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3 Real US battles with Iran still lie
ahead By Mahan Abedin
news on the whereabouts of the
former IRGC commander. Asgari's wife even told the
Baztab website (a quality news service run by
Mohsen Rezai, the former overall commander of the
IRGC) that she believes her husband was kidnapped
by US intelligence in Istanbul.
Baztab
itself has just claimed that the Turkish
intelligence service is complicit in the
"psychological warfare" campaign against Iran. [5]
Given that Baztab is close to top intelligence
circles in Tehran,
this
is a strong indication that Iranian intelligence
believes the Turks aided and abetted the alleged
US kidnapping operation.
The very nature
of this story makes it very hard to ascertain the
full facts. A defection, while unlikely, is not
implausible. But even if he has defected, Asgari
is unlikely to be as significant as the Americans
are making out, simply because he had been out of
the IRGC and the Iranian national-security
infrastructure for a number of years.
On
the other hand, it is entirely possible that
Asgari has fallen victim to a US kidnapping
operation. There would be nothing unusual about
this, since US operatives have carried out
numerous kidnappings in European and Middle
Eastern cities in the past few years. Most of
these have related to the so-called "war on
terror" and the infamous US rendition policy
(where terror suspects are handed over to their
own or other governments to be tortured at the
behest of the Central Intelligence Agency).
More specifically, US operatives have been
kidnapping alleged Iranian intelligence officers
in Iraq for at least 12 months. Some of these
operations (such as the assault on the Iranian
Consulate in Irbil in January) have been
sensational public affairs, while others, such as
the kidnapping of Jalal Sharafi (the second
secretary at the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad) in
early February, have been conducted in a more
subtle fashion.
Apparently Sharafi was
seized by gunmen wearing the uniform of the elite
36th Commando Battalion (part of the new Iraqi
Defense Ministry's special-operations forces) in
Baghdad's Karrada district. No word has been heard
from Sharafi since, and his abductors have not
made any demands. This has lent credence to
Iranian allegations that the kidnapping was
carried out by Iraqi Defense Ministry agents
acting at the behest of US military intelligence
in Baghdad, who are anxious to maintain "plausible
deniability".
The assault on the consulate
in Irbil and the kidnapping of Jalal Sharafi
follow US President George W Bush's warning on
January 10 that US forces had been instructed to
seek out and destroy Iranian intelligence networks
in Iraq. However, if Ali Reza Asgari has indeed
been kidnapped by American agents, this would
signal a significant escalation in the US campaign
against Iran. It is going well beyond
psychological warfare and appears to be a global
campaign targeting specific Iranian intelligence
assets in key locations.
Ahmadinejad
versus the rest According to Ahmadinejad
supporters, recent US provocations against Iran
(whether in Iraq, Turkey or elsewhere) are
designed to weaken the internal front and engineer
the rise of more pragmatic forces. This is the
constant theme of websites close to Ahmadinejad,
in particular Rajanews.com, which seems to have
been set up specifically to counter the propaganda
of the camp of former president Hashemi
Rafsanjani.
While aggressive US posturing
and the imposition of tougher United Nations
sanctions on March 23 have galvanized a
significant segment of the Iranian establishment
against the non-compromising attitude of the
Ahmadinejad government, the opposition to
Ahmadinejad runs deeper.
Since assuming
office in August 2005, Ahmadinejad has antagonized
much of the political establishment in Tehran. The
rise of an unknown quantity to the highest elected
office in the country is rooted in the peculiar
democratic-theocratic constitutional arrangements
of the Islamic Republic and the volatility of the
Iranian electorate. After all, the same electorate
who voted for the rugged and inexperienced
Ahmadinejad in June 2005 had voted for the regal
and philosophical Khatami in May 1997.
The
nature of factional politics in the Islamic
Republic requires cautious and subtle leadership
at the very top. Since the demise of ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini in June 1989 (which marked the
effective end of the charismatic leadership style
in Iran), the office of Valiye Faqih (Supreme
Jurisconsult) has played a key role in managing
the conflict between the presidency and other
powerful institutions, most notably the Islamic
Consultative Assembly (the national parliament).
But this management has only been possible
since the previous presidents (namely Rafsanjani
and Khatami) were experienced and subtle leaders.
While the former was - by far - a more able
politician, both projected a leadership style that
was suited to the complex institutional setup in
Iran. Moreover, both respected the ethics of
consensus-building and were committed to working
with other institutions (in particular the office
of the supreme leader) in managing the major
problems confronting the country.
Ahmadinejad is a sharp departure from this
tradition. He is inexperienced, abrasive and prone
to clumsy (and ultimately very costly) gesture
politics. As a system that is dependent on subtle
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