02/26/09 – Kaveh L. Afrasiabi – The Scott Horton Show

All right, y'all, welcome back to anti-war radio on chaos in Austin and for anti-war.com.
I'm Scott Horton and Matt Bargainer sent me this very interesting article, Iran security concerns way heavy in the Asia times.
It's by cover L off for a CIB.
Welcome to the show, sir.
Thank you.
How are you doing today?
Good.
I'm very happy to have you on.
I really enjoyed this article, the kind of major theme that you're getting at is that when Americans are trying to consider how best to make a deal with Iran, so that, you know, have set up talks and figure out a way to achieve long term peaceful relationship with that country that surprisingly enough, I guess, we too often look through only our own perspective and don't take into account what Iran's security needs are besides their relationship with the United States.
So I was wondering if you could just explain a little bit about maybe what the Iranians are looking at in terms of making a deal with us.
Well, first of all, thank you for your nice comments about the article.
In that piece, I specifically tried to limit myself to the assumptions and presumptions of the prevailing U.S. perspectives on Iran and looking in particular at, you know, the so-called grand bargain approach and a couple of people who are the leading advocates for that, such as Hillary and Clint Leverett in Washington, D.C.
They were the two who they were the two who were on the receiving end of the grand bargain offer of 2003, right?
Well, I wouldn't say receiving end, but Hillary Leverett in particular was involved as a U.S. official during 2000-2003 in behind the scenes negotiations with Iran, specifically on Afghanistan.
And, you know, she's recently written some pieces and given interviews, one with the Council on Foreign Relations.
And her husband was an aide in the White House and worked with, you know, Condi Rice.
And I think that he was the one who questioned White House's rejection of a 2003 Iran offer to have a comprehensive dialogue on all issues, including the, you know, the Palestinian issue and so forth with the U.S.
And that was candid.
Similarly, you know, rejected out of hand by the White House and Clint Leverett questioned the reason of that kind of approach.
But going back to your question about Iran's perspective and so forth, of course, a very, you know, broad question.
And going back to my article, I tried to highlight some areas that are not necessarily U.S. or Western centric, you know, have to do with Iran's worries about the regional turmoil in Pakistan in particular, which is a nuclear armed state and has a population that is, you know, majority Sunni with a minority Shiite.
And, you know, there have been rising tensions between the Shiites and the Sunnis.
And, you know, with the alarming reports of security meltdown in parts of Pakistan and so forth, there's been a parallel growth in the Iranian national security concerns about, you know, the negative impact on Iran's national security.
Should this, you know, evaporation of security in Pakistan continue and God forbid the, you know, Islamic radicals and the Sunni extremists get their hands on some so-called loose nooks, you know.
So that's a major security threat to Iran that I don't believe it's in the capacity of the Washington policymakers to effectively address that, you know.
So, you know, this is a regional issue that, you know, of course, requires, you know, a broad international effort to tackle it.
But it's pretty endemic and, you know, has complex root causes and so forth.
And it doesn't lend itself to any quick fix.
From the American point of view, I guess the basic idea would be if we can just offer security guarantees that we promise not to regime change the country, if they promise to, you know, I don't know what, let more international inspectors monitor their nuclear program or something that we could have a peaceful relationship.
But you're saying that from the Iranian point of view, that that probably wouldn't be enough that we need to, I think you talk about in the article, need to figure out a way to bring them into regional alliances with other people because they're really feel that threatened.
Yeah, well, you know, I don't particularly feel a high sense of insecurity, but, you know, prospects for regime change in Iran, that would be very, you know, attractive for the Iranians to engage in dialogue with the US.
I mean, maybe that applies to Saddam Hussein, you know, fall, winter 2002, you know, but I think the Iranians are feeling pretty secure about, you know, their situation and the government has a popular basis and that it acts together in terms of, you know, internal security and so forth.
So they don't feel that the imminent danger of outside intervention, you know, that would make them time for regime change.
And the more that the US policymakers have kind of pushed it that, hey, you know, we're waiting to forego regime change in exchange for, you know, shutting down some of your sensitive nuclear activities.
The more actually problematic this makes it by implication, because it implies that, okay, if we don't make a deal, we're going to go ahead and push for regime change.
So I don't think that's a very productive approach.
And then what needs to be done, in my opinion, is to explore the areas of common interest or parallel interest and to try to expand on those and narrow down the difference.
