Weekly Commentary

Reckless Iran Policy Paralysis

Two weeks have passed since Ahmadinejad stunned the world by his remarks in the “World without Zionism” seminar. Much has been said and written in condemnation of his hate speech. That’s welcome. Western capitals, particularly Washington, however, need to go beyond mere words and put into effect a meaningful and practical policy toward the regime ruling Iran.

Some analysts have tried to calm the justified international concerns about a regime which is simultaneously working to get the nuclear bomb, is calling for destruction of a sovereign state and is threatening Muslim nations with terrorism. They have faulted Ahmadinejad’s inexperience and lack of statesmanship. Others have suggested that his words were just the rhetoric of a die-hard ideological populist uttered for internal consumption. It is repulsive but harmless, they say.

These views, echoed by Tehran’s traditional apologists, are naïve at best.

Ahmadinejad is in fact the face and the voice of a radical military-security faction that forms the power base of the mullahs’ Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), with the backing of Khamenei has been ascending through Iran’s halls of power since 2003.

And a closer look at what has developed in Iran since Ahmadinejad’s presidency indicates that he has been dutifully rolling out the very agenda the Supreme Leader had envisioned. If there is any surprise, it should be at the speed and extent of the plan’s execution, not its direction or objectives.

Beyond rhetoric, the mullahs' president has been taking actions in both domestic and foreign policy arenas. For example, Isfahan Uranium Conversion facility resumed work last August, as Tehran wanted to send a strong signal that keeping the complete nuclear fuel cycle was its “red-line” and that it would not abandon uranium enrichment.

To give some teeth and uniformity to this belligerent diplomatic offensive, Tehran embarked on reshuffling the national security team responsible for the nuclear talks. This was followed by a stunning and sweeping purge of its diplomatic corps which targeted diplomats al all levels ranging from ambassadors to France and Germany, to envoys in African countries.

The cabinet has been filled with veteran IRGC commanders and officials of the security and intelligence organs. Moreover, several provincial governors have been replaced with those who used to run regime’s prison systems.

Censorship has been implemented more vigorously. Recently, managers and executive editor of press were called to the Intelligence Ministry and warned against publishing reports on the nuclear standoff without first getting the Ministry’s approval.

The surveillance activities for possible liquidation of opposition leaders and activists abroad have been stepped up and Tehran’s agents are making rounds in Europe and the United States, according to the United Press International. Alarmed by these activities, terrorism experts have warned of a new wave of attacks abroad similar to the one Tehran launched in early 1990s, during which its agents turned Europe into a killing field for Iran’s prominent dissidents. The same security intelligence team has now been officially reinstated by Ahmadinejad.

It is amply evident how fast the internal purges have resulted in potentially lethal contraction of the political base of the regime. The Khatami’s faction is sidelined; since his humiliating defeat in the election, Rafsanjani, while still wielding some influence, has been marginalized.

Fissures, however, are now visible even in the generally pro-Khamenei conservative camp. This was highlighted last week when Ahmadinejad had to retract his nominee for the oil ministry for a second time. The bulk of opposition, notably, came from conservative factions who have a majority in the parliament.

None of this, of course, is going to deter Ahmadinejad and his backers. They are effectively making preparations for a war for the survival of the theocratic state. This existential war is fought against the Iranian people and the free world. At home, it is fought with brut suppression of Iranians and dissidents. Abroad, it is fought through the export of terrorism and fundamentalism to Iraq, and the pursuit of nuclear weapons capability.

In short, the clerics are erecting a political, diplomatic and military fort and staffing it with the appropriate personnel form its military, intelligence and security apparatus. And this is the untold and frightening story of Ahmadinejad’s presidency: the theocratic regime has put in place its war party.

The good news is that the regime has a formidable enemy from within which could stop it and therefore force the regime’s demise: The Iranian people and the democratic opposition which seeks to unseat this regime of terror.

In the face of such rising destructive menace and in light of potential for democratic change, Washington’s Iran policy paralysis in nothing short of reckless. (USADI)
 

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Iran Focus

November 12, 2005

Iran's high-level rift

London, Nov. 12 – Photos of the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and defeated presidential contender and former President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani standing side by side and shaking hands are causing a stir among Iran analysts who suspect it was a deliberate gesture of national unity among senior figures of the religious theocracy.

