Sign of some moderation at Highest Iranian Government Level!
February 3, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
It appears that the wild fanatical statements and claims of the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since he ascended to the office, has struck a cord of “cool it” from the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. I suspect we may see a move away from the extreme Islamic far-right fanaticism toward a slightly toned down foreign policy
offered to the non-Islamic world.
But no matter how much Iran moderates its current policy its long term goal is the same as that of its first four great Caliphs.
The leaders after Muhammad were described only as khalifahs (caliphs), or successors to the Prophet, and not as prophets themselves. The first four caliphs were companions of the Prophet and their period of rule (632-661) is described by the majority of Muslims as the age of the Rightly Guided Caliphate. This was an era of expansion during which Muslims conquered the Sasanid (Persian) Empire and took control of the North African and Syrian territories of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. The Muslim community was transformed from a small city-state controlling much of the Arabian Peninsula into a major world empire extending from northwest Africa to central Asia.
Iran’s present goal is to drive Israel out of its existence in what is called the Middle East, and to establish an Islamic Empire that stretches initially from Morocco on its western extremity to India on its eastern border, afterwards to expand southeastward into Malaysia and north into southeastern Europe with time, and finally to convert all mankind to the Islamic faith.
Begin Gulf News Article
Interest and rhetoric in Iran’s foreign policy
Special to Gulf News by Marwan Al Kabalan
February 2, 2007 – 10:02 AM
Last week, the Sunday Times reported that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate power over foreign and security policy, is considering the appointment of a more moderate team to supervise the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Khamenei is said to have been alarmed by scenarios about possible US strikes against Iran that would not only destroy its nuclear facilities but would also remove the Islamic regime.
Khamenei has concluded that Iran’s national interest has been undermined by the hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose inflammatory rhetoric and threats to destroy Israel have left Iran increasingly isolated and facing serious economic consequences.
This re-evaluation of policy is, in fact, a further demonstration of Iranian pragmatism, which has always been a trade mark of Iran’s foreign policy. Ever since the Islamic revolution of 1979, Iran has been trying to strike a balance between its national interests and the revolutionary rhetoric of the regime.
This balance was not easy to hold most of the time, but the vic
tory was almost always on the side of pragmatism, particularly when the survival of the regime was at stake or when national interest deemed that necessary.
In 1979, when the revolutionary regime in Tehran was lashing out at the US administration for its attempts to save the Shah government, the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, was in contact, from his residence in Paris, with the Carter administration through a permanent back channel to ensure that the US had accepted the revolution and that it was prepared to continue an arms supply relationship with the new government in Tehran.
To ensure positive response from the Carter administration, Khomeini exploited Washington’ s fear of communi
sm. He told the US negotiator Ramsey Clark that it was in the US’s best interest to support the revolution, which would prevent the Soviet Union from taking advantage of the situation in Iran.
He also warned that Iran’s communist party was about to take over power and that the Soviets were preparing to install a puppet government in Tehran.
Alarmed by Khomeini’ s account, Wa
shington offered a resumption of American weapons to Iran. The US not only released badly needed spare parts, but deliberations were also made to resume full arms shipment to Iran under contracts made by the outgoing Shah government.
Mark Gasiorowski, a respected US academic, has also claimed that Tehran received a CIA officer who gave “a briefing to members of the new Iranian government in which he presented satellite photographs and other evidence of Iraqi invasion preparations” against Iran.
Following this meeting, the US and Iran decided to increase
the level of contact between them.
Subsequently, President Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, arrived in Algiers and held talks with Mehdi Bazargan, Iran’s first post-revolution prime minister. Indeed, Americans were disappointed afterwards when their embassy was stormed by Iranian students and their diplomats were taken hostage.
The hostage crisis did not prevent, however, further co-operation, though through a third party. Stephen Green, another respected US academic, claimed that US arms did not stop flowing to Iran, through Israel, even during the hostage crisis with, Green claimed, “the knowledge and tacit approval of the Carter administration”.
This was the case not long before the Iran-Contra affair (in which the US agreed to supply Iran with arms, through Israel, in exchange for Iran’s help to release the US hostages in Lebanon and transfer payments to the Contras, Nicaragua’s main opposition group) was made public.
Historical
Theoretically, Iran has been one of the loudest opponents of the US policy in the Middle East and the Gulf region since 1979. Yet, historical events suggest that this enmity did not pass the edge of rhetoric.
Iran, which is caught in the pangs of revolution and religion, has never allowed ideology to influence its political conduct or supersede its national interests.
Taking the nuclear file from Ahmadinejad and allowing other members of the regime to talk about Iran’s readiness to start a dialogue with the US is just a further indication of this tendency in Iran’s political behaviour.
The concern over an American attack, like the one that destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, explains the tilt in Iranian foreign policy towards accommodating the US pressure and preventing such a probability.
Dr Marwan Al Kabalan is a lecturer in media and international relations, Faculty of Political Science and Media, Damascus University, Syria.
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