IRAN’S SHARE IN LINKING TERRORISM TO ISLAM IS TREMENDOUS
Today’s Zaman
Nov 21 2012
Turkey
At a time when the world is discussing if Islam is indeed a religion
promoting terror, Today’s Zaman Editor-in-Chief Dr. Bulent KeneÅ~_
has pointed to Iran’s share in causing Islam to be associated with
terrorism, which he described as “colossal.” According to KeneÅ~_,
Iran’s terrorist activities are mainly what justifies simultaneous
reference to Islam and terror. Since Iran has been marketing its
revolution as “Islamic” and justifies everything it does with reference
to Islam, Iran’s terrorist activities have come to be attributed to
Islam, KeneÅ~_ has argued.
KeneÅ~_, known for his publications on Iranian politics, has recently
released his second book, “Ä°ran ve Terrör” (Iran and Terror). In
his first book, “Iran: Tehdit mi, Fırsat mı?” (Iran: A Threat or an
Opportunity) KeneÅ~_ discussed the place of Iran in Turkish foreign
policy. Now, in his second book, he explains how the administration
in Tehran has resorted to terrorist methods such as exporting its
revolution to other countries and destroying its dissidents after the
revolution in 1979. Like his first, KeneÅ~_’s second book, derived
from his doctoral dissertation at the Middle East Studies Institute of
Marmara University, has been published by the TimaÅ~_ Publishing House.
We discussed the connection between Iran and terrorism with KeneÅ~_,
a hot topic in world politics.
Your second book is about post-revolution Iran’s terrorist attacks
against the regime’s opponents and its efforts to export its revolution
to other countries. How could Iran attain this dynamism hot on the
heels of the revolution?
This energy essentially comes from the revolutionary romanticism
of the early days of the revolution. As the revolution became more
institutionalized over time, it started to pay greater and more
pragmatic respect to balance. Initially, it was suggested that the
Iranian revolution was not only a Persian/Shiite revolution, but that
it would inspire all the world’s downtrodden. But the revolution
failed to maintain this vibrant dynamism. Today, it is hard to say
that Iran is trying to export its revolution to other countries. But
this does not mean Iran is not laboring to boost its influence and
spread its Shiite mentality in a more realist manner. The difference
from the early years of the revolution is that Iran now takes into
consideration relations with its neighbors as well as the global and
regional balance.
In your book, you discuss how Iran assassinated several dissident
Iranian figures in foreign countries. These include at least six cases
of assassinations conducted in Turkey until 1989. Do you think Iran
is still maintaining similar secret service activities?
The assassinations against opponents of the Iranian regime — including
dissident Kurdish leaders in Berlin and former Prime Minister Shahpour
Bakhtiar in Paris — are proof of Iran’s state-sponsored terror. These
were purely cases of summary executions.
These acts not only destroy dissidents physically, but also help to
intimidate other dissidents. Since Iran has made terror an official
policy employed to silence opponents, it has become a country which is
primarily associated with terrorism in the international arena. Today,
terrorism has acquired a different dimension. The lives of the leading
figures of the Green Movement, which claims that the 2009 elections in
Iran were fraudulent, are being threatened. This new style can still
be considered part of Iran’s terror. The manifestation abroad of this
new style is that Iran exerts pressures on the groups who criticize it
through its fifth column activities. For instance, there are numerous
Qom- or Tehran-affiliated websites and news agencies in Turkey. When
you criticize Iran, you are quickly targeted by these media outlets.
You receive threats through social media; you may even face character
assassination. This, too, is terror. Iran benefits from environments
where freedoms are liberally enjoyed, like Turkey, where it can
leverage psychological operations.
Is there any concrete evidence indicating Iran is committing
state-sponsored terror?
There are many examples. The most remarkable of these is the killing
of Iran’s dissident Kurdish leader at a restaurant called Mykonos
in Berlin in 1992. Following the assassination, German authorities
conducted an in-depth investigation under the Mykonos case and
concluded that the murder was committed by the Iranian Secret Service
at the behest of the administration in Tehran. After a three-year
investigation, a Berlin criminal court held that the assassination
had been decided by an Iranian “Special Affairs Committee,” members
of which included Iran’s spiritual leader Ali Khamenei, President
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati
and Ali Fallahyan, the head of the secret service. In addition, some
of the people who were suspected to have been involved in the attacks
against the Jewish Community Center in Argentina in 1994, which killed
80 people, were later promoted to high-profile positions within the
state. For instance, one of them was appointed as an ambassador to
a country in Africa.
