End of the road for Khatami?

This piece by Charles Grant on "Iran Between Two Worlds" offers an intelligent and thoughtful set of reflections on the current political situation in Iran. I agree with some parts more than others, but overall it strikes me as both sensible and well-informed.

One of the nice things about it is that Grant captures the complexity of the current interplay between what the Germans call Innenpolitik and Aussenpolitik--that is, between the internal political situation, on the one hand, and Iran's relations with the outside world, on the other. This complexity is often overlooked in western discussions I've seen. It looks as though the hard-liners have decided, for their own complex reasons, to move toward more pragmatic accommodations with the US and Europe (or, at least, to go through the motions), which they always prevented Khatami & his government from doing ... and, at the same time, they're moving to tighten up their control internally, and to crush the reformers (and political opposition more generally) in a decisive way. These simultaneous tendencies appear superficially contradictory to a lot of observers, but it's easy to see how they fit together, especially in the present conjuncture.

For the last 7 years, Iran has been in the unusual dual-power situation of having two parallel (and competing) governmental structures built into the regime itself: the elected component (dominated, since 1997, by Khatami and the reformists, with the support of a mobilized and fairly sophisticated political society) and the component with real power (controlled by the theocratic hardliners). Whatever happens next, it seems pretty clear (as clear as things get in politics) that Khatami & the reformist "loyal opposition" associated with him, have run into a wall. Khatami will go down historically as the Iranian Dubcek, not the Iranian Gorbachev, Yeltsin, or Suarez.

But what happens next remains to be seen ... and will depend on developments both inside and outside Iran. Grant speculates that someone like Rafsanjani, from the more "pragmatic" wing of the hardliners, might play the role of an Iranian Deng Hsiao-Ping (i.e., managing economic reform and diplomatic "normalization" within a re-stabilized authoritarian framework). My guess is that it's more likely that, in the long run, the hardliners are increasing the chances that the crisis of the regime will be resolved more explosively (in the best-case scenario, along Polish lines--but one would have to be very optimistic to expect that).

In the short run, on the other hand, the hardliners may do pretty well. Internally, their legitimacy is shot, but for the moment their the social forces mobilized during the past decade might just retreat into political passivity (though other outcomes are also possible). And externally, they are making a major effort to convince the US and the Europeans that they are better partners to deal with than the reformers--since, unlike Khatami and his government, they can actually make agreements and deliver on them. So "engagement" with the hardliners may yield some genuine diplomatic dividends ... with the unfortunate side-effect of strengthening their political position within Iran.

But, as I say, this all depends ... (and, to complicate matters further, the so-called "pragmatic" hardliners may not entirely be able to control their own more hot-headed and ideologically fanatical factions). Things might also blow up in their faces.

Iran can seem a fairly free country. Print journalists, though not television or radio, do criticise the regime. Iranians do not need an exit visa to leave the country; foreign businesses can and do trade there. By most measures, the human rights situation is better than it was ten years ago.

But I sensed uneasiness, even fear. The regime is afraid, because it knows that many people hate it, and that its anti-American stance has provoked widespread pro-American sentiment amongst much of the population. Its primary concern is how to maintain power. Indeed, the evident pro-American sentiment of the people – and not only liberal academics – was the biggest surprise that I had in Iran. In the words of one prominent academic at Tehran university: “if there was a referendum on whether Iran should have close relations with the United States, 80% would vote yes.”

The regime’s liberal opponents are also afraid. The various intelligence services spy on them, tap their phones, prevent them from teaching, and send informers to shadow them at conferences when they go abroad.

More active liberals are in prison, though incidents like the killing of the Canadian-Iranian journalist, Zahra Kazemi – who died in July 2003 from severe injuries inflicted when in the custody by security officers – are now relatively rare.

Within the regime, the president and his allies appear to be more or less finished. They have proved incapable of pushing through many of the reforms they promised. Conservatives, using the Council of Guardians to block reformist legislation, wield the real power. The reformists have frequently threatened to resign unless the Guardians pass a reform – only to back down and remain in office.

Most people appear to oppose the regime, but they will not demonstrate or vote in support of the reformists. It is significant that there have been no popular demonstrations in favour of the sit-in by reformist members of the majlis protesting against their exclusion from the legislative elections due on 20 February.

The discussion in Grant's piece largely dovetails with a longer article on the subject by Christopher de Bellaigue that I just noticed in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books (dated 2/26/2004) ... which is also worth reading.

Cheers,
Jeff Weintraub

Charles Grand, "Iran Between Two Worlds"
(openDemocracy - February 3, 2004)

=========================
openDemocracy
February 3, 2004
Iran between worlds
Charles Grant
3 - 2 - 2004

How do Iranians see the world – its foreign policy establishment, its dissident intellectuals, and its ordinary people? Charles Grant, recently in Tehran for a week's discussions, presents a vivid portrait of a political system under pressure.

The rest of the world has become used to viewing Iran as a stable country. The country’s conservatives and liberals seem locked in struggle that is never resolved. The United States continues to shun relations with the Islamic Republic, while the European Union goes on trading with it. And on the streets of Tehran – an ugly, gridlocked city of some 14 million people, strangely void of historical monuments – there are few signs that Iranians expect dramatic changes in the near future.

However, Iran may be less stable than it appears. President Mohammad Khatami and his reformist allies in the majlis (parliament) are a spent force. At the same time, American and European responses to Iran’s attempt to gain nuclear weapons capabilities have thrown Iranian foreign policy into a state of flux.

I have just returned from my first trip to Iran, to attend a seminar on Iran’s foreign policy organised by the Tehran-based, foreign ministry-backed Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS) in cooperation with the London-based Centre for European Reform (which I work for) and the Landau Network-Centro Volta, an Italian institute.

The seminar provided insight into current Iranian thinking at leadership level, and a week in Tehran provided the opportunity for more informal discussions with a wider circle of Iranians – journalists, academics, professionals. The big question that came up in conversations at all levels is whether, and to what extent, Iran should open up to the United States and the European Union.

At the seminar, the exchange of views was frank. When the Europeans recommended that Iran should recognise Israel in order to promote closer ties with the west, the Iranians – who included the deputy foreign minister, Alireza Moayeri – said that hostility to Israel was a fundamental principle of the Islamic Republic.

The Iranians regarded the concept of “conditional engagement” – which underlines the European Union’s negotiating a trade and cooperation agreement with Iran – as a patronising one that did not treat them with “dignity”. We agreed instead on the idea of “reciprocal engagement”: if Iran does certain things that the EU desires, the EU should respond with things that Iran wants.

Beneath the surface, fear

Iran can seem a fairly free country. Print journalists, though not television or radio, do criticise the regime. Iranians do not need an exit visa to leave the country; foreign businesses can and do trade there. By most measures, the human rights situation is better than it was ten years ago.

But I sensed uneasiness, even fear. The regime is afraid, because it knows that many people hate it, and that its anti-American stance has provoked widespread pro-American sentiment amongst much of the population. Its primary concern is how to maintain power. Indeed, the evident pro-American sentiment of the people – and not only liberal academics – was the biggest surprise that I had in Iran. In the words of one prominent academic at Tehran university: “if there was a referendum on whether Iran should have close relations with the United States, 80% would vote yes.”

The regime’s liberal opponents are also afraid. The various intelligence services spy on them, tap their phones, prevent them from teaching, and send informers to shadow them at conferences when they go abroad.

More active liberals are in prison, though incidents like the killing of the Canadian-Iranian journalist, Zahra Kazemi – who died in July 2003 from severe injuries inflicted when in the custody by security officers – are now relatively rare.

Within the regime, the president and his allies appear to be more or less finished. They have proved incapable of pushing through many of the reforms they promised. Conservatives, using the Council of Guardians to block reformist legislation, wield the real power. The reformists have frequently threatened to resign unless the Guardians pass a reform – only to back down and remain in office.

Most people appear to oppose the regime, but they will not demonstrate or vote in support of the reformists. It is significant that there have been no popular demonstrations in favour of the sit-in by reformist members of the majlis protesting against their exclusion from the legislative elections due on 20 February.

Instead, many opponents of the regime, fed up with politics and the blocking of reform, are adopting a quietist attitude; they want to get on with their lives as best they can. Most of the young Iranians I met, while contemptuous of the mullahs, have lost faith in the parliamentary system and are planning to abstain in the elections.

The real political struggle is between the ideological conservatives on the Council of Guardians, who usually have the support of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; and the pragmatic conservatives, such as Hashemi Rafsanjani, who chairs the Expediency Council (which has the job of reconciling disputes among other bodies), and Hassan Rohani, who chairs the Supreme National Security Council.

