Page 2 of
2 US moves
towards engaging Iran By M K
Bhadrakumar
November. The Bush
administration needs to count on Tehran's tacit
cooperation with the US to use its formidable
influence with Iraqi groups. Belligerence toward
Iran is hardly the way the Bush administration can
realize this objective.
But after a recent
visit to Iran, prominent US author and commentator
Selig Harrison wrote in The Boston Globe
newspaper, "Tehran is seething over what it sees
as a new 'divide and rule' US strategy designed to
make Iraq a permanent US protectorate". He was
referring to the current US strategy of building
up rival Sunni militias - euphemistically called
the "Sunni Awakening" - so as to fence in the
Shi'ite-dominated government in Baghdad.
The Sunni militias presently number some
90,000 US-equipped
fighters, each paid $300 per
month. But, as Harrison recounted his
conversations in Iran, "The message was clear:
Unless [US General David] Petraeus drastically
cuts back the Sunni militias, Tehran will unleash
the Shi'ite militias against US forces again."
Sunday's violence, conceivably, may be a
harbinger of things to come unless the US
accommodates Iranian interests. It may have
displayed that Iran has the will and the capacity
to remain the dominant influence in Iraq with or
without a stable government in Baghdad and with or
without US acquiescence. The Bush administration
has no real choice in the matter. Conversely, what
the Bush administration could do is to build on
the convergence of interests with Tehran in
keeping the Iraqi security situation from
degenerating in the critical months ahead in US
domestic politics. Harrison sums up his
impressions following talks with interlocutors in
the Iranian government: "Iran and the US have a
common interest in a stable Iraq ... Before
cooperating to stabilize Iraq, however, Iran wants
assurances that the US will not use it as a base
for covert action and military attacks against the
Islamic Republic and will gradually phase out its
combat troops. Cooperation will endure only if
Washington lets the Shi'ites enforce the terms for
the new ethnic equation in Iraq and, above all, if
it recognizes Iran's right by virtue of geography
and history to have a bigger say in Iraq's destiny
than its other immediate neighbors, not to mention
the faraway United States."
Evidently, the
crucial ingredient henceforth of the Bush
administration's Iraq policy is no longer a
withdrawal schedule but a political and diplomatic
underpinning for a military strategy. Hence the
importance of US Vice President Dick Cheney's
current tour of the Middle East. Quite
uncharacteristically, Cheney eschewed any strident
anti-Iran rhetoric during his tour. (The Iranians,
on their part, reciprocated by ignoring Cheney's
presence in the region.)
But what
multiplies the "Iranian challenge" is the grim
reality that Tehran may have withstood all
attempts by the Bush administration to create
dissensions within the Iranian regime. Following
the recent parliamentary elections in Iran on
March 14, the regime has greatly consolidated. The
Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC),
custodians of the Iranian revolution of 1979, are
finally on the threshold of consolidating their
political power in addition to the considerable
economic and administrative power they already
enjoy.
The so-called "reformist" platform
- comprising 21 moderate parties that included the
allies of former presidents Mohammad Khatami and
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former parliament
speaker Mehdi Karroubi - could together muster
only less than 20% of seats in the new Parliament.
The "reformist" coalition was the Bush
administration's best hope.
In effect, the
"reformist' coalition has become a spent force and
is now likely to disintegrate. Already by
end-February, Rafsanjani seems to have sensed this
defeat of "black Shi'ism" by "red Shi'ism". He
quickly changed tack and made up with Ahmadinejad.
The ultimate clincher, of course, was the
extraordinary gesture of Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei to publicly voice support of
Ahmadinejad. Addressing the powerful Assembly of
Experts (headed by Rafsanjani) on February 26,
Khamenei praised the role of Ahmadinejad for
"great success" on the nuclear issue. Later in the
evening on the same day, Rafsanjani visited
Ahmadinejad.
The IRGC has cadres numbering
10 million. Late spiritual leader ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini had envisaged the IRGC to be the
core of the Iranian revolution. The parliamentary
elections have created a new power calculus
devolving on the IRGC. The high turnout at the
elections - over 60% - lends unquestionable
legitimacy to this extraordinary political
transformation of the Iranian regime, returning
it, as it were, to its revolutionary moorings.
But it has not been the kind of "regime
change" the Bush administration sought. Khamenei
has emerged more powerful than ever and
Ahmadinejad has considerably strengthened his
political standing. Khamenei has risen above
nitpicking by senior clerical conservatives. Thus,
from Washington's perspective, the new Iranian
Parliament will have a preponderant share of
"hardliners" and will be more radical and more
"loyal" to the regime - to use Western cliches.
Bush's interviews on the occasion of Nauroz are a
grudging admission of the emergent political
alignment in Tehran. The Bush administration is
pragmatic enough to estimate the need to engage
Iran.
The real issue now is whether the
emboldened leadership in Tehran shares the Bush
administration's sense of urgency. It will
carefully weigh its options. Foreign Minister
Manouchehr Mottaki announced on Monday that Tehran
"recently requested for membership" of the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Ahmadinejad will be attending the SCO's summit in
Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Meanwhile, Iran's proposal
to Russia to form a gas cartel is set to take off
at a meeting of gas-producing countries in Moscow
in June.
Tehran will surely estimate that
Russia-US disputes are hard to settle; that Russia
has major commercial interests in Iran; that
Moscow needs Iran's endorsement of a multinational
arrangement to exploit the Caspian Sea's energy
resources. At the same time, Tehran estimates that
a viable US exit from Iraq is still a long way off
and in the run-up to the US presidential election,
the Iraq war looms as a contentious domestic
issue.
Besides, Tehran remains on the
lookout for a shift in the US stance on the
Nabucco gas pipeline sourcing Iranian gas via
Turkey for the European market. Last week,
Switzerland's Elektrizitaetshesellschaft
Laufenburg signed a 25-year deal with the National
Iranian Gas Export Company for the delivery of 5.5
billion cubic meters of Iranian gas annually. The
agreement was signed during the visit of the Swiss
Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey to Tehran.
Without Nabucco, the US strategy to reduce
Europe's dependence on Russian gas supplies will
remain a pipedream, and without Iranian gas,
Nabucco itself makes little sense, while Nabucco
will be Iran's passport to integration with
Europe.
Conceivably, Cheney, who takes a
keen interest in energy diplomacy, would have kept
Nabucco at the back of his mind in Ankara on
Monday during his Middle East tour, on a day when
Turkmenistan President Gurbangulu Berdimuhammedov
also happened to be visiting the Turkish capital.
An unnamed Turkmen official had earlier mentioned
that Nabucco would be on the agenda of
Berdimuhammedov's talks.
M K
Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with
postings including India's ambassador to
Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
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