gary's choices

Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, himself a founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran together with Ayatollah Khomeini, is now the fiercest critic of the current government. He says plainly and clearly what the leaders of the Green Movement hesitate to express. His religious qualifications — the highest of any cleric in Iran and far greater than those of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei — give his words the kind of weight that the “house” clerics of the regime can only envy and fear.

Are we witnessing a historic shift in the balance of power in the Persian Gulf, with Iran assuming dominance over Iraq? A recent fact-finding trip to Baghdad and Najaf suggests that such fears are exaggerated.

In 2003, the United States overturned the secular but predominantly Sunni Arab regime of Saddam Hussein and then presided over the installation of a more representative Shiite government in Baghdad. This was a huge gift to Iran —itself a Shiite state—and represented a historic shift. Although Iraq is a majority Shiite state, never in more than a thousand years had a predominantly Shiite government ruled there.

The U.S. invasion removed an implacably hostile enemy of Iran that had invaded it in 1980, fought a brutal eight-year war against it in the southern marshes, and created a Sunni Arab coalition with the intent of overturning the Iranian revolution. In an apparent fit of absentmindedness, the G.W. Bush administration succeeded in removing both of Iran’s key rivals—the Taliban was similarly routed in Afghanistan —effectively elevating Iran to the position of a regional superpower.

This, in turn, gave rise to cries of alarm that Iran would parlay this double-barreled and unparalleled act of strategic generosity into a “Shiite crescent” that would threaten the entire Middle East from the Levant to Afghanistan. Many of these voices of apprehension and disdain belong to the tier of old Sunni states in the Middle East—Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia—that regard themselves as the legitimate arbiters of regional power and policies but which are finding themselves rendered increasingly impotent by the rise of Israel and Iran as the two leading “regional influentials.”

Perhaps the shrillest voices are the Sunnis in Iraq who recognize that they will no longer be able to dominate the policy-making process in the post-Saddam era. A disgruntled former Iraqi (Sunni) official, when pressed by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius about what his country would look like in five years in the absence of American help, answered bluntly: “Iraq will be a colony of Iran.”

Much of this pointing with alarm can be written off as status envy or political sour grapes or even uneasiness that Iraq, unlike nearly all its neighbors in the Middle East, holds elections that are not rigged in favor of the current rulers. But underlying the grumbling is a deep and abiding opposition to the emergence of the Shiites as a political force in the region. Traditionally, except in Iran, the Shiites have been relegated to the status of second-class citizens, and their new prominence in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon (through Hezbollah) is regarded by many Sunni Arabs as intolerable.

There are also whispered concerns that the United States, in granting Iran such political influence in the region, had ulterior motives. Memories are long in the Middle East, and no one has forgotten the special relationship between the United States and the Iran of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. If the United States endowed Iran with its new political clout, the conspiracy theory goes, can a special deal between the Americans and Iranians, at the expense of America’s traditional Sunni—or Israeli—allies, be far behind?

Finally, there is an underlying fear of the Iranian revolution and its establishment of a Shiite Islamist clerical state. Is that to be the future of the new Middle East?

I recently had an opportunity to test out some of these suspicions during a trip to Iraq and the Iraqi holy city of Najaf. As a member of a small group of visiting scholars, I participated in discussions with three grand ayatollahs (not including Grand Ayatollah Sistani) over several days.

Our group of four non-Muslim American scholars with diverse academic interests was a bit unusual, but these ayatollahs meet daily with pilgrims from every corner of the world, and they are neither surprised nor offended by tough questions. Religious education in the Shiite seminaries uses the Socratic method—challenge and response—and nothing is off limits. As it happened, I was the eldest of our group, so in accordance with Iraqi protocol I posed the first question. In each case, I asked the religious scholars what the proper role of religion would be in the new, post-Saddam Iraq. In various words, they all replied that religion can only persuade, it has no power to control or force. These religious leaders saw their function as providing guidance or suggestions to the political leaders, but they had no desire or inclination to run the government.

These were not political discussions, but of course everything has a political dimension. We did not ask them directly to compare their understanding of the role of Islam with that of the theocratic system in Iran. Nevertheless, the subject came up in various ways.

