by Dariush Shirazi dariushshirazi@hotmail.com
Posted on 08/24/2004 6:28:31 PM PDT by faludeh_shirazi
MY ENEMY’S enemy isn’t always my friend. Sometimes he’s just another enemy, as Jack Straw is now painfully discovering. In the past three months one of the major planks of British diplomacy has collapsed underneath the Foreign Secretary.
For the past three years Mr Straw has been practising a policy of “constructive engagement” towards Iran. He, and his advisers, believed that the regime in Tehran was uniquely placed to be wooed and won. Sandwiched, as it was, between Taleban Afghanistan and Saddam’s Iraq, and hostile to both, it appeared to be a valuable potential ally in the war against terrorism. As an enemy of two of Britain’s post-9/11 enemies, Iran seemed to be a suitable candidate for the role of New Best Friend. To that end, Mr Straw has visited Tehran five times in the past two years, making it one of his frequent-flyer destinations.
There were those, not least within the Bush Administration, who doubted the wisdom of placing so many eggs in a Persian basket. But the British diplomatic establishment was so convinced of the worth of this charm offensive that it persuaded Tony Blair to use up much of his valuable political capital in America to secure White House acquiescence for Mr Straw’s strategy.
The Americans not only swallowed their doubts about the wisdom of Mr Straw’s plan, they also kept quiet when France and Germany joined in. The EU foreign ministers soon used their policy of “constructive engagement” with Iran as a stick with which to beat the White House. Germany and France celebrated the potential of their subtle diplomatic footwork with Iran, claiming that the Europeans were showing those stoopid white men in the Pentagon how subtlety rather than force was the best way to win friends and influence people in the Middle East.
The Germans, British and French may well have succeeded in influencing Iranian policy by their actions. But it is hard to see how Iran’s actions recently can be considered friendly. Even by French standards.
In the past three months Iran has kidnapped eight British servicemen, compelling Britain to truckle for their release; used its agents to foment insurgency and unrest in Iraq; arranged a summit with Syria to discuss future terrorist co-operation; and started a process designed to secure itself an atomic bomb in defiance of international agreements. The best estimates, from European diplomats, put Iran just one year away from having the raw material for a bomb and three years from deploying a deliverable device.
Even some of those who were once most enthusiastic about the prospect of developing a “constructive” relationship with Iran, such as Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, have been compelled to express their “great concerns” at Iran’s activity. But Herr Fischer, like Mr Straw, still seems incapable of recognising that it has been precisely because of their policy that there is such cause for concern now.
The regime in Tehran has interpreted the EU’s desire to develop a constructive relationship as Western weakness, and America’s acquiescence while she is involved in Iraq as confirmation of that weakness. Like all states that practise violence against their own people and terror against others, Iran construes weakness in other nations as a licence for further repression at home and adventurism abroad.
In the period during which Mr Straw has been visiting Tehran, the Iranian leadership has crushed even the few licensed dissenters it had once allowed a modicum of freedom and also violently suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations.
It is not only within its own borders that Iran has been working to subvert democracy. At the time of the transfer of sovereignty in Iraq, the Iranian leadership met President Assad of Syria to review how they might further destabilise Iraqi progress towards representative government. Iranian support for Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr’s insurgency has been just one of Tehran’s tactics. It is particularly ironic that Britain’s “constructive” approach to Tehran has thus allowed Iranian-backed fighters to put British soldiers in their sights.
Having argued in this space that constructive engagement with Iran was an error, since the policy began, it seems to me inexplicable that more voices have not been raised to oppose Mr Straw’s appeasement. The regime in Tehran has never been a plausible potential ally in the War on Terror for the simple reason that it has been one of the main sponsors of terrorism across the world since its inception.
And it has shown no signs of wishing to desist from practising terror at any point in the past 25 years. The Islamic republic, from the moment it announced its arrival on the world stage by taking the residents of Tehran’s American Embassy hostage, has always signalled its contempt for the conventions of Western diplomacy and its faith in terrorism as a tool of political advance. The latest evidence of Iran’s implacable attachment to terror comes in the findings of the congressional investigation into 9/11, which demonstrates complicity between Iran and al-Qaeda.
There is no longer any excuse for Mr Straw to cling to the corpse of a failed policy, nor for others to acquiesce silently in his folly. We need to work now to support the appetite for democracy among the Iranian people just as we gave hope to Soviet dissidents and Polish trade unionists in the 1980s — by backing those who broadcast the truth to the oppressed, funding those who will organise for change and showing those who are really the West’s friends that we know a shared enemy when we see one.
by Dariush Shirazi dariushshirazi@hotmail.com
Many on the left, most visibly Presidential contender John Kerry, often claim that the "coalition of the willing" is weak and that participation from the international community has been minimal if anything. Opponents of President Bush use such claims in order to discredit the legitimacy of this noble endeavor for freedom. It may not be such a bad idea to look at the state of our coalition, not in an effort to attack President Bush, but rather to conduct a healthy reassessment and critique of the coalition and our allies.
Several weeks ago, Michael Rubin returned from the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, and upon his return resigned from the Pentagon. In recent weeks Mr. Rubin has expressed his views regarding the region, most notably illustrating the many links between the Islamic clerical regime in Iran and much of the violence that has broken out across Iraq, evident in the actions of Al Sadr and his fanatical brigade who have reportedly received millions of dollars in funding from the mullahs in Iran.
An article published in the Telegraph of London yesterday quoted Mr. Rubin's sentiments that "British officials clearly had little interest in pursuing the White House vision of a democratic Iraq, a keystone of its foreign policy, and were too 'soft' in confronting dissent." The article goes on to say that "many US officials had been startled at their British counterparts' attempts to capitalize on their presence in southern Iraq for a 'freelance' fostering of ties with Iran, one of Washington's most implacable enemies." The article also discusses the tension between Paul Bremer and his British counterpart, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, by quoting a provisional authority insider who said, "There was an understanding in the CPA that Bremer and Greenstock didn't like each other. It personified the differences between the two views. Greenstock thought Bremer was naive; Bremer thought Greenstock was pursuing the wrong policies."
It is no big surprise to many who have followed the region's history and the mullahcracy's economic ties with nations who proclaim to be supporters in the War on Terror, that such concerns are now gaining visibility. Because we cannot continue to escape the truth by thinking of this historic conflict in the same superficial light the media shines on it, we are obliged to look carefully at the fact that the British government has been a staunch supporter of the regime in Iran since the early days of the Islamic Republic, although this relationship has scarcely been mentioned until now. Mr. Rubin's statements represent some of the first high-level public acknowledgments of this worrisome arrangement.
Michael Rubin's resignation is not the first of its kind. Richard Perle, a strong supporter of freedom throughout the Middle East, resigned from the Defense Policy Board in February. These resignations and statements that have recently surfaced all raise the question: are the so-called "neocons", or those who believe in America's duty to nurture and defend freedom throughout the world, including Iran, unhappy with the direction in which the Bush administration is now headed, and is it perhaps even plausible to suggest that the ideology of the Richard Armitage/Colin Powell types, who believe Iran is a "sort-of" democracy, gaining ground?
We cannot forget that the the British have contributed around 10,000 troops to the Iraqi theater, but as Americans, should we really be thankful? British deployments have been exclusively located in regions of Iraq that have been uncannily stable since the fall of Saddam's regime, a region that is also heavily Shiite. Dozens of reports have been issued that explain the influx of Islamic-regime sponsored agents and clerics since the US invasion, but why aren't British forces who occupy Shiite regions in southeastern Iraq, an ideological safe haven and staging ground for the Mullah's agents, experiencing the same sort of turbulence that American soldiers are experiencing elsewhere? Of course these are all questions, but they are questions that need to be asked, because if it is determined that there is some correlation between resistance that certain coalition forces (American soldiers) are facing and British trade agreements with Iran, then perhaps the United States should ask the Mullahs to bestow similar kindness to American forces.
Considering the importance of this momentous effort to free the people of the Middle East (both Arabs and Persians), it is critical that the allies of liberty, human rights and justice all have the same goals and objectives in mind, because in the end there is only one kind of freedom. If it is discovered to be the case that a particular ally has objectives that are not in alignment with ours, then it is better we address this problem sooner rather than later, before we reach the point of no return.
Forward-thinking analysts and intellectuals rightfully believe that in order for Iraq to stabilize and institutions of freedom and justice to succeed, the regime in Iran must fall. A free and democratic Iraq would be a major blow to the Mullahs, which would likely result in an overthrow of the regime, and the only thing the Mullahs fear more than an all out military assault against their nuclear sites is the overthrow of their illegitimate mafia rule. They will use all means available to prevent such a scenario; they will continue to stir unrest throughout Iraq, with hopes that democracy will not rise and President Bush will not be re-elected.
Ultimately, the question we should be demanding that the Bush Administration, Congress and Senate ask themselves is: if the British have close economic ties and relationships with the regime in Iran, but are also part of the coalition to bring freedom to the peoples of the region, does such an arrangement signify a conflict of interest, and if it does, how should such a conflict be resolved? As the battle wages, the only “wrong policy” is to accuse the United States of being "naive" in our struggle to bring freedom to those who shed tears of blood as they await their liberation.
Dariush Shirazi is a pseudonym of an Iranian-American university student and Los Angeles-based freelance journalist who can be reached at dariushshirazi@hotmail.com
COULD THE BRITS BE INTERESTED IN SHIFTING IRAN-POLICY MORE TOWARD BUSH ADMINS? WISE-CHOICE IF IT IS THE CASE...
Bump
Yes, why is it that the British are experiencing no trouble in their Shiite region of occupation ?
Iran will hold Europe, even the British Isles, to blackmail when they tip their missiles with nukes.
And we'll say "told you so."
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