Source: Washington Prism
Interview by Babak Yektafar – Washington Prism
BY: There has been of the US refocusing its Middle East policy away from the Levant and concentrating mostly on the Persian Gulf area, with the idea of building a coalition against Iran. What do you make of this assessment?
KS: What I would say is that the US isn’t necessarily neglecting the Levant and focusing on the Persian Gulf, but what they are trying to do is kind of merge the two policies together. Meaning they are trying to make a push for Palestinian-Israeli peace accord and isolate Iran at the same time, essentially killing two birds with one stone. They’re letting “Arab moderate” countries know that Washington is ready to make a push on a Palestinian state if they are ready to stand beside the US to really isolate Iran and make it clear to the Iranian regime that their behavior is simply gaining them more adversaries in the region.
BY: But do you think they will be able to move forward with this policy if Iran is not included in some shape or form in anything that has to do with the Palestinian negotiations?
KS: I think ultimately it’s going to be impossible to bring about a Palestinian state as long as there are actors like Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran who feel that the push for a Palestinian state is also a push to isolate them because they will feel an incentive to play a destructive role. But at the same time, I don’t see that the Iranian government has come to terms with a two-state solution, or has come to terms with the existence of Israel, especially after what took place in the summer of 2006 with Israel bombing Lebanon. I think the mood, not only in Iran, but throughout the Middle East and especially among Arab populations, I don’t think that the popular mood is ripe right now for the recognition of Israel. I think the depth of enmity towards Israel and the US is as great as it’s been in a the past.
BY: Is this something that Iran is going to exploit? Do they really have that much of an influence over elements such as Hezbollah and Hamas?
KS: My sense is that Iran has a tremendous influence over Hezbollah in particular. The Iran-Hezbollah alliance is as strong as it’s been since the 1980s. There was a period during the Khatami era when I think Iran was ready to change its relationship with Hezbollah in order to have better relations with the United States. But I think that changed when they got a sense that the US was not interested in having a different relationship with them, the US was not interested in acknowledging the Islamic Republic. After President Ahmadinejad was elected I think that Iran’s investment and loyalty toward Hezbollah, and vice versa, Hezbollah’s loyalty toward Iran, really solidified. So my sense is that the Iran-Hezbollah alliance is going to be very difficult to break up at the moment.
When it comes to Iran’s relationship with Hamas, what I should say is that in general, Iran is confident right now that the average person, the common man in the Middle East, is much more sympathetic to Tehran’s worldview than to Washington’s and if there were to be a referendum or a democratic election in any country in the region, it would produce politicians who are more sympathetic to Tehran than to Washington. And I think that Iran looks at Hamas and Hezbollah in this context that these are not groups that are merely propped up by Iranian support, but they are indigenous groups with popular support in their own societies.
BY: How do the Arab countries feel? Are they willing to stand as a unified body behind the United States in confronting Iran?
KS: I think the Arab dilemma is that they don’t want to see Iran get the bomb and they don’t want to see Iran get bombed. They have been trying to play this delicate game whereby they don’t publicly alienate the Iranians or antagonize the Iranians but privately they tell the Americans that “we’re very concerned about a nuclear-armed Iran.” But ultimately, as opposed to the Europeans or the Americans, the Arabs and the Iranians are living in that region side-by-side and don’t have the luxury of changing their geography. So although a nuclear-armed Iran is worrisome, the last thing Persian Gulf countries want is to see an Iran which has been antagonized and then which has an incentive to play a disruptive role in their populations. And Iran has really made an effort to reach out to the Persian Gulf, the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries. Ahmadinejad attended the GCC Summit. They’ve made overtures to Egypt and they’ve tried to send a signal to the Arab world, and especially to Arab governments, that “Iran is not a threat.” The message they are trying to send is that “your security pact with the United States hasn’t brought security to this region. Let’s have foreign forces leave and we’ll have a security pact together.” But I think Persian Gulf countries in particular are still very weary of Iran’s intentions and if given a choice between having a security relationship with Iran or the United States, I think they will continue to rely on the United States even though they have increasing misgivings about the US role in the region.
BY: Is there anything that can happen in Iran in the next couple of years that may turn things around in the way Iran may approach the international community and international politics as a whole?