The ideological conservatives do not want to open up politically or economically, or to modify their US-hating, Israel-hating ideology. The pragmatic conservatives probably want to pursue a Chinese model: liberalise the economy and make peace with the US – but maintain political repression, albeit with the worst excesses softened.

The pragmatists understand that the Iranian economy is a basket-case and that it needs to open up to international investment: per capita GDP is about 30% lower than it was before the 1979 revolution. That is partly because of the population explosion: from 36 million Iranians in 1979 to 67 million by 2003, of whom more than two-thirds are under 30. The regime has proven incapable of converting the country’s oil wealth – 10% of global reserves – into economic development.

Iran and the United States

A key question for members of the political elite in Iran is how to conduct relationships with the United States and the European Union. Some opposition figures expect the west to topple the mullahs; one intellectual told me that he wanted a US invasion. In such circles, there is criticism of the EU policy of conditional engagement (and notably the promised trade and cooperation agreement) on the grounds that engagement prolongs the life of the regime. The US sanctions might work, said one intellectual, if the EU joined in too.

A widely-held view in Tehran is that the pragmatic conservatives are keener to strike a bargain with the US than are the liberal reformists. The pragmatists agreed the deal with the EU in October 2003 that led to Iran putting its nuclear facilities under international supervision; they did so because they want the trading agreement. They have shown the west that, unlike the reformists, they can deliver; now they want to engineer a rapprochement with Washington, and an end to US sanctions.

But is the US ready to make peace with Iran? The short answer is no. The hostage crisis of 1979 is still seen in the US as a national humiliation that has never been resolved satisfactorily. It is one reason why the American right is so keen on regime change in Iran. The fact that Iran has always opposed the Oslo peace process and a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine is another reason why many Americans do not want to deal with Tehran. Iran also supports groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, which use violence against Israel.

There are two more proximate reasons that hold the US back from dealing with Iran. The first is Iran’s detention of an unspecified number of al-Qaida operatives, whom the Americans want handed over for interrogation while any information they can provide might still have value. The second is Iran’s efforts to assemble the capability to build an atomic bomb.

There is no longer any doubt about Iran’s ambitions: in 2003 the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) discovered that Iran had broken its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and used clandestine means to buy the technology required to build a bomb. After the deal with the EU, Iran signed the IAEA’s “additional protocol”, which means that it has to accept unannounced inspections of its nuclear facilities. But many in Washington still believe that Iran is merely playing for time, and that it has not abandoned its nuclear ambitions.

Is Iran ready to give the US what it wants, in order to engineer a rapprochement? The government has softened its rhetoric on Israel a little. Foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi now says that if the Palestinians reach a settlement with Israel, Iran will endorse it and that it will “not be more Palestinian than the Palestinians”. However, there are no signs that the al-Qaida prisoners – apparently held by the Revolutionary Guard – will be handed over to the US. As for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, only time will tell whether it is serious about setting them aside; the regime’s track record of not telling the whole truth makes the US right to be cautious.

The US’s current difficulties in Iraq guarantee that its leadership will not, for the foreseeable future, attempt to remove the Iranian regime by force. But any reconciliation with Iran would annoy those Republicans who cheered when it was placed in the “axis of evil”, and President Bush will not want to do that in an election year.

There are, however, informal contacts between the US and Iranian governments. The two countries are cooperating quite well over Afghanistan and Iraq. Once the Iranian legislative and US presidential elections are over, the two sides may try to move towards a partial thaw.

The future of Iran-US relations may depend on the balance of power between realists and ideologues in Washington and Tehran. If it tilts in favour of the neo-conservatives in Washington, who are virulently opposed to any dealings with the mullahs, and the hardliners in Tehran, who hate the US, there will be no deal. But if the realists in both countries – who believe in putting national interest ahead of ideology – win the argument, a deal becomes feasible.

Iran and the European Union

For as long as the regime has no formal ties with the United States, it needs good relations with the European Union. Iran will probably provide the ‘assurances and clarifications’ on the nuclear deal that the EU has demanded (for example, that Iran’s promise to ‘suspend’ the enrichment of uranium really means that the process has stopped). The current EU line is that it will restart negotiations on the trade and cooperation agreement only when these assurances are provided and when the IAEA gives Iran a clean bill of health. On this basis, the negotiations could start in spring 2004.

However, human rights are a constant source of tension in EU-Iran relations. The Iranians generally give Javier Solana, the EU’s high representative for its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), a very hard time; they almost cancelled his January visit to Tehran – because of his tough criticism of Iran’s human rights record and its nuclear ambitions.

When in Tehran, during the sit-in of liberal parliamentarians, Solana said publicly that while he did not want to interfere in Iran’s internal politics, the electoral process was important, and that if it was flawed it would have an impact on Iran’s relationship with the outside world. And so it would: the EU might find it hard to go ahead with the trade and cooperation agreement if the reformists are not allowed to stand in the elections. The Americans, too, would find it harder to restore ties.

Although Solana insists on mentioning human rights when he meets members of the Iranian regime, this subject has not been the EU’s top priority. The EU believes that it is easier to influence Iran on external matters – namely the nuclear programme, the fight against terrorism, and cooperation on Iraq and Afghanistan.

If the EU achieved success on the external dimension, I asked Javier Solana in Tehran, would it then try harder to influence Iran’s internal behaviour? He said that in those circumstances the EU would pay much greater attention to human rights issues. European pressure has already secured limited ‘victories’: Iran has agreed to halt public amputations and execution by stoning, and some dissidents have had their death penalties commuted to life imprisonment. However, Solana is not free to say a great deal on this subject: it is the member-states who define the terms on which the EU deals with Iran.

Iran and nuclear weapons

Only those at the heart of the Iranian regime know the extent of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions. All factions of the regime probably want at least the capability to build a nuclear bomb. Some hardliners undoubtedly want the weapons themselves, as a defence against a potential US invasion; but many others in positions of power would probably be prepared to trade the nuclear programme in exchange for sufficiently high dividends. If this is right, the European policy of using stick and carrots to influence Iran is the right one. The policy of the US hawks – that Iran is determined to become a nuclear weapons state, whatever the EU or the US offers, so it would be wrong to offer carrots to an evil regime – is less likely to achieve the objective of a non-nuclear Iran.

If the EU and the US try hard enough, they may be able to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear plans. This will require real concessions – diplomatic recognition and an end to sanctions from the US, negotiation of the trade and cooperation agreement from Europe, the transfer of technologies and encouragement of Iran’s ambition to join the World Trade Organisation from both.

They might go further, and help the Iranians develop the idea of a common regional security framework – proposed by, amongst others, my colleague Steven Everts – involving the states around the Persian Gulf. A Gulf Security Organisation (GSO) would encourage confidence-building measures and transparency on military matters, while establishing procedures for resolving disputes. Iran is more likely to abandon its nuclear ambitions if it feels that its security concerns are being addressed through an institutional framework.

Iranian foreign ministry officials told me they like this idea, as does Javier Solana. Senior officials in the UK and French governments, and in the US state department, also speak in favour of it. However, the dependence of the Gulf states (including, for now, Iraq) on the US in security matters means that a GSO becomes feasible only when the US and Iran have made peace.

Iran and Russia

The west needs to be unified in its dealings with Iran, in order to maximise its chances of success. It should also try to involve Russia, which is a major trading partner in Iran, and is building the nuclear reactor at Bushehr in south-west Iran. I have discussed Russia’s ties with Iran with officials in Moscow, who are reluctant to admit any worry about Iran’s nuclear ambitions; they regard the Iranians as a friendly people who, even if they had the bomb, would not use it against Russia. When pressed, these officials say they would prefer Iran not to have a bomb, but they also express total confidence in the IAEA’s ability to sort out the problem.

Most Iranians know that the US and the EU have more of the technology their economy, especially the oil industry, needs. Iran’s leaders tend to regard Russians as unreliable and as susceptible to US pressure (for example they are slowing work on the Bushehr reactor) though some hardliners see Russia as a bulwark against US hegemony.

A number of people close to the government also think that a Franco-German-led EU could help create a multipolar world. I told them they should not count on it: the Iraq war of 2003 was a very specific event, and the west’s divisions over the war stemmed partly from President Bush’s inept diplomacy. Iran should not assume that the transatlantic rift will continue for ever.

