Stirring the Iranian cauldron

Press, 27 November 1986, Page 12

Stirring the Iranian cauldron

In the murky light of the White House dealings with Iran, SIR ANTHONY PARSONS, a former British ambassador to Teheran, considers the dangers of meddling with the mullahs. His observations are reprinted from the “Daily Telegraph,” London.

There has been no shortage of comment on recent White House dealings with Iran. I do not intend to add to it except to emphasise that the Americans should bear in mind that as previous Administrations have discovered, they are negotiating with the most sophisticated wheeler-dealers in the world, the inventors of the process of “bazaar bargaining” and that those who put their fingers too close to the fire of Iranian domestic politics will be lucky to escape without third-degree burns. My concern is to discuss the importance of Iran to the Middle East as a whole and to global war or peace.

Iran is one of the countries outside central Europe which occupies a crucial strategic position in East/West terms. There are few other areas of tension and conflict which contain so many ingredients likely to precipitate super-Power confrontation: post-revolutionary ferment coupled with external warfare, a fierce rejection of any outside influence over foreign policy, a lack of clarity in the diplomatic ground-rules between the superpowers, and the equally deep engagement of the perceived “vital interests” of the West and the Soviet Union. To the West, Iran lies on the eastern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation with a common frontier with Turkey. Her western frontier represents the divide between Central Asia and the turbulent world of the Arab-Israeli dispute. In the south Iran looms over the oil-bearing States of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. To the Soviet Union, Iran is what Mexico is to the United States, with a common frontier (along most of which I have travelled) of over 2000 kilometres in length dividing — as a result of 19thcentury Tsarist conquest — peoples of homogenous ethnic origins on either side. Against this background the

West and the Soviet Union both need orderly and stable government in Teheran and the absence of local conflict in so sensitive an area. It is for these reasons that both super-Powers have so far shown such prudence in avoiding being drawn into the Iran —Iraq war. In their inability to quench the flames they have done nothing which might promote an outright victory by either side — an event which could fundamentally change the map of the Middle East and directly threaten world peace.

In the unlikely event of an Iraqi victory, presumably brought about by a collapse of Iranian civil and military morale because of continuing casualties and economic pressures, Iran could disintegrate. It is, like the Soviet Union, a continental empire comprising a Persian heartland and a non-Persian periphery — Kurds, Turkish-speak-ing Azerbaijanis, Turcomans, Baluchis, and Arabs. There are thus plenty of latent centrifugal forces in the country. In the chaos which could follow such a collapse the temptation for the Soviet Union (or, putting it another way, the internal pressures on the Kremlin) to unite Soviet and Iranian Azerbaijan or Soviet and Iranian Turkestan would be strong.

A southward Russian move of this kind casting its shadow towards the Gulf would provoke a far stronger Western reaction than did the. Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The United States and the Soviet Union could quickly find themselves eyeball to eyeball. The consequences in the much less unlikely event of an Iranian victory would be even more farreaching. If Iraqi resistance ceased and the regime disintegrated, to be replaced by a Bagdad Government dominated by Shi’a Muslims totally responsive to Teheran, many things would happen.

The Iraqi Shi'as (perhaps a little over 50 per cent of the total population) would probably welcome such a change but the remainder — Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds — would find it unacceptable. The Kurds, already disaffected and in partial revolt, would make a determined bid for independence. Iraq, which is after all an artificial State cobbled together by Britain out of three separate provinces of the Ottoman Empire only 60 years ago, could easily fragment. Turkey could become involved in the north (the main oilbearing area), particularly if Iraqi-Kurdish irredentism raised the temperature among her own Kurdish community. Jordan might feel obliged to come to the aid of the Sunni Arab minority in central Iraq. The triumph of militant revolutionary Shi’ism would inflame the passions of the substantial Shi’a elements in the Gulf — perhaps 25 per cent of the population of Kuwait, more than 50 per cent of all Bahrainis, with a sizeable number in the oilbearing eastern province of Saudi Arabia. The existing regimes would be hard put to it to maintain the status quo.

And what about Israel, who would find herself confronted, however temporarily, with a virulently hostile axis stretching from Damascus through Bagdad to Teheran? Would she not have to consider pre-emptive military action?

Finally, the ardour of the Islamic fundamentalist renaissance throughout the Muslim world — undoubtedly the greatest menace to all Middle Eastern regimes which still pursue moderate policies in co-operation with the West — would be boosted beyond easily manageable proportions. In all these circumstances it is idle to suppose that the great Powers would not, willy-nilly be drawn in. It is rash to predict the future where Iran is concerned. My own view, for what it is worth, is that the war will not end so long as both leaders remain in power: Ayatollah Khomeiny will never make peace with Saddam Hussein.

ther is such a change of leadership. And this is the best that the outside world can hope for in the short term. I see no way in which external influence can in present circumstances bring about a ceasefire, still less a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Who will follow Khomeini? I do not believe that the hour will strike for exiled groups, Monarchist or Republican. Nor do I see a Napoleonic military figure arising immediately from the battlefield. His successors are most likely to be another regime of Mullahs, dominated either by “militants” who are bent on exporting the revolution throughout the region or “moderates” whose object is to consolidate the heartland. A protracted stalemate in the war should favour the latter.

The most likely course of events is a continuation of the present military stalemate until

In this confused and perilous situation the West must above all do nothing which might promote an outright victory for either side, and should continue to avoid direct involvement. We should cultivate normal relations with Iran based on strict neutrality and an implacable opposition to her external subversive and terroristic adventurism. We should try to coordinate our policies — the Iranians are past masters at playing one country off against another — and should be wary of backstairs intrigues at which Iranians excel and which so often result, for the West, in manifestations of duplicitous bungling and buffoonery. For a long time yet we are going to need patience and steady nerves.