Obama faces a Persian rebuff
By M K Bhadrakumar
Twitter can now revert to its plan to shut down its Iran services and attend to maintenance work. Twitter goes into recess pleased that it probably embarrassed a resurgent regional power. The United States government owes Twitter a grand salute for having done something where all other stratagems of war and peace failed in the past three decades.
However, Persian stories have long endings. The Iranian regime shows every sign of closing ranks and pulling its act together in the face of what it assessed to be an existential threat to the Vilayat-e faqih (rule of the clergy) system. Even if the US and Britain want to walk away from their nasty spat with Tehran, which would be an eminently sensible and logical thing to do, the latter may not allow them to do that.
When Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used a colorful Persian idiom to characterize European and American officials and when he underscored that the ground on which they stood inevitably gets "soiled", he made it clear that Tehran will not easily forget the fusillades of mockery that the US and Britain in particular fired over the past fortnight to tarnish its rising regional profile. In a veiled warning, Khamenei said, "Some European and American officials with their idiotic remarks about Iran are speaking as if their own problems [read Iraq, Afghanistan] have all been resolved and Iran remains the only issue for them."
Iran has had a tortuous history, overflowing with what US President Barack Obama in his Cairo speech called "tension ... fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies with regard to their own aspirations". The "red line" for Tehran through the past three decades has always been any foreign attempt at forcing regime change. That line has been breached.
The Iranian security establishment has begun digging deeper and deeper into what really happened. Gholam Hossein Nohseni Ejei, the powerful Intelligence Minister, has alleged from available data that there has been a concerted attempt to stir up unrest by world powers that were "upset about a stable and secure Iran", and plots to assassinate Iranian leaders.
Unsubstantiated allegations do not stick. But uncomfortable questions will arise in the coming days and weeks. Doubts arise already about the mysterious death of Neda Aqa-Soltan. Again, the dead included eight trained Basiji militiamen. Who killed them? Indeed, who led the charge of the light brigade?
It is a little-known slice of history that in the countdown to the Anglo-American coup in Tehran against Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953, the US Central Intelligence Agency lost nerve just as the Tehran street protests - eerily similar to the recent unrest - were about to be staged, but the British intelligence outpost in Cyprus which coordinated the entire operation held firm, forced the pace and ultimately created a fait accompli for Washington.
At any rate, Tehran is going after Britain - "the most treacherous of foreign powers", to use Khamenei's words. Marching orders have been given to two British diplomats posted in Tehran, and four local employees working in the British Embassy remain under detention for questioning. This is despite robust gesticulations by London that it is not stepping anything up on Tehran's streets. A Foreign Office statement in London pleaded that it is Iran's nuclear program that is driving Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and not outrage over civil rights or the death of innocents.
London is manifestly anxious to vacate the scene as quickly as possible, and hopes it can be business as usual with Iran. But Obama faces a much more complex challenge. He cannot emulate Brown. He needs to get engaged with Iran. The challenge facing Obama is that not only has the Iranian regime not cracked, it has shown incredible resilience.
Regime closes ranks
If the rumor was that the intriguing silence of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani meant he was plotting in the holy city of Qom and challenging Khamenei's writ, it was not to be so. On Sunday, Rafsanjani openly came out with a statement endorsing Khamenei. We see the unmistakable contours of an understanding.
"The developments following the presidential vote were a complex conspiracy plotted by suspicious elements with the aim of creating a rift between the people and the Islamic establishment and causing them to lose their trust in the [Vilayat-e faqih] system. Such plots have always been neutralized whenever the people have entered the scene with vigilance," Rafsanjani said.
He lauded Khamenei for extending the Guardians Council's move to extend the deadline by five days to review issues pertaining to the election and removing ambiguities. "This valuable move by the leader to restore the people's confidence in the election process was very effective," Rafsanjani pointed out. In a separate meeting with a delegation of majlis (parliament) members on Thursday, Rafsanjani said his attachment to Khamenei is "endless" and that he enjoys a close relationship with the supreme leader and he fully complies with Velayat-e faqih.
On Saturday, the Expediency Council, which is headed by Rafsanjani, called on defeated candidates to "observe the law and resolve conflicts and disputes [concerning the election] through legal channels". Meanwhile, Mohsen Rezai, the opposition candidate and former head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, and former majlis speaker Nateq-Nouri, the leading pillar in Iranian politics, have also reconciled.