The future of the regime

Should Europe try to expand trade with Iran, even if it prolongs the life of the regime? I believe that it should: more trade generates more contact with the outside world, more wealth, more dynamism in the economy – and thus more social change. This process would undermine the bonyads, the Islamic foundations which control much of the economy and fund the bodies dominated by ideological conservatives.

Yet the EU is right to apply a policy of “conditional” (or, in our agreed term, “reciprocal”) engagement: only when the EU suspended talks on the trade and cooperation agreement did Iran agree to sign the IAEA additional protocol.

How long will the Iranian regime – formally democratic but in practice, largely theocratic – endure? At present, the pragmatic conservatives seem to be gaining ground over both reformists and hardliners. Many analysts in Tehran argue that these pragmatists have a better chance of modernising the economy than the reformists, on the grounds that they are tougher and better able to deliver. If the Hashemi Rafsanjani / Hassan Rohani grouping can make peace with the US, and open up the economy, the system could evolve without a convulsion.

At the same time, the Iranians – despite years of disillusion – still care about politics and democracy. The mullahs will find it very hard to modernise the economy while smothering political life.

If the pragmatic conservatives fail to modernise the economy, the combination of slow economic growth, the population explosion, and frustration with the corrupt and repressive nature of the regime could prove explosive. Although the current generation of reformers has lost credibility, in time another group may arise. Iranians have shown in recent decades that when they are angry they are prepared to demonstrate. Another revolution cannot be ruled out.

Iran threatens global economic Armageddon

That's a threat of massive retaliation, not for a possible military attack against Iran's nuclear program, but for the next round of intensified economic sanctions being planned against Iran. There has been speculation about whether or not the Iranian government would respond by threatening to use force to disrupt the world's oil supply, much of which passes through the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf (or, as some call it, the Arabian Gulf). Now they have made this threat loudly and publicly: According to the report in today's New York Times:

A senior Iranian official on Tuesday delivered a sharp threat in response to economic sanctions being readied by the United States, saying his country would retaliate against any crackdown by blocking all oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for transporting about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. [JW: Actually, one-fifth is probably a low estimate.]

The declaration by Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, came as President Obama prepares to sign legislation that, if fully implemented, could substantially reduce Iran’s oil revenue in a bid to deter it from pursuing a nuclear weapons program. [....]

Apparently fearful of the expanded sanctions’ possible impact on the already-stressed economy of Iran, the world’s third-largest energy exporter, Mr. Rahimi said, “If they impose sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz,” according to Iran’s official news agency. Iran just began a 10-day naval exercise in the area. [....]

I think one conclusion we can safely draw is that at least some important tendencies in Iran's ruling elite are genuinely worried by the prospect of these intensified economic sanctions, despite frequent Iranian claims to the contrary.

A broader question is whether the sanctions — even if successful at lowering Iran’s oil revenue — would force the government to give up its nuclear ambitions.

One measure of the effects, however, is that the Iranian leadership is clearly concerned. Already the Iranian currency is plummeting in value against the dollar, and there are rumors of bank runs.

“Iran’s economic problems seem to be mounting and the whole economy is in a state of suspended expectation,” said Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University. “The regime keeps repeating that they’re not going to be impacted by the sanctions. That they have more money than they know what to do with. The lady doth protest too much.” [....]

This Iranian threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz may well be a bluff, too. Using military force to choke off a significant proportion of the world's oil supply would be an act of war. It would be highly imprudent, not to say a bit crazy, for the Iranian regime to take the first step toward starting a war right now. And for what it's worth, they would be unambiguously in the wrong in terms of international law. Furthermore, if Iran did succeed in cutting off all oil exports from the Gulf, the economic consequences for Iran itself would be catastrophic.

On the other hand, if governments never did recklessly unwise or crazy things, the world would be quite different from the way it actually is. So we may be headed toward a major confrontation with unpredictable and potentially very serious consequences. The potential economic consequences are serious enough, even if the Iranians never actually try to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.

Merely uttering the threat appeared to be part of an Iranian effort to demonstrate its ability to cause a spike in oil prices, thus slowing the United States economy, and to warn American trading partners that joining the new sanctions, which the Senate passed by a rare 100-0 vote, would come at a high cost.

Oil prices rose above $100 a barrel in trading after the threat was issued, though it was unclear how much that could be attributed to investors’ concern that confrontation in the Persian Gulf could disrupt oil flows.

The new punitive measures, part of a bill financing the military, would significantly escalate American sanctions against Iran. They come just a month and a half after the International Atomic Energy Agency published a report that for the first time laid out its evidence that Iran may be secretly working to design a nuclear warhead, despite the country’s repeated denials.

In the wake of the I.A.E.A. report and a November attack on the British Embassy in Tehran, the European Union is also contemplating strict new sanctions, such as an embargo on Iranian oil.

For five years, the United States has implemented increasingly severe sanctions in an attempt to force Iran’s leaders to reconsider the suspected nuclear weapons program, and answer a growing list of questions from the I.A.E.A. But it has deliberately stopped short of targeting oil exports, which finance as much as half of Iran’s budget.

Now, with its hand forced by Congress, the administration is preparing to take that final step, penalizing foreign corporations that do business with Iran’s central bank, which collects payment for most of the country’s energy exports.

The sanction would effectively make it difficult for those who do business with Iran’s central bank to also conduct financial transactions with the United States. The step was so severe that one of President Obama’s top national security aides said two months ago that it was “a last resort.” The administration raced to put some loopholes in the final legislation so that it could reduce the impact on close allies who have signed on to pressuring Iran.

The legislation allows President Obama to waive sanctions if they cause the price of oil to rise or threaten national security.

Still, the new sanctions raise crucial economic, diplomatic, and security questions. [....]

The American effort, as described by [David S. Cohen, ... treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence] and others, is more subtle than simply cutting off Iran’s ability to export oil, a step that would immediately send the price of gasoline, heating fuel, and other petroleum products skyward. That would “mean that Iran would, in fact, have more money to fuel its nuclear ambitions, not less,” Wendy R. Sherman, the newly installed under secretary of state for political affairs, warned the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month.

Instead, the administration’s aim is to reduce Iran’s oil revenue by diminishing the volume of sales and forcing Iran to give its customers a discount on the price of crude. [....]

Since President Obama’s first months in office, his aides have been talking to Saudi Arabia and other oil suppliers about increasing their production, and about guaranteeing sales to countries like China, which is among Iran’s biggest customers. But it is unclear that the Saudis can fill in the gap left by Iran, even with the help of Libyan oil that is coming back on the market. The United States is also looking to countries like Iraq and Angola to increase production.

Daniel Yergin, whose new book, “The Quest,” describes the oil politics of dealing with states like Iran, noted in an interview that “given the relative tightness of the market, it will require careful construction of the sanctions combined with vigorous efforts to bring alternative supplies into the market.” [....]

“The only strategy that is going to work here is one where you get the cooperation of oil buyers,” said Michael Singh, managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “You could imagine the Europeans, the Japanese, and the South Koreans cooperating, and then China would suck up all of the oil that was initially going to everyone else.”

That adds up to a lot of uncertainties—even if we ignore the possibility of a violent response by the Iranian regime. Stay tuned.

—Jeff Weintraub

Is Saudi Arabia using the price of oil to pressure Iran?

A lot of people think so, both in Middle East and elsewhere. Specifically, there is a widespread perception that the Saudis, in cooperation with the other Gulf oil producers, are deliberately allowing the price of oil to drift down--and that a key motive is to put pressure on Iran, for which reduced oil income is much more damaging than it is for Saudi Arabia. The NBC News piece below is only one that has made this case recently.

One factor that adds plausibility to this analysis is that the possible use of the Saudi oil weapon for this purpose has been telegraphed by a number of signals over the past several months. One example is the notorious Washington Post op-ed written in November 2006 by the very well-connected Saudi security analyst Nawaf Obaid. The warning in the subtitle captured the main thrust of the piece: Stepping into Iraq: Saudi Arabia Will Protect Sunnis if the U.S. Leaves.

Obaid's piece was officially disavowed, but most people took it as (deniably) conveying the genuine alarm felt by the Saudi government, along with other Arab governments, at the prospect that the US would pull out of Iraq and allow it to be taken over by Shiite parties that they regard as simply Iranian proxies. Among the other counter-measures that Obaid suggested the Saudis might then feel compelled to take, there was a significant reference to the price of oil.

[....] Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al-Faisal, [....] said in a speech last month that "since America came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited." If it does, one of the first consequences will be massive Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed Shiite militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis.

