An accident waiting to happen in
Iran By Iason Athanasiadis
TEHRAN - The growing US military buildup
in the Persian Gulf appears to be making Iranian
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad tone down his
rhetoric while also forcing the country's
leadership to adopt a more circumspect approach to
dealing with Washington. But another terrorist
spectacular rocked Iran's wild southeastern region
on Wednesday, targeting the country's elite
Revolutionary Guard and souring the newly positive
atmosphere.
Ahmadinejad began his charm
offensive during his February 12 speech marking
the 28th anniversary of the 1979 Iranian
Revolution when he remained silent on a prior
pledge to make
what
would have been a landmark and confrontational
announcement about his country's nuclear program.
Analysts were widely expecting the Iranian
president to announce that up to 3,000 centrifuges
had been installed at the Natanz nuclear facility
in central Iran. Iran faces next Wednesday a
United Nations Security Council deadline to have
stopped all uranium-enrichment activities, or face
renewed United Nations sanctions or even a
possible military strike.
Ahmadinejad
flirted his way through an interview with the
American Broadcasting Co's Diane Sawyers, lobbing
along the way dovish statements such as that Iran
opposes "any" proliferation of nuclear weapons and
remains open to negotiations with the West. At the
end of the interview, Ahmadinejad jokingly
chastised Sawyers for asking combative questions
and lectured her that "women should not be asking
tough questions about war, women should ask about
love, culture and family", according to the
American journalist.
But regional analysts
warn that Washington and Tehran are currently
negotiating the most treacherous diplomatic
stretch, with "accidental" war a distinct
possibility. This period ahead of the UN deadline
could well simply be the calm before the storm.
"My major concern at this point is the US,
because we have identified Iran as our enemy and
we have increased our military posture in the
region, the combination of the rhetoric and the
military forces could lead to an accidental
escalation," said Gary Sick, a former National
Security Council adviser in the Gerald Ford, Jimmy
Carter and Ronald Reagan administrations.
US President George W Bush continues to
point an accusing finger at Iran. In his latest
attack, he insisted on Wednesday that Iranian
special operations forces are providing the
sophisticated roadside bombs being used to kill US
troops in Iraq and declared: "I intend to do
something about it."
These threats echo in
the upper echelons of the Islamic Republic's
leadership as Washington beefs up its military
presence in the Persian Gulf and deploys Patriot
anti-missile systems in several Gulf Arab states
where it maintains military forces. This week,
Iran's first president, Abolhassan Bani Sadr,
spoke to the Saudi-owed Al-Arabiyyah news portal
from his Paris exile, saying it is very likely
that the United States will conduct a military
strike against his country soon.
Iranian
diplomats believe that a series of recent US
military raids targeting Iranian diplomats in
neighboring Iraq are intended to needle Tehran
into a rash response that could serve as a pretext
to initiate military action. Iranians suspected of
carrying out attacks on US and Iraqi forces have
been detained over the course of three raids since
the beginning of the year. Last week, another
Iranian diplomat was abducted by Iraqi troops in
downtown Baghdad.
"It is not appropriate
to act in a foolhardy way, rather we should behave
thoughtfully," said former two-times president
Hashemi Rafsanjani to a gathering of foreign
students in Qom. "We have to be very careful and
not provoke the enemy."
Iranian
Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie
announced last week that his agents had identified
100 spies working for the US and Israel and
"intending to collect political and military
information" from Iran's border areas, according
to the semi-official Fars news agency.
Iranian officials have been claiming for
years that the US supports armed groups in the
country's border provinces and is seeking to
sponsor ethnic separatist strife. There has been a
spike in violent incidents along Iran's periphery
since early 2006, which also includes much of
Iran's Sunni Muslim minority. Iranian officials
have privately accused Sunni Arab states of
sponsoring such activities and paying Shi'ite
Iranians to convert to Sunni Islam.
"I
worry about an accidental explosion rather than a
planned attack that we can see coming," said Sick.
"Every key person in the US administration says
they are not planning an attack on Iran, but a lot
of people in the administration seem to think they
wouldn't mind if such a thing happened. Under such
circumstances, it is always possible for accidents
to take place, even engineered accidents."
Bombs on the border The question
of whether Washington is engaged in provocations
must also be crossing the minds of the Iranian
leadership after a bomb attack against a bus
carrying members of Iran's elite Revolutionary
Guards in isolated Sistan-Balochistan province on
Wednesday.
A passenger car loaded with
explosives stopped in front of the bus and its
passengers fled on motorcycles shortly before the
bomb detonated, killing 11 officers, according to
the official Islamic Republic News Agency. There
have been conflicting rumors that the Jundallah
(Soldier of Allah) group has claimed
responsibility for the action.
Jundallah,
a Sunni Muslim militant group, last year conducted
a series of daring raids targeting the Iranian
government. In December 2005, Jundallah claimed
responsibility for kidnapping seven Iranian
soldiers. They were apparently released through
negotiations with local tribesmen. Last April,
Iranian newspapers reported that "rebels" killed
two Iranian army officers and seriously wounded a
senior religious official. Two months later, three
small explosions injured two people in Zahedan.
Iranian officials have claimed they have
seized "military-grade weapons and documents that
show the group's attachment to oppressors [foreign
powers] aiming to create conflict".
These
recent actions appear to be separate from the
ongoing, low-level drug war in Sistan-Balochistan
province that has claimed the lives of about 1,700
Iranian soldiers since the 1979 revolution. They
come at a time of surging Baloch nationalism and
the convening of several separatist conferences in
Europe and the US. The pressure on Tehran
comes amid growing regional Sunni-Shi'ite tension
and reciprocal accusations that Iran and Sunni
states are sponsoring proxy groups against each
other inside Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian
territories, Sudan and Yemen.
"Why is Iran
seeking to defeat America in Lebanon?" asked Ayman
al-Safadi, the editor of the Jordanian newspaper
Al-Ghad. "Because Lebanon is a mere card. Let
Lebanon burn. Let its cities be destroyed. Let its
people be divided. This is an insignificant price
in the Persian calculation. The tensions in
Lebanon are an Iranian message to America that
stability in the Middle East is dependent upon its
decisions."
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and
Iran have been working together to defuse regional
tensions and halt Washington's attempts to present
itself as a savior of the Sunnis against an
Iran-led expanding Shi'ite "crescent". Ali
Larijani, head of Iran's Supreme National Security
Council, is currently in Riyadh for talks on how
to resolve the crisis, amid warnings by Iranian
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that the West is
seeking to divide the Islamic ummah
(community) for its own ends.
Iason
Athanasiadis is an Iran-based journalist.
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