THE DISMANTLING PROCESS
Dilip Hiro
Guardian/UK
April 3, 2007 2:00 PM
Four years after the catastrophic invasion of Iraq, Bush shows no
sign of calling off his two-year campaign to destabilise Iran.
During the build-up to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003,
Colin Powell, United States secretary of state, reportedly told
President Bush: "If you break it, you own it." He was referring to
the multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian Iraq.
Four years after the catastrophic invasion of Iraq, the wisdom of
Powell’s aphorism contrasts sharply with the pathetic inability of
the Bush White House to make the Shias, Sunnis and Kurds of Iraq work
together in harmony.
But instead of learning from the debacle of Iraq, and desisting
from destabilising another country in a volatile region, the
Bush administration shows no sign of calling off its two-year old
clandestine campaign to destabilise Iran.
Revelations in the New Yorker and the Washington Post in
January-February 2005 showed that the Pentagon had been flying drones
over Iran since April 2004 for espionage. This had come about after
the spying network established by the Central Intelligence Agency
in Iran had been exposed and eliminated, according to James Risen,
the New York Times reporter on national security, in his book State
of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.
Briefed by their experts on Iran, the American policy makers became
aware that Iran is also multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian. So they saw
an opportunity to weaken the Tehran government by funding and arming
ethnic minorities on the ground that the regime’s primary support
comes from ethnic Persians.
According to the CIA, relying on figures supplied by Iranian exiles,
Persians are only 50% of the population. So, if the ethnic minorities
can be roused to rebel against the central authority, the theocratic
regime will be endangered.
These figures are flawed, and the strategy based on them is dangerously
misconceived.
The ethnic composition of Iran is Persians, 65%; Azeris, 20%; Kurds
7%, Arabs 3%; Baluchis, 2%; Turkmen, 2.5%; and Armenian, 0.5%.
Creating disaffection among Azeris is a non-starter. Iran’s supreme
leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei is an Azeri speaker. An Azeri insurgency
cannot take off without the active cooperation of Azerbaijan. There
is no sign that the government in Baku wants to be part of this
destabilising plan.
In any case, the bond of Shia Islam that Azeris and Persians share
is much stronger than any differences arising from the different
languages the two communities speak.
It is that segment of the Iranian population that follows Sunni Islam
which provides a realistic chance of engaging in insurgency. Among them
the predominantly Sunni, yet secular, Kurds are pre-eminent. Ever since
the Islamic revolution in 1979, a section of the Kurdish community
concentrated in the area adjoining the Iraqi Kurdistan has been up
in arms against the theocratic regime in Tehran.
In recent years the Komala-e Jian Kordestan (Association of Revival
of Kurdistan; also known as Kurdistan Free Life party), has emerged
as an insurgent group. It is allied with the Kurdistan Workers party
of Turkey. Taking refuge in the mountains of the Iraqi Kurdistan,
the two factions have been engaged in violent activity against their
respective governments.
According to the Turkish sources, cited by the Guardian, the US is
funding and indirectly arming the Komala-e Jian Kordestan.
The CIA also seems to be aiding dissident groups – albeit through
proxies – in the Iranian province of Baluchistan-Sistan adjoining
Pakistan. A faction, called Sipah-e Rasul Allah (Soldiers of God’s
Messenger), and headed by Wahid Baksh, has been conducting a campaign
of bombing, shooting and kidnapping.
Baksh claims that Sunnis are being persecuted in Iran.
A more militant faction, named Jundullah (Army of God), has resorted
to car bombings and kidnapping and beheading Iranian soldiers.
According to Iranian exile sources in Pakistan, Junduallah recently
received a large consignment of arms and vehicles. "They are getting
money from somewhere," said one source. "We heard that it’s coming
from Americans."
Washington denies the allegation. But leading Iranian exile leaders
from Dubai and Britain have visited the area regularly to deliver
funds – which most likely originate from the CIA.
The ethnic Arab minority, concentrated in the oil-rich province of
Khuzistan which shares its border with Iraq, is another community which
has tempted the CIA. Acts of violence in the province are attributed
to disaffected ethnic Arabs.
Let us suppose the Bush administration’s strategy of encouraging
armed insurgencies by ethnic minorities succeeds in creating mayhem
in Iran. Do its policy makers have a plan to put Humpty Dumpty back
together?