Over the past year, a chorus of voices has called for Saudi Arabia to protect the Sunni community in Iraq and thwart Iranian influence there. Senior Iraqi tribal and religious figures, along with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and other Arab and Muslim countries, have petitioned the Saudi leadership to provide Iraqi Sunnis with weapons and financial support. Moreover, domestic pressure to intervene is intense. [....]

Just a few months ago it was unthinkable that President Bush would prematurely withdraw a significant number of American troops from Iraq. But it seems possible today, and therefore the Saudi leadership is preparing to substantially revise its Iraq policy. Options now include providing Sunni military leaders (primarily ex-Baathist members of the former Iraqi officer corps, who make up the backbone of the insurgency) with the same types of assistance -- funding, arms and logistical support -- that Iran has been giving to Shiite armed groups for years. [JW: Since the Sunni Arab "insurgents" have long been getting support and assistance and sanctuary from the Sunni Arab world--though perhaps from technically non-governmental sources in a lot of cases--this is a bit rich. But be that as it may....]

Another possibility includes the establishment of new Sunni brigades to combat the Iranian-backed militias. [!] Finally, Abdullah may decide to strangle Iranian funding of the militias through oil policy. If Saudi Arabia boosted production and cut the price of oil in half, the kingdom could still finance its current spending. But it would be devastating to Iran, which is facing economic difficulties even with today's high prices. The result would be to limit Tehran's ability to continue funneling hundreds of millions each year to Shiite militias in Iraq and elsewhere.

Well, there's a good deal that's disingenuous, one-sided, and otherwise tendentious in this picture of the situation. And it's safe to say that the well-being of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority is not the only concern of the Saudi government, though that's probably one element--there is also the matter of Iran's nuclear weapons program, for example, and its lavish sponsorship of Hezbollah in Lebanon. But for present purposes, the message delivered in this piece (which is worth reading, or re-reading, in full) seems more interesting and significant than the overall accuracy of the analysis (which is not totally inaccurate, either).

So perhaps they've decided not to wait until the US leaves Iraq before hitting Iran in the pocketbook? If this is indeed the strategy being followed by the Saudis (and other Gulf Arab oil producers), then it will be very expensive for them in terms of lost revenue. But their willingness to use the oil weapon against Iran at this point, despite the cost, is not implausible. It would be only one more sign of the obvious--which is that for a whole range of reasons a number of Arab governments are intensely alarmed about Iran's current policies and the threat of increased Iranian power and influence in the region.

=> On the other hand, there could also be all sorts of other reasons why the price of oil is dropping. Over the decades, it's been clear that the Saudis like to cultivate the impression that they have omnipotent control over the world oil market, even if it's not true, and that they can manipulate world oil prices for their own political ends, even when they can't. So perhaps this explanation of the falling price of oil is overly ingenious (or gullible).

[Update 2/1/2007: More recent reports, which seem to indicate that the Saudis are actually cutting oil production rather than increasing it, suggest that they are indeed bluffing again.]

But whether or not the Saudis are actually pulling the strings in this matter, there's every sign that the rapid drop in oil revenues is genuinely making the Iranian regime nervous.

Read the piece below, judge for yourself, and stay tuned ....

--Jeff Weintraub

==========================
NBC News
January 26, 2007
Are Saudis waging an oil-price war on Iran?
Falling fuel costs probably not a coincidence, oil traders say
By Robert Windrem
Investigative producer

Oil traders and others believe that the Saudi decision to let the price of oil tumble has more to do with Iran than economics.

Their belief has been reinforced in recent days as the Saudi oil minister has steadfastly refused calls for a special meeting of OPEC and announced that the nation is going to increase its production, which will send the price down even farther.

Saudi Oil Minister Ibrahim al-Naimi even said during a recent trip to India that oil prices are headed in the "right direction."

Not for the Iranians.

Moreover, the traders believe the Saudis are not doing this alone, that the other Sunni-dominated oil producing countries and the U.S. are working together, believing it will hurt majority-Shiite Iran economically and create a domestic crisis for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose popularity at home is on the wane. The traders also believe (with good reason) that the U.S. is trying to tighten the screws on Iran financially at the same time the Saudis are reducing the Islamic Republic’s oil revenues.

For the Saudis, who fear Iran’s religious, geopolitical and nuclear aspirations, the decision to lower the price of oil has a number of benefits, the biggest being to deprive Iran of hard currency. It also may create unrest in a country that is its rival on a number of levels and permits the Saudis to show the U.S. that military action may not be necessary.

The Saudis firmly and publicly deny this, saying it’s all about economics. Not everyone believes them.

“If under normal circumstances, the price of oil was falling this dramatically [17% in the last few months], Saudi Arabia would have already called for a special OPEC meeting,” says one oil trader. “It’s got to be something else and that something else has to be Iran.”

Costs higher in Iran

The trader notes that Iran, OPEC’s second largest producer, is “in trouble” both in the short and long term. Iran’s oil reserves, he notes, are declining more rapidly than Saudi Arabia’s and are more difficult to extract. While a barrel of oil costs the Saudis $2-3 to get out of the ground and to market, that same barrel costs Iran as much as $15-18.

“Iran does have some oil that costs them $8-10 but most of it is in that upper range,” he said.

Moreover, Iran has a large domestic market for oil, particularly fuel oil, which Saudi Arabia, with its smaller population and milder climate, does not.

Perhaps more important, because Iran has limited refining capability, it must import more than 40 percent its gasoline, making it the second largest importer of gasoline in the world after the United States, according to the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency.

And since Iran sells gasoline at a rate comparable to the rest of the Gulf states — around 33 cents a gallon — it must subsidize the price on a massive scale. In fact, say traders, Iran is paying about $1.50 per gallon to subsidize domestic gasoline consumption — the world market price of gasoline minus the tiny price per gallon — a practice that is costing Iran billions of dollars annually and eating up most of the state-run oil company’s discretionary funds.

Iran has other problems that make it vulnerable. Inflation is officially running at 17 percent, the highest since the revolution, and unemployment is at 11 percent. U.S. intelligence, though, believes the real figures are much higher, with inflation as high as 50 percent and joblessness much higher among the country's restless youth). In addition, capital outflow is estimated at $50 billion annually and budget deficits are a chronic problem, leading to overseas borrowing.

And none of this takes into account the possibility that the United Nations will impose harsher sanctions if Iran continues its work on nuclear weapons technology.

Political fallout

There are domestic political consequences to such a convergence, note traders and officials in both the U.S. and Iran. Ahmadinejad was elected on campaign promises that he would end corruption and better distribute the nation’s oil wealth. He has been unable to do either; now, with declining oil revenues, his job will be even more difficult.

One sign of this is the street demonstrations he has faced each time his administration has so much as floated the suggestion of a small increase in the price of gasoline. To counter his inability to fulfill his domestic promises, Ahmadinejad has played the nationalism/nuclear card, accusing the West of trying to stifle Iran’s legitimate energy needs.

How long and how successfully he can play these cards is debatable. Municipal elections last month unveiled a lot of dissatisfaction as opposition parties swept through municipal majlises throughout the country. His rival in the 2005 presidential election, Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, has criticized him publicly for the first time, as have others close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Student demonstrations and local newspapers are becoming increasingly critical of the “dictator.”

Meanhwhile, the Bush administration is only too happy to see Ahmadinejad's deteriorating domestic situation — and to let the Saudis further turn the screws. Moreover, administration officials are hinting they will be applying financial pressures to complement the Saudis. (As one official said recently, Iran cannot operate in the oil markets without using dollars.)

The officials did not reveal how the pressures would work, but said they are underway. The U.S. blacklisted the state-owned Bank Sepah, Iran’s fifth largest, in recent weeks and last month, Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh acknowledged having difficulties in financing oil projects. Commerzbank of Germany also has announced that it will no longer handle dollar-currency transactions for Iranian banks at its New York branch.

One trader is convinced that the U.S. and Saudis sealed a secretive deal on Iran when Vice President Dick Cheney met with King Abdullah in what appeared to be a hastily arranged summit in Riyadh in late November 2006. There have been lower-profile meetings as well that could have dealt with the arrangement.

Equipment problems

Long term, traders say that the Iranian oil will become even more expensive, if not impossible, to extract because Iran does not have access to up-to-date exploration and drilling equipment. Only two countries, the U.S. and Canada, manufacture the equipment needed for the job and they simply do not sell to Iran. Iranian attempts to get the Japanese to sell some of their equipment — not the same quality as the North American equipment but adequate — failed when the U.S. pressured the Japanese.

