Iran moderating at home but keeping hardline abroad
Our intelligence sources say that the speech made by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on 8 August, shortly after the start of Ramadan, provides two important pointers on current thinking in Tehran on the Arab revolutions. The first is that Iran is more worried about the domestic impact of these revolutions than has widely been supposed. The second, on the other hand, is that Tehran believes it has more to gain by maintaining its hardline foreign policy despite the growing Sunni animosity throughout the Middle East towards the Shia and Iran.
In his 65 minute speech, Ayatollah Khamenei repeatedly called for domestic reconciliation, saying: “Regarding those people who separate from the community of Muslims, who distance themselves from the country, try to bring them closer, bring them in. Those who are half way up the path, bring them home.”
He added: “You shouldn’t allow people who have a loose connection to the establishment to become completely disconnected. Those who are half way up the path, draw them in.”
Khamenei also castigated those within the establishment who indulge in factional in-fighting, saying: “Differences between collectives, between groups, between organizations are [as bad as] burning fires. Everyone should try to extinguish these fires, not to pour oil on to them.”
The speech supports intelligence that Khamenei is trying to isolate hardline President Mahmud Ahmadinezhad. Although Khamenei made a few congratulatory comments about the achievements of Ahmadinezhad’s government, they were perfunctory and very minor in relation to the rest of the speech. But before anyone gets too excited about signs of incipient moderation, intelligence sources say that the Iranian leader’s intention is to draw in centrist supporters of former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami at the expense of the democratic opposition, not to move towards the democrats.
The foreign policy section of Khameini’s 8 August speech was, if anything, even more significant. He criticized the attempts by both the Rafsanjani and Khatami administrations to improve relations with the United States, and he appeared to defend Ahmadinezhad’s aggressive approach against the moderates who are arguing for a more nuanced foreign policy.
Khameini said: “I don’t agree with the view that we have a negative international position. On the contrary, our international position is very good. Today the Islamic Republic is a respected, effective, and influential country.”
That Khamenei, on the foreign policy front, is involved in an exceedingly high-stakes game can be seen from a recent Arab-American Institute Foundation poll on Arab attitudes towards Iran. The poll was conducted in June, and the recently published results show how calamitously Iranian influence in the Arab world has declined since 2006.
Iran’s favourable ratings in key Arab countries in 2006 were 82% in Morocco, 89% in Egypt, 75% in Jordan, 85% in Saudi Arabia, and 68% in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This has fallen dramatically to 14% in Morocco, 37% in Egypt, 23% in Jordan, 6% in Saudi Arabia, and 22% in the UAE. By contrast the favourable ratings for non-Arab Turkey in the same countries are now 80% in Morocco, 64% in Egypt, 45% in Jordan, 98% in Saudi Arabia, and 62% in the UAE.
The only country polled (Syria was not amongst the sample) that shows a favourable rating towards Iran is Lebanon, where 84% of Shias have a favourable view of Iran, 55% of Sunnis, and 48% of Christians.
What is so significant about these findings is that they reflect the views of the Arab street, not of the rulers, and it is to the Arab street that Iran has always sought to appeal through its hardline rejection of Israel’s right to exist and its support for the Palestinian cause. Clearly this tactic either no longer has the resonance it once did, or (our view) it is simply outweighed by the negative impact of Iran’s support for the minority Shia Arabs and by fears of its nuclear ambitions.
Yet Khameini, who is compromising at home, is sticking to the hardline stance abroad. This is a gamble, but a rational one. He believes that Iran now has the upper hand in Iraq and that it has as much support as ever in Lebanon. If Iran can just enable President Bashar al-Assad to survive in Syria (and no one in the West has the appetite for a military intervention on behalf of the Syrian Sunni rebels) then the Iranian-led ‘Shia Crescent’ so much feared by King Abdullah of Jordan will be entrenched from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. This will make Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Arab states even more fearful of Iranian influence in Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia and possibly more quiescent.
There is also every chance that Iran can establish close relations with a Muslim Brotherhood ruled Egypt. As shown above, the favourable rating for Iran in Egypt is 37%, and although massively down from 2006 it is not negligible and is much higher than in other Sunni Arab states. Egypt has been putting out friendly feelers to Iran since the fall of Mubarak, and if (as seems highly likely) it continues to move away from Israel and the Camp David accords Egypt will have a natural affinity with Iran.
Turkey is a potential problem, particularly since it has turned on Assad in Syria. But Iran believes it can use Turkey’s Kurdish Achilles Heel to modify views in Ankara.
Iran will also have taken heart from the vacillating in Israel over what to do about Iran’s nuclear programme. The threat of an Israeli pre-emptive strike seems to have receded for now – and, besides, an Israeli strike would surely only boost Iran’s approval ratings in the Arab world.
There are some well-placed and influential experts in the West and Israel who are argung that Iran is in trouble and that it will be the inevitable loser of the Arab Spring, and Khameini’s speech does indeed suggest that he also knows that these are dangerous times for Iran. But Khamenei is not necessarily wrong in thinking that a hardline foreign policy could still deliver immense rewards if only Iran can hold its nerve, save Assad, and find a way to defuse opposition at home. Khamenei believes, and is probably right, that this is not a time to show weakness.
Any assumption that Iran will emerge as the big loser from the Arab Spring is at the very least premature and quite probably entirely wrong. It could yet emerge with its regional influence significantly enhanced, at the head of a Shia crescent stretching from Iran, through Iraq and Syria, to Lebanon and allied in hostility to Israel with a Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Egypt to the south. JdeC.