The Islamic Republic: Thirty Years On: Part 2
This is part 2 of a three part guest post by David Patrikarakos. Part 1 may be read here.
When Akbar Rafsanjani took office as the 4th President of the Islamic Republic on 3 August 1989, he had a plan. He had watched the intemperate diplomacy and political foolishness of the early republic isolate his country, for which it had paid dearly during the Iran-Iraq war. The US, previously Iran’s staunchest ally, had been (rightly) enraged at the so-called hostage crisis, in which a militant group of Iranian students had held 52 people in the US embassy in Tehran hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981. Taking a multi-pronged attack, Washington had placed unilateral sanctions on Tehran, broke off diplomatic relations, pressured its allies to do the same, and (when the war began) took steps to bolster Iraq and the other Arab powers in the Gulf.
Rafasanjani was determined that a change in the very fabric of Iranian foreign policy decision-making was necessary. He sought a “routinization of the Revolution”, bringing in many (often Western-educated) technocrats designed to introduce a realist corrective into Iranian foreign policy to tally with perceived US pragmatism. Ideology was dismissed; Washington didn’t work like that. The view was clear: the US was a rational actor that pursued recognizable geopolitical and economic ‘interests.’
Certainly, the process was tough, the Rushdie Affair showed that Iran still struggled with its own revolutionary self. But the new President was determined that some degree of harmony could be achieved. The key, or so the mercantile President believed, lay in financial incentives. He was determined that Iran be ‘open for business.’ As he so succinctly put it: “it is oil the US wants; and we want to sell.”
But as the Iran-Iraq war had burned much of the initial fervour of revolution out of Iran, many within Washington emerged from the 1980s with attitudes hardened and prejudices reaffirmed. The Hostage Crisis had brought down the Carter Administration. The 1986 ‘Iran Contra affair’ – in which the US was caught doing arms-for-hostages deals with Iran and funding the Nicaraguan Contras group to boot, almost finished Reagan. Iran had enraged both Democrats and Republicans, and there is little doubt that it had become “a category of its own as far as US policy makers were concerned.”
Iran’s geopolitical position makes it vital as a transit for oil and gas out of the Caspian Basin toward the Persian Gulf. There is considerable economic logic in running pipelines through the country, as opposed to more expensive and circuitous routes through Turkey and Russia. Rafsanjani proposed extensive collaboration with Washington on this very issue.
Added to this, he targeted the US directly, offering American oil companies, in this case Conoco, a stake in Iranian oil development. But, incredibly (to Iranian eyes) these were rebuffed. To the fury of Conoco itself, which was banned from taking up the offer, leaving the grateful French to step in, Washington also decided to circumvent the Iranian pipeline offer, underwriting expensive alternative routes through, of all places, Afghanistan.
The subsequent imposition of extensive sanctions through both Executive Order and legislation (the Iran Libya Sanctions Act – ILSA) (which sought to introduce secondary sanctions on any foreign company investing in the Iranian oil and gas sector) convinced the new Iranian ‘realists’ that the US could not be reasoned with.
But they comforted themselves that this was a Democrat administration, and as such, (in Iranian eyes) traditionally beholden to the Israel lobby. President Clinton’s decision to block the Conoco deal had come in the wake of intense pressure from AIPAC. And besides, the scope of antipathy had already been revealed by the imposition of ‘Dual Containment’, and the appointment of Warren Christopher as Secretary of State in 1993, who, as a result of personal experiences during the hostage crisis, was widely believed to have ‘issues’ with Iran.
Iranian ‘realists’ were therefore reassured that they only had to wait for a Republican victory at the polls for the return of good old fashioned American pragmatism (a view reinforced by the Republicans in opposition). Then things would move forward.
Wouldn’t they?
Comments
| 12 February 2009, 1:14 pm |
Thanks for the Doc Martyn. “The Iranian Airforce was equipped with US planes and missile systems.” Yes, but all of this was a legacy of the Shah’s regin when the US had been the biggest supplier of arms to Iran.
The US certainly did NOT support Iran during the first half of the war. Indeed – as the British ambassador at the time has recounted – it was US pressure of the security council that stopped it condemning Iraq when it first invaded Iran! Had this occurred and US pressure been applied in a different direction, the war may well have been averted in the first place.