The biggest field discovered in the past 35 years, at Azadegan, near the Iraqi border, is considered “geologically complex,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and thus will be costly to develop. The lower world oil prices, the more difficult it becomes to make the field profitable and to get foreign investors to do complicated joint ventures with the national oil company.

Rafsanjani is known to believe that Iran should not continue to anger the U.S. and should align itself with the Americans in a fight against the Sunnis, an opportunity that is slipping away as Iran angers the U.S. in Iraq and on the nuclear front. And this week, reformist Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri joined in the criticism.

For the U.S. and Saudis, this can only be seen as good news.

Why Iranians like America (Washington Post)

These are just one reporter's impressions, but they dovetail with everything else I've read about Iran over the past decade or so. By comparison with (say) Arabs or western Europeans, most Iranians seem to be genuinely pro-American. (And, incidentally, also much less hysterically anti-Israel than anyone else in the Islamic Middle East outside of Iraqi Kurdistan.)


College girls react to an American visitor in Isfahan, a cultural center and university town in Iran. Steve Knipp

I suspect this is true, in part, for the same reasons that eastern Europeans--by contrast to western Europeans or Greeks--have tended to be relatively pro-American since at least the 1970s. Most Iranians don't like the regime that's ruling them, they would like to live in a more "normal" country, and for many the US symbolizes popular hopes for achieving a more open, democratic, and prosperous society. (Even George W. Bush, who certainly doesn't seem to be popular in Iran the way that--like it or not--Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were genuinely popular in eastern Europe in the 1980s, still doesn't seem to be inspire the kind of visceral hatred among Iranians that he does among western Europeans, Arabs, and others.)

Steven Knipp, the DC correspondent for the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, was "astonished" to discover this on a recent trip to Iran:

-----------------------------------
Four days later, visa in hand, I boarded an Air France flight from Dulles to Tehran. There I met my colleagues arriving from various points; they were German, British, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Korean. I was the only Yank.
What took place over the next fortnight astonished me. Everywhere I went -- from the traffic-choked streets of Tehran in the north to the dusty desert town of Yazd in central Iran, to the elegant cultural centers of Isfahan and Shiraz -- I was overwhelmed by the warmth and, dare I say it, pro-Americanism of the people I met.
Ponder the irony of that last statement for a moment. While much of the rest of the world seems to be holding their collective noses at us Americans, in Iran people were literally crossing the road to shake an American's hand and say hello. Who knew?
Initially, when Iranians asked me where I was from, I'd suggest they guess. But this game quickly proved too time-consuming -- no one ever guessed correctly. So instead I would simply mumble "American." And then their faces would light up. For better or worse, Iranians are avid fans of America: its culture, films, food, music, its open, free-wheeling society. [....]
According to Iranian government officials, about 70 percent of Iran's 69 million people are under 30. They have no memory of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Iran's last monarch; the taking of U.S. hostages; or the accidental shooting down of an Iranian airliner by a U.S. Navy ship in 1988. And to me, few young Iranians seemed happy with their own government. I seriously doubt that if Iran had opinion polls, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's popularity ratings would be any higher than George W. Bush's. Another irony.
Many people I spoke with did voice fears of what President Bush might do to Iran. Some were frightened of being attacked. But others were concerned about what effects U.S. economic sanctions would have on an economy that is already appallingly managed by mullahs. Yet I never sensed any personal hatred toward Bush. [....]
Everywhere I went, however, Iranians -- from high school students to middle-aged taxi drivers -- repeatedly asked me: "Why does America call us Evil Axis?" Then they would indignantly add: "We are good people -- we are Persians! Iran is a good country, some are bad, but most people here are good." They seemed genuinely wounded by the political rhetoric of the White House.
When told I was a reporter, college kids asked me to tell Americans: "Please know this: We are not Saudi Arabia. We are not Iraq. We are not Yemen. Please tell them we are not the same as these places!" [....]

What astonished me the most about Iran were its women. I met and spoke with scores of them from all parts of the country. And everywhere they were wonderful: vivid, bold, articulate in several languages, politically astute and audaciously outward-looking. While some men demurred, the women weren't afraid to voice opinions about anything under the sun.
In fact, women in Iran can work and drive and vote, own property or businesses, run for political office and seek a divorce. The majority of Iran's university graduates are women.
But socially, Iran's women still live under Islamic edicts: [....] It's the women who give me the most hope that this once noble nation will one day return to its tolerant roots. Most of the young people I spoke with insist that change is coming.
On my last night in Iran, as I waited to board my flight to Paris, a little boy named Ali queued up behind me with his father and his elderly grandmother who had come to see them off. The old woman, dressed in black, was distressed at the boy's departure and was smothering him with hugs and kisses.
I handed them sticks of cinnamon gum and snapped their picture. At this, the old woman pulled Ali close and whispered in his ear. The little boy's face lit up. He walked up to me and introduced himself in halting English, shook my hand and said: "We can be friends, yes?"
-----------------------------------

Of course, it's important to add the usual caveats and qualifications. Broadly pro-American sentiments undoubtedly co-exist with considerable underlying ambivalence, and I feel sure that these good feelings would fade dramatically if the US launched an attack on Iran (which seems unlikely, but is worth worrying about).

There also seem to be significant generational differences. Older people whose ideological orientations were formed before the 1979 Islamic Revolution are more likely to retain the kinds of anti-American perspectives that pervade the rest of the region, whereas these are weaker or non-existent among younger people (and most Iranians, as we know, are young). And this reporter's interactions with Iranians may not have allowed him to pick up possible class and regional differences. The kinds of pro-American attitudes that Knipp encountered seem to be dominant in the big cities, especially among middle-class Iranians, but the picture may look a bit different in smaller towns out in the countryside.

But with all that having been said, I still feel confident about reiterating some observations I made in 2004, when the whole effort at political "reform" within the system, headed by then-President Mohammed Khatami, was already collapsing in the face of massive obstruction and increasing repression by the hard-liners (The Iranian Dubcek bows out):

In retrospect, the Khatami experiment, beginning in 1997, will almost certainly be seen as the last shot at reforming and democratizing the system from within (like the Prague Spring of 1968). It was tried, and it failed.

What happens next is less clear. Like the eastern European regimes during the 1980s, the Iranian regime seems to have decisively lost its legitimacy and support among the great majority of Iranians. But historical analogies are rarely exact. By the 1980s, the eastern European elites (with some very rare exceptions) didn't really believe in the system either, had become cynical and demoralized, and collapsed fairly rapidly when they were challenged. Unlike those regimes, the Iranian regime still commands the loyalty of a sizable hard core who are committed to it from genuine ideological belief and/or from materialistic motives, and who seem willing to use as much violence as it takes to crush opposition. I suspect this means that Iran can look forward to an indefinite period of very unstable political equilibrium, probably marked by increasing repression as well as potentially dangerous efforts by the ruling elite to build up support through nuclear brinksmanship and other types of foreign-policy adventurism.

Or maybe not. After all, when Solidarity was suppressed in Poland in 1981, almost no sane person imagined that the whole edifice of eastern European post-Stalinist state socialism would come crashing down a decade later. History is unpredictable. And Iran remains one of the very few countries in the Middle East where, if the current regime collapsed tomorrow, it's plausible that it would NOT be replaced with an even worse regime. In fact, I think we could still see an Iranian 1989 ... sometime down the road.

This long-term prognosis still strikes me as plausible--and that represents one of the few reasons for feeling hopeful about broader prospects for the Middle East. But this will be a long-term process, which offers no solutions for immediate problems and crises. The key is to contain the damage that the Iranian regime can cause (and make every effort to keep it from getting nuclear weapons) while bearing in mind that the Iranian people are basically on our side, mostly want a better (not an even more awful) social and political order than the one they now have, and deserve the greatest possible sympathy, support, and encouragement from the rest of us. Let's not blow it.

--Jeff Weintraub

[P.S. See also this report the current buzz in Tehran by Azadeh Moaveni.]
====================
Washington Post
Sunday, September 3, 2006 (Page P1)

LETTER FROM IRAN
A Different Face of Iran
Despite the Politics, an American Finds Hope in a Forbidden Land
By Steven Knipp

As a journalist, I've spent considerable time over the years in places where America was not always popular. In the bad old days, that meant Russia, China and Vietnam; more recently I've reported from such human-rights black holes as Uzbekistan and North Korea. Then there were the destinations with elements of danger: Israel, the southern Philippines, Northern Ireland. None of those ever gave me pause.

But I wouldn't be truthful if I didn't admit being slightly uneasy about going to Iran -- now in the United States' cross hairs because of its developing nuclear technology -- when a U.N. contact invited me to join a group of international reporters on a trip in May.
The United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran haven't had diplomatic relations in 26 years, since students in Tehran seized 66 American hostages inside the U.S. Embassy and held some of them for as long as 14 months. Neither nation has an embassy in the other's capital, and the U.S. State Department has a travel warning on Iran. Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council is pressuring Iran to stop its uranium enrichment, and the Bush administration is talking sanctions.
I applied for my visa in a room on the second floor of a nondescript building in upper Georgetown marked "Iranian Interests Section." This facility is technically part of the Pakistani Embassy (which handles Iran's affairs in the United States), but Pakistan's embassy is actually two miles away. What I saw here didn't ease my mind. Inside were a dozen Iranian Americans waiting for their own visas. As they waited, they gazed at videos on a large plasma television. On the screen was the classic image that most Americans have of Iran: a bearded, red-faced mullah wagging a bony finger at a stadium of young people. For what, I didn't know.
Four days later, visa in hand, I boarded an Air France flight from Dulles to Tehran. There I met my colleagues arriving from various points; they were German, British, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Korean. I was the only Yank.
What took place over the next fortnight astonished me. Everywhere I went -- from the traffic-choked streets of Tehran in the north to the dusty desert town of Yazd in central Iran, to the elegant cultural centers of Isfahan and Shiraz -- I was overwhelmed by the warmth and, dare I say it, pro-Americanism of the people I met.
Ponder the irony of that last statement for a moment. While much of the rest of the world seems to be holding their collective noses at us Americans, in Iran people were literally crossing the road to shake an American's hand and say hello. Who knew?
Initially, when Iranians asked me where I was from, I'd suggest they guess. But this game quickly proved too time-consuming -- no one ever guessed correctly. So instead I would simply mumble "American." And then their faces would light up. For better or worse, Iranians are avid fans of America: its culture, films, food, music, its open, free-wheeling society.
In a small stall at the bazaar in Isfahan, for example, I was nonchalantly eyeing a carpet while the young rug merchant looked on sleepily. But when I responded to his casual question about where I was from, he became as energetic as an 8-year-old near an ice cream truck. Straight away, he launched into a virtual love sonnet to all things Hollywood.
"Do you agree," he pressed, "that Marlon Brando was the greatest actor in the world?"
Indeed he was, I granted, slowly edging toward the exit. But he beckoned me back. Reaching under his desk, he pulled out a large paperback, which turned out to be a well-thumbed Brando biography . . . in Persian.
He turned the pages with gentle reverence, gesturing at specific photos of the Great Man. Then, holding his hand up in a "don't go" gesture, he broke into an impersonation of Brando doing Don Corleone. "Ya come to meee on desse de day of ma daughter's wadding . . . " It was the worst Brando impersonation I've ever heard, but surely the most heartfelt.
During my visit, I could not pause on a street corner for more than 30 seconds without someone coming up and shyly asking if they could help. Discovering that they had an American in their midst, they would often insist on walking me to my destination. Some told me of their friends and relatives living in the United States. (Precise figures are impossible to come by, but Iranian immigrant groups believe that between 1.5 and 2 million Iranians and Iranian Americans live in the United States.)
According to Iranian government officials, about 70 percent of Iran's 69 million people are under 30. They have no memory of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Iran's last monarch; the taking of U.S. hostages; or the accidental shooting down of an Iranian airliner by a U.S. Navy ship in 1988. And to me, few young Iranians seemed happy with their own government. I seriously doubt that if Iran had opinion polls, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's popularity ratings would be any higher than George W. Bush's. Another irony.
Many people I spoke with did voice fears of what President Bush might do to Iran. Some were frightened of being attacked. But others were concerned about what effects U.S. economic sanctions would have on an economy that is already appallingly managed by mullahs. Yet I never sensed any personal hatred toward Bush.
Iranians seem readily able to separate in their minds the difference between the American people and America as a nation, with a U.S. government whose policies they strongly oppose.
Everywhere I went, however, Iranians -- from high school students to middle-aged taxi drivers -- repeatedly asked me: "Why does America call us Evil Axis?" Then they would indignantly add: "We are good people -- we are Persians! Iran is a good country, some are bad, but most people here are good." They seemed genuinely wounded by the political rhetoric of the White House.
When told I was a reporter, college kids asked me to tell Americans: "Please know this: We are not Saudi Arabia. We are not Iraq. We are not Yemen. Please tell them we are not the same as these places!" In fact, Islam came late to the Persia party. The Persian empire boasted a rich civilization several centuries before Arab invaders swept in from the west. During my visit, I got the distinct impression that Iranians admire Islam's sense of discipline and are grateful for the art and architecture that were its gifts. But younger Iranians have little interest in its rigid dogma and social intolerance. After all, it was Omar Khayyam, the Persian poet, who wrote the famous line celebrating life's earthy essentials: "A loaf of bread . . . a flask of wine, a book of verse -- and thou."
What astonished me the most about Iran were its women. I met and spoke with scores of them from all parts of the country. And everywhere they were wonderful: vivid, bold, articulate in several languages, politically astute and audaciously outward-looking. While some men demurred, the women weren't afraid to voice opinions about anything under the sun.
In fact, women in Iran can work and drive and vote, own property or businesses, run for political office and seek a divorce. The majority of Iran's university graduates are women.
But socially, Iran's women still live under Islamic edicts: They must wear the hijab when leaving the house, and they cannot normally associate with any male who is not their father, brother or son, or shake hands with a man. Despite these restrictions, they manage to remain utterly feminine. They are keen on bright lipsticks, nail polish and eye shadow. And they have a passion for imported handbags and shoes.
It's the women who give me the most hope that this once noble nation will one day return to its tolerant roots. Most of the young people I spoke with insist that change is coming.
On my last night in Iran, as I waited to board my flight to Paris, a little boy named Ali queued up behind me with his father and his elderly grandmother who had come to see them off. The old woman, dressed in black, was distressed at the boy's departure and was smothering him with hugs and kisses.
I handed them sticks of cinnamon gum and snapped their picture. At this, the old woman pulled Ali close and whispered in his ear. The little boy's face lit up. He walked up to me and introduced himself in halting English, shook my hand and said: "We can be friends, yes?"
Steven Knipp last wrote for Travel about Hong Kong after SARS. He is the D.C. correspondent for the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

Iran's political clocks - Critical thinking & wishful thinking (from Robert Dreyfuss)

The latest issue of the Nation contains an oddly bifurcated piece by Robert Dreyfuss, "Iranian Soufflé," about the underlying dynamics of Iran's long-term political crisis. The bulk of it is plausible, important, and illuminating. Then it suddenly veers off into a transparently implausible conclusion that sounds (to me, at least) more like propaganda, based on wishful thinking, than analysis. The first part is very much worth reading, so I've posted some selections below.

--Jeff Weintraub

==============================

[=> JW: First, the plausible & important part. As Marxists used to say, the political contradictions in Iran are visibly sharpening.]

Last June, when I was in Iran to cover the presidential election for The Nation, I happened to run into a middle-aged Iranian war veteran on the street. I was on my way to President Ahmadinejad's campaign office to in a vain effort to arrange an interview with his campaign manager. Nearby was Ahmadinejad's presidential office complex, and the man who approached me worked in that office. He pulled up his shirt to show me his war wounds, suffered during his service in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Without much prompting, he told me what he thought of the clerical regime that controls Iran.

"The mullahs are like idols," he said. "They must be broken!"

In today's Iran, that is not an unusual sentiment.

A year earlier, during another visit to Iran, dozens of Iranians told me point blank that it was time for regime change. Walking into the vast and sprawling Tehran bazaar, a centuries-old marketplace, two brothers pulled me aside. "Do you know the mullahs?" one of them asked me. "We hate them. They are stupid."

At rallies for Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former prime minister who led the Green Movement, it wasn't uncommon for rallygoers to tell me that the problem wasn't Ahmadinejad, but the whole concept of an Islamic republic. Many of the supporters of Mousavi supported the bearded intellectual and his activist, artist wife in spite of their professed allegiance to the clerical regime, seeing a Mousavi victory as a stepping stone to far more sweeping change.