KS: Perhaps. Now is an interesting time because despite the fact that the enmity between the US and Iran on the surface appears as great as its been since the early days of the Revolution, on the other hand there is a consensus in both capitals that its time to talk to the other side. There’s a public dialogue happening now between the US and Iran in Baghdad which wasn’t taking place even during the Clinton and Khatami years. So I think once we have a different president in Washington and we have a different president in Iran the relationship could evolve. It’s not going to be possible as long as President Ahmadinejad is in power, but I think once the dynamics of the Parliament changes and there is a different president in Tehran there is a strong likelihood that we will expand this dialogue to encompass issues broader than just Iraq.
BY: We are talking a couple of days after the supposedly threatening maneuvering by the IRGC naval force in the Persian Gulf against the American fleet. Iran has denied any deliberate move to threaten the American naval force. What do you think about the dynamics of the power structure in Iran and the maneuvering by the IRGC? How much of it is sanctioned by Ayatollah Khamenei? How much of it is simply power play within the Iranian elite?
KS: Recently I think there has been a period of confidence-building and de-escalation between the US and Iran after the release of the National Intelligence Estimate and statements from US officials in Iraq that Iran is beginning to play a more constructive role there. Historically what we’ve seen when there have been these periods of confidence-building is that there are elements in both capitols, both Washington and Tehran, who don’t want to see an improvement of relations between the two sides and during these periods of confidence-building they often carry out provocative acts to torpedo this confidence-building process. We saw this in 2002 with the Karine A Affair. I would argue that these disruptive elements, both in Washington and in Tehran, do not represent a large percentage of their governments, but they are nonetheless powerful.
BY: Are they operating independently from the higher authority, whoever that may be in both countries?
KS: The Revolutionary Guards are under the constitutional authority of Ayatollah Khamenei and I would argue by and large he doesn’t micromanage them necessarily, but I do think he macro manages them. And I don’t think that they embark on major operations without his consent. But the Revolutionary Guards are not monolithic. There are 120,000 men, some of whom may be antagonistic towards the US, but many of whom fought in the Iran-Iraq War and don’t romanticize about the prospect of having a confrontational relationships or war with anyone. We saw this in the US in 2003, that the people who had fought in wars, like Colin Powell, were much less likely to advocate going to war than people who had never served in war like Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz. And I think likewise within the Revolutionary Guards, within the Iranian government, individuals who served in war I think are often times more pragmatic in their foreign policy than those who haven’t.
BY: Ever since the Iranian Revolution and the ensuing Hostage Crisis, year after year we keep thinking that things can’t get any worse between Iran and the US. Do you think in the last year of President Bush’s presidency we are approaching a turning point in relations?
KS: I think the ground can be set now for a possible turning point one or two years from now, but in the short-term our priority shouldn’t be to try to bring about a rapprochement. The depth of mutual mistrust is just so deep right now and I think neither President Bush nor President Ahmadinejad really have the ability to allay the other sides’ concerns…
BY: Would that be Ayatollah Khamenei’s will or President Ahmadinejad’s?
KS: Well obviously it is Ayatollah Khamenei who is the final decision maker. But when it comes to the US approach toward Iran, domestic US politics has always been very important. And in the context of domestic US politics, it’s very difficult for the US government to really reach out to Iran as long as there is a president who has been very harsh in his rhetoric towards Israel, who’s questioned the veracity of the Holocaust. It makes it very difficult for any US politician to do that. But again, I think among the foreign policy elites in both countries a basic consensus has been reached that each side is there to stay and especially from the US perspective, I think there’s a consensus among the foreign policy elites that if you look at all the outstanding security issues in the Middle East, whether its Persian Gulf Security, Arab-Israeli peace, the future of Iraq, the future of Afghanistan, the future of Lebanon, none of these issues are going to be resolved absent a more cooperative role from Iran. So I think that the days when the US government was just simply hoping the Iranian regime would crumble are basically gone and I think the next US administration will likely approach Iran differently.
Karim Sadjadpour is an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) and an expert and commentator on Iranian politics. Prior to joining CEIP, Sadjadpour was the chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group based in Tehran and Washington.
Babak Yektafar is the Editor-in-Chief of Washington Prism