The
Case For Engagement
By Scott Ritter
06 November, 2006
The Nation
The
distance between the northern suburbs of the Iranian capital of Tehran
and the nuclear enrichment facility of Natanz is roughly 180 miles.
What transpires on the ground between these two geographical points
has seized the attention of the international community, and in particular
the government of the United States, as the world wrestles with how
best to respond to the issues surrounding Iran's decision to pursue
indigenous enrichment of uranium in defiance of the United Nations Security
Council's resolution demanding that all such activity cease.
I recently returned from
a trip to Iran, where over the course of a week I made the journey from
the northern suburbs of Tehran to the gates of the Natanz enrichment
facility, and in doing so had my eyes opened. The Iran that I witnessed
was far removed from the one caricatured in the US media. I left with
the frustrating realization that, as had been the case with Iraq, America
was stumbling toward a conflict, blinded by the prejudice and fear born
of our collective ignorance.
The first thing that becomes
apparent upon arrival in Tehran is that Iran is nothing like Iraq. I
spent more than seven years in Iraq and know firsthand what a totalitarian
dictatorship looks and acts like. Iran is not such a nation. Once I
cleared passport control, I was thrust into a vibrant society that operates
free of an oppressive security apparatus such as the one that dominated
Iraqi daily life in the time of Saddam Hussein. This does not mean there
is no internal security apparatus in Iran--far from it. A visit to the
cable cars operating in the mountains north of Tehran puts you next
to a major communications station of the ministry, where cellphone conversations
can be monitored using advanced software procured from the United States.
Iran has a functioning domestic security apparatus, but it most definitely
is not an all-seeing, all-controlling police state, any more than the
United States is in the post-9/11 era, when the FBI and the National
Security Agency use similar software to selectively monitor the conversations
of American citizens.
Iran is certainly not an
open society that operates on a par with the West. I recently had the
honor of spending some time with Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the 2003
Nobel Peace Prize, and have heard her account of the intense repression
meted out to those who challenge the political system. The theocrats
who govern in Tehran have a history of shutting down media that are
not obedient to the state, and the Iranian prison system is notorious
for the jailing, beating and even execution of those who dare to protest
publicly the rule of the mullahs.
In spite of these abuses
of human rights and civil liberties, Iran is not a closed society. There
is a ban on satellite television dishes, but many Iranians get their
news from the BBC, CNN and other international television services simply
by flouting the rules, which seem not to be too widely enforced. Some,
like the Revolutionary Guards I became acquainted with, disguise their
dish as a flower planter. The government has tried to censor the Internet,
and has targeted online journalists and blocked thousands of websites.
But the Internet is heavily used by Iranians, who continue to find ways
to evade government controls. And cellphones are as ubiquitous as they
are here in the West.
The point is that while the
Iranian government often cracks down on organized public displays of
dissent, the free flow of information that is vital to any dynamic society
exists despite the efforts of the government to contain or control it.
Ebadi is permitted to travel abroad, speaking and publishing words harshly
critical of the Iranian theocracy. She has been harassed by the government
but still operates freely, unlike her fellow Nobel laureate, Aung San
Suu Kyi, who won the Peace Prize in 1991 and is again under house arrest
in Myanmar.
During my visit to the northern
suburbs of Tehran, I was struck by the presence of wealth. Many ideologues
in the United States, including those who currently occupy the corridors
of power in Washington, conclude that this segment of society not only
awaits US intervention to overthrow the regime but would actually cooperate
with and facilitate any such effort. There is certainly a circle of
Iranian secular intellectuals who chafe under Islamic law. Many of them
are drawn from the ranks of the "old rich," those who made
their fortunes during the time of the Shah and who yearn for the return
of a Westernized, secular society. In conversation, these intellectuals
often speculate about the possibility of US intervention, but more and
more the hope of such liberation has been tempered by the ever-deepening
disaster in Iraq. While most Iranians welcomed the elimination of Saddam,
the horrors inflicted and unleashed by US military forces next door
have left many of the old rich in Tehran with the realization that the
dream of American intervention may turn into a nightmare. My trip convinced
me that support for US intervention does not exist to any significant
degree but rather resides solely in the minds of those in the West who
have had their impressions of Iran shaped by pro-Shah expatriates who
have been absent from the country for more than a quarter-century.
Iran today is a fully functioning
capitalist society, and in addition to the old rich, there is a larger
population of wealthy Iranians who made their fortunes after the Islamic
revolution and who owe their ability to sustain their wealth to the
continued governance of the Islamic Republic. Likewise, those in the
West who believe that the youth of Iran (more than two-thirds of the
population today is under 30) share the same aspirations as the Western-oriented
moneyed class will be disappointed. Those under 30 have no memory of
the Iran that existed pre-theocracy and seem more willing to support
a moderating change from within than a drastic change imposed from without.