The two most telling moments for me were during our lengthy discussion with a group of perhaps 15 senior religious scholars that extended from morning through lunch and well into the afternoon. These men are all teachers in the hawza, the religious establishment of Najaf.

One scholar responded to a question about whether scholars moved freely back and forth between Najaf and Qom, the counterpart seminary town in Iran. At first he said yes, that the three levels of traditional instruction were largely in common. Then he changed his mind. We would not recommend that our students go to Qom for the first (basic) level of instruction, he said; in Iran the first level courses have become a training program for future officials in an Islamic government.

Clearly the Najaf hawza had no intention of playing such a role. (An ayatollah had told us the previous day that the relationship between Najaf and Qom was one of “friendly competition.” No progress, he said, is possible without competition.)

The point was driven home by another scholar, from a famous Iraqi family of clerics, some of whose members had sheltered in Iran during the oppression and persecution of Shiite clerics and institutions under Saddam Hussein’s rule. A number of his relatives were killed by Saddam. He said quite matter-of-factly that after the collapse of Saddam’s rule, the hawza had considered whether it would follow the Iranian model of a theocratic state, and had decided that it would not.

Khomeini’s concept of the velayat-e faqih has always been controversial in Shiite Islam, and the spectacular failure of Iran’s theocracy to bring competence, justice, prosperity or tranquility to Iran does not appear to have been lost on their co-religionists in Iraq. But that does not prevent the hawza from playing an important role in Iraqi politics. Grand Ayatollah Sistani has offered his advice at several critical junctures, promoting non-violence and more transparent democratic procedures. Transparency generally favors a majority Shiite populace, but Sistani’s interventions have also found favor with non-sectarian proponents of Iraqi democracy.

One other issue that arose naturally in the course of our conversations in Najaf was the subject of terrorism, particularly suicide bombings and the killing of civilians in the name of Islam. The passion of our interlocutors’ responses on this subject were exceeded only by their denunciations of Saddam Hussein. The extremist takfiri ideology of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, which permits such excesses as suicide bombings, attacks on civilians, abductions, mutilations, and beheadings, was denounced unequivocally and disdainfully as contrary to Islam itself.

It is perhaps no coincidence that of the hundreds of suicide bombings that have plagued Iraq in the past six years, most if not all appear to have been carried out by Sunni extremists (often imported from neighboring Arab countries), not Shiites. Today, Sunni clerics, recognizing the immense harm that such behavior is visiting on Islam itself, are increasingly joining their Shiite brethren in denouncing these atrocities.

There is no doubt that the present Iraqi government is more friendly to Iran than any Sunni government would likely be, and the risk of high-level conflict between these neighbors is greatly reduced from the days of Saddam Hussein. Iran can expect to have a respectful hearing in Baghdad, and the level of economic and security cooperation is going to give Iran more influence over the policies of the Iraqi government than could have been imagined only six years ago.

But any talk of Iraq becoming a colony (or even a major dependency) of Iran seems to me utterly misplaced. On the contrary, the Iraqi political experiment, messy as it may be, is showing signs of genuine representative government at a time when Iran seems to be sliding into a corporatist military dictatorship with an Islamic veneer.

Iran is presently stronger than Iraq in military organization, industrial development, and policy reach. But as Iraq recovers from the multiple disasters of Saddam Hussein’s rule, a sectarian civil war, and the calamitous mismanagement of a U.S. occupation, the existing balance is going to shift.

Iraq is now beginning to see an inflow of investment capital that is likely to grow. Recent contracts for the development of Iraq’s enormous oil fields have the promise of increasing Iraq’s oil production to more than double Iran’s waning production within less than a decade. And Iraq, given the less intrusive presence of the Najaf hawza, has the prospect of presenting a more attractive model of governance than the failed theocratic experiment next door. Continued “friendly competition” seems a more plausible model than Iranian domination, and that competition is likely to favor Iraq.

Gary Sick served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis and is the author of two books on U.S.-Iranian relations. Mr. Sick is a captain (ret.) in the U.S. Navy, with service in the Persian Gulf, North Africa and the Mediterranean.