Well, it seems like the Obama government is following basically the same line as the Bush government, which is, they say they're willing to sit down and have talks about it, but they still insist that Iran stop its nuclear program entirely, that they cease all enrichment of uranium.
Yeah, I think you're right.
And the Obama administration has inherited the Bush-Iran policy.
And, you know, a lot of the prevailing, you know, assumptions and perceptions of Iran that, you know, reigned during the Bush era have also continued to the Obama era.
And if you look closely at the content of the, you know, clenched fist metaphor that Obama specifically invoked in reference to Iran, you know, that's kind of a kissing cousin of Axis of Evil.
So, so we really haven't moved far from the treacherous ground of metaphors and negative stereotyping.
And, you know, I hope that the Obama administration moves away from this kind of language as counterproductive, and that would impose some sort of a moratorium of sorts on infamy rhetoric so that the climate would be more ripe for a fruitful dialogue between the two sides.
Well, what is the Iranian government's relationship with the Karzai government in Afghanistan?
It's pretty good.
You know, Iran has extended generous economic assistance, and they've had some, you know, bilateral trade and non-trade agreements signed between the two sides.
And Iran was, of course, as you know, instrumental in supporting the Northern Alliance and the peaceful takeover of Kabul back in 2001, and has since then been supporting the political process in Pakistan.
And has lately, you know, there have been some voices of criticism of Karzai's government because of rampant corruption and, you know, narcotic traffic and involvement of some, you know, government officials in that, and so forth.
And the fact that, you know, we're witnessing the resurgence of the anti-Iranian Taliban.
Pardon me, what was it that you were saying about their interference in Pakistan?
Or did you mean to say Afghanistan?
No, I meant Afghanistan.
Right, right.
Yeah, I mean, the Iranians, they dread the thought of Taliban comeback, because, you know, these are the people who murdered Iranian diplomats and, you know, are anti-Shiite and are supported by some radical elements within Saudi Arabia, as well as Pakistan, you know, the Wahhabi puritans or fundamentalists.
And both, maybe logically in terms of, you know, the foreign point of view and, and so forth, you know, there are odds with Iran.
And Iran, you know, is much more comfortable with this secularist government in Afghanistan today.
And despite some misgiving about the Karzai government and so forth, I think that Iran's preference is for the continuation of this government come this presidential election in late summer, and so forth, albeit with some, you know, modifications and infusion of fresh blood and fresh faces into the government and a more vigorous anti-corruption and anti-narcotics campaign.
However, the situation in Afghanistan has been deteriorating rapidly.
And, you know, there's a creeping encirclement of Kabul by the, you know, Taliban forces.
And that has led in turn to, you know, some rethinking on Iran's part about the future prospects of Afghanistan's relations with Iran.
As you know, Iran has been the recipient of the largest waves of mass refugees from Afghanistan dating back to, you know, Soviet invasion of that country in 1979.
Some 2.5 million Afghanis have lived in Iran as refugees, some of them have adopted Iran as their new home.
And only, you know, a few hundred thousand have returned, but the majority have remained in Iran.
So, you know, should there be a deteriorating civil war in Afghanistan, more refugees from Afghanistan will be headed toward Iran.
And add to that the fact that, you know, you have this burgeoning narcotic traffic that has exponentially increased, unfortunately, under the watchful eyes of the coalition forces, the British forces who were put in charge of, you know, monitoring that situation.
And a lot of Iranian, you know, law enforcement agency agents are killed every day in the hands of the drug smugglers.
And that, you know, in turn represents another security threat to Iran, the narcotic traffic.
And, you know, there was a time when there was some collaboration between U.S., Iran, some of the Afghanistan's neighbors under the guise of the UN 6 plus 2.
And calling power was instrumental in getting that going.
Unfortunately, that kind of stopped and they can't arrive.
And one hopes that the Obama administration would revitalize that effort.
And that would be another venue for dialogue between U.S. and Iran.
Well, it really does seem like there's, from the American empire's point of view, a broad base of coinciding interests here when America's backing the Dawa Party and Supreme Islamic Council, Friends of Iran in Iraq.
And when our government and the Iranian government are agreed, somewhat at least, about the Karzai government being preferable to the Taliban in Afghanistan, I think that there's a real conflict.
