The regime has benefited, at least temporarily, from the turmoil of the Arab Spring as attention was diverted from Iran’s illicit nuclear program and its brutality in crushing the democracy movement. But now many international voices are calling for a refocus on Iran, based on frustration with the regime’s nuclear program and long range missile development in defiance of United Nations sanctions, and its human rights abuses and support for terror.
Iran gives material support to groups defined by the United States as terrorist: Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and armed groups in Iraq and Afghanistan. Being behind so much of the terrorism and chaos in the Middle East makes it harder than ever to make the case that the current 32-year policy of sanctions and containment of Iran has been effective.
In recent weeks, a power struggle between the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has led to political maneuvering and arrests that are almost certain to weaken the regime’s authority.
The United States is ratcheting up the pressure with more enforcement of sanctions. Last week the European Union expanded its sanctions on Iran as well.
Moreover, President Obama’s Middle East speech on May 19 signaled a shift in the U.S. view of the Iranian regime’s protests of nearly two years ago from one of neutrality, to support for democracy and human rights activists. Obama is now calling for a transition to democracy in Iran as he did with other Middle East revolutions.
“The pressure on Iran is only going to increase and very significantly,” said Dr. Kenneth Katzman, specialist in Middle East Affairs with the Congressional Research Service. Katzman was speaking on a panel May 25 at the Heritage Foundation on Iran’s future and the role the United States should play to encourage democracy and regime change.
“I do believe Iran’s energy sector is going to start to deteriorate substantially,” Katzman said. Just the day before, the U.S. State Department imposed sanctions on seven foreign entities under the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA) of 2010, for their activities in support of Iran’s energy sector.
“Iran uses revenues from its energy sector to fund its nuclear program, as well as to mask procurement of dual-use items,” said Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg in announcing the sanctions on May 24.
Steinberg says the sanctions are having an effect, particularly in the refined petroleum sector. According to some reports, imports have dropped as much as 60 percent in some months since CISADA passed.
“Iran has lost millions in potential revenue by converting petrochemical plants to produce gasoline to make up for their dramatic shortfall in gasoline imports. In addition, the State Department has also convinced the jet fuel suppliers in 17 cities in Europe and Asia to which IranAir flies to stop providing fuel,” he said.
There is a worldwide ban on purchasing Iranian crude oil and natural gas.
“Iran is increasingly being shut out of the international financial system,” Katzman said. Many foreign investors have “scaled back, stopped working, and announced leaving,” said Katzman. Iranian refineries need to be upgraded, but the contractors who do that work are abiding by U.S. sanctions and getting out.
Katzman also predicts an expansion of human rights sanctions against Iranian leaders. “Increasingly, a number of [Iranian] officials will not be able to travel abroad,” he said.
Continued on the next page ... carrot-stick diplomacy doesn’t work
Apocalyptic Politics
There is another reason why rational carrot-stick diplomacy doesn’t work with the Islamic regime. Since its founding, the regime’s leaders believe in an indispensable role for themselves within the Shia doctrine, that the Hidden Imam will return one day as the Mahdi (The Guided One), to lead the war between the righteous and the evil in one final apocalyptic battle. Not surprisingly, the prophecy includes the destruction of Israel.
One of the speakers at the Heritage panel was “Reza Kahlili,” which is his pseudonym. He is an ex-CIA spy in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRG) and author of A Time to Betray. His face was masked for security purposes.
“The pursuit of nuclear bombs by the radicals ruling Iran is directly connected to this belief [in the Coming, etc.] as war, chaos, and lawlessness must engulf the world to pave the way for Imam Mahdi’s reappearance,“ Kahlili says on his website.
Kahlili revealed the existence of a secret documentary, The Coming Is Upon Us, that was created by Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s office, with the help of Rahim Mashaei, the president’s chief of staff and top adviser. It purportedly makes the case that the time is imminent for the return of the last Islamic Messiah. Ahmadinejad is portrayed a mythic figure who conquers Jerusalem, triggering the coming itself.
The video has stirred up a lot of controversy in Iran. Senior clerics in Qom and the hardliners opposing Ahmadinejad have harshly complained that the video shows to the enemy, the West, “the inside intimacies of their sacred beliefs to the world,” says Kahlili. They also accuse Mashaei of trying to empower Ahmadinejad beyond the supreme leader and diminish the role of the clerics.
The infighting led to the dismissal of minister of Intelligence, Heidar Moslehi by Ahmadinejad, who wants control of the Intelligence Ministry for vital information that could be used against his opponents in the upcoming parliamentarian elections, said Kahlili.
“In the following days, many hard-line clerics announced that not obeying the Supreme Leader would not be tolerated, adding that obeying him is mandated by Allah, said Kahlili. In the past few weeks, Khamenei has orchestrated the arrest of 25 people loyal to Ahmadinejad and Mashaei.
Ahmadinejad supporters, who include many in the Revolutionary Guards and Basij—a volunteer paramilitary group created by the last Ayatollah Khomeini— warned opponents that they will not allow these attacks without responding vigorously, Kahlili said.
It remains to be seen whether liberal democratic forces will benefit from this feud between conservatives factions.
Nascent Democratic Forces
President Obama may have regretted the initial response of the United States with regard to the Green Revolution when millions of people were protesting on the streets of Tehran in June 2009. In his May 19 speech, Obama criticized Tehran specifically and called for all Middle East nations to transition to democracy.
The U.S. nonsupport for the Iranian protests in June 2009 was “a strategic mistake,” said Dr. Walid Phares, author of The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East. Phares said the Green Movement was a “national movement,” not confined to Tehran, and was a trans-ethnic movement, including Persian, Azeri, Kurd, and Baloch peoples, and deserves U.S. support. If one looks at the masses who were protesting, he noted, the movement clearly derived from genuine democratic impulses.
The Green Movement is bound to attract more supporters based on the latest developments, Katzman said. He added that the regime cannot count on the army. He mentioned a letter sent in late 2010 by some commanders that they would not participate in shooting protesters.
The people of Iran notice that they are increasingly being excluded at international forums and are being asked by European nations to reduce the size of their embassies as European countries reduce theirs. Katzman says that the people he has talked to “refuse to be faced with a future where they become North Korea, some hermetically sealed kingdom that nobody touches or knows about. They do not want this.”