Israel is not Going to Attack Iran - roozonline.com

Fariba Amini

Gary Sick was on the staff of the National Security Council under President Jimmy Carter and a White House aide during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. Currently, he is an adjunct professor at Columbia University and the director of Gulf/2000. He is also on the board of Human Rights Watch. He is the author of All Fall Down: America’s Tragic Encounter with Iran.  He recently spoke at a symposium at the University of Maryland titled “Iran after the 2009 Elections.”

[N.B. I have lightly edited the version below for clarity. gs]

Rooz: You just came back from Iraq, where you spoke with a few ayatollahs. What was the content of those talks?

Gary Sick: The bottom line of what I heard is that the grand ayatollahs, on each of the occasions that we talked, when asked how they see the role of Islam in the new Iraqi state, in the post Saddam Hussein era, were unanimous in their answer. They indicated that they have no interest in a theocratic state or the Iranian model.  The role religion has to play is only one of discovering the truth and persuading people.  I take that as very strong evidence that they think differently from the Iranians.

Religious scholars in Iraq and in Najaf believe that Islam’s job is not to control people or to make laws. One of the senior clerics explicitly said that after the invasion they decided that the new Iraqi state will not go the same route as Iran.  This was the statement of not just a few clerics but reportedly represents the opinion of the Shi’a establishment in Iraq.

Rooz: How did you find the situation in the country, the places you visited? Was it calmer?

Gary Sick:  I can’t really characterize it.  I simply didn’t spend enough time there to make a judgment. We were treated as official visitors but we were just four scholars. We were the guests of the vice-president and treated very well. We spent one day in Baghdad, essentially in the Green Zone, thus we didn’t see much of the capital. Then we went to Najaf to see how the situation was in that city.  Even though we were provided with security, we didn’t really need it. We wandered freely.  We didn’t encounter problems of any sort. Evidence of past troubles could be seen and the bombing continues in parts of Iraq but Najaf was quiet. We were there for several days and walked at ease. We went to the Mosque of Imam Ali and met with people. We visited schools, religious establishments and libraries. Life was pretty normal and people were going on with their lives.

Rooz: How do you see the security of the Persian Gulf in light of all the verbal tensions? Do you see any real and present danger or do you think it is going to subside?

Gary Sick:  I don’t see any immediate security threats.  I realize there is a threat from Israel possibly bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities. But I think I was pretty clear in my talk that I don’t share those views. Right now I would say the degree of threat, at least a cross-border one, i.e. one country threatening another, is very low.  Iran is not militarily threatening Saudi Arabia or the other Gulf states. Iran and Iraq get along. From an international point of view, the US is reducing its military force in Iraq. Overall, given the very high level of tensions that we had previously, the multiple wars we had — Iran–Iraq, US-Iraq-Kuwait, the U.S. invasion — at the moment there are no such tensions in the Gulf. Relatively speaking things are quiet but of course we know from the past that there is no guarantee things will stay that way.

Rooz: You said in your talk at the University of Maryland that the Israeli threat may be a bluff. Why do you say this?

Gary Sick:  I think the Israelis feel very strongly that Iran is a major threat to them.  I also think that Israel has the technical capability of bombing a number of targets in Iran; but in my judgment they are not going to blindly use that capability. This is based on the fact that everything would be worse for them if they decide to bomb.  It would be worse not just because of what Iran would do but also, if they do it without having the support of the U.S., they would risk the relationship they have with the United States as well their own security.

My view is that a lot of this rhetoric is used for political purposes. It is more of a bluff.  If for example you convince the United States and the European Union that an attack, with all its terrible consequences, is inevitable barring some solution to the Iranian nuclear program, at a minimum you insure that the Iranian issue is very near the top of their national agendas. That is surely one of Israel’s objectives.

Rooz:  What could happen in case of a strike?

Gary Sick: As I said in my talk, when Israel keeps talking practically every day of attacking Iran, to me, that is the best evidence that they are not going to do it.  If you look back at almost all the raids and operations they have carried out whether it was in Entebbe, in the alleged Syrian nuclear site recently, or on Iraq’s nuclear facilities in 1982, all of those took place absolutely without any previous warning.  They were treated as state secrets. Israel knew that one of their strengths was the element of surprise.

In this case, by talking about it for several years, Iran has responded by diversifying its program; they have tucked away their supplies. The storage site that was recently found near Qom was clearly meant as an alternative option in case Israel bombed Iran’s main centrifuge site in Natanz.  Iran has been able to put things underground, which makes it harder for a possible strike. It would be very difficult for Israel to destroy Iran’s program in a single strike.  And they do not have the capacity to come back and bomb for several days or a month, the way the US did in Iraq.

Israel could do some damage but they could not wipe out the whole system. When they hit the facilities in Iraq, there was no defense, everything was above ground.  There were no preparations made and it was a very straightforward bombing of a single target. That is not true in Iran today.  It is a peculiar strategy to use because you are basically telling your opponent to take as many precautions as possible, or to hide the materials in question, and that is exactly what Iran has done and is doing.  Israel can only hit specific targets on one occasion but cannot continue for several days.  Iran will retaliate and things will be far worse.

Of course things could change if Iran decides for example to kick out the IAEA and its inspectors or to go all the way to build nuclear weapons. Then, everyone will rethink their positions.

ROOZ: How do you see the current US-Iran relations? At the moment, there are talks taking place between the Obama administration and some high-level Iranian officials.  You compared U.S.-Iran relations to a seesaw, constantly going up and down. Do you have any hope that these talks will lead to some positive changes in a near future?

Gary Sick: There is already some sign of positive change when a senior US official can meet face to face with a top Iranian official in an international setting. This is a major shift. These talks are clearly going on in order to solve some major problems. It is unlike any other time during the last 30 years.  It doesn’t mean that everything between the U.S. and Iran is solved but there is certainly a different atmosphere.

Today, there is huge debate going on inside Iran whether they should accept the offer that was made by the P5+1. Curiously, a few hardliners are supporting this and a number of others are criticizing it. It is a political game basically between those in Iran who say that this is a giveaway and those who are willing to make some concessions. I don’t think there was a single time during the last 30 years when there was any public debate in Iran whether they should deal with the U.S. or not.  The issue was always that it would be illegitimate for any Iranian to meet with the Americans.

There is an offer now on the table.  They are asking themselves: Will this work to the advantage of Iran or not? Now, such debate would not be going on with Iran if there were not some prior steps. I think the Obama administration has in fact created a new environment where it is more difficult for Iran to reject engagement. The debate has shifted to a new set of concerns.  The issue now is no longer whether Iran should talk to the Americans but rather what they should talk about or agree to.

This debate has just begun. I can’t really say where it is going to lead because both sides have their own interests. Both sides are bargaining. At the same time that international negotiations are going on, there are domestic debates taking place within all the countries involved, which makes everything enormously complicated.

I think we just have to wait and see.  I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic. I think a process has started and I am not terribly surprised that it has triggered a serious debate. Each side has to make up its mind as to which way it should go, what the objectives are. What is important is that nobody in Iran is saying we should walk away or that we should boycott future meetings. Nobody is saying that Jalili [the lead Iranian negotiator] exceeded his authority when he met with the Americans, and nobody in Iran is saying that he should be punished (as happened in the past).

I am never one to expect miracles given the current situation in Iran where there is a huge debate about legitimacy, about the elections, about the treatment of Iranian people and freedom of speech and civil liberties. It was surprising to me that given the tremendous domestic upheaval in Iran, they were able to go to the meeting and seriously and candidly talk about accepting a deal.  It is just the beginning of a very long road and I don’t think anybody can predict where it is going to end up.

ROOZ: How do you view the role of Russia in all of these?  Are they playing a double role?

Gary Sick: The Russians have their own interests as well.  They have commercial interests with Iran that they want to preserve.  Russia wants to play a major role in the Middle East. Their relationship with the Iranians gives them leverage on a whole set of issues, whether it is missiles placed in Europe or the nuclear development between the US and Russia and so forth.

They are playing a very complicated game.  The Russians do not want to see Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and I think they have made it absolutely clear to the Iranians in private that, if you break your word and suddenly develop a covert nuclear program or if we find out that all along you were developing the bomb, don’t expect us to stand with you.  We will come down very hard on you.  They are saying that they don’t think sanctions work, but if things don’t proceed properly and if Iran won’t cooperate at all, there may be no other choice. They are telling the Iranians that we will walk away from you if you are uncooperative.

It gives them leverage with the Americans and it keeps the Iranians on their toes. At the same time, they want to maintain a good relationship with Iran. In that sense, the Russians are playing a perfectly predictable diplomatic game to maximize their ability to get the most from all sides.

ROOZ:  What do you think of the appointment of John Limbert [former US hostage in Iran] as the new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iran?

Gary Sick: I think it is absolutely a perfect appointment.  He has all the qualifications. He knows Iran inside and out. He is a sophisticated Persian speaker. He has written serious intellectual work which has insight into the problems between the U.S. and Iran. He has an excellent diplomatic background. Virtually no diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service today has the kind of firsthand experience with Iran that he has.

A new position has been created for him which upgrades the Iranian portfolio to a much higher level, and from my point of view he is exactly the right person for that position. I applaud the authorities at the State Department and the White House for this appointment.

I am co-chair of a project intended to provide analysis and answers about US-Iran relations, with particular emphasis on the nuclear program. A great collection of reference materials and simply straight talk on this complex subect is provided at the link above.

The invaluable website Enduring America (see link above) has published the comments of Iranian Grand Ayatollah Montazeri on a set of contemporary political issues. Montazeri was, together with Ayatollah Khomeini, one of the founders of the Islamic Republic. He later became critical of the way it was developing and was dismissed by Khomeini. Montazeri spent years under house arrest but has become even more outspoken in the wake of the June elections. These comments were made on the day before 13 Aban (November 4 in the Western calendar), the anniversary of the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran and the beginning of the 444-day hostage crisis.

Here are some excerpts:

The seizure of the America Embassy in the beginning of the Revolution, which was supported by most of Revolutionary classes of people and the late Imam Khomeini, was also supported by me. However, due to the negative consequences and the excessive sensitivity that this has provoked amongst the American people which still exists today, it is evident that this was a mistake… .

If national interest calls for relations with America, tensions and distrust must not be aggravated by empty slogans. It is obvious that Israel and its lobby in America have been and will be completely against the Iranian-American relationship and find their interests in the continuation of the current crisis between America and Iran. It is unfortunate that statesmen of the country do not pay attention to this fact… .

It is obvious that with the crisis that the government created after that “magnificent” election [of 12 June], it cannot negotiate with the powerful governments of the world from a strong position… .

I believe that, in a wise and calculated decision, the government can immediately free all the political prisoners, free all the press, and strip away the prejudices of government institutions and universities. It can replace this with a hiring process that looks at those who are capable and deserve their positions. With such a revolutionary and pious decision, the government can return the lost authority of the establishment. It is through this [solution] that the establishment can negotiate with the powerful nations with power and authority… .

A government that keeps its people unsatisfied, oppresses and desecrates rights of people, and imprisons a large group of educated scholars and political activists with unknown accusations cannot claim to be in a struggle against the imperialists and imperialism. Without attending to public dissent to gain the support of people, without revival of the rights of all classes and freedom of the journalists and media, fighting imperialism is impossible and impractical… .

I spent all day today at the conference on “Iran After the 2009 Elections” that was hosted by the University of Maryland’s Roshan Center for Persian Studies and The Sadat Chair for Peace and Development. It was a star-studded event and is available in its entirety on streaming video. My own participation was on the second panel, dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, which you can watch at the above link (I appear at the 48th minute). For all three panels, go to http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/uniini/release.cfm?ArticleID=2001 If you have a real interest in what is happening in Iran today, this is a very good place to start.

Christiane Amanpour of CNN, on her new show for CNN International that bears her name, put together a 30-minute show featuring former hostage John Limbert, myself, and (from Tehran) Ebrahim Asgharzadeh who was the mastermind of the embassy takeover in 1979. It was broadcast today.

