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2 Iran faces challenges from
within By Chris Zambelis
Iran continues to face international
pressure over its nuclear program and heightening
tensions with the United States regarding its role
in Iraq and Afghanistan. A pillar of US strategy
in the Middle East after the fall of the shah in
1979 has been to check Iranian power in the
Persian Gulf region and Eurasia through a policy
of strategic encirclement.
US support for
Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s is
widely perceived as the first salvo in this plan.
Fearing Iran's territorial
ambitions and the spread of
its revolutionary Islamism, Saudi Arabia and other
Gulf monarchies followed the US lead by helping to
finance Iraq's war effort.
Meanwhile, the
US built a formidable presence in Arab Gulf states
in the form of bases and security pacts. In
addition to the robust US military footprint in
Iraq and Afghanistan and the deployment of
aircraft-carrier battle groups in the Gulf, Iran
is flanked on its frontiers by pro-US Azerbaijan,
major non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization US
ally Pakistan, and NATO member Turkey. A
nuclear-armed Israel is also perceived as a threat
in Iran.
Another factor contributes to
Iran's anxiety about US strategy in the Middle
East. Tehran is convinced that the United States
and other foreign powers are actively exploiting
Iran's diverse ethnic and sectarian society by
supporting violent secessionist and insurgent
movements - including terrorist groups - in an
effort to destabilize the government.
The domestic threat Iran
believes that a marked increase in domestic unrest
orchestrated from abroad will precede any US
attack. Indeed, Tehran attributes the steady rise
in incidents of violence and terrorism across the
country by ethnic Baloch, Arab and Kurdish
minority rebel groups and signs of growing ethnic
Azeri and Turkmen dissent to foreign meddling in
its internal affairs by US and other foreign
intelligence services. Iranian security forces are
currently engaged in low-intensity
counterinsurgency operations across the country
against an array of nationalist and terrorist
groups.
In principle, the United States
supports political opposition groups seeking an
end to clerical rule. Some US proponents of an
attack against Iran have gone as far as to call
for enlisting the People's Mujahideen of Iran,
also known as Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) - a bizarre
militant group cited by the US Department of State
as a foreign terrorist organization whose ideology
combines a mix of leftist and Islamist discourse
with a fanatical cult-like veneration for its
leaders - as an armed proxy in a future invasion.
Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq provided MEK
with arms, training and bases on Iraqi soil, such
as Camp Ashraf near the Iraq-Iran border. MEK
units were disarmed and remain under the watch of
US-led forces. Tehran, nevertheless, worries that
they may still be mobilized to serve as a proxy
ground force in a future confrontation with the
US. Although not an ethnic or sectarian-based
movement, MEK is affiliated with the National
Council of Resistance of Iran, an umbrella
organization of anti-regime movements based in
Iran and the diaspora that include ethnic and
sectarian minority-led groups agitating for an end
to the Shi'ite Islamist regime.
Given this
background, Tehran has cause for concern, as US
planners are likely to use the threat of aiding
active insurgent groups as an effective lever over
Iran, especially as a response to allegations of
passive and direct Iranian support for insurgents
in Iraq and, more recently, Afghanistan. Iran,
however, has long been plagued by domestic
instability and tensions rooted in minority
grievances due to what is widely viewed as a
failure or refusal by the ethnic-Persian-dominated
Shi'ite Islamist regime to integrate minority
communities into the fabric of society.
This includes respect for minority rights
and the preservation of unique cultural
identities. Ethnic Kurds, Balochs, Arabs, Azeris
and Turkmens in Iran also share ethnic, linguistic
and cultural links with their kin in neighboring
states such as Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan,
Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. This leaves them
susceptible to the influence of social and
political currents outside of Iran, especially
nationalism.
The shifting geopolitical
landscape in the Middle East after the US-led
invasion of Iraq in 2003, which propelled
traditionally oppressed communities such as
Shi'ite Arabs and Kurds to unprecedented positions
of power and influence in that country, has also
emboldened Iranian minorities to agitate for
greater cultural rights and political
representation.
The debate over the
proposed federalization of Iraq along ethnic and
sectarian lines is inspiring similar calls in Iran
and from a sophisticated network of activist
groups advocating on behalf of Iranian minorities
from abroad. The Congress of Iranian
Nationalities, an association of Iranian
opposition groups based in the diaspora
representing ethnic Kurds, Arabs, Azeris, Turkmens
and Balochs, called for the federalization of Iran
along ethnic lines in a joint manifesto issued in
February 2005. [1] In other cases, armed rebel
groups representing ethnic Kurdish, Baloch and
Arab interests in Iran have taken up arms, while
communities such as the Azeris and Turkmens have
staged protests in an effort to assert themselves.
The demographic picture Iran's
Farsi-speaking, ethnic-Persian community comprises
only a slim majority of the total population of an
estimated 70 million, of whom nearly all are
Shi'ites. Ethnic Azeris, who are estimated to
number between 15 million and 20 million and are
also Shi'ites, constitute the second-largest
minority. Kurds represent the third-largest ethnic
group, with a population between 4 million and 7
million, and are mostly Sunnis.
Balochs,
the majority of whom are Sunnis, number between 1
million and 4 million. Arabs number between 1
million and 3 million and are predominantly
Shi'ites. Turkmens number between 1 million and 2
million and are mostly Sunnis. Iran is also home
to Gilakis, Mazandaranis, Bakhtiaris, Lurs and
Qashqais, most of whom are Shi'ites, as well as
Bahais, Zoroastrians, Armenian Christians and
Jews. [2]
Violence and rebellion Kurdish insurgents are among the most prolific
militants operating in Iran. Most Iranian Kurds
inhabit the mountainous northwestern region, where
the borders of Turkey, Iraq and Iran meet, while
smaller communities reside in Iran's northeastern
region of Khorasan.
Like their kin
elsewhere in the region, they face widespread
discrimination by the Persian-dominated Shi'ite
clerical regime. As Sunni Muslims with a proud
sense of cultural and national identity, they do
not identify with the Shi'ite Islamist regime and
efforts by the state to suppress their culture and
identity.
Iran's Kurdish regions have
experienced growing violence in recent months
between the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan
(PJAK), a
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