IRAN PLAYS DIPLOMATIC HARDBALL AND ITS NEIGHBORS RETALIATE
While Iran has often sought to cultivate the governments of Central Asia and the Caucasus, occasionally it has made use of forceful diplomatic, if not military, instruments. During 2011 Tehran has again displayed its claws. Tajikistan has had to recall its students from Iranian religious schools, even though Tajikistan has long tired to cultivate Iran politically, economically, and diplomatically. Iran also reacted harshly to Turkey’s growing criticism of its protégé in Damascus. Worst of all, a high-ranking Iranian general criticized Azerbaijan vocally for its ties to Israel and alleged anti-Islamic practices.
BACKGROUND: Ever since the Soviet collapse, governments in and out of the former Soviet Union have worried that Iran might try either to seduce or subvert the new regimes in Central Asia and the Caucasus or that it might try to undermine them using more forceful diplomatic, if not miilitary, instruments. For the most part Iran has not overtly employed such tactics and has often tried to cultivate these regimes. But occasionally the mask has slipped, as in 2001, when Iran threatened force against Azerbaijani oil exploration in the Caspian Sea. Iran has also been the most obstructive of the Caspian littoral states in blocking resoltuion of the contemporary legal status of that sea by claiming a disproportionate amont of the coastline, clearly to maximize its access to Caspian energy deposits.
Governments in Central Asia and Azerbaijan have long been wary of Iran’s potential to meddle in their affairs, and there have been numerous reports of Iranian-backed political groups, particularly but not only in Azerbaijan, working against the national governments. Tehran has also consistently supported the Armenian side in its conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Tajikistan’s suspicions of Iranian efforts at political indoctrination of its students duly accords with publicly voiced suspicions by Uzbek President Islam Karimov of Iran’s activities and the overall Central Asian disinclination not to bring Iran into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or support in any way its nuclear program. Similarly, Turkey has now declared its loss of patience and support for Iran’s client, Syria, and Turkey has long been concerned to head off both Iran’s nuclear program and a potential Western attack against it. Although Iran has previously cooperated with Turkey against the Kurds, it apparently recently preempted a planned Turkish offensive against Kurdish groups based in Iraq to remove them from Turkey’s way. Iran is therefore apparently trying to pressure Turkey into supporting Syria with the implied threat of turning to support the PKK and other Kurdish groups against Turkey if it does not comply with Iran’s requests.
By far the most visible signs of Iranian hardball have to do with Azerbaijan. Iran has long suspected Baku of having links or intentions of playing on the grievances of Iran’s Azerbaijani minority to foment a secessionist movement based on the idea of some form of united Azerbaijani state on both sides of the current border. These ethnic suspicions go back a long way. Similarly Azerbaijan has long known of Iranian underground support for opponents of the regime going back a number of years. And when the Azerbaijani government launched a crackdown on its Islamic opposition, it claimed to have found evidence of Iranian political and military support for those groups. Indeed, Iran has long been vocally critical of the Aliyev government’s campaign against the Islamic headscarf in schools, and its overall pro-Western cultural orientation despite being a Shiite majority nation. Furthermore, Iran has directed its ire against Baku for continuing to develop and expand friendly ties with Israel and cooperate with it and for its support for the United States.
Tehran has long suspected that the United States wants to use Azerbaijan as an air base and listening post from which to strike at or at least constantly monitor Iranian developments. Therefore on numerous occasions it has both publicly and privately threatened Azerbaijan that if it acceded to U.S. requests for a base or sizable military presence, it could destroy Azerbaijan.
In this vein, Major General Hassan Firuzabadi, head of Iran’s General Staff, recently accused Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev of giving “command to bar Islamic rules”, declared that the “people’s awakening cannot be supressed”, and accused the Azerbaijani government of allowing the “Zionist regime” (Israel) to meddle in his country’s affairs. These remarks (which naturally Tehran quickly denied) have intensified the bad blood between Iran and Azerbaijan.