Isn’t it a bit unfair to put all the blame for terror activities
around the globe on Iran?
Absolutely not. In my book, I defend Iran from various angles. I am
not an anti-Iranian person. Iran was accused of masterminding several
assassinations to curtail the flourishing democratic Islamic movements
in Algeria and Tunisia. These claims were not true. Likewise, in
the unsolved murders against Ugur Mumcu, Bahriye Ucok, Ahmet Taner
KıÅ~_lalı and several other Kemalist/secularist intellectuals
in Turkey, Iran was the usual suspect. Yet, as we find out today,
these assassinations had actually been masterminded by certain
clandestine networks nested within the state like Ergenekon —
a clandestine organization burrowed within the state trying to
overthrow or manipulate the democratically elected government–
in an effort to create certain threat perceptions in the society.
In particular, in the post-9/11 world, more frequent references were
made linking Islam and terrorism. But, before the collapse of the Twin
Towers in a terrorist attack, Iran had launched a number of violent
attacks across the globe. What is Iran’s share in the formation of
the global urge to describe Islam as a religion promoting terror?
Iran’s responsibility in this respect is of course colossal. Iran’s
terrorist activities are mainly what justify simultaneous reference to
Islam and terror. Since Iran has been marketing its revolution as an
“Islamic” revolution and justifying everything it does with reference
to Islam, Iran’s terror activities have come to be attributed to
Islam. The occupation of the US Embassy in Tehran, the strengthening
of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the bloody attacks against French and
American soldiers and diplomats in Lebanon, the bombing of several
oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, several cases of kidnapping people
and hijacking airplanes, and the suspicion of Iran’s involvement in
a number of Western targets around the globe have helped people’s
minds equate Iran with terror, and Iran with Islam, and eventually,
Islam with terror.
Despite the fact that the revolution in Iran had dominantly Shiite
and Persian roots, we see that Tehran managed to exercise a certain
clout over certain Arab Sunni movements such as Hamas and the Muslim
Brotherhood (MB). How can this be explained, given their ethnic and
religious differences?
A major reason for this was that there had been no alternative source
in the Middle East that could offer support to Islamic movements.
There had been no model regime other than Iran that had an
anti-imperialist discourse, advocated solidarity with the
downtrodden and claimed to have undertaken a revolution on behalf
of Islam. For this reason, Iran has come to serve as a model for
Islamist opposition. These organizations [Hamas and the MB] opted for
entertaining close ties with Iran for its backing, despite pragmatic
diversities. But in cases of the slightest conflict, Iran has been
quick to react harshly against these organizations. For instance,
when Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal referred to the Persian Gulf as
the “Arabian” Gulf at a meeting, Iranian media networks launched a
campaign against him. In this context, Hamas’ invitation to Turkey
in 2006 was important.
Three types of radicalism on the rise in the region Can we say that
these trends still continue in our time?
Just like the MB, the radical Islamist movements of Turkey have tended
to take Iran’s revolution as a model. In other words, Iran’s influence
had been supra-sectarian. Yet in the Iranian political sphere, the
Shiite vein will dominate in any conflict between Shiism and Islamic
values. By the same token, if Persian geopolitical interests clash with
Shiism, Iran tends to give priority to its national interests over its
sectarian values. For instance, as regards the Azerbaijani-Armenian
conflict, Iran lends support to Armenians, not Azerbaijanis, despite
the presence of established religious and cultural proximity with
Azerbaijanis. As the concrete examples of these preferences are also
observed by Sunni Muslims in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere,
Iran’s influence in these groups has started to wane. Yet it is hard
to say that this influence has completely ceased to exist.
If Iran continues to back Shiite radicalism, as it is doing regarding
the Syrian crisis, do you think Sunni groups will tilt toward other
extremes like Salafism or Wahhabism?
There are certain signs for such a shift. For example, no one would
expect Salafis to emerge as the second biggest party out of the
elections in Egypt, but they took the world by a big surprise to
win the second slot after the MB. In the face of the expansion of
Iranian Shiism after the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, there
is a radical Sunnism on the rise. Thus, there is the risk that the
energy accumulating across the Muslim world, which can be tapped into
to promote change and transformation, may be wasted in a potential
Sunni-Shiite conflict. In addition, there is also rising Jewish
radicalism in the region. Today, we are witnessing the right-wing Likud
Party shifting toward the extreme right and its coalition partners
moving further in the same direction. All these extremist movements
promise nothing but more than bloodshed and strife in the region.
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