If the Iranians really want to get rid of the drug trade out of Afghanistan, that's going to be a major sticking point with the Americans, because I think they want to stamp it out just enough to drive the price up high.
But they want to keep it going the rest of the way.
Well, what do you mean by the Americans?
Yeah, well, I'm not sure.
I guess I don't have all the data, but it doesn't seem like just a coincidence that each year since the occupation began, there's been a record amount of opium harvested in that country.
Yeah, I don't necessarily think that Americans have anything to do with it.
The Taliban, who before the downfall, tried to wipe out opium production, went back to it as a source of revenue.
So they're pretty involved in it.
And they use that cash for arms.
So it's not the Taliban.
The second thing is that we have a lot of credible reports about the Afghani government that was kind of repulsed for major aid from the U.S. and the West.
And if you compare what the Afghans received compared to what the Iraqi government received, the figure is pretty paltry.
Then, you know, they emulated Taliban in effect and got into some elements in the government, into the narcotics traffic.
So it was these two competing factors.
And a lot of that, as I said, happened under the watchful eyes of the British forces there who were put in charge of controlling this drug smuggling.
And of course, they failed miserably.
But if there is any blame to be put, I would point to India primarily, the British forces and not the Americans.
Yeah, that's something I guess I really need to learn a lot more about.
The drug trade in Afghanistan over the last few years does seem to follow American wars secret and open around the world from Vietnam and, of course, in South America during the 1980s and that kind of thing.
So what's what's this about?
Maybe the Iranians could be invited into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
What's that about?
Well, I don't think there's any immediate prospect.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has been set up by Russia, China and some Central Asian states.
And, you know, it started, you know, in terms of border security, regional cooperation and with an eye towards deterring NATO expansion.
But, you know, there's a lot of discrepancies in security outlooks between Russia and China that prevents this evolution into a NATO type alliance.
So it's not that and I don't think that either Russia or China want to jump into making it into a full fledged alliance with NATO or the US power.
It all depends on the future relations between the US and these two countries.
And Iran has been given observer status and has made the bet to join as a full member.
However, because of the nuclear standoff and the tensions between Iran and the US and the West, China and Russia have not granted that status to Iran yet.
And my personal belief is that it's not going to happen in the foreseeable future, that Iran will remain merely as the observer in the field.
Mm hmm.
Well, it seems like in some ways the American policy, I guess, accidentally is just geared toward pushing not necessarily enemies, because I don't think America really has any enemy states in the world.
But our so-called adversaries who seem to be pushing them all together, the Russians and the Chinese, of course, have plenty of reasons to not be allies.
This old Sino-Soviet split and all that goes back thousands of years.
Right.
And so we've we've helped push them closer to an alliance.
And now here we could be best friends with the Iranians as far as countries go.
And there wouldn't, as far as I can tell, be any real serious drawbacks to doing such a thing.
And yet it's more likely now that they would be in an alliance with the Russians and the Chinese rather than with us.
I remember seeing, I guess, just a few weeks ago where the Chinese are going to try to sell them or maybe they're already making the deal for nuclear powered desalinization plants that they want to sell across the Middle East and that kind of thing.
And this ought to be or could very well be American businessmen making this money, selling these things.
And instead, this business is going elsewhere.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
And, you know, the US basically sanctioned its own companies by imposing sanctions on Iran that allows Iran basically to trade with the European companies but exclude the American companies.
And, you know, this is a disservice to the American companies because if you look at Iran's trade with the rest of the world, you know, they're pretty ongoing, you know, and case in point, Iran's trade with Germany increased last year despite all these talks of Germany as a participant in their 5 plus 1 nation against Iran, you know, Iran's nuclear program, etc.
So, you know, there is a logic to the sanction regime on Iran that operates against the interests, the vested interests of, you know, American companies and America's interests abroad.
And I think, you know, if there is to be any breakthrough in US-Iran relation, it could start with, you know, lowering the bars on sanctions, allowing more trade, you know, goods and services between the two countries and using the lever of, you know, economic interdependence between the two nations to, you know, narrow the gap on, you know, geopolitical and other issues.
Back in the 1990s, Dick Cheney used to complain about Bill Clinton's sanctions on Iran.
And when he was the head of Halliburton, he said, hey, we're trying to do business with these people and did everything he could.
In fact, I think they did everything they could legally and even illegally to get around the sanctions on Iran over there at Halliburton in the 90s.
