Category: Iran

Dissident Iranians take refuge in Turkey

By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI (AP) – 1 day ago

NIGDE, Turkey — Light snow was falling when the two young men set out on horseback for the border to flee Iran. By the time they were deep in the mountains, it had become a blinding blizzard, the temperature had dropped below freezing, and they were barely alive.

Hesam Misaghi and Sepehr Atefi were joining what has become an exodus of dissidents fleeing Iran’s political turmoil. For them that meant a harrowing journey through the country’s rugged northwest in the dead of winter, with the help of Kurdish smugglers.

At a river crossing, the ice broke beneath them and their horses stumbled in, soaking the two with freezing water.

“There was no feeling in my legs and hands,” recalled Misaghi, a tall, wiry 21-year-old. “I felt drunk. I didn’t know where I was. I was laughing from pain.”

Atefi, 20, spotted a van from a distance, grabbed Misaghi’s arm and dragged him toward it through the snow. “There was no life left in me to move forward, but we had to reach the highway,” he said.

The men, both Iranian human rights reporters, reached the van, begged a ride and made it to safety in Turkey.

At least 4,200 Iranians have fled their homeland since disputed presidential elections in June, according to a list compiled by activist Aida Saadat, who herself slipped across the border into Turkey in December. These refugees have scattered to the United States, Europe and Gulf nations like the United Arab Emirates.

Most of all, they have come to Turkey — around 1,150 of them, according to the U.N. refugee agency — taking advantage of the porous border and Turkey’s policy of not requiring a visa. Most of the new arrivals fled for political reasons, including those who took part in opposition protests after the vote. They bring the number of Iranians in Turkey to 4,440, as of February — including “undesirables” in the eyes of the clerical regime, such as homosexuals or members of the Bahai religion.

The danger these Iranians face back home is clear. A month after Atefi and Misaghi’s January escape, police raided their homes in the central Iranian city of Isfahan. Among the charges against them: “moharebeh,” or “waging war against God,” a crime punishable by death.

Police arrested their friend and colleague, Navid Khanjani, who was supposed to have fled with them but changed his mind at the last minute. With Khanjani’s arrest, eight people in the independent Committee of Human Rights Reporters have been jailed, and three remain in prison and could face execution.

In Turkey, the refugees are safer, but they live in limbo. Almost all brought little money and cannot work because of Turkish restrictions, so they cram into small, coal-heated apartments with minimal furniture.

Many Iranian refugees hope the UNHCR will arrange resettlement for them in the United States or Europe — a wait that could take years, as the refugee agency is also dealing with thousands of Iraqis who have fled here from their own wartorn homeland in recent years.

Many of the Iranians have been put in the central town of Kayseri and nearby towns such as Nigde. Like other refugees in Turkey, they are required to live in particular towns designated by the Interior Ministry, must regularly report to police to confirm their location, and must get permission from authorities to move to other cities.

In addition to the rent and other expenses, each adult is required to pay the Turkish government about $200, along with $100 for each child, every six months to stay in the country. The interior minister last weekend (in March) signed an order to to lift the permit fees, but the order has not yet been enforced.

In the meantime, they watch the events back home — where hundreds have been arrested, and two have been executed out of 11 sentenced to death for taking part in opposition protests. From exile, some try to continue their activism — and some try to recover from their trauma.

Political activist Mahdis, 35, who once worked for a dissident cleric in the holy city of Qom, said she fled Iran more than a year ago after having been repeatedly raped in jail. Mahdis spoke on condition her last name not be used to avoid public embarassment.

When she arrived in Turkey she was again raped, this time by a fellow Iranian refugee. She said police would not allow her to transfer to Kayseri unless she paid $200, which she didn’t have.

“I was sobbing, saying ‘I swear to God’ I don’t have the money,” recalled Mahdis. It took her 40 days to come up with the money that she borrowed from fellow refugees.

Another refugee, Mehrdad Eshghi, was the official singer for the state-run Iranian TV and Radio, known as Seda va Sima. Then authorities questioned his loyalty because he worked in the election campaign of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s top rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi.

After he refused to perform for Ahmadinejad’s campaign, security forces began harassing him. He was detained and threatened with worse consequences.

“I was surprised by the way they treated me,” said Eshghi, 40. “I was one of them. When I had the mike in my hand doing live programs, it meant they trusted me with their lives,” he said in his apartment in Kayseri.

After security men began staking out his home around the clock, Eshghi went into hiding. He took a bus to Turkey six months ago, and his wife and daughter joined him a couple of months later.

“They could have done something terrible to me. You never know,” Eshghi said of his pursuers. “The survival of the Islamic Republic is so important to them that they will not give up at any price.”

Eshghi, a singer, calligrapher, painter and composer, mourns his former life in his homeland.

“I was at my best in Iran,” he said. “Here, I’m just an ordinary person.”

Like others, he said his attempts to keep up political activism from exile are prevented by Turkish authorities. Eshghi said authorities refused to allow him to put on an exhibition of his paintings or a concert for Iranian refugees. “They tell me no one must know of my whereabouts because it poses danger to my life.”

