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IRAN: A POLICY OF DECEPTION

By AMIR TAHERI

NYPost.com
January 13, 2004

ONE man put up a ladder and another climbed it to take off the nameplate of a Tehran street. Passersby report that the operation lasted a few minutes.
The street in question is a villa-lined boulevard in a once-fashionable part of the Iranian capital. One of the villas housed the Egyptian Embassy before the 1979 Khomeinist Revolution.

In October 1981, the street was renamed after Khaled Ahmad Showqi al-Islambouli, the army lieutenant who murdered Egypt's President Anwar Sadat. In 1992, President Muhammad Khatami, then minister of Islamic Guidance and Culture, inaugurated a giant mural portrait of al-Islambouli on a building facing the Egyptian Embassy.

One of Khomeini's first moves in 1979 was to break relations with Egypt as "punishment" for Sadat's decision to make peace with Israel. When Sadat was murdered in 1981, Khomeini was jubilant: "A true son of Islam has acted to rid us of the Apostate Pharaoh," he declared. He vowed that his regime would never restore ties with Egypt until the Egyptians renounced peace with Israel and joined a Muslim front to wipe it off the map.

So why have the mullahs decided to take the name of the Egyptian terrorist off the street? Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak insists that without the name change he will not go to Tehran for the annual summit of developing nations next month. That would be a major diplomatic snub to the mullahs, at a time when they are feeling the heat of U.S. pressure in the region.

Does the change signal a genuine shift in Iranian policy? The answer must be no.

Even as the workmen were taking down the controversial sign, a team of Khomeinist dignitaries was inaugurating a symbolic tomb for al-Islambouli in Tehran's Behesht Zahra cemetery, in the area reserved for the "hero-martyrs of Islam." The tomb is adorned by a large portrait of the assassin.

And the daily newspaper Jumhuri Islami (Islamic Republic), owned by the "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei, has published an editorial implicitly calling for Mubarak's assassination. It says: "The great Egyptian people are fully capable of seizing the Islamic leadership over the Arab world. Naturally, Mubarak's revolting presence is an obstacle to that goal. But the followers of the martyr Khaled al-Islambouli know well how to remove this ugly cancer."

Meanwhile, Tehran's propaganda is trying to present the street name change as a climb-down by Egypt. The official media have invented a story according to which Egypt made the first move by taking the name of the last Shah of Iran off a street in Cairo. "When they took the cursed name of the Shah down, we decided to make a small gesture," says Ali Taskhiri, a cultural advisor to Khameini. In fact, no street in Cairo ever bore the name of any Iranian shah, and Egypt has made no concessions to the mullahs.

Also to hide the fact that they were eating humble pie, the mullahs have found a new name for the street: "Intifada Street." "The new name shows our commitment to the destruction of the Zionist state and the rejection of all peace deals with [Israel]," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

The tactic here is one the mullahs have practiced to perfection. It is based on the theological principle of Takiyah, which means hiding one's true beliefs to confuse adversaries. Its political version is known as Kitman (dissimulation).

The idea is to back out of an unequal contest with an adversary by giving him concessions that can easily be revoked later. Political discourse based on Kitman is capable of multiple, almost endless readings, re-readings and misreadings. This is why as Khatami is telling the Egyptians that Iran has made a major concession, Khamenei is telling the Iranians that it is, in fact, Egypt that is begging pardon from Iran.

Khomeini used the tactic in 1988 when he surprised everyone by accepting a ceasefire to end the eight-year war with Iraq. He presented his humiliating retreat as "the greatest victory of Islam in centuries."

The mullahs used the same tactic in 1998 over the Rushdie affair. While Khatami was promising the Europeans that the murder fatwa against the British novelist would not be executed, other mullahs were raising the bounty offered to anyone who would kill Rushdie. "The fatwa is not annulled," Khatami explained, "Its implementation, however, is not government policy."

The Iranian propaganda declared "victory" by claiming that the Europeans had agreed to force Rushdie to leave Britain and settle in the United States.

Late last year, we saw Kitman in action once again, this time over their nuclear-weapons program: The Europeans were sent home dancing with jubilation over a promise made by Hassan Ruhani, a junior mullah who acts as secretary of the High Council of National Security, that Iran would suspend production of weapons-grade enriched uranium.

The promise is backed by nothing concrete as it has never been approved by the Cabinet, let alone the Majlis (Parliament). It could be canceled at any time. In exchange, the mullahs avoided a clash with the United Nations while demanding that the European Union provide them with extra financial and technological aid.

Will the Egyptians fall for the Kitman trick as have the Europeans and others on so many occasions? Perhaps not. The Egyptians are local boys and know many of the tricks in our neck of the wood.

Mubarak may end up going to Tehran, and this writer believes that he should, but Egypt should insist on three points before full ties are restored:

* Acknowledgment of Egypt's right to make peace with Israel, thus ending the Khomeinists' attempts to seize control of a major part of Egyptian foreign policy.

* Closing down the offices and training bases, in Iran, of terrorist groups dedicated to the destruction of the Egyptian state.

* Handing over for trial in Egypt a number of Egyptian terrorists, including dozens who fled from Afghanistan to Iran after the fall of the Taliban in Kabul.

Iran is at the crossroads with what could be a decisive general election only weeks away. (Of course, Iran's "democracy" is itself a form of dissimulation; the recent mass disqualification of candidates is only one sign of that.) Many in Iran believe that it is time to abandon a strategy based on lying and cheating in the name of Takiyah and Kitman, and that a serious review of Iranian foreign policy is long overdue.

By taking a firm and principled stance now, Egypt could help those in Tehran who want a genuine end to two decades of subversive diplomacy by the Khomeinist regime.

E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/15530.htm