The US also certainly did NOT help Iran throw Iraqi forces out of the country. (except perhaps by the fact that the Iranian army still had US hardware from the time of the Shah, and that Washington continued dealing with Israel, which was aiding Iran. Although more on logistics – i.e. designing the huge polystyrene blocks that enabled Iranian forces to cross rivers etc. rather than arms). Multitudes of declassified US security documents attest.
“The myth that the West supported Saddam during the war is just that, a myth.” + “…the US policy changed to tacit support of Iraq.” Well, you’ve undercut your own argument here. Saying US support was a myth, and then that it did support Iraq.
Certainly US support became more pronounced as the war wore on. But this does not mean, by some curious form of sophistry, that had in fact supported Iran in the beginning.
I refer you to the FCO and US National Security archives for extensive detail on the US position throughout the war.
| 12 February 2009, 1:18 pm |
Doc Martyn
To what extent was the Western military equipment that Iran was using supplied to Iran under Khomeini? My instinct is that it was supplied under the Shah who used to enjoy shopping for his military toys.
The arms under Iran-Contra did not happen to 1985 way into the Iran/Iraq war.
| 12 February 2009, 1:21 pm |
Sorry David,
My comment overlapped with yours.
| 12 February 2009, 1:28 pm |
If it weren’t so serious one would laugh at the lib-left coverage of the anniversary. Robert Fisk trying to explain the savagery of the regime by reference to Savak. Yeah sure. And that also explains Saddam’s savagery, the savagery of the Algerian civil war, the genocidal intentions of the Palestinians towards the Jews, Syria’s savage murder policy in Lebanon, the savage judicial system in Saudi Arabia, the savage persecution of Black in Darfur, the savage persecution of Hindus, Ahmadiyyas and Bahais in South West Asia and the savage terrorist attacks, numbering tens of thousands since 9/11.
Then there was Lyndsey someone on Channel 4 news explaining the wonderfully peace-loving response of the Iranian Mullah regime to the Obama overture – whilst admitting that the mass crowd behind were chanting “death to the USA” (as ever) and even threatening the marginally less rabid Khatami for daring to broach the subject of standing for office again.
Talk of the wrongs of the West in the past are irrelevant now. Certainly colonialism, lust for oil and arms trading have all been chickens that would eventually come home to roost.
But Mullah or Caliph rule is a home grown phenomenon that was the norm for the best part of 1200 years. And that is what we are facing again in Iran.
| 12 February 2009, 4:06 pm |
Saadam offered Peace to Khomeini after a couple of years, however, Khomeini refused; hell bent on returning Jerusalem to its “rightful owners and liberating palestinians (“The Road to Jerusalem is via Karbala”–Khomeini), needlessly prolonged the war for 6 more years, which caused the death of my beloved brother.
Read the account of Iran-Iraq war veteran: A PATH TO NO WHERE:
http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/manoucher-avaznia/iran-iraq-war-path-nowhere-intro
In one month, The Islamic Republic killed more people than the Shah did in his 26 years. Most of Savak stayed put and are running VEVAK and SAVAMA, Paramilitary Ansar-e-hezbollah, paralimitary Basiji, AND the IRGC and so on.
The Western powers and media are also to blame. For the past five/six years or so, when confronting the IRI, the only issue they bring up is the nuclear dossier, Natanz, etc.
The shah was viciously demonized by the Western Media/powers for a fraction of crimes that the IRI has done and continues to pepetrate.
Why does the IRI get such a preferential treatment from the Western Media?? Think about it..
Read the comments and the blog
http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/paymaneh-amiri/khavaran-silencing-dead
A Question of Numbers
http://www.emadbaghi.com/en/archives/000592.php
Read what Iranians think about Khomeini’s bloody revolution:
http://iranian.com/main/albums/looking-back
The Iranian revolution at 30:
http://www.mideasti.org/files/Iran_Final.pdf
Most Iranians think that the Brits and carter et al installed the mullahs to keep Iran backward and ignorant.
http://www.amazon.com/Century-War-Anglo-American-P...
http://www.payvand.com/news/06/mar/1090.html
U.S. policies may have contributed to Iran revolution, study says
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-f...
2. Report: U.S. Missteps Led To Shah’s Overthrow NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story...
3. The installation of Ayatollah by the West:
http://www.williambowles.info/guests/2005/iran_cla...
4. Carter’s Habitat of inhumanity:
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialconten...
5. Complicity of France in Manufacturing the Iranian Revolution and Jimmy Carter’s betrayal of the Iranian People
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1857
| 12 February 2009, 4:10 pm |
I forgot to mention that my brother was drafted as a soldier and died running his jeep over a land mine. He would have been able to celebrate my birthday today with me, if it werenot for that evil man, khomeini.
| 12 February 2009, 4:28 pm |
Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (Paperback)
“Trita Parsi has written a compelling book, cutting thorough ideological and political propaganda emanating from the three countries he has focused on (US, Israel, and Iran), and going right through the core issues involving geopolitical and regional hegemony aspirations of the three governments. What is fascinating is that Parsi reveals that such political calculations transcend the particular ideology of the governments in these three countries. Whether it is Likud or Labor in Israel, Democrats or Republicans in the US, or The former Shah’s regime or the reformists or hardliners of the Islamic government in Iran, the decision making process remarkably follows more or less the same logic, and the same priorities are at play. When a shift in policy takes place, Parsi reveals that again the political faction of the government involved is irrelevant. In fact, amazingly, the very same people who were advocating one set of policies, often advance a diametrically opposite set a few years later. Parsi underlines this point by revealing how Israeli Labor leaders, the late Itzhak Rabin and Shimon Perez were lobbying the Reagan administration to disregard virulent rhetoric from Iran and try to open up channels of communication with them, while just a few years later these two men were warning about the Iranian menace in every domestic and international speech. He points out how the neo-conservatives dominating the Bush administration were the very same people who were advocating supporting Iran in the Iran-Iraq war and opening channels in the eighties in the Reagan administration. And how the former hostage takers in Iran are now mostly leading liberals advocating negotiations and moderation in Iranian policies.
Parsi narrates this story in a linear historical context, starting his book from 1948 when Israel was created all the way to present day (summer of 2007). The central theme of the book is that before 1991, Iran and Israel were natural allies, while afterwards (which was coincident with the fall of Soviet Union and defeat of Iraqi President Saddam Hossein’s invasion of Kuwait and his subsequent weakenining) the two countries became rivals and perceived each other as threats.
The main shortcoming of the book as I see it, is that while Parsi underlies the geopolitical underpinnings of the triangular relationship of Iran, Israel and the US, very little is mentioned in terms of economic reasons for these “treacherous” alliances and rivalries. What corporations or industries benefit from continued hostilities between Iran and the US and which ones benefit, and how much influence and clout each has on the direction of the US policies? Who benefits in Iran for continued belligerence towards Israel or towards the US, and who is hurt, and how much influence they have on the Iranian government? Some economic analysis is given for Israel’s attitude towards Iran: Oil investments and sales from Iranian side, and military sales and training from the Israeli side when relations were good; and an Arab-Israeli common market in the Middle East (which would exclude Iran) when relations were bad. But these economic incentives are treated as secondary at best. I wish more and deeper economic analysis was presented from Iranian and American, as well as Israeli perspectives.”
| 12 February 2009, 4:42 pm |
“In Treacherous Alliance, Trita Parsi makes a persuasive case that since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has consistently used ideology to achieve hardheaded national interest objectives, rather than sacrifice national interest on the altar of extremist ideological goals. This is an extremely important point to bear in mind as Iran’’s relations with US and Israel deteriorate and the prospect of yet another Persian Gulf conflict looms. This work, based on extensive interviews with decision makers in three countries, contributes both to our historical understanding and our current policy debate.”-Francis Fukuyama, author of America at the Crossroads (Francis Fukuyama )
“A penetrating, provocative, and very timely study that deciphers how U.S. policy in the Middle East has been manipulated both by Iran and by Israel even as relations between these two oscillated between secret collusion and overt collision.”- The Honorable Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter (The Honorable Zbigniew Brzezinski )
“A brilliant interpretation of one of today’s most enigmatic conflicts. In a sober and original analysis, Dr. Parsi unearths the true nature of the tension in the triangle Iran-Israel-USA as a manipulation by all parties-especially the Israelis and the Iranians-of ideological differences to conceal what can be a solvable strategic dispute. This is a study about the manipulation of ideology and religion in the struggle for mastery in the Middle East.”-Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel’s former foreign minister and author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy (Shlomo Ben-Ami )
“Trita Parsi has written an outstanding book, filled with fascinating detail and trenchant analysis. Treacherous Alliance discusses Iran and Israel in dispassionate and smart ways, which is rarely done in the United States.”-John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago (John Mearsheimer ) –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
| 12 February 2009, 6:25 pm |
It should have been the high point of festivities for the glorious 30th anniversary of Iran’s revolution. But 15 minutes or so into President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech, people began to leave.