General Firuzabadi’s remarks along with the ongoing Iranian attacks on Azerbaijan’s pro-American and pro-Israeli policies must be seen in this context. And there is little doubt that these Iranian pressure tactics, along with the threat of internal subversion, has influenced Baku to refuse to place a U.S. base in its country. Meanwhile as domestic opposition to Aliyev’s religious policies continues, it is clear that the Azerbaijani government regards Iran as quite threatening and General Firuzabadi’s remarks as outrageous. Indeed, there is more than enough evidence to suggest that Iran is continuing to fan the flames of this opposition; Baku’s claims that unrest there is in no small measure instigated from outside have merit.
IMPLICATIONS: It is clear that Iran’s threats have to do with the civil war in Syria, but they also pertain to what it apparently believes is an opportunity to undermine the Azerbaijani regime that it regards as a threat and far too pro-Western. It is attempting as well to incite upheaval in Azerbaijan under the guise of the Arab spring, showing that in post-Soviet regimes, there is more to such a scenario, at least in Azerbaijan, than domestic discontent with misrule. But Iranian domestic politics may be a possible factor too. We have long known of the rivalry between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for supremacy, and these moves may possibly fit into this scenario; Iran has lately conducted tough moves also against Russia. No sooner did Moscow try to restore ties with Iran by proposing a new negotiation package to deal with the nuclear issue and send Security Council l head, Nikolai Patrushev to Tehran for what appeared to be reasonably successful talks, than did Tehran turn around and sue Moscow to force it to repay it for the abortive S-300 air defense system that was cancelled.
Possibly this good cop-bad cop routine aims at pressuring Moscow, too, to support Syria more than it has done until now (although Bashar Assad has refused to listen to anything Moscow has advised him up to now). Or it might reflect one wing of the government fighting against another, as might General Firuzabadi’s remarks on Azerbaijan, which were clearly sanctioned from above. Given the high degree of impenetrability of this government and the obscurity of many of the rivals and even of who stands for what in these domestic quarrels, certainty remains elusive. But it is clear that the rocky relationship between Iran and its Central Asian and South Caucasian neighbors has again taken a step towards heightened tensions.
CONCLUSIONS: It is too early to tell how these tensions will resolve themselves, if at all. But they do illustrate the increasing integration of Central Asian and Caucasian issues into a broader international agenda having to do with Iran’s geopolitical ambitions in the Middle East and the impact of the Arab spring. Thus these events underscore the growing impact of globalization on Eurasian countries’ foreign policies and their needs to reckon with trends in the Middle East.
No matter how the current episodes of Iran’s challenge to its Eurasian neighbors plays out, it is clear that Tehran has reinforced and deepened all of the post-Soviet sates’ suspicions and fear of it, and the same undoubtedly goes for Turkey, which has declared that it has essentially given up on Assad’s Syria, probably with the knowledge that this would affect its ties with Iran. Insofar as both Central Asian and South Caucasian politics are concerned, everyone regards Iran with distrust as a player who is attempting to undermine or who could develop the capability to undermine their regimes by support for Islamic organizations in their domestic arenas. Undoubtedly, even if they will not say so publicly, these states will also harden their opposition to including Iran in the SCO or for tolerating its ongoing nuclear quest. At the same time, because these challenges to Eurasia may be linked to trends that cannot clearly be assessed in Iranian domestic politics, western observers and these states must constantly be on the lookout for an Iranian-fomented or supported crisis triggered by the efforts of one or another Iranian domestic faction with control or influence over a political faction in Azerbaijan or Central Asia to incite a crisis to strengthen its hand at home. Such possibilities only further complicate the threat calculus of Eurasian leaders. Unfortunately neither they nor anyone else need to add to that already overburdened calculus now.
AUTHOR’S BIO: Professor Stephen Blank, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013. The views expressed here do not represent those of the US Army, Defense Department, or the US Government.