Also of interest, on the website is some footage shot in the newsroom after the program of a three-way conversation between Limbert, me and Amanpour that expands the discussion considerably. You can see it at the link above.

Incidentally, on the day after this was filmed, John Limbert assumed a new post as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iran in the U.S. State Department.

Mahmoud Vahidnia, a star math student at one of Iran’s most prestigious universities, took advantage of a visit by Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, to deliver a face-to-face 20-min critique of the actions of the Islamic Republic and of the institutions run by Khamenei himself. One of those institutions is the national TV network, which was broadcasting the event live but turned off the cameras when they discovered what was happening. This link from the blog of LA Times reporter Borzou Daragahi includes a photo of the event and embedded video of the response of Khamenei and of his fellow students. Despite concern for Vahidnia’s safety, he insists he has not been arrested. Heroes come from the least likely places…

As some may know, I have a long association with Human Rights Watch. Recently HRW has come under attack for its reporting on Israel. Below is the text of a letter from the Executive Director of HRW, Ken Roth, which was published in Haaretz newspaper, replying to these charges:

Critics of Human Rights Watch’s work on Israel raise three main points. First, they say we disproportionately focus on Israel, and neglect other countries in the Middle East. Second, they claim our research methodology is flawed - relying on witnesses with an agenda. Third, as recently expressed by our founding chairman Robert Bernstein, they argue that we should focus on “closed” countries such as China rather than “open” societies like Israel.

I reject all three claims.

Human Rights Watch currently works on seventeen countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including Iran, Egypt, Libya and Saudi Arabia. Israel accounts for about 15 percent of our published output on the region. The Middle East and North Africa division is one of 16 research programs at Human Rights Watch and receives 5 percent of our total budget. Israel is a small fraction of what we do.

Our war coverage in the region has documented violations by all sides. No international human rights organization has done more to highlight the war crimes of Hezbollah and Hamas, challenging their leaders and the Arab public to think critically about the unlawful conduct of these groups. Our Civilian Protection Initiative, launched five years ago, has sought the support of Arab civil society leaders to discredit terrorist attacks.

The research methodology employed in these wars is the same we use around the world: in-depth private interviews with multiple witnesses. We corroborate their accounts with field visits, ballistics evidence, medical records and other means. Unfortunately, since late 2008, the Israel Defense Forces have refused to meet with us or answer any of our detailed written questions.

The problem of witness intimidation is not new, and we take it into account.

Contrary to the claims of some critics, in Gaza we found there were Palestinians who would speak about violations by Hamas. Palestinian victims and witnesses of abuse were the primary source for a report we published on Hamas torture and executions - a report cited publicly by the Israeli government.

We apply the same international human rights standards to all countries, open and closed. We work extensively on China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran, but we also investigate abuses in the American criminal justice system, police killings in India, “disappearances” in Sri Lanka, and migrants’ rights in Europe. All governments, regardless of their political system, are obliged to uphold the same international norms.

At the heart of our critics’ arguments lies the view that we should hold Israel to lower standards. There is no dispute that the country was founded on the ashes of genocide and is surrounded by hostile states and armed groups. But some believe that these circumstances give Israel’s democratic government the right to take whatever steps it deems necessary to keep the country safe.

A country’s conditions do not remove its obligations under international law, though. Whether a state is an aggressor or acting in self-defense, whether it faces a regular army or insurgents that commit abuses, the laws of war apply, imposing a duty to minimize civilian harm.

And being a democratic country prevents Israel from committing wartime abuses no more than it stopped the United States from torture and unlawful detentions at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

The serious Israeli abuses we documented also put the country at greater risk. By failing to hold those responsible to account, Israel increases anger and resentment among the Palestinian population and in the wider Arab world, and undercuts moderates who wish to pursue peace.

Our critics have every right to challenge the substance of our findings on Israel or any other country, though they rarely find errors. But if they want to challenge repressive regimes and combat armed groups that terrorize civilians, they will not serve that cause by trying to exempt Israel from human rights laws that are the best defense against such abuse. Nor does it help to attack those organizations that are working to uphold those laws around the world.

The writer is executive director of Human Rights Watch.