Fear of 'different world' if Iran gets nuclear weapons
Embassy cables reveal how US relentlessly cajoles and bullies governments not to give succour to Tehran
"Without progress in the next few months, we risk nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, war prompted by an Israeli strike, or both," Gates said. If Iran were allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, he added, the US and its allies would face "a different world" in four to five years.
As thousands of leaked state department cables show, Gates's visit was part of a tireless, round-the-clock offensive by US government officials, politicians, diplomats and military officers to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions and roll back its advance across the Middle East.Ringed by professional "Iran watchers" based in neighbouring countries, besieged by electronic, cyber and human intelligence gathering and surveillance, squeezed by sanctions, bans and prohibitions, destabilised by unacknowledged internal covert action programmes, and isolated by myriad diplomatic and political means, Iran is the most scrutinised, interrogated country on earth.
But as the cables also show, Iran is fighting back. From Iraq to Afghanistan and from Azerbaijan to the Gulf, the battle between the US and Iran for the upper hand in the Middle East is, as one regional diplomat put it, "the great hegemonic contest of modern times".
Washington's thinking proceeds from three premises. First, Iran is developing a nuclear weapons capability and matching missile systems. Second, it is intent on regional hegemony in Iraq, the Gulf and across the Middle East. Third, Iran's leadership poses a clear and present – and growing danger – to Israel.The cables illuminate other aspects of the American approach. It is clear US officials are not averse to pressurising, even bullying, third countries to attain their policy objectives. It is also clear that, lacking an embassy in Tehran and with a limited American presence of any kind inside the country, the US sorely lacks first-hand intelligence.
In his talks with Frattini, Gates sought to underscore the seriousness of the overall Iranian threat.
"SecDef [Gates] emphasised that a UNSC resolution was important because it would give the European Union and nations a legal platform on which to impose even harsher sanctions against Iran. SecDef pointedly warned that urgent action is required," the cable states. Then came his chill warning about proliferation, war in the Middle East and a permanently changed world.One of the more ruthless examples of American pressure to contain and isolate Iran is seen in a December 2008 letter from the then US deputy secretary of state, John Negroponte, to the Armenian president, Serzh Sargsyan, concerning an arms shipment to Iran that went via Armenia.
"We value our positive relationship with your government, as we explore a range of shared interests," Negroponte's letter to Sargsyan begins ominously. "At the same time, we are dismayed by a serious and, indeed, deadly arms re-export case." He goes on to convey Washington's "deep concerns about Armenia's transfer of arms to Iran which resulted in the death and injury of US soldiers in Iraq". Then he wields the big stick, warning of sanctions up to and including a discontinuation of US aid. Sargsyan is forced to back down, admit the arms sales and promise action including periodical "unannounced visit by US experts" to ensure compliance.
'Fascist' stateWhen rallying western allies, US officials frequently find they are knocking on an open door. In a meeting in Paris in September 2009, assistant secretary of state Phil Gordon is told by President Nicolas Sarkozy's senior foreign policy adviser, Jean-David Levitte, that Iran's response to Barack Obama's offer of talks on the nuclear issue is a "farce".
According to the cable, Levitte goes on: "The current Iranian regime is effectively a fascist state and the time has come to decide on next steps … The Iranian regime must understand that it will be more threatened by economic harm and the attendant social unrest than it would be by negotiating with the west."Levitte says it is important to obtain Chinese and Russian support and he is actively trying to obtain it. "Levitte said that he informed the Chinese FM [foreign minister] that if they delay until a possible Israeli raid, then the world will have to deal with a catastrophic energy crisis as well."
But Levitte is plainly worried that if European governments take tougher action, Beijing may undermine them. He warns Gordon: "The debate over stopping the flow of gasoline into Iran will be very sensitive and would have to take into account which countries would be only too willing to step in and replace European companies."
William Burns, US under-secretary of state, finds a sympathetic hearing in a less expected quarter when he visits Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, one of Iran's closest neighbours, in February 2010.
According to a confidential American embassy account of their meeting [ID: 250649/summary subbed kb], President Ilham Aliyev tells Burns "that although the visible side of Azerbaijan's relations with Iran appears normal", the substance was very different. "I do not exclude that relations will be become more difficult," the president added.
Aliyev tells Burns that Iranian provocations in Azerbaijan are on the rise, specifically citing Tehran's "financing of radical Islamic groups and Hezbollah terrorists" and "the use of the President's photo alongside the Star of David on the Azeri-language [Iranian state-owned] Seher [Sahar] TV broadcast into Azerbaijan". He adds that fraud in Iran's June, 2009 presidential election was "outrageous". Aliyev "viewed the situation as very tense within Iran and believed it could erupt at any time".Turkey, a key Iranian neighbour and close trading partner, is uphill work, however. In November 2009, Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, chief architect of Ankara's policy of "zero problems with neighbours" and advocate of closer Turkish ties across the Middle East, tells US envoy Gordon that Iran cannot be bullied into compliance with western demands.
It is clearly a prickly encounter. When Gordon says Ankara should send a stern public message to Tehran about the consequences of ignoring UN resolutions, Davutoglu replies that [Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan made just such a statement during a recent visit to Tehran. "Only Turkey can speak bluntly and critically to the Iranians, Davutoglu contended, but only because Ankara is showing public messages of friendship."