The photos were released by the office of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and published by the Mehr news agency, owned by the same office. They show election rivals Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani walking alongside the Supreme Leader as they head for the Eid al-Fitr prayers marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. One photo shows the pair smiling as they shake hands.

Ahmadinejad’s loyalty lies strictly with Khamenei, who is widely believed to have been behind the hard-line President’s election victory over Rafsanjani.

Though released this Friday, the photos were originally taken a week prior to their release on November 4.

The timing of the photos’ release by the Supreme Leader’s office coincides with growing domestic and international speculation that Khamenei and Rafsanjani may have grown further adrift.

“The ties between Khamenei and Rafsanjani are long- established and complex, and whatever their quarrels, they know they must stick together to assure the survival of clerical rule”, Arezou Shokrani, a London-based writer on Iranian affairs, said of the photos.

Khamenei and Rafsanjani were top aides to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the first years after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

“Last Friday, when Khamenei headed a prayers congregation at Tehran, Rafsanjani was invited to stand right next to him – something that went completely against the Islamic culture since worshippers must always stand inline behind the prayers leader”, Shokrani said.

Whatever the reasons for decision to release the photos, she said, the message to the international community was that Iran’s leaders were not divided if the West “upped the ante” and attempted to isolate the regime.
 

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Iran Focus

November 12, 2005

Iran's capital flight breaks record

Tehran, Iran, Nov. 12 – Capital flight in Iran over the past fortnight reached its highest recorded level since the 1979 Islamic revolution, prompting financial advisors to the hard-line government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to call for a temporary suspension of the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE), according to market investors.

The market flight took a dramatic turn for the worse after Ahmadinejad made a speech in Tehran calling for the destruction of Israel and threatening Iran’s Muslim neighbours that developed ties with the Jewish state, an investor close to the government, who wished to remain anonymous, said.

The hard-line president’s remarks were condemned by the international community, and Tehran received a reprimand by the United Nations Security Council.

The capital flight began in earnest in June, after the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the new president. Ahmadinejad’s record as a radical Islamist and a former Revolutionary Guards commander, and his reputed remark that “stock exchange speculation is forbidden in Islam” sent jitters through the country’s markets. Nervous investors have been transferring their capital to safe havens such as Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. In the past four months, the Tehran Stock Exchange has lost more than 20 percent of its value.

Ahmadinejad’s recent comments, however, spiked capital flight to an all-time high and there are no indications that the markets would calm down any time soon, the source said.

Meanwhile, the Tehran-based daily Rooz reported on Thursday that representatives of the World Bank told the governor of Iran’s Central Bank that the country’s economy was spiralling out of control.

The free-fall of the stock exchange and investors’ exodus have added to the mounting economic problems facing Ahmadinejad’s government. The hard- line President reportedly told a cabinet meeting last month that “if we were permitted to hang two or three persons, the problems with the stock exchange would be solved for ever”.

In another development, a team of financial analysts close to the government wrote in a confidential report that the only feasible solution to Iran’s economic woes at present was to temporarily suspend activities at the Tehran Stock Exchange, according to Ahmad Sabahi, an Iranian financial analyst based in Dubai.

“We have received word that the [Tehran] Stock Exchange might halt trading within the next several weeks”, Sabahi said in a telephone interview.

He said the authorities were not implementing the decision to shut down the TSE immediately, so that investors would not draw a correlation between the suspension and the Iranian president’s recent pronouncements.
 

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The US Alliance for Democratic Iran (USADI), is a US-based, non-profit, independent organization, which promotes informed policy debate, exchange of ideas, analysis, research and education to advance a US  policy on Iran which will benefit America’s interests, both at home and in the Middle East, through supporting Iranian people’s  aspirations for a democratic, secular, and peaceful government, free of tyranny, fundamentalism, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism.

USADI supports the Iranian peoples' aspirations for democracy, peace,  human rights, women’s equality, freedom of expression, separation of  church and state, self-determination, control of land and resources,  cultural integrity, and the right to development and prosperity.

The USADI is not affiliated with any government agencies, political groups or parties. The USADI administration is solely responsible for its activities and decisions.