British Arabism and the
bombings in Iran By Mahan
Abedin and Kaveh Farrokh
Following the
recent bomb attack in Ahwaz and the riots and
bombings in late spring, the Iranian government,
as well as other sections of Iranian society both
inside and outside the country, has pointed an
accusing finger at the United Kingdom.
On
the surface the accusations seem implausible, not
least because they invoke irrational Iranian fears
of British guile and omnipotence. However, there
is a mass of evidence that connects the British
secret state to Arab separatism in Iran.
Whether these connections make the United
Kingdom complicit in the recent troubles in
Khuzestan is currently unclear. But, at
the
very least, the British connection fatally
undermines claims that the recent troubles in
Iran's strategic southwestern province are either
wholly rooted in local conditions or the work of
elements in the Islamic republic who seek to
"militarize" the country.
British
Arabism An in-depth understanding of the
British sponsorship of Arab separatism in Iran
requires an understanding of British Arabism in
its entirety. Francis Fukuyama, in his description
of the American Arabists, opines that they are
"... a sociological phenomenon ... Arabists not
only take on the cause of the Arabs, but also the
Arabs' tendency for self-delusion".
That
tendency for self-delusion is vividly expressed by
the main tenets of Arab nationalism, which views
all non-Arab Muslim peoples as subsidiary to the
Arab language and culture. Moreover, Robert Kaplan
observes that psychologically the English-speaking
Arabist is "obsessed with the Arabs ... a defining
Arabist trait". This psychological process is
subsumed under British commercial and political
interests. This is vividly exemplified in the case
of T E Lawrence, as defined by Kaplan (1993):
"Lawrence ... among Arabs in the desert ... became
pro-Arab; in Whitehall he was pro-Empire."
British Arabism can trace its origins to
geopolitical imperialism, namely the need to
project political, economic, and if necessary,
military power into Persia. The first official
Arabists are Sir Charles Lyall (1845-1920) and
William Muit, both civil servants of the British
East India Company.
Lyall published works
on Arabic literature, including pre-Islamic odes,
while Muit wrote extensively about the Arab
caliphate. It is difficult to ascertain why they
were so keenly interested specifically in Arabic,
as Arabic, along with Persian and Sanskrit, had
been banned from India's educational system since
the 1830s. Another early Arabist was a Cambridge
professor, E H Palmer, whose knowledge of Arabic
was useful in his role as a secret agent in Egypt,
where he died in action in August 1882.
It
was in the Arab Bureau of Cairo, however, where
British Arabism was formally implemented as a tool
for the advancement of British geopolitical and
economic interests. The Arab Bureau was set up on
February 4, 1916. It was from here that the
British coordinated their activities with the
local Arab sheikhs of the Persian Gulf.
Their main mission by World War I was to
foster an Arab rebellion by way of the invention
of Arab nationalism, a domain viewed as a
"product" by the British Foreign Office and the
Arab Bureau. The primary objective was to
accomplish the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
Arab nationalism, since the conclusion of World
War I, has been encouraged to focus itself against
Iran, an ideological proclivity that was taken to
its logical extremes by the Ba'athist regime of
Saddam Hussein.
Today, the Arab Bureau
survives in the form of various innocuous-sounding
organizations, namely the Arab-British Center, the
CAABU (Council for the Advancement of Arab-British
Understanding), the Arab-British Charitable Trust,
the Labor Middle East Council, the Anglo-Arab
Association and (until 1979) MECAS (Middle East
Center for Arab Studies).
While British
Arabism has penetrated many sectors of British
national life, it is particularly influential in
the intelligence, academic and media fields. It is
interesting to note that British academic Arabists
do not focus on the entire Arab world, which
includes Egypt and Libya. Instead, the British
academic Arabists have been almost exclusively
preoccupied with the eastern Arab world, which is
contiguous to Iran (historical Persia) and the
Persian Gulf, areas rich in fossil fuels and hence
of prime importance to British economic and
commercial interests.
To summarize,
British Arabism, although a genuine academic
discipline and psychological condition, is
ultimately a device for furthering British
interests in the Middle East. Moreover, the
apparent advocacy of Arab issues among British
Arabists is selective in three ways:
They have remained largely silent (or neutral)
with respect to the Arab-Palestinian disputes with
the Israelis.
They have opposed the formation of a single
unified Arab superstate along the lines proposed
by T E Lawrence.
They actively support anti-Persian views with
respect to the role of Persia in the geography,
linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, history
and culture of Islam, the Arabic world, and the
Persian Gulf.
