayed into Iranian
waters, the IRGC claimed that they had and
subjected them to public humiliation.
The
message to the British was clear: keep well away
from Iran. According to journalistic sources in
Tehran, over the past 16 months several British
military intelligence operations have been
thwarted by the IRGC, either right on the border
with Iraq or inside the extreme eastern regions of
Khuzestan.
In one case, it is claimed, the
IRGC even detained two British soldiers (of
Gujarati origin) who were presumed to be involved
in a Force Research Unit (FRU) operation in
Khuzestan. The IRGC wanted to publicly humiliate
them, but was overruled by senior officials, who
delivered the captured soldiers to the British
Embassy in Tehran.
An Iranian Foreign
Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, referring to
Tehran's complaint that the UK had not provided
evidence to support its accusations against Iran,
recently stated: "We don't talk without proof and
documentation."
This is probably a message
to the UK government that any further accusations
against Iran might be met by Iranian revelations
on thwarted FRU operations in Khuzestan. In any
case, accusations and counter-accusations (even if
backed up with solid evidence) will have a
significantly negative impact on already tense
Anglo-Iranian relations.
British end
game in Iraq? Attacks against British
soldiers in southern Iraq are likely to increase
in the coming months. These attacks are primarily
motivated by one factor alone: the British are no
longer needed in southern Iraq. The south is
largely peaceful and the security structures
created by Shi'ite militias have proved highly
effective.
Much of the tension between the
UK military and the militias is rooted in the
almost universal wish in the Shi'ite south that
the British begin withdrawing immediately. While
the British government has hinted that it might
start withdrawing substantially from May 2006
onwards, no firm guarantees to this effect have
been given to Iraqi authorities in the south.
But there is a deeper reason why Iraq is
now such a dilemma for UK foreign policy. From a
British perspective, the country has invested
significant resources in the Iraq conflict, but
has reaped very few benefits apart from
consolidating the "special relationship" with the
US.
Indeed, British prestige in the region
and the wider world has declined since the war and
the Iraq conflict may have even been the decisive
factor that propelled four young British Muslim
suicide bombers to attack their own country in
July.
Instinctively, the Blair government
wants to stay in Iraq as long as the Americans, if
only to reap the final rewards of a "democratic"
and "stable" Iraq. But evidence on the ground
suggests that while a stable Iraq is, at best, 10
years away, a democratic Iraq may forever remain a
neo-conservative fantasy.
From a wider
geostrategic perspective, if the British
government is hoping to apply pressure on Iran in
the nuclear stand-off, then it has completely
misread events in Tehran over the past few months.
While this kind of pressure might have had an
impact on the previous Mohammed Khatami
government, the new government of President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad is stridently nationalist and has made
it clear that Iran will not make any concessions
over its right to master the nuclear fuel cycle.
The message from the Ahmadinejad
administration, and the Iranian nationalists who
stand behind him, is clear: even if the British
believe in their own propaganda there is not much
that they can do about it.
Given this
state of affairs, it is difficult to escape the
conclusion that the British government has badly
miscalculated. Indeed, if the British government
wanted to portray itself as a key player in the
nuclear stand-off, the uncompromising message from
Tehran leaves little doubt that the UK is merely a
pawn in an escalating geostrategic conflict
between the Islamic Republic and the United
States.
Mahan Abedin is the
editor of Terrorism Monitor, which is published by
the Jamestown Foundation, a non-profit
organization specializing in research and analysis
on conflict and instability in Eurasia. The views
expressed here are his own.
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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