Foreign plots and cockroaches in
Iran By Iason Athanasiadis
TEHRAN - The recent deadly unrest in
Iran's predominantly Azeri northwestern region -
an area acknowledged as ripe for covert operations
- has raised concerns in Tehran not only of
foreign hands in action, but also of its resurgent
oil-rich, US-friendly neighbor the Republic of
Azerbaijan.
As protests were reported,
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said in a
television address that the unrest was part of a
foreign plot aimed at disrupting Tehran's efforts
to acquire "peaceful nuclear technology".
And in an address to the majlis
(parliament), Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei - himself an Azeri - suggested a link
between developments in the northwest and a recent
announcement that US President George W Bush's
administration was seeking a
multimillion-dollar bill in Congress to promote
democracy in Iran.
"This tumult - these ethnic
and religious instigations are the last arrow left
in the quiver of the enemies of the People's
Islamic
Republic of Iran," he said. "They
are wrong when they plan to spend money with a
view to stirring ethnic groups, social classes,
and the youth. As a rule their plans are based on
a wrong assessment of the situation. And now
they've decided to turn to Azerbaijan."
The Bush administration allocated US$75
million this year for the promotion of democracy
in Iran, marking a new period of concerted
diplomatic pressure by the United States against
Iran.
The unrest in the Iranian provinces
of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan, in which
several people died - some claim hundreds - was
set off by a newspaper caricature that depicted a
cockroach speaking the Azeri Turkish dialect. It
appeared in the state-owned Iran newspaper,
prompting large demonstrations in the
northwestern, Azeri-majority town of Tabriz, which
elicited a strong security response. The editor
and caricaturist were immediately arrested and the
newspaper has been shut down by the government.
"There is great interest in America,
Israel and the Republic of Azerbaijan in pushing
an agenda of ethnic warfare in Iran," said Evan
Ziegel, a historian of the Islamic Revolution of
1979. "But let's recognize that this project is
being amply assisted by Persian chauvinist
knuckleheads who are willing to play into their
hands."
Tension between Iran and its
northern neighbor were already on the rise before
this incident, as Baku solidified its relationship
with Washington and made plans to establish
diplomatic relations with Iran's arch-rival
Israel.
Jewish Azerbaijani legislator
Yevda Abramov told the Baku Today journal that the
issue was raised recently when Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliev visited Washington and met
with Jewish leaders. Israel has had an embassy in
the largely Muslim former Soviet republic since
1993. Azerbaijan has resisted opening an embassy
in Israel because of opposition by its southern
neighbor Iran.
"I think that when
President Bush says all options are on the table,
the destabilization of Iran's ethnic provinces is
one of them," said Abbas Maleki, a senior research
fellow at Harvard University. "Don't forget, Mr
[Mahmudali] Chehregani, one of the pan-Turkist
leaders [agitating for a separatist Azeri agenda],
was in Washington last year by invitation of the
Defense Department."
The US Defense
Department is currently in charge of covert
operations being carried out inside Iran.
"Azerbaijan and Iran see their relations
as a strategic power struggle in the region
because Azerbaijan's orientation is towards
America and threatens Tehran," said Kayhan
Barzegar, a professor of Iranian foreign policy at
the Islamic Azad University.
Political
elites in Tehran are concerned that the growing
oil boom in Baku will create a strong and
reinvigorated Azerbaijan that could act as a pole
of attraction for Iran's own Azeri community.
In addition, the US-funded construction of
two powerful radars on the Caspian Sea with the
ability to eavesdrop on fixed-line and mobile
communications inside Iran is a further source of
worry for the Islamic Republic.
Furthermore, Iran is not happy with the
recent opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline
that funnels Caspian Sea oil to the West and is a
Washington-supported initiative to diversify its
sources of supply away from the Middle East.
Azerbaijani officials in Baku have
refrained from criticizing Iranian government
actions, or from sending signals that could be
interpreted as endorsing the ethnic-Azeri
protesters' demands for better social and economic
conditions, as well as greater political rights.
While there is no hard evidence pointing
toward the troubles as being anything but
domestic, Azeri nationalists seeking to capitalize
on the international pressure on Iran and sharpen
relations between the two neighbors seized on
them.
The Baku-based spokesman of an
independence movement called the South Azerbaijan
National Revival Movement told the Azeri Press
Information Agency that angry Iranian protesters
demonstrated outside the Azerbaijani Embassy in
Tehran and burned the Azerbaijani flag. The
accusations were denied by the Azerbaijani
ambassador to Iran, Abbaseli Hasanov.
Backing Iran's claims that outside powers
are involved in fomenting unrest are that US and
Iranian officials have confirmed that covert
operations are ongoing inside Iran.
Furthermore, the US Central Intelligence
Agency's (CIA's) strategy for overthrowing former
Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953
was funding negative press coverage in a psy-ops
campaign that eroded the popular leader's support
base. In this vein, last year it was revealed that
the Pentagon had employed the Washington-based
Lincoln Group to place articles supporting the
US-led occupation in the Iraqi press.
"Sometimes, tried-and-tested techniques
are the best ones," said an Iranian businessman
commenting on the recent disturbances.
Thus destabilizing Iran's leadership
through exploiting resentments felt by some of the
groups making up the country's complex ethnic
mosaic has been an increasingly popular strategy
in Washington over the past year.
And
targeting the Azeris is not a new idea either.
Writing in his seminal book Know Thine
Enemy in the mid-1990s, former CIA operative
Reuel Marc Gerecht suggested that "Iranian
Azerbaijan was rich in possibilities" for "covert
action mischief".
"Accessible through
Turkey and ex-Soviet Azerbaijan, eyed already by
nationalists in Baku, more westward-looking than
most [of] Iran, and economically going nowhere,
Iran's richest agricultural province was an ideal
CIA [covert action] theater," Gerecht wrote.
Iason Athanasiadis is an
Iran-based correspondent.
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2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Republic of Iran," he said. "They
are wrong when they plan to spend money with a
view to stirring ethnic groups, social classes,
and the youth. As a rule their plans are based on
a wrong assessment of the situation. And now
they've decided to turn to Azerbaijan."