The vast majority of Tehran's
citizens are working- and lower middle class. These people reside in
the urban sprawl of southern Tehran, where out-of-control population
growth strains the resources of municipal government and the Islamic
Republic as a whole. The province of Tehran has expanded from 6.8 million
people a decade ago to a current official count of 10.5 million; the
actual population may be closer to 12 million, with more arriving every
day. Unemployment is rampant (the official figure for the country is
12.4 percent, but it's probably closer to 20 percent), and there is
a growing level of dissatisfaction that has manifested itself politically
in recent years.
The political center of Iran
used to rest in northern Tehran. However, the 2005 presidential election
saw a dramatic shift to the southern neighborhoods, whose voters helped
elect one of their own, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Western media have
for the most part depicted his victory as evidence of a resurgent religious
fundamentalism, but anyone who walks the streets of southern Tehran
(where most Western journalists are loath to wander) and visits the
workshops and markets will find a much more nuanced reality. In the
motorcycle repair shop I walked into I found the owner and customers
evenly divided between Ahmadinejad and his principal rival, former President
Hashemi Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani actually won the most votes in the first
round, but in the runoff Ahmadinejad shocked everyone by bringing over
to his conservative platform the supporters of the reformist candidates.
The key factor in his stunning victory was not religious fundamentalism
but widespread disillusionment over the state of the economy, coupled
with charges of nepotism and corruption surrounding Rafsanjani. Ahmadinejad
was, more than anything, a reform candidate. This is what swept him
into office, and it is on this issue that he continues to be judged
today, with decidedly mixed results, by the people of Iran.
For all the attention the
Western media give to Ahmadinejad's foreign policy pronouncements, the
reality is that his effective influence is limited to domestic issues.
The citizens of Tehran I spoke with, from every walk of life, understood
this and were genuinely perplexed as to why we in the West treat Ahmadinejad
as if he were a genuine head of state. "The man has no real power,"
a former Revolutionary Guard member told me. "The true power in
Iran resides with the Supreme Leader." The real authority is indeed
the Ayatollah Sayeed Ali Khamenei, successor to the Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini.
According to the Iranian
Constitution, the Supreme Leader has absolute authority over all matters
pertaining to national security, including the armed forces, the police
and the Revolutionary Guard. Only the Supreme Leader can declare war.
In this regard, all aspects of Iran's nuclear program are controlled
by Khamenei, and Ahmadinejad has no bearing on the issue. Curiously,
while the Western media have replayed Ahmadinejad's anti-Israel statements
repeatedly, very little attention has been paid to the Supreme Leader's
pronouncement--in the form of a fatwa, or religious edict--that Iran
rejects outright the acquisition of nuclear weapons, or to the efforts
made by the Supreme Leader in 2003 to reach an accommodation with the
United States that offered peace with Israel. While Ahmadinejad plays
to the Iranian street with his inflammatory rhetoric, the true authority
in Iran has been attempting to navigate a path of moderation.
The Supreme Leader's powers
are impressive, but they are not absolute. Iran has a system of checks
and balances that is played out through two primary bodies: the Guardian
Council and the Expediency Council. Until recently the Guardian Council
had absolute veto power over parliamentary legislation and was unchecked
in the exercise of its oversight responsibilities. However, in 1997
Khamenei beefed up the role and responsibility of the Expediency Council,
and it was further strengthened last year; now the decisions of the
Guardian Council, if challenged by the Iranian Parliament, can be overturned
by the Expediency Council. The Guardian Council is still a dauntingly
authoritative body, especially when one considers that the Supreme Leader
has the power to appoint half its members (and all of the Expediency
Council's). Iran, after all, remains an Islamic republic, which means
that the political pulse is generated not in Tehran but some fifty-five
miles to the south, in the holy city of Qom.
It is in Qom where many of
the religious figures on the two councils reside. They teach at religious
schools and have developed their own followings, comprising religious,
civil and military officials who have an enormous effect on day-to-day
policy. Qom is a very conservative city, and the religious figures who
study there reflect this. However, this conservatism does not directly
translate into the embrace of strict religious fundamentalism. There
is a growing recognition among the ayatollahs who serve on the councils
of the need to seek compromise on matters of religion not only to dilute
internal dissent but also to better tend to the needs of the country.
The greatest reform pressure on these figures comes not from religious
students but rather from the traditional watchdog of the Islamic Republic,
the Revolutionary Guard.
The Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps remains very much an enigmatic entity to most Western observers.
Born from the tumult of the revolution that swept the Shah from power
in 1979, the Revolutionary Guard was the primary defender of the Islamic
Republic during its infancy, serving as the country's first line of
defense after the 1980 Iraqi invasion and against anti-regime forces,
in particular the guerrillas of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or People's
Mujahedeen (MEK). The Revolutionary Guard also served as defender of
the Shiite faith abroad, playing a pivotal role in the formation of
Hezbollah in southern Lebanon after the 1982 Israeli invasion.
Many of the actions of the
guard have been cited by the United States as evidence that Iran is
a state sponsor of terrorism. The guard members I spoke with reject
this characterization. "We did some pretty terrible things in our
early years, but we were fighting for our national survival," one
veteran member told me. "The MEK was waging a war in our cities,
ambushing our forces, assassinating our politicians and killing our
citizens with car bombs. We had to crush them, either in Iran or out.