Yeah, I think there was a limited attempt that was not systematic in nature.
And, you know, during the Clinton era, there was some symbolic lifting of sanctions, for example, import of pistachios to the US and, you know, carpet and so forth.
But, you know, it didn't go beyond that.
In fact, it was during the Clinton era that the sanction regime was institutionalized, which is very hard today to reverse the course, particularly when you have this, you know, very anti-Iran, Iran-bashing mood in the Congress.
So it's not simply the White House and the executive branch, but, you know, initiative has to also come from the legislative branch in the US, which is noticeably lacking today.
The Obama administration doesn't have a counterpart in the Congress for a new approach toward Iran.
Right, yeah, it's they're certainly going to follow his lead.
And of course, the Republicans, unlike Dick Cheney in the 1990s, they're in no position now to they certainly will not be in a position of arguing a softer line on Iran than whatever Obama's saying.
I mean, those days are long over now.
Yeah, I agree.
On the other hand, I don't think that Democrats have a, you know, hard and fast blueprint on how to deal with Iran either.
In fact, in Iran, there are some people who think that, you know, when it comes to Iran policy, Republicans get it better than the Democrats.
You know, whatever the faults of the Bush administration, he did have some dialogue with Iran, of course, on, you know, Afghanistan and Iraq security, right?
You know, that did not happen during the Clinton administration when you had a moderating power in Iran or, you know, President Carter.
I mean, you know, now the ball is in, you know, U.S.'s lap to a large extent to fashion a new, new approach, you know, creative approach that would be able to break some significant ice between Iran and the U.S. and, you know, remains to be seen.
Well, you know, it seems like when the so-called grand bargain was offered by Iran back in 2003, that was when the Saddam Hussein regime had fallen in a matter of weeks.
And in D.C., everybody was thumping their chest and saying, you know, on to Iran and that kind of thing.
It seems like the pressure on them, and certainly they've gotten a lot farther in their in their perfecting their enrichment.for their civilian electricity nuclear program they have going on there.
It seems like there's much less pressure on them now from their side to want to bargain with the United States.
A good point.
You know, there's a lot of debates in Iran about the nature, content, and purpose of the Iranian overture back in 2003.
And, you know, some of the argument is that, well, the invasion of Iraq removed one of Iran's most threatening enemies, which was the government of Saddam Hussein, the Baptist regime.
And that, in turn, created the window of opportunity for U.S. and Iran to hammer out the differences and get closer.
And let's not forget the fact that prior to the invasion, the U.S., you know, using the threat of, well, the hoax of WMD in Iraq, was very successful in convincing the Iranians that we're doing U.S. great service by going after Saddam Hussein and taking care of his nuclear weapons that are going to be aiming at Iran, first and foremost.
So the Iranians, in some ways, saw that as a proxy war for them to take care of this enemy who had invaded them and fought with them over eight years and was now, according to, you know, the U.S. and Western media, you know, building its nuclear arsenal.
So, you know, when that threat was gone, and whether the MWD was fact or not, from the Iranian vantage point at that particular time, it made sense to make overtures to the U.S. that had this formidable military presence in Iran's vicinity and try to strike a bargain, you know, which was rejected by Washington because of the ambition of, you know, some people like Douglas Faith and so forth, who sought to extend that invasion to within Iran as well.
So there was a combination of opportunity and fear that went together in that scenario back then.
Well, you know, it's interesting that you bring up Iran's interest in, I mean, I guess if they really had it, if it was just their choice, they would have never chosen necessarily to have America invade and overthrow Saddam Hussein.
But then again, getting rid of him wasn't that bad of a deal for them, and they could certainly see that it wouldn't be.
And if you go back and look, you know, you have to really rewind the clock, but if you think of Michael Ledeen's meetings in Rome with Harold Rhode and Manuchir Ghorbanifar, they were representatives of the Iranian government and the Supreme Islamic Council, what was then called the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, were there at those Rome meetings.
And of course, the Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress had at least one of their offices was in Tehran, and the CIA knew that, and yet he was working for the DOD anyway.
And there was eventually a CIA and or a DIA report, Defense Intelligence Agency report that was leaked, I think, to the Associated Press, that said that they suspected that Ahmed Chalabi was actually just, and of course, he got busted for telling the Iranians that the Americans had broken all their codes, but the DIA report said that they thought that he was actually an Iranian agent who, when he was working to lie us into war with Iraq, was actually working on behalf of the Iranians.
What do you think about that?
Well, this is not the kind of issue that I like to poke my nose into too much.
As a political scientist, I prefer to look at political processes and, you know, decision making and so on and so forth.
And in my mind, Chalabi was a very, you know, a small speck in a very large picture.
Sure.
And sure, the Iranians were interested to see how they can telescope this invasion to, you know, basically, you know, Shiite revolution in Iraq, and giving the Shiites who are the majority in Iraq, you know, the political representations that have been denied, basically, since the country's foundation.
And this was a moment of great opportunity for Shiite, you know, reassertion, reassertion of Shiite politics inside Iraq.
And you had all these exiled Shiite groups in Iran that were plotting for quite some time, you know, their return to Iraq and gaining power.
And they did so without the United States.
And the Iranians were, you know, somewhat participating that indirectly, at the same time, extremely concerned about the real intentions and motives of Uncle Sam, you know, settling at their doorstep.
And so, you know, while they nodded to the invasion, to some extent, they were also extremely concerned.
And there were some pretty strong voices, vocal voices in the government at the time, who were even saying that we must force Saddam Hussein, because the violation of Iraq's sovereignty perceived outstreams, and that that's simply a first step for, you know, larger intervention by the U.S. that would impact negatively Iran's territorial sovereignty, and so forth.
So there were some people in Iran, and there was no consensus on this matter, who thought that the invasion of Iraq, you know, is not going to dampen Iran's national security, it's going to heighten it, because now instead of Saddam Hussein, we're going to deal with the U.S. power.
And a lot of these people felt verified after the events of the invasion.
And then, of course, you had the acts of evil speech, and, you know, all that, that followed with, you know, attacks on Iran, and accusing it of the worst evil in the region, and so forth.
So that escalated the tensions between the U.S. and Iran, and things got pretty rough for some time.
Until, you know, both sides came to some, I think, conclusion that they need to have some communication between them over, you know, the fate of Iraq, and this government that they both supported.
And I think that kind of mollified the situation, since both were up against Sunni extremists who were killing the Shiites, and, you know, blowing them into pieces, and so on, and so forth.
There was a convergence of interest that translated into a better understanding of the security outlook on the part of Tehran and Washington.
It's really too bad that's what it took.
But yeah, I guess you're right.
That was the opening for the beginning of talks.
It wasn't about the so-called nuclear weapons program.
It was about the security situation in Iraq.
And I guess maybe I've missed it.
Have there been any real concrete moves by the Obama administration to move forward with having talks at this point?
Well, you know, a lot of people in the administration are counseling behind the scene or back-channel diplomacy.
And I'm not privy to that.
So, you know, I don't know what is happening on that level.
Right, but nothing official yet.
Well, I don't know if they have or not, you know, because if it happens, obviously, it would be at the highest level, and only very few people would know about it.
However, I feel that the administration has given enough signal that this is one of the key venues that they're going to explore, you know, by using the model of Tiktom with China and even Carter with China and so forth.
You know, that's one, you know, one venue or approach that is complemented by the, you know, public announcements about direct negotiations and talks and so forth.
However, I'm not sure how committed all the people in administration are to rapprochement with Iran, to making something tangible and meaningful come out of the dialogue, direct or indirect, because you have people like Hillary Clinton, who, you know, is pretty close to, you know, the pro-Israel interest, and also, you know, the newly appointed advisor on Iran, Dennis Ross is pretty hawkish on Iran, and so on.
And these people seem to be, you know, taking into consideration very seriously Israel's apprehensions about, you know, broad dialogue with Iran.
So, you know, I'm a little skeptical that the Obama administration would fulfill its promise of whatever, dialogue without preconditions with Iran, that, you know, at the public level, that this would happen anytime soon.
Well, I guess we'll continue to expect the worst and hope for the best.
Absolutely.
All right.
Everybody, that's Kaveh El Afrasiabi.
Did I get it right?
That's right.
Afrasiabi.
He is the author of After Khomeini, New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy, and his latest book is called Reading in Iran, Foreign Policy After September 11th.
You can find his article at the Asia Times, the article in question here, Iran's Security Concerns, way heavy.
Thank you very much for your time on the show today.
Absolutely.
Take care.
Bye-bye.