British intelligence and
Iranian Arab separatists The severing of
Iran's Khuzestan province and its "Arabization"
has been a long-held British goal. In fact, this
policy was made clear in the November 2, 1944
editorial of the Times of London, which proposed
Iran's dismemberment by having Khuzestan
appropriated by the British.
To achieve
this long-term objective, British Arabists have
supported Arab nationalist activities (academic
and military) against Iran and in Khuzestan in
particular. Needless to say, this plan neatly
converged with the ideology and geopolitical
aspirations of Arab nationalists, particularly of
the Ba'athist variety.
When Iraq invaded
Iran on September 22, 1980, with the stated intent
of annexing Khuzestan, the BBC news network and
English print media, as well as other major
Western media outlets, provided full overage of
the Iraqi invasion in the first week.
There were two main premises to the
reporting: (a) Iranian resistance would collapse
quickly; (b) the Arabs of Khuzestan would fully
support the invasion. These premises proved to be
utterly unfounded, with Iranian resistance
actually stiffening, leading to the permanent
expulsion of Saddam's armies from Khuzestan in
1982. The vast majority of Iranian Arabs not only
did not support Saddam, but were in fact at the
forefront of resistance to the Iraqi invaders.
The failed Iraqi invasion of Khuzestan
(which was partly based on British invasion plans
dating back to 1937) has been, to date, the most
concerted and determined effort to sever the
province from Iran. The fact that it failed was a
massive blow to small groups of separatists in the
area, and they would have likely faded away had it
not been for the patronage of the Iraqi and
British intelligence services.
Although
Iranian Arab separatists have had a presence in
the UK since the 1970s, their activities became
noteworthy after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Working in concert with Iraqi intelligence
services, Khuzestani separatists engaged in
low-level sabotage operations against Iranian
interests in the UK and mainland European
countries.
These sabotage activities
reached a dramatic climax on April 30, 1980 when
Iraqi-backed Khuzestani separatists seized the
Iranian Embassy in London. The subsequent siege
lasted for five days, during which time Iraqi
agents killed two of the embassy's staff. But the
terrorists offered virtually no resistance when
Britain's elite Special Air Services stormed the
embassy building, killing five out of the six
Iraqi agents.
The dramatic events at the
embassy were very much the exception to the rule,
as far as British pressure on UK-based Khuzestani
separatists was concerned. Indeed, from the early
1980s, the UK has been home to almost all
expatriate Khuzestani separatists (with a small
number also based in Baghdad), where their
activities are tolerated as long as they do not
engage in brazen acts of violence on British soil.
Behind the scenes, however, British
toleration in the 1980s translated into active
cooperation with the separatists. In some cases,
the British even shared separatist agents with the
Iraqi intelligence services. In two specific cases
dating back to 1985, the British used Khuzestani
separatists to infiltrate the Iranian consulate in
Manchester and the Iranian Air Force logistics
office in the National Iranian Oil Company office
in Westminster.
It is interesting to note
that both the Iranian consulate in Manchester and
the logistics office were closed down by the
British government in 1987. It is unclear whether
information supplied by the separatist agents was
a decisive factor in the closure of these
establishments.
But the spirit of public
toleration and private cooperation collapsed,
almost overnight, after the Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Saddam's brazen
challenge to the West and Iraq's desire to change
the geopolitical balance of the region forced
Western intelligence services to cease their
cooperation with their Iraqi counterparts.
Khuzestani Arab separatists were one of the many
victims of this sudden collapse in relations
between Iraq and the West.
The Gulf War of
early 1991 and the catastrophic defeat of Iraq
further added to the separatists' woes. Today,
Khuzestani separatist spokesmen in the UK claim
that their cooperation with Iraqi intelligence
services ended after the Iran-Iraq War in 1988.
While it is clearly convenient for the
separatists to make such claims, this stance
raises far more questions than answers. Firstly,
intelligence links (particularly those that are
deep-rooted and underpinned by ideological
affinity, as in the case of the Khuzestani
separatists and the Iraqi Ba'athists) are too
complex to be severed so immediately and abruptly.
Secondly, given that Khuzestani separatism
(because of its unpopularity with almost all
Iranian Arabs) is only viable when allied to the
foreign policy of a powerful state, severing links
with the Iraqis would have been followed by
patronage by another state.