But if we kill an MEK operative in France or Germany, we become terrorists.
If America kills an Al Qaeda operative in another country, you are counterterrorists.
This makes no sense. We have never targeted or attacked Americans or
American interests. We condemned the 9/11 attacks as a crime against
Islam and a crime against humanity. And yet we are reviled as terrorists,
or even worse, co-conspirators with Al Qaeda. Doesn't America understand
that we oppose Al Qaeda and all it stands for? Do you not know that
the teachings of Sunni Wahhabism are anathema to the teachings of the
Shia faith?"
In our haste to lash out
at those who attacked us on September 11, 2001, we forget that Iran
not only condemned the attacks, as did its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon,
but that it nearly fought a war against Afghanistan's Taliban and their
Al Qaeda allies in the late 1990s. There is no greater potential ally
in the struggle against Sunni extremism than Shiite Iran, a point made
over and over by everyone I talked to, especially those affiliated with
the Revolutionary Guard. As one veteran told me, "Iraq is our neighbor,
and of course we have a vested interest in its stability. We fought
an eight-year war with Iraq, so we understand the realities of that
country. We are very glad the United States got rid of Saddam. But now
what America is doing only makes the region more insecure. We could
help America in Iraq if only they would let us."
Moving south from Qom, along
modern highways interspersed with rest stops that would meet with the
approval of any traveler on the New York State Thruway, I was struck
by the long lines of cars at gas stations. For all its oil wealth, Iran
has an energy crisis. With its economy focused on the cash business
of oil export, little attention has been paid to the needs of the domestic
consumer. Iran is woefully lacking in domestic refining capacity, so
much so that it spends billions every year importing gasoline at world
market prices, which it then discounts so that the Iranian consumer
pays only some 40 cents a gallon. This makes no economic sense, but
Iran's oil is already fully leveraged in the export market. With reserves
shrinking and new discoveries waning, Iran faces a serious energy crisis
in the coming decades unless alternative sources are developed.
Some 180 miles south of Tehran
lies the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility. Tucked away on the side
of the road, surrounded by a makeshift berm and numerous antiaircraft
artillery emplacements, the facility has the outward appearance of something
dark and ominous. But the secrets concerning what lies within are well-known
to the world as a result of inspections carried out by the International
Atomic Energy Agency. What the inspectors say is crystal clear: There
is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Furthermore,
the enrichment program is plagued with technical problems that prevent
any rapid progress. There is no imminent nuclear weapons threat from
Iran, which hasn't mastered the technologies and methodologies of enrichment
needed to sustain a nuclear energy program, let alone a nuclear weapons
effort.
The Bush Administration speaks
of the need to move quickly on the issue of Iran's nuclear ambition
and to roll back the forces of terror represented by the Islamic Republic.
The repeated and explicit demand of the Administration is for regime
change, as evidenced in the March 2006 "National Security Strategy
of the United States," where Iran is named repeatedly as the number-one
threat to the United States. The alleged Iranian threat espoused by
Bush is based on fear, and arises from a combination of ignorance and
ideological inflexibility. The path that the United States is currently
embarked on regarding Iran is a path that will lead to war. (Indeed,
there are numerous unconfirmed reports that the United States has already
begun covert military operations inside Iran, including overflights
by pilotless drones and recruitment and training of MEK, Kurdish and
Azeri guerrillas.) Such a course of action would make even the historic
blunder of the Iraq invasion pale by comparison. When we talk of war,
we must never forget that we are talking about the lives of the men
and women who serve us in the armed forces. We have a duty and responsibility
to insure that all options short of war are exhausted before any decision
to enter into conflict is made. On the issue of Iran, the United States
hasn't even come close to exhausting the available options.
The solution to this problem
is clear. The most logical course would be to put Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice on a flight to Tehran, where she could negotiate directly
with the principal players on the Iranian side, including Supreme Leader
Khamenei. If Administration officials actually engaged with the Iranians,
they would have an eye-opening experience. Of course, Rice would need
to come with a revamped US policy, one that rejects regime change, provides
security guarantees for Iran as it is currently governed and would be
willing to recognize Iran's legitimate right to enrich uranium under
Article IV of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (although under stringent
UN inspections, and perhaps limited to the operation of a single 164-centrifuge
cascade).
Rice would undoubtedly be
surprised at the degree of moderation (and pro-American sentiment) that
exists in Iran today. She might also be shocked to find out that the
Iranians are more than ready to sit down with the United States and
work out a program for stability in Iraq, as well as a reduction of
tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. In addition to significantly
reducing the risk of a disastrous conflict, such a visit would do more
to encourage moderation and peace in the region than any amount of saber-rattling
could ever hope to accomplish. And it would do more to help America
prevail in the so-called Global War on Terror than any war plan the
Pentagon could assemble. In the end, that is what defines good policy--something
sadly lacking in Washington today.
Copyright © 2006 The
Nation
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights