13 - 19 December 2001
Issue No.564
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 13 - 19 December 2001 Issue No.564 |
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Tehran counts its mixed blessings
The Iranian administration is rejoicing at the Taliban's defeat, but support for Hamas could yet complicate the Islamic Republic's diplomatic moment of glory. Azadeh Moaveni tallies the geopolitical score in Tehran
Since the day when the Taliban -- Iran's greatest regional enemy -- also became the enemy of the world's most powerful nation, the Islamic Republic has witnessed the unexpected and favourable settling of its geopolitical accounts. The urgency of regional events has also momentarily distracted both the establishment and the Iranian people from the domestic situation -- which is going from bad to worse.
The Taliban's rise to political supremacy in Afghanistan caused Iran no end of irritation. The murder of nine Iranian diplomats and one journalist at Iran's embassy in Mazar-i-Sharif -- which almost led Iran to war -- was just the most obvious example of Taliban provocation. Taliban drug-runners turned Iran's eastern border into bandit country, costing millions of dollars and the lives of hundreds of Iranian policemen each year. The Taliban continued to be a headache for Tehran even after 11 September, as Iran became the transit point of choice for Arabs rushing to Afghanistan to fight on the Taliban side. A worried Tehran began demanding visas to quell the flow.
Now that the deadly neighbour has fallen, however, Iran is basking in the glow of its new-found international relevance. Iranian diplomats in Bonn used their influence with the Northern Alliance to help broker an agreement over the interim government in Afghanistan, winning cautious praise from Western countries.
There has also been a major thaw in Iranian- Pakistani relations, signalled by the way that Islamabad virtually begged Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi to visit. Tehran is willing to help reconcile Pakistan and the Northern Alliance, if only to strengthen its own bargaining position should differences eventually emerge between the American and Iranian visions of Afghanistan's future.
Iran is already complaining that the US is masking its unilateral aims behind a façade of UN cooperation. "We think that the presence of alien forces in Afghanistan is a dangerous step which could lead to complicated problems," said Kharrazi last week. At the same time, mutual interests -- or "common points," as Kharrazi put it in Bonn -- have encouraged renewed engagement between Iran and the United States, and there are rumours of extensive, secret contacts between them.
In practical terms, however, there is no political will on either side to re-establish ties, only a willingness to cooperate wherever and whenever it is required. Ultimately, Iran would like to use its Afghan diplomacy as a springboard to becoming a powerful but moderate force in the region. This ambition explains the overtly pragmatic approach Iran is taking with both the United States and Pakistan.
The period after 11 September also appeared, at first, to indicate a new stage in Iranian- European, or at least Iran-UK, relations. Before the attacks on the US, no British foreign secretary had visited Iran since the 1979 revolution. Since the attacks, Jack Straw has stopped by Tehran twice. On both occasions, however, he quietly made the point that the United States will not tolerate Iran's support for militant groups -- Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizbullah -- and said that Tehran underestimates Washington's resolve on this point. Last week, however, British Prime Minister Tony Blair put it more bluntly by saying that the UK's relations with Iran could not evolve beyond a limited point until Iran dropped its sponsorship of "extremism". Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reacted furiously, declaring that British diplomacy was "two-faced."
This snag is indicative of a deeper concern which darkens Iran's otherwise sunny post-11 September prospects. "The establishment is paranoid that Iran will become a target of phase two of the war against terror," said a Western diplomat in Tehran this week. As it becomes increasingly clear that the American definition of terrorism extends to include Palestinian resistance groups, Iran is afraid of the implications that its direct financial and political support of these groups will have.
Iran's somewhat contradictory dealings with Palestinian groups -- Hamas in particular -- can be partly explained by factional politics within the country. Iranian ideologues made a show of courting Khaled Mashaal, leader of Hamas's political wing, when he attended the Intifada Summit held in Tehran last spring. But when Jordan evicted Mashaal and hard-liners tried to talk him into relocating in Iran, the government of President Mohamed Khatami made it clear Hamas would not be welcome.
"We're trying to minimise the damage to Iran's image that this support has already caused," said one pro-reform official who wished to remain anonymous. Reformists would risk losing jobs or possibly going to prison if they said so publicly, but many would like to see Iran's links to militant Palestinian groups sanitised. Many are sick of the political costs of supporting these groups. "Either way, we're not really in a position to make a positive or negative difference to the policy," explains Said Laylaz, a pro-reform newspaper editor.
Reformists are torn between their deep and genuine commitment to the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance, and the diplomatic bind Tehran faces when it backs organisations like Hamas which target civilians. Domestically, though, the question is sufficiently explosive to ensure that it is not likely to be dealt with anytime soon. For now, Iran has its hands full watching over the new Afghan government.
Reformists privately wonder whether Iraq, another old foe, will be the next American target after the Taliban. A weakened Iraq and a tidy end to Saddam Hussein would be happily greeted in Tehran. But there is also a sense here that Iran should not be so greedy. What seems too good to be true, in geopolitics, probably is.
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