The testy exchange continues: "Noting that Davutoglu had only addressed the negative consequences of sanctions or the use of military force, Gordon pressed Davutoglu on Ankara's assessment of the consequences if Iran gets a nuclear weapon. Davutoglu gave a spirited reply, that 'of course' Turkey was aware of this risk. 'This is precisely why Turkey is working so hard with the Iranians.' "Much of the US surveillance of Iran is channelled through its so-called "Iran regional presence office" at the US consulate in Dubai, a sort of grandiose listening-post-cum-embassy-in-exile. The IRPO produces long cables full of political and economic news, Iranian media reports, and information gleaned from Iranian sources, foreign businessmen and exiles. But every US embassy in the countries around Iran (and further afield) appears to have its designated "Iran watcher".
A cable marked "secret" sent from the US embassy in Azerbaijan in June 2009, for example, reports "increasing security problems in Iranian Baluchistan, including alleged disruption of Iran-Pakistan railroad links; a message from a senior GOAJ [government of Azerbaijan] military official about the dangers of stirring up Iranian minorities; the apparent quadrupling in first quarter 2009 (compared to first quarter 2008) seizures in Azerbaijan of Iranian-transited heroin; and scepticism about Iranian gas export contracts, related by industry participants at the recently completed Baku oil and gas show".
The Iran watcher in Turkmenistan sent out a cable in June 2009, at the height of the turmoil that followed Iran's presidential election, in which a prominent Iranian source is quoted condemning Ahmadinejad's victory as a "coup d'etat" engineered by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The source says opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi gained 26 million votes, 61% of the total, against "a maximum of 4 to 5 million" for Ahmadinejad.
The cable quotes the source saying that Iranians "are puzzled by the muted reaction thus far of the US and EU governments, as well as 'very disappointed' by the number of Arab rulers who have sent messages to Ahmadinejad congratulating him on his 'victory' … He said the IRGC was behind the 'coup'. Even Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei, he said, to whom the IRGC owes allegiance, is 'not totally in control' of the IRGC … It would appear that the IRGC has taken on 'a life of its own.' "Iraq interference
The cables also lay bare US preoccupation with Iran's attempts to influence and interfere in the political process in Iraq, including its attempts to promote pro-Tehran Shia parties in Iraq's March 2010 elections. Iraqis in Najaf, "the epicentre of Shia Islam", say they fear that a power vacuum after the Americans leave next year will be filled by Iran.
Particular worries attach to the role in Iraq of the revolutionary guard as the US gradually hands over security to Iraqi forces. Fairly representative is a cable from the Baghdad embassy dated April 2009 which discusses IRGC support for the insurgency and possibly lethal US reprisals. "Islamic [Iranian] Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds [Jerusalem] Force (IRGC-QF) officers are active in Iraq, conducting traditional espionage and supporting violent extremists as well as supporting both legitimate and malign Iranian economic and cultural outreach," it says.
"Iraqis and their government have demonstrated increasing willingness to push back against malign Iranian influence in the last year. Working with the Iraqis, we have succeeded in stopping some IRGC-QF activity through military operations and diplomatic engagement, while we prevented some IRGC-QF officers from entering Iraq through explicit warnings that we would target them unilaterally."The embassy cable frankly acknowledges that US leverage in Iraq is diminishing. "Under the security agreement effective 1 January [2009], all operations in Iraq must be conducted in conjunction with Iraqi security forces (ISF), and our previous unilateral warnings carry less weight. As coalition forces continue the period of responsible drawdown, we will rely increasingly on the GOI [government of Iraq] to keep the pressure on the IRGC-QF."
Kuwait and the Sunni-led Gulf states, backed by Saudi Arabia, help complete the psychological and geographical encirclement of Iran. A key concern is Iranian incitement of Shia populations in the Gulf region.
A cable from Kuwait City highlights American interest in an assertion from the Kuwait armed forces deputy chief of staff (DCOS), Lieutenant-General Ahmed Khalid al-Sabah, about Iranian activity in the region. "The DCOS also mentioned Kuwaiti understanding that Iran was supporting Shia in the Gulf and extremists in Yemen." Yemen's internal strife and al-Qaida-linked "export terrorism" has made it a particular concern to the US and its western allies; Iran's involvement there is no longer in doubt.
That the great Iranian-American struggle for control and influence in the Middle East is far from over – and may in fact be hotting up – was made plain again when US under-secretary William Burns held yet another meeting with the reluctant Turks in Ankara in February 2010. Burns insists Washington would prefer a negotiated settlement with Iran. Then, like Gates, he uses the spectre of an Israeli military attack to dramatise his arguments and unsettle the Turks.
"Burns strongly urged [Turkish foreign ministry under-secretary Feridun] Sinirlioglu to support action to convince the Iranian government it is on the wrong course. Sinirlioglu reaffirmed the GoT's [government of Turkey] opposition to a nuclear Iran; however, he registered fear about the collateral impact military action might have on Turkey and contended sanctions would unite Iranians behind the regime and harm the opposition."Burns acknowledged Turkey's exposure to the economic effects of sanctions as a neighbour to Iran, but reminded Sinirlioglu Turkish interests would suffer if Israel were to act militarily to forestall Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons or if Egypt and Saudi Arabia were to seek nuclear arsenals of their own. 'We'll keep the door open to engagement,' he [Burns] stressed."
And for once, it appears he has made some headway.
"A visibly disheartened Sinirlioglu conceded a unified message is important. He acknowledged the countries of the region perceive Iran as a growing threat: 'Alarm bells are ringing even in Damascus.' "