But this was
not the case. The only other state with the
historical motivation, connections and unique
resources to consistently support the separatists
is the United Kingdom, but evidence strongly
suggests that the British authorities dramatically
decreased their cooperation after the events of
1990 and early 1991. Indeed, in some cases the
British even put up serious obstacles, for
instance making it difficult for separatists to
travel to countries such as Greece, Cyprus, Turkey
and Lebanon to meet with their Iraqi handlers.
British government opposition
notwithstanding, Khuzestani separatists continued
to operate in the UK in the 1990s. In many cases
they were absorbed by the Anglo-Arab organizations
mentioned earlier. While in many cases these
organizations are engaged in genuine academic,
media and advocacy work, there is little doubt
that they are ultimately controlled by the British
secret state.
The US-led invasion and
occupation of Iraq in 2003 and the consequent
pressures this has exerted on Iran has made
Khuzestani separatism (and other separatist
movements in Iran) relevant insofar as it can be
used by the West as a pressure point on Tehran.
The recent events in Khuzestan are a good example
of this.
Trouble in Khuzestan The riots and bomb attacks that occurred in
Khuzestan in late spring, coupled with the latest
bombing, have been attributed to widely different
causes. The Iranian government claims that both
the riots and the bombings were essentially the
work of foreign elements.
The Khuzestani
separatists in the UK, anxious to deflect
attention from separatist violence, pin the blame
on elements in the Islamic republic which seek to
militarize the country. Both positions suffer from
serious flaws.
Firstly, while the Iranian
government is correct to attribute the bombings to
foreign elements, it is not being wholly truthful
when it dismisses the riots as foreign-inspired.
Iranian Arabs in Khuzestan have a number of
economic grievances, with roots that may go back
decades. These economic woes were sharply
exacerbated by the failed Iraqi invasion of
Khuzestan, which destroyed the livelihoods of many
Iranian Arabs. It would be safe to assume that
economic grievances were, at the very least, a
factor in the riots of late spring.
Secondly, the Khuzestani separatist
position that the bombings were the work of the
Iranian government smacks of clumsily constructed
conspiracy theory that does not stand up to even
perfunctory scrutiny. The statement by the
Khuzestani separatist spokesman that the bombings
were either the work of the "Pasdaran or the
Basij" immediately discredits their argument, as
the Basij and the Pasdaran (Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps) are effectively the same entity.
The contention that terrorist
organizations do not target their own people is
clearly false, as virtually every terrorist
organization in the world has victims (in varying
degrees) among the people they purports to
represent. Furthermore, claims that the Khuzestani
separatists are "non-violent" fly in the face of
their actual record (the seizure of the Iranian
Embassy in London and the killing of two of its
employees was clearly not an example of peaceful
activism) and is in fact oxymoronic: how can
dismembering a nation and producing false
historical narratives be achieved by
"non-violence"?
Sources in Tehran are in
little doubt that the recent bombings are the work
of separatists in Khuzestan who are ultimately
controlled by the remnants of the former Iraqi
intelligence services. These intelligence services
controlled impressive intelligence and sabotage
networks in Khuzestan, and it is safe to assume
that some of these networks have remained intact
since the collapse of the Ba'athist regime in
April 2003.
The motivation behind the
bombings is not altogether clear. While sources in
Tehran claim that former officers of Iraq's
Istikhbarat and Mukhabarat agencies are keen to
export the Iraqi insurgency into Iran, it is
unclear how this can be done with infrequent and
isolated bombings in Khuzestan.
A more
likely explanation is that the remnants of
Istikhbarat and Mukhabarat are exacting revenge on
Iran for the targeted assassinations of their
members since the collapse of the Ba'athist
regime. A generally under-reported feature of the
troubles in Iraq is the very careful and
systematic targeting of influential elements in
the former regime by either Shi'ite organizations
(in particular the Badr Organization - formerly
the Badr Corps - of the Supreme Council for the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq) or by covert Iranian
operatives in Iraq. The Badr organization has been
particularly prolific in this regard, and has
recently been accused of even targeting Arab Sunni
pilots in the Iraqi air force.
Iranian
allegations that the British government is
complicit in this terrorist campaign have as yet
not been substantiated by any evidence on the
ground. But warming relations between the British
government and the very small number of Khuzestani
Arab separatists in the UK does raise concerns
about the British government's position on this
complex situation.
But it is important to
place these concerns in perspective, not least
because, contrary to their claims, the Khuzestani
separatists have no proper organization in the UK.
Their presence is reducible to a few key
personalities who run several websites that try to
create the impression that there are large
socio-political networks behind them. [1]
What all these websites have in common is
the desire to produce a spurious ethnic
counter-narrative. To do this the Khuzestani
separatists (and their British patrons) amalgamate
a series of suppositions, half-truths and myths.