The story in the New York Times today by Robert Worth reflects that sentiment. Called "In Iran, Protests Gaining a Radical Tinge," Worth reports that many of the protestors in the current round of demonstrations are adopting outright regime-change demands. In one case, he says, protestors did the unthinkable: they "burned an image of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of the revolution." Last June, I flew into Tehran airport with Worth, who'd been assigned to cover the Iran story because Michael Slackman, the paper's bureau chief in Cairo, was persona non grata in Iran, and he now covers Iran from Beirut. Worth's story today ought to be read in full, but here's an excerpt:

"During Monday's demonstrations, the civil tone of many earlier rallies was noticeably absent. There was no sign of the opposition leader Mir Hussein Mousavi, a moderate figure who supports change within the system, and few were wearing the signature bright green of his campaign.

"Instead, the protesters, most of them young people, took direct aim at Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, chanting, 'Khamenei knows his time is up!' They held up flags from which the 'Allah' symbol--added after Iran's 1979 revolution--had been removed."

For some time now, it's been clear that even many of the reformists and establishment figures who form the opposition have been caught in an uncomfortable position. On one hand, they've found themselves leading a mass movement for change that was building momentum even before the fraudulent, June 12 election results were announced. On the other hand, most of them are regime loyalists who want to preserve the system, if not its leaders. As a result, there is a growing chorus inside Iran of moderates and reformists demanding that the Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seek to compromise with the opposition before the entire edifice comes crashing down. So far, at least, there isn't a shred of evidence that the leadership of Iran is compromise-minded--quite the opposite. In fact, it's increasingly apparent that Khamenei and Ahmadinejad represent a government that looks like a naked military-authoritarian one, and they seem ready to use force, including stepped-up assassination and harassment of Iranians abroad to preserve their rule.

[=> JW: And now for the wishful thinking:]

But here's the point.

The political earthquake shaking Iran is far more important than Iran's quixotic quest for nuclear weapons. I've noted in this column that the "political clock" in Tehran is ticking faster that the "nuclear clock." Put another way: Iran's political superstructure is likely to collapse long before Tehran can find its way to becoming a nuclear-armed power. That's a view that is fairly widely accepted; in fact, last summer a very senior Israeli official told me that he is convinced that Iranian politics is now moving more quickly than nuclear development. [....]

[=> JW: It would be comforting to believe this ... but, alas, Dreyfuss almost certainly has things backward here. So we can skip the rest.
If history should prove me wrong and Dreyfuss right on this point, great. But I'm not holding my breath.]

Trudy Rubin on the jailing of Haleh Esfandiari

This piece by Trudy Rubin, the Philadelphia Inquirer's international affairs columnist and Middle East analyst, makes two central points.

The first is that the charges used to justify detaining and then imprisoning the Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari (espionage, political subversion, etc.) are absurd.

The second point is captured in the subtitle of the article: "Her jailing in Tehran serves only those opposed to better relations between the U.S. and Iran." For Rubin, who has been arguing that constructive negotiations between Iran and the US are both possible and desperately necessary--not least to support any possible solution in Iraq--this is a bad sign.

Just when the United States and Iran are set to hold their first bilateral talks in decades, a leading Iranian-American advocate of dialogue has been jailed in Tehran.

Last week, Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East Program at the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, was thrown in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison. She had gone to Iran late last year to visit her 93-year-old mother, but was prevented from leaving Iran in December and interrogated for weeks by intelligence officials before her arrest. Yesterday, Iran's judiciary announced she was under investigation for "security" crimes.

Anyone familiar with this soft-spoken, 67-year-old academic can only scoff at such charges. The highly respected Esfandiari is well-known for efforts to bring Iranian scholars of all outlooks to the center, including supporters of the Tehran government. Her unjustified arrest serves the interests of no one - except those opposed to better relations between America and Iran. [....]

This effect is probably not accidental.

Indeed, Esfandiari may have become a pawn in Iran's internal political struggle between those who want more normal relations with the West and those who want to maintain an atmosphere of revolutionary struggle. Ahmadinejad, an advocate of the latter position, controls the interior ministry and intelligence services, and has appointed hard-liners to key positions. Perhaps that explains why Esfandiari is still being held.

But her arrest and imprisonment fly in the face of the Iranian president's professed willingness for dialogue. Even if he isn't serious, her plight undercuts the interests of other powerful Iranian factions who want to open the country and its economy wider to the world.

Precisely. For Ahmadinejad and tendencies aligned with him, that would be a major bonus--and a strong motivation for doing this in the first place.

That's not the only possible motive for Esfandiari's arrest, which also coincides with stepped-up repression against intellectuals and other opposition forces within Iran. And given the heavily factionalized character of the Iranian security services, it's always possible that the timing of particular incident is explained by localized initiatives (as seems to have been the case with the original seizure of the British sailors in March, for example).

However, based on what we know about how political infighting within the Iranian ruling circles works, it is safe to assume that at the very least this factor played a significant role in the background of this incident and will help to shape the way it is resolved. Did the people responsible for this conspicuously provocative act carry it out with the intention of helping complicate the possibilities for US-Iranian negotiations and undermining the position of more "pragmatist" elements within the ruling elite? It's quite possible that this was part of their motivation, and they will certainly try to use it that way if they can.

The big question now is how other elements in the Iranian regime, some of which have a less reckless approach toward courting international confrontation, will respond.

"By detaining her," says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "the Iranian government only eliminates an advocate for diplomacy and strengthens the voices of those in Washington who say the regime is too cruel to be engaged."

Her arrest comes at a critical moment for the prospects of increased dialogue and exchanges between the two countries. Despite the recent saber-rattling by Vice President Cheney and Ahmadinejad, bilateral talks on Iraq are set to start in Baghdad this month between U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and his Iranian counterpart. This could be an important development. [....]

So this is a strange time to be holding Esfandiari in Evin (and turning back her mother's gutsy attempts to see her). Unless, of course, the aim is to undermine any potential U.S.-Iranian thaw.

"The notion that Haleh is a threat to Iranian national security is beyond preposterous," says Sadjadpour. "The regime feels it's sending a message to the U.S. government that there are repercussions for its democracy-promotion efforts in Iran. But [by holding Haleh] they've increased the ranks of those in Washington who argue that the Iranian government is made up of radicals and that engaging them would be a mistake."

Is this the message Iranian officials really want to send?

For some of them, undoubtedly, the answer is yes.

Others probably feel that sending this message is tactically unwise. Esfandiari's fate probably depends on how much weight they carry, and whether they conclude that the diplomatic and public-relations costs of keeping her in prison are heavy enough that they should take steps to get her released. If the reaction from other governments and from international public opinion makes it clear to the Iranian government that continued persecution of Esfandiari will be embarrassing for them, that raises the likelihood that cooler heads within the Iranian regime will find some way to let her go.

One more good reason to send them that message.

--Jeff Weintraub

=========================
Philadelphia Inquirer
Mideast scholar's unjust detention
Her jailing in Tehran serves only those opposed to better relations between the U.S. and Iran.
By Trudy Rubin

Just when the United States and Iran are set to hold their first bilateral talks in decades, a leading Iranian-American advocate of dialogue has been jailed in Tehran.

Last week, Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East Program at the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, was thrown in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison. She had gone to Iran late last year to visit her 93-year-old mother, but was prevented from leaving Iran in December and interrogated for weeks by intelligence officials before her arrest. Yesterday, Iran's judiciary announced she was under investigation for "security" crimes.

Anyone familiar with this soft-spoken, 67-year-old academic can only scoff at such charges. The highly respected Esfandiari is well-known for efforts to bring Iranian scholars of all outlooks to the center, including supporters of the Tehran government. Her unjustified arrest serves the interests of no one - except those opposed to better relations between America and Iran.

Some believe Esfandiari has been caught up in Iran's reaction to the Bush administration's $75 million program to promote democracy in Iran. Fearful that the United States is trying to stir up a "velvet revolution," Iranian officials have been cracking down on groups promoting the rights of women, students and workers.

Esfandiari was interrogated repeatedly about the Wilson Center's programs on Iran. Far from promoting regime change, however, she encouraged exchanges to help scholars of both societies understand one another better. Her program receives none of the Iran democracy program monies. Moreover, as Lee Hamilton, the president of the Wilson Center, wrote to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Feb. 20, the Wilson Center doesn't take political positions.

Ahmadinejad hasn't bothered to answer the letter. How ironic, since Hamilton is coauthor of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report, which advocates broader U.S. engagement with Iran. President Bush rebuffed the report; now Ahmadinejad has rebuffed its coauthor.

