Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

As we argued last week, Iran, Turkey, and Egypt are the three key countries in shaping the new Middle East.  For Iran, Egypt’s move away from the unquestioning pro-Americanism of the Mubarak era is a bonus and may lead to a rapprochment, albeit one circumscribed by fierce pressure on Cairo from Riyadh and Washington.  But Turkey’s similar shift away from excessive pro-Westernism has its complications for Iran.  This reorientation by Turkey under the Islam-based Justice and Development Party (AKP) brings with it increased Turkish influence in the region - with much talk of the Arab Spring heralding a widespread adoption of the ‘Turkish model’.  This is a potential challenge to Iran, particularly in Syria where Turkey appears to be backing the Muslim Brotherhood, and this threat seems to have prompted Tehran to send a not very subtle warning to Ankara last week.

On 9 July, three people, including a civilian, were kidnapped by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guerrillas in Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey, and on 14 July thirteen Turkish soldiers were ambushed and killed during a rescue attempt.  Sources in the region say the whole episode may have been orchestrated by Tehran, and there are three reasons why this might be true.

The first is that Iran has form in this area.  Throughout the 1990s Iran supported the PKK in order to destabilize pro-Western Turkey, although it abandoned this policy after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.  The second reason is that the PKK’s Cemil Bayik, who ordered the 14 July attack in defiance of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, has long had close links with Iran.  The third reason is that Iran has cause.

All the indications point towards Turkey working for a compromise solution in Syria that gives the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) a significant share of power - and of all the Arab world’s various MB branches, the Syrian one is the most antithetical to Iran.  It is the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, for instance, that has been most vociferous in warning over many years against an alleged Iranian plan to rebuild the Shiite Safavid empire at the expense of the Arabs.  It has warned that the long-standing Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance is a key element of this grand conspiracy against Sunni Arabs, and it claims that the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah support for the Palestinian cause is nothing more than flag waving to gain Arab Sunni support while Iran’s true purpose is to dominate the Sunni Arabs.

In 1987, Said Hawwa, the chief ideologist of the Syrian MB, wrote a book called Khumayniyya: Deviation in Beliefs and Deviation in Behaviour in which he described Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini as a danger to the existence of the Sunni world.  He saw the purpose of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war as an attempt by Iran to conquer Iraq and to turn it into a Shia state as a preliminary stage to further dominating the Sunni Arab world.  Syria’s President Hafez Assad supported Iran in the war, while in turn the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was supported by Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein.

The Syrian MB has also made much play over the years of a letter that was published in 1988 by the Iranian Sunni League allegedly containing a five-step master plan for spreading the Iranian/Shia rebellion to other Muslim countries.  The Syrian MB’s paranoia over Iranian intentions was further fuelled by the downfall of Saddam Hussein and the subsequent enhancement of Iranian/Shia power in Iraq.  And Syrian Muslim Brotherhood propagandists can now be heard saying that events in Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Jordan are all part of this grand Iranian/Shia conspiracy.

So, Turkey’s apparent advocacy for a compromise solution between the Assad regime and the Muslim Brotherhood has every reason to disconcert Iran.  The gains Tehran has undoubtedly made in Iraq and elsewhere in the Gulf could be offset by losses in Syria, which in turn would inevitably degrade Iran’s ability to support Hezbollah and the Shias in Lebanon.

Turkey under the Islam-based AKP poses another problem for Iran.  As mentioned above, one of the reasons Iran has been able to exercise such influence on the Arab street has been because of its strong pro-Palestinian stance, and the contrast between its support for the Palestinians and the pro-peace line taken by pre-AKP Turkey and by key Sunni Arab leaders such as King Abdullah of Jordan and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.  Now Turkey, Egypt, and increasingly Jordan are all lining up to emphasize their unwavering support for the Palestinian cause.

Iran can hardly oppose such an evolution, and it is making considerable efforts to forge friendly ties with post-Mubarak Egypt.  However, Turkey’s undermining of the Assad regime in Syria, and working for its replacement by the Muslim Brotherhood, is another matter, which is why Tehran appears to have sent a reminder to Turkey during the past week: undermine our interests in Syria and we will reactivate our support for the PKK.