7 - 13 February 2002
Issue No.572
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 February 2002 Issue No.572 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Bitten but stronger
As the US brands Iran "evil," the Islamic Republic's feuding factions are taking time out to regroup. Azadeh Moaveni monitors the reaction in Tehran
Perhaps the US's moves last week were meant to rule out the possibility of peaceful dialogue. Perhaps it was a last minute decision reached without consensus in the US administration. Perhaps it was mostly a warning rather than a policy. Whatever it was, US President George W Bush's inclusion of Iran in an "axis of evil" marked a disastrous new stage in relations between the two countries.
For the Islamic Republic, the designation confirmed the notion that Washington is simply out to undermine Iran, and underlined the sentiment that cooperation of any sort would be stupid. President Bush's comments were read as a reworking of his original "either with us or against us" speech, this time especially tailored for Tehran. For most Iranians, the speech seemed to say "no matter which side you are on, we are against you."
The comments have humiliated President Mohamed Khatami's government, already vulnerable after the assistance lent to the US at the Bonn talks which produced the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai. At the time, hard-liners in Iran attacked Khatami for being over- generous with the US, for giving too much away for nothing tangible in return. Now, that faction has been armed with hard evidence to undermine the president's policy of cooperation.
As one Iranian analyst put it: "From Tehran's perspective, every time they tried to show good will to the US, they were bitten. This time, it was a rabid bite!"
In the first display of such unanimity in years, the president, standing shoulder to shoulder with former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Supreme Leader Khamenei, denounced the Bush speech in horrified tones. Khamenei, never one to be outdone in name calling, called the United States itself "the greatest evil," and said Bush's comments were those of "a person thirsty for human blood." If the Iranian system lacked cohesion a couple of weeks ago, today it is more united than ever.
Both minority and majority factions in parliament came out in agreement, and released a joint statement that read: "We MPs stand united to defend Iran's independence and freedom and announce that the new stance by the US president is intended to push expansionist policies under the guise of war on terrorism."
Both reformists and conservatives in Iran believe that their open, factional feuding encouraged the US to threaten war. Now there is a new insistence that differences are manageable and domestic, though the reformists are needling the conservatives somewhat. They blame the way conservatives have blocked reforms for the new threat Iran faces today.
Nevertheless, the axis speech has pulled the establishment back from the brink, rescuing it from the unprecedented level of strain it had been facing.
Many in Tehran believe that President Bush fell victim to bad advice. There are those in Washington who think that the Iranian regime is frail and may fall apart with a little push -- and who have been trying to convince the Bush administration as much. The gist of the argument runs thus: this is a unique opportunity for the US to rid itself of the mullahs altogether, so why try to tame the reformists gradually when the whole objectionable system can be done away with in one fell swoop?
This view seems to be supported by Washington's rhetoric. "Iran's direct support of regional and global terrorism, and its aggressive efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, belie any good intentions it displayed in the days after the worst terrorist attacks in world history," US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said last week.
In recent weeks, Iran has withstood a growing spate of allegations as part of what it considers to be a smear campaign against it in the US. At the same time, US officials have begun to accuse Iran of fomenting trouble against the interim government in Afghanistan. To add to Iran's bad press, Israeli authorities intercepted a ship in the Red Sea which they said was a shipment of arms sent by Iran to the Palestinian Authority.
Washington has accused Iran of a "good cop, bad cop" routine, where President Mohamed Khatami speaks prettily of change, while the Supreme Leader and his hard-line cronies continue their repression of political and social freedoms. But this argument is an old one in the Islamic Republic. Even after the historic unveiling of the "axis of evil," US officials quoted in the American press suggested there was still political will in Washington to explore better ties with Tehran.
It is safe to say that in Tehran, however, there is no such goodwill remaining. The Iranian mission to the UN, which has played a key role in evolving ties with American officials, said regretfully last week that Bush's statements had "put an end to [these] efforts."
The irony of Washington's new stance is that while it seems to have been designed to quicken the Islamic Republic's decline, it has so far succeeded only in unifying the fractures.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page