Indeed, Esfandiari may have become a pawn in Iran's internal political struggle between those who want more normal relations with the West and those who want to maintain an atmosphere of revolutionary struggle. Ahmadinejad, an advocate of the latter position, controls the interior ministry and intelligence services, and has appointed hard-liners to key positions. Perhaps that explains why Esfandiari is still being held.

But her arrest and imprisonment fly in the face of the Iranian president's professed willingness for dialogue. Even if he isn't serious, her plight undercuts the interests of other powerful Iranian factions who want to open the country and its economy wider to the world.

"By detaining her," says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "the Iranian government only eliminates an advocate for diplomacy and strengthens the voices of those in Washington who say the regime is too cruel to be engaged."

Her arrest comes at a critical moment for the prospects of increased dialogue and exchanges between the two countries. Despite the recent saber-rattling by Vice President Cheney and Ahmadinejad, bilateral talks on Iraq are set to start in Baghdad this month between U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and his Iranian counterpart. This could be an important development.

A series of artistic and cultural exchanges with Iran has recently begun. At least 10 Iranian deputies just signed a document proposing an Iranian-U.S. friendship committee in their parliament. This might lead to exchanges between Iranian legislators and the U.S. Congress, something that has bipartisan support on Capitol Hill.

So this is a strange time to be holding Esfandiari in Evin (and turning back her mother's gutsy attempts to see her). Unless, of course, the aim is to undermine any potential U.S.-Iranian thaw.

"The notion that Haleh is a threat to Iranian national security is beyond preposterous," says Sadjadpour. "The regime feels it's sending a message to the U.S. government that there are repercussions for its democracy-promotion efforts in Iran. But [by holding Haleh] they've increased the ranks of those in Washington who argue that the Iranian government is made up of radicals and that engaging them would be a mistake."

Is this the message Iranian officials really want to send?

Why is Haleh Esfandiari in Evin Prison? (Trudy Rubin)

It seems clear that at least part of what lies behind the jailing of the prominent Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari is that she is being used as a pawn in power struggles within the Iranian ruling circles. Her arrest is part of a recent pattern in which several academics and journalists with dual Iranian and foreign citizenship--and possibly an Iranian-American businessman as well--have been arrested by Iran's security services. But Esfandiari's imprisonment is the most high-profile case so far, and it was almost certainly intended to be conspicuous, provocative, and intimidating.

As usual, the Philadelphia Inquirer's Middle East columnist Trudy Rubin gives a penetrating and convincing account of what's probably going on. Some highlights:

Last week I wrote about a 67-year-old Iranian American scholar of renown named Haleh Esfandiari who was imprisoned May 8 in Tehran [see here].

This drama has become more bizarre since Monday, when Iranian television announced she had been charged with "seeking to topple the ruling Islamic establishment."

These charges are laugh-out-loud ludicrous to anyone who knows Esfandiari - a petite, soft-spoken grandmother who went on her biannual visit to an ailing 93-year-old mother. As head of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, Esfandiari was known as an apolitical expert devoted to promoting U.S.-Iranian dialogue.

The malice behind the charges points in a more political direction - an effort by hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his KGB-like intelligence sector to push back against more pragmatic Iranian leaders. The pragmatists are open to direct talks with the United States and more exchanges between countries. Groundbreaking U.S.-Iran talks are set for Monday over stabilizing Iraq. [....]

Down this road lies an end to hopes of greater people-to-people dialogue. "If Iran decides any Iranian who meets with Americans is a spy and if they refuse visas, you can't have exchanges," says Columbia University Iran expert Gary Sick.

Perhaps the arrest of Esfandiari is meant by Ahmadinejad's circle to scare those who hope for a more open Iran. Perhaps it's meant to warn that U.S.-Iranian talks on security issues won't bring domestic reforms. Maybe Haleh will be released once the point has been made.

But I believe her plight is part of a fight by Ahmadinejad's circle against threats to his power. Under sharp criticism for failed economic policies, he faces new political alignments that could advance the date of presidential elections - which he would probably lose. What better way to distract attention than to stress security threats (helped by U.S. saber-rattling against Iran)?

Iranian security also recently arrested Hossein Mousavian, deputy head of a think-tank close to the powerful ex-president (and pragmatist) Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Mousavian, with powerful protectors, got out after eight days, but the message was clear: Be careful. The question is when and whether the pragmatists will strike back.

Esfandiari does not have such powerful protectors. But her jailing flies in the face of common interests shared by sane people in the United States and Iran. So it is crucial that academics and prominent figures around the world tell Ahmadinejad he must release her. If you want to follow the efforts to free her, go to www.freehaleh.org.

Read the whole thing (below)--and also Rasool Nafisi's hard-hitting analysis of what this case means, "Iran's cultural prison" (in openDemocracy).

--Jeff Weintraub
=========================
Philadelphia Inquirer
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Is Iran jailing a ploy to retain power?
By Trudy Rubin

Last week I wrote about a 67-year-old Iranian American scholar of renown named Haleh Esfandiari who was imprisoned May 8 in Tehran.

This drama has become more bizarre since Monday, when Iranian television announced she had been charged with "seeking to topple the ruling Islamic establishment."

These charges are laugh-out-loud ludicrous to anyone who knows Esfandiari - a petite, soft-spoken grandmother who went on her biannual visit to an ailing 93-year-old mother. As head of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, Esfandiari was known as an apolitical expert devoted to promoting U.S.-Iranian dialogue.

The malice behind the charges points in a more political direction - an effort by hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his KGB-like intelligence sector to push back against more pragmatic Iranian leaders. The pragmatists are open to direct talks with the United States and more exchanges between countries. Groundbreaking U.S.-Iran talks are set for Monday over stabilizing Iraq.

The charges against Esfandiari are purportedly linked to the $75 million in democracy-promotion money the Bush administration budgeted for Iran. Most of this money goes to Iranian-language broadcasts, but some is supposed to go to unnamed civil-society groups inside Iran.

Iranian officials are sensitive to the internal political upheavals that took place in Ukraine and Georgia - with some help from Western organizations. Esfandiari was charged with conspiring with the Wilson Center against Iranian sovereignty.

"This is an American-designed model with an attractive appearance that seeks the soft-toppling of the country," Iran's state TV said.

But neither Esfandiari nor the Wilson Center has ever taken a penny of the Iran democracy-promotion funds.

"These are totally trumped-up charges," says Wilson Center president Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group that called for a U.S. diplomatic offensive toward Iran.

One intent of the charges against Esfandiari seems to be to head off more academic and civic exchanges between the United States and Iran by frightening off potential participants. Already, her case is casting a chill.

Many Iranian American scholars are now nervous about visiting their native country, and Iranian scholars will also think twice about traveling to the United States. Some noted U.S. Mideast experts have called for a boycott of Iranian government-sponsored meetings until Esfandiari is freed. University of Michigan professor Juan Cole told me, "I would find it difficult to sit in a conference when Haleh is in Evin Prison."

After media stories appeared this weekend about possible U.S. boycotts, Iranian officials have already retaliated. A noted Tehran think-tank, the Ravand Institute for Economic and International Studies, was instructed to disinvite Americans from a conference this weekend on Iran's economic and security role, and to tell them their visas were revoked. (I was invited, but hadn't yet received a visa.)

Down this road lies an end to hopes of greater people-to-people dialogue. "If Iran decides any Iranian who meets with Americans is a spy and if they refuse visas, you can't have exchanges," says Columbia University Iran expert Gary Sick.

Perhaps the arrest of Esfandiari is meant by Ahmadinejad's circle to scare those who hope for a more open Iran. Perhaps it's meant to warn that U.S.-Iranian talks on security issues won't bring domestic reforms. Maybe Haleh will be released once the point has been made.

But I believe her plight is part of a fight by Ahmadinejad's circle against threats to his power. Under sharp criticism for failed economic policies, he faces new political alignments that could advance the date of presidential elections - which he would probably lose. What better way to distract attention than to stress security threats (helped by U.S. saber-rattling against Iran)?

Iranian security also recently arrested Hossein Mousavian, deputy head of a think-tank close to the powerful ex-president (and pragmatist) Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Mousavian, with powerful protectors, got out after eight days, but the message was clear: Be careful. The question is when and whether the pragmatists will strike back.

Esfandiari does not have such powerful protectors. But her jailing flies in the face of common interests shared by sane people in the United States and Iran. So it is crucial that academics and prominent figures around the world tell Ahmadinejad he must release her. If you want to follow the efforts to free her, go to www.freehaleh.org.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact columnist Trudy Rubin at 215-854-5823 or trubin@phillynews.com