Thus, Mir Hossein Mousavi stands isolated. Disregarding Mousavi's demur, the Guardians Council ordered a partial recount of 10% of random ballot boxes across the country in front of state television cameras. The recount reconfirmed late on Monday evening the result of the June 12 poll and advised the Interior Ministry that "the Guardians Council after studying the issues dismisses all the complaints received, and approves the accuracy of the 10th presidential election".
Monday's recount showed a slight surge in the votes of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in the province of Kerman. Mousavi is now left with the dicey option to resort to "civil disobedience" but he won't exercise it - to the dismay of Western commentators whom he apparently impressed as "Iran's Gandhi".
If the prognosis was that the speaker of the majlis, Ali Larijani, was showing promise as a potential dissident leader, it also has been debunked. On Monday, while addressing the executive committee meeting of the Organization of Islamic Conference at Algiers, Larijani lashed out at the US policy of "interfering" in the internal affairs of Middle East countries. He advised Obama to abandon such policy: "This change will be beneficial both to the region and to the US itself."
The Obama administration has some hard choices to make. It was sustained criticism and pressure mounted by networks of anti-Iranian groups and powerful lobbies ensconced within the US Congress and the political class - apart from quarters within the security establishment which have an old score to settle with Tehran but have an abominable record of misreading the vicissitudes of Iranian politics - that forced Obama to harden his stance.
Softening the hard stance will be a difficult and politically embarrassing process. Much statesmanship is also needed. The best outcome is that Washington can take a pause and resume its efforts to engage Iran after a decent interval.
A meaningful dialogue in the coming weeks seems improbable. Meanwhile, nitpickings such as the denial of visa for the Iranian Vice President Parviz Davoudi to visit New York to attend the United Nations conference on the world economic crisis do not help. (Davoudi is an advocate of liberal economic perspectives.) Nor will the US's likely decision to pursue the sanctions route towards Iran at the forthcoming Group of Eight summit meeting in Trieste, Italy, on July 8-10. (In May, Iran surpassed Saudi Arabia as the top oil exporter from the Persian Gulf to China.)
In sum, the Obama administration badly fumbled after a magnificent start in addressing the situation around Iran. As the distinguished policymaker and commentator Leslie H Gelb argues in his new book Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy, Obama had an option "to use the Libyan model, whereby Washington and Tripoli put all cards on the table and traded them most satisfactorily".
Iran will retaliate
Also, the regional milieu can only work to Iran's advantage. Iraq remains dangerously poised. The US's fortunes in Afghanistan swing from possible defeat to avoidance of defeat. Turkey has distanced itself from the European stance apropos the recent developments in Iran. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan have greeted Ahmadinejad's victory. Moscow eventually concluded the regime wasn't threatened.
China emerges as the absolute "winner" in correctly assessing from day 1 the undercurrents of Iran's obscure revolutionary politics. Beijing has never before expressed so openly such staunch solidarity with the Iranian regime in warding off Western pressure. Neither Syria nor Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza showed any inclination to disengage from Iran.
True, Syria's ties with Saudi Arabia have improved in the past six months and Damascus welcomes the Obama administration's recent overtures. But far from adopting the Saudi or US agenda toward Tehran, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem questioned the legitimacy of the street protests in Tehran.
He warned last Sunday when Tehran streets were witnessing unrest: "Anyone betting on the fall of the Iranian regime will be a loser. The [1979] Islamic revolution is a reality, deeply rooted in Iran, and the international community [read US] must live with that."
Moallem called for the "establishment of a dialogue between Iran and the United States based on mutual respect and non-interference in Iran's affairs". Equally, success for Saad Hariri as the newly elected prime minister of Lebanon - and the country's overall stability - will hinge on his reconciliation with rivals allied to Syria and Iran.
All things taken into account, therefore, there has been a policy crisis in Washington. The paradox is that the Obama administration will now deal with a Khamenei who is at the peak of his political power in all his past two decades as supreme leader. As for Ahmadinejad, he will now negotiate from a position of unprecedented strength. Arguably, it helps when your adversary is strong so that he can take tough decisions, but in this case the analogy doesn't hold.
Ahmadinejad left hardly anything to interpretation when he stated in Tehran on Saturday, "Without doubt, Iran's new government will have a more decisive and firmer approach towards the West. This time the Iranian nation's reply will be harsh and more decisive" and will aim at making the West regret its "meddlesome stance". Most certainly, Tehran will not be replying through the Twitter.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
COMMENT
China doesn't want Iran unstable
By Jian Junbo
SHANGHAI - The Chinese government has kept silent on the unrest in Iran following its controversial presidential election of June 12, refraining from making any official comment.