All of this is underpinned by the assertion that
the Arabs in Khuzestan constitute a majority, yet
no valid ethnic statistics have been produced to
verify such claims.
Little mention is made
of the fact that Khuzestan is inhabited not only
by Arabs but by an array of ethnic groups,
including Bakhtiaris, Behbahanis, Lurs in the
north, Afshari and Qashqai tribes, and Persians in
the major cities.
Moreover, the
separatists' counter-narrative is guided by a very
biased selection of information and the
retroactive Arabization of Iranian history and
civilization. Furthermore, claims that Arabs in
Iran constitute a persecuted minority are as false
as they are amusing. In fact, since the Islamic
revolution of 1979, the Iranian government has
gone out of its way to promote the Arabic language
(at the expense of Persian) in its drive to
"Islamize" Iranian society.
It is also
important to note that Iran's current defense
minister, Ali Shamkhani, is an ethnic Arab from
Khuzestan. Claims by Khuzestani separatists that
the Iranian regime is engaged in the persecution
of minorities is particularly strange when one
considers the fact that the Islamic republic has
shown extreme sympathy for Arab causes both inside
and outside of Iran.
Conclusion The terrorist
campaign in Iran's Khuzestan province is
essentially a by-product of the invasion and
occupation of Iraq. There can be little doubt that
the terrorists are ultimately controlled by
insurgent networks in Iraq. There is simply no
other rational or convincing explanation for these
unusual events.
Moreover, the
deteriorating security situation in Iraq makes it
likely that Khuzestan will continue to experience
terrorist bombings for the foreseeable future.
While the Iranian government is keen to
implicate the British in the terrorist campaign
for obvious propaganda and counter-propaganda
reasons, the British have much to answer for their
historical connections to Khuzestani separatists.
Furthermore, it is clear that the British see the
situation in Khuzestan, and the presence of
separatists in the UK, as a useful pressure point
on the Islamic republic, as the stand-off over
Iran's nuclear infrastructure steadily
deteriorates into a crisis.
In the final
analysis, Khuzestani Arab separatism does not pose
any serious threat to Iran's territorial
integrity. The only entity with the overriding
ideological and geopolitical motivation to provide
significant support to Khuzestani separatists was
a strong Iraqi state, and this was blasted away -
probably forever - by the US-led invasion of Iraq
in 2003.
Note [1] The main
so-called "Ahwazi" websites are the following:
al-Ahwaz This site has a
fancy introduction along with a "national anthem".
Their symbols are almost a carbon copy of
Ba'athist Party insignia (note the Ba'athist
eagle). There is a Persian version of the
al-Ahwaz site.
The Ahwaz Studies Center
purports to be an academic establishment, when in
fact it is an anti-Persian site complaining of
"ethnic cleansing". This is a dangerous and
misleading term - falsely implying violence. For
instance, the article on Minoo Island conveniently
fails to mention that in any industrial project
people are relocated.
The London-based British-Ahwazi Friendship
Association is a relatively new site
and claims as its chairman Daniel Brett, an
Englishman. The site is linked directly to the
aforementioned Ahwaz Studies Center, the
Democratic Solidarity Party of Ahwaz, Ahwaz Human
Rights Organization, and al-Ahwaz Television.
Interestingly, the site is also selectively linked
to other separatist organizations such as "The
Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan" as well as
to the "Iraqi Turkmen Human Rights" organization.
Of interest is the "treasurer" of the
British-Ahwazi Friendship Association: Mansour
Silawi-Ahwazi, who also hosts a separate and
particularly amusing site. On this he posted An Arab National Re-Birth Searching
for its Identity in an attempt to
convey the impression of a separate Arab state
since 4000 BC; ie about 4,500 years before the
efflorescence of Arab civilization on the Arabian
peninsula.
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.
Dr
Kaveh Farrokh has a PhD from the University of
British Columbia, specializing in the cognitive
and linguistic processes of Persian. He has
researched and written extensively on the role of
British imperialism in Persia, as well as the
pan-Turanian movement. His book,Sassanian
Elite Cavalry AD 224-642 was published by
Osprey Publishing. He lectures on the history of
pre-Islamic Persia at the University of British
Columbia in Vancouver. A new book encompassing
Persia's military and cultural relations with the
Greco-Roman world between 553BC-637 AD is due to
be released in the fall of 2006.
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has pointed an
accusing finger at the United Kingdom. 
