Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

As Turkey has been one of the strongest advocates for the overthrow of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, increasing signs of concern emanating from Ankara about the likely effect on regional stability of Assad’s potential downfall need to be taken seriously.  In our 7 March report we looked in detail at the difficult choices facing Turkey.  In the two weeks since we published that briefing, it would seem that Turkey’s concerns have grown even stronger.

We suggested in our 7 March report that Turkey’s main concerns were that a civil war in Syria could provide an opportunity for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to reactivate militancy in Syria’s Kurdish regions; that the impact of a Syria-in-chaos on Lebanon would be profound, possibly reigniting the civil war that in its previous manifestation raged for 15 years; and that it could encourage the further fragmentation of Iraq, with Iran moving to consolidate its domination of the Shia regions.  We also noted fears that Jordan could be a casualty, with some in Ankara going so far as to say that the royal family would struggle to survive.

During the past week, sources in Ankara have been re-emphasizing these concerns, saying that the current view is that the fall of Assad could produce at least as much instability within Syria as did the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, but with even more regional knock-on effects.  In Iraq, the fall of the dictator produced civil war between the ousted Sunnis and majority Shias.  In Syria, the same will happen between the ruling Alawites and the majority Sunnis.  What is really exercising Ankara, however, is the potential response of Iran.  In Iraq, Iran was on the winning side and therefore its response to the fall of Saddam Hussein went little further than ensuring the eventual ascendancy of the pro-Iranian Shia majority.  With Syria, by contrast, if Assad falls Iran will be on the losing side – and that (Ankara fears) could produce a very different level of response.  Iran has the capability to exercise destabilizing influence not just in Syria itself, but (at least) in Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, and the Caucasus (notably in Azerbaijan).

These fears can only have been increased by the evidence of last week’s rocket attacks on Israel launched from the Gaza Strip by the Iranian-allied Islamic Jihad and, more significantly for Turkey, by the escalating anti-Azerbaijan rhetoric emanating from Tehran.  Last week, the Azeri authorities arrested 22 Azerbaijan citizens who they said were Iranian spies trained in Iran by Iran's Revolutionary Guard.  This, in turn, follows on from Iranian allegations that Azerbaijan has helped Israel in its assassinations of Iranian scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear programme.

The most recent assassination was on 11 January, and on 11 February The Times of London reported that Israel was using Azerbaijan as a base to spy on the Tehran government.  It quoted a Mossad agent called Shimon as saying: “This is ground zero for intelligence work…Our presence here is quiet, but substantial.  We have increased our presence in the past year, and it gets us very close to Iran.  This is a wonderfully porous country.”  The next day, Iran's foreign ministry summoned the Azeri ambassador to Tehran, Javanshir Akhundov, to protest against Baku granting asylum to the Mossad-trained assassins.  Now, at Friday prayers on 16 March, the Imam of Tabriz, Ayatollah Mojtahed-Shabestari, who is a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, has warned: “Azerbaijani leaders know that their outrageous action...will not last long and leaders of Azerbaijan should learn a lesson from the fall of Hosni Mubarak, al-Qadhafi, arrogant powers and regional pharaohs...The country has unfortunately let the USA and Israel to have bases on their land, which is not acceptable at all.   We should tell the leaders of this regime that this kind of action will not last long and if they do not remember how tyrants ended in history, they should at least take a look at the fall of regional dictators and learn a lesson.”

Turkey’s concerns for regional stability will have been further raised by the latest news from Iraqi Kurdistan.  So far, the Arab Awakening has had little overt impact on the Kurdish question, but from the outset we have indicated that this was only a matter of time.  On 20 March, the President of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, Masoud Barzani, launched a strong verbal attack on the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki hinting at moves towards a more independent Kurdistan – something to which Turkey is viscerally opposed.

In a speech marking the Persian new year holiday, Barzani warned: “It is time to say enough is enough.  The current state of affairs is unacceptable to us, and I call on all Iraqi political leaders to urgently try and find a solution otherwise we will return to our people and will decide on whatever course of action that our people deem appropriate.”

Barzani’s complaints include “an attempt to establish a one-million strong army whose loyalty is to a single person [Maliki]”; failure to resolve the territorial dispute over the oil city of Kirkuk, which is outside the Kurdish region but is claimed by the Kurds as part of their historical homeland; the failure of central government to provide promised funds for Kurdish security forces; and central government opposition to Kurdish oil deals in order to prevent the Kurdish region reaching its full economic potential.  The central government, for its part, is furious that the Kurdish regional government has failed to hand over Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi, the senior Sunni Arab politician in the government who fled to the Kurdish region on the eve of the US troops withdrawal in December.

Although the actions of Iraqi Kurdistan are not related to Iran’s responses to the threat to Assad’s rule in Syria, they do represent one more major headache for Turkey – and another reason why, with so much potential for Iranian-inspired regional instability, some influential voices in Ankara are arguing that the best action might be to negotiate a ‘grand bargain’ with Iran that addresses all its concerns and brings it in from the cold.

Undoubtedly there are some in the US administration who share this view, but the idea of a ‘grand bargain’ with Iran would be anathema not just to Israel, but to Saudi Arabia as well - and, for that reason, it is unlikely to gain traction in Washington.  However, two further points do follow.  The first is that there will be continuing muddle over Syria, with the West pulling its punches for fear of what success might bring.  Secondly, this talk of a ‘grand bargain’ with Tehran (even if it leads nowhere) will be used by the Israeli hawks to bolster their case for an early strike against Iran.  JdeC.

NOTE: The latest estimates from Jerusalem are that a majority of the 14-strong dilpomatic-security cabinet would support a unilateral Israeli strike if pushed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, despite the best efforts of many powerful opponents to a strike.  The split is said to be 8-6 in favour.  The latest reports from the United States, that an Israeli attack on Iran could spark a regional war, have had less impact than might have been thought.  There is a near consensus in Israel that the threat from its Arab neighbours is set to become greater over time, as the new Muslim Brotherhood ascendancy establishes itself in Egypt and elsewhere.  However, at the moment, the Arabs are weak.  Syria, Libya, and Iraq are in turmoil; the Jordanian establishment is fighting for survival; Egypt has not yet made the transition from military rule to popular (anti-Israel) government; Hezbollah in Lebanon might be distancing itself from Iran; and the Gulf States are desperate to maintain stability.  It is also pointed out that the Palestinians, even Hamas, would be reluctant to risk all in support of Iran when the medium term offers them such potential through the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood.

So, if there is to be a war with Iran, the Israeli hawks have the better of the argument when they say it would be safer, in strategic terms, to have it now rather than later.  This is in addition, of course, to the hawks’ fundamental point that time is the enemy when it comes to Iran’s nuclear developments, and if Israel wants to attack Iran alone, it has a rapidly narrowing window of opportunity in which to do so.