Beijing's seemingly indifference has prompted speculation and accusation. Some overseas China watchers say Beijing is wary of making public comment in fear that it may backfire in view of China's own domestic situation. Others argue that China's attitude reflects its dilemma - whatever Beijing says would not serve China's own national interests. But if China thinks its intervention would enhance its national interests, it would not hesitate to do so.
Such views, however, miss the point and are untrue. In the first place, China never had the intention to interfere in Iranian affairs. Consequently, China has nothing to say on the current situation there, so it is quite normal for Beijing to remain mute. Such views show a lack of understanding of China's foreign policy and strategy.
China is an independent country; it is neither the world government nor the United Nations. Nor does it intend to police the world, despite its growing economic muscle. Hence, it is normal for China to refrain from commenting on the domestic affairs of another independent country.
Non-intervention in another country's internal affairs is a basic principle in China's foreign policy. Historically, non-intervention as a principle in international relations emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe, was then affirmed by the League of Nations in 1919 and finally re-endorsed and consolidated by the United Nations in 1945.
As a developing nation-state on the road towards modernization, the People's Republic of China cherished this principle. Late chairman Mao Zedong warned his officials and Communist Party members, "We must never interfere in other countries' internal affairs but co-exist with them in equality."
At the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai advocated the "Five Principles" [1] governing international relations, which included "non-interference in each other's domestic affairs". The Five Principles were later acknowledged by India and Myanmar and then by the other developing countries.
Although the global village is becoming a hot topic of discussion in the world amid fast economic globalization, China still upholds non-intervention as the core diplomatic principle governing its international relations.
For example, the 2006 Beijing declaration at a forum on China-Africa cooperation declared, "No country or group of countries has the right to impose its will on others, to interfere, under whatever pretext, in other countries' internal affairs, or to impose unilateral coercive economic measures on others."
Adhering to this principle, China is opposed to any country's intervention in the internal affairs of another country, including China itself. Iran's presidential election and the dispute over the results are Iran's internal affairs which should be dealt with by Iranians themselves.
On the other hand, it should be highlighted that China's silence on Iranian affairs doesn't indicate that China has abandoned its international responsibilities - it's just that what is happening in Iran is not an international affair. Conversely, silence reflects that China is responsible in adhering to non-intervention.
Some say a "green revolution" is taking place in Iran, so China has avoided commenting in fear of a backlash. In practice, China almost never comments on the domestic affairs of other countries, no matter whether they have good relations with or are important for China. For example, when recent elections of national leaders took place in neighboring countries, such as Nepal, or in Central Asian countries, China kept silent.
The Chinese government made no official comment on the so-called "color revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia.
In conclusion, intervention in other country is neither a principle nor a tradition of China's diplomacy. However, normal international exchanges cannot be seen as intervention. In this regard, some countries apparently adopt double standards.
Normal bilateral relations based on equality and mutual benefit are not intervention. For instance, the United States has troops stationed in Japan, but no one criticizes the US for "intervening" in Japanese affairs. When China sold conventional weapons under the framework of the United Nations to Sri Lanka, why did many Westerns say that China was interfering in that country's affairs?
It's better for China to keep silent on Iran's domestic affairs so as to not further complicate the situation there. China doesn't want to see another Middle Eastern county fall into unrest due to possible Chinese intervention.
In the current situation, foreign countries' intervention will make the Middle East situation more complicated and unpredictable, as has allegedly happened in Iran where reformists have been supported by outside powers. This sows further discord in society.
An unstable Middle East and an unstable Iran are not good for China, since it imports much of its oil from that area. In this regard, it's better to keep silent.
Additionally, it's not necessary for China to make a choice between re-elected President Mahmud Ahmadinejad or defeated candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi - they have similar foreign policy goals, according to their electoral programs.
Certainly they have some differences, but these differences don't mean their policy toward China will be much different. Mousavi is labeled as a reformist, but in reality, he is not a revolutionary. It can be said that no new president would sharply change Iran-China relations.
Even if a new Iranian president moved to change the currently good Iran-China relations, China would take on this change and try to deal with the problem through diplomacy, not intervention.
Note
1. The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence are:
Dr Jian Junbo is assistant professor of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, Shanghai, China. |
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