Down in the front rows of the crowd, the chador-wearing women chanted with gusto. But where I stood, directly beneath the Azadi, or Liberty, monument – a 1970s-built monstrosity that symbolises the revolution – it felt more like a predictable football game as people chatted and joked during the speech and then, too soon perhaps as it turned out, headed early for the exits. “He’s talking bullshit,” one man said to another as they left.
At that moment, Mr Ahmadinejad was boasting about aluminium production, the number of new phone lines installed and an apparent massive boost in tourism. “Is he talking about Iran?” one woman muttered to her husband. No mention of the 20 per cent inflation, chronic unemployment and economic crisis. And when Mr Ahmadinejad said Iran owed everything to Allah, another man quipped: “Let’s hope he doesn’t blame the high prices on God.”
Many were genuinely moved, carrying placards saying “30 years of freedom, 30 years of glory”. Somayeh Shahi, 23, a student, confided that she “hated” the US and didn’t believe Mr Obama. “We don’t trust him,” she said. But the numbers were unimpressive (about 400,000 out of a city population of 10 million) for such an auspicious anniversary. And while there were no roars of approval when the President said he would be ready for dialogue, some in the crowd had already decided he should.”Yes it would be better for us to speak to Obama,” said Majid Ahmadi. “But the Americans must listen.”
And among the millions of Iranians who stayed away, most, even if they support a tough nuclear policy, long for an end to isolation and reconciliation with the US. “You in the West have to decode what is going on,” said a student who sums up the Iranian paradox. She wears a full chador, yet thinks her President is “a joke” who has needlessly picked fights with the world Iranians never wanted. “People in Iran are not opposed to engagement with the US, as long as it is on equal terms.”
| 12 February 2009, 6:39 pm |
‘Mullah or Caliph rule is a home grown phenomenon that was the norm for the best part of 1200 years’ – In Iran??? I was under the possibly mistaken impression that Persia had continuity from the pre-Islamic Sassinid and Parthian Empires. From the Samanid, Saffarid, Buwayhid and Safavid empires, Persia was distinct from pre and post Ottoman Caliphs. Abbas I was certainly no cleric pecked leader
| 13 February 2009, 12:40 am |
Have a read of these. Al Haig was playing is normal games.
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1186/8611002.html
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ronald_Reagan/Irangate_Israel_TICC.html
| 13 February 2009, 11:30 am |
I think the post, tho very good, underplays two elements.
Firstly, the Rushdie fatwa was a concerted effort to make Iran the vanguard nation of Islamist revival. It is just as central to foreign affairs as were the overtures towards the US, as Kepel notes.
Secondly, the US position was embolden not just by the trouble Iran had cause administrations in the past but by both the victory over the Soviets and by gaining an ‘ally’ in post Soviet Afghanistan.
I believe you have missed a key point in US/UK/Israeli Iranian relations during the Iran-Iraq war; it is a question of timing.
The Iranian Airforce was equipped with US planes and missile systems. Its tank force was British as was lots of its hardwear.
The US/UK/Israeli supported Iran during the first half of the war. Israel supplied Iran with spares for its F4 fleet and spares from the UK for its tanks. The US (and to a lesser extent the UK) knowingly supplied Israel, who then supplied Iran. It was this that was the start of Iran-Contra; the people on the US end of the pipeline had to get rid of the cash they were generating by illegally supplying Iran, so they used it to illegally supply the Contras.
The myth that the West supported Saddam during the war is just that, a myth. The US made sure that Iran survived the initial attack and supported Iran in throwing the Iraqi forces out of Iranian territory.
It was only after the Iranians continued the war, fighting in Iraq that the US policy changed to tacit support of Iraq.