Turkey, though a U.S. ally, also has close ties to Iran. Ankara has criticized Western efforts to impose further sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Iran is a major supplier of natural gas to Turkey, and the two sides are working to increase trade, valued at $10 billion last year.

Kayseri’s police chief said any restrictions on Iranians are for their own protection. “They are free here,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of police regulations. “But for their own personal safety, they cannot be interviewed by reporters.”

Some refugees claim they have been harassed by Iranian intelligence agents while in Turkey, with threatening phone calls or even physical attacks. Human rights officials say Iranian intelligence agents have infiltrated the refugee community here, leading to widespread suspicion.

Hami Taghavi, a 40-year-old university professor who fled shortly after the post-election crackdown began, said he and his family try to avoid other Iranians.

“We don’t trust other Iranians. We made sure to find an apartment where there are no Iranians around,” he said.

Now he is just hoping to find rest, after repeated detentions in Iran for anti-government activities, including regular appearances on the Persian language stations of the BBC and Voice of America. He said he was tortured in custody, and now has trouble controlling movements in his limbs.

“I wake up regularly during the night as if someone is kicking me in the stomach,” said Taghavi, who also headed an independent opposition teachers’ association in Iran.

His wife, Mehrvash Dadashian, 35, ran a popular blog in Iran, since shut down. She intends to start a new one — but her main concern now is their life in Turkey, including the question of whether her 6-year-old daughter Yasna will be able to enter school in September.

“I live in the present. I don’t brood over the past, nor am I worried about the future,” she said. “It’s peaceful here … we used to have near heart attack 20 times a day in Iran, every time they came to our door to take us away.”

Despite the obstacles, reform activist Saadat says she is determined to keep up her political work, campaigning for Iranian women’s rights and writing for the Committee of Human Rights Reporters.

“I am not an immigrant. I’ve come here to continue my work,” said Saadat.

After months of repression, Iran’s reform activists are all in hiding, in jail or in exile, she said.

“When we leave our country, we leave behind all our past, our love, memories, the sum of our lives.”

The Associated Press

April 6, 2010
Israel Will Strike Iran Before November

Former Def. Minister: Israel Will Attack Iran by Nov.

Friday, 02 Apr 2010 12:36 PM

By: Ken Timmerman

Israel will be compelled to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities by this November unless the U.S. and its allies enact “crippling sanctions that will undermine the regime in Tehran,” former deputy defense minister Brig. Gen. Ephraim Sneh said on Wednesday in Tel Aviv.

The sanctions currently being discussed with Russia, China, and other major powers at the United Nations are likely to be a slightly-enhanced version of the U.N. sanctions already in place, which have had no impact on the Iranian regime.

And despite unanimous passage of the Iran Petroleum Sanctions Act in January, the Obama administration continues to resist efforts by Congress to impose mandatory sanctions on companies selling refined petroleum products to Iran.

In an Op-Ed in the Israeli left-wing daily, Haaretz, Sneh argues that Iran will probably have “a nuclear bomb or two” by 2011.

“An Israeli military campaign against Iran’s nuclear installations is likely to cripple that country’s nuclear project for a number of years. The retaliation against Israel would be painful, but bearable.”

Sneh believes that the “acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran during Obama’s term would do him a great deal of political damage,” but that the damage to Obama resulting from an Israeli strike on Iran “would be devastating.”

Nevertheless, he writes, “for practical reasons, in the absence of genuine sanctions, Israel will not be able to wait until the end of next winter, which means it would have to act around the congressional elections in November, thereby sealing Obama’s fate as president.”

Sneh does not foresee any U.S. military strikes on Iran, an analysis that is shared by most observers in Washington, who see the Obama administration moving toward containment as opposed to confrontation with Iran.

In a recent report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), military analyst Anthony Cordesman concluded that Israel will have to use low-yield earth-penetrating nuclear weapons if it wants to take out deeply-buried nuclear sites in Iran.

“Israel is reported to possess a 200 kilogram nuclear warhead containing 6 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium that could be mounted on the sea launched cruise missiles and producing a Yield of 20 kilo tons,” Cordesman writes in the CSIS study he co-authored by Abdullah Toukan.

Israel would be most likely to launch these missiles from its Dolphin-class submarines, he added.

While Sneh is no longer in the Israeli government, his revelation of a drop-dead date for an Israeli military strike on Iran must be taken seriously, Israel-watchers in the U.S. tell Newsmax.

“Ephraim Sneh is a serious guy,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “He was deputy minister of defense and has long been focused on the issue of Iran.”

Shoshana Bryen, Senior Director for Security Policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), said that what struck her most about Sneh’s comments was the shift of emphasis from resolving the Palestinian problem to Iran.

“For 30 years, he’s been saying that solving the Palestinian problem is Israel’s biggest priority. Now he’s saying, forget about the Palestinians. Iran is the problem.”

Sneh “is extremely well regarded on the left and the right,” she added. “People respect him enormously.”

In his Op-Ed, Sneh argues that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to mend its bridges with the United States, and the only way to do so is by enacting an immediate and total ban on any settlement activity, including in Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.

“Without international legitimacy, and with its friend mad at it, Israel would find it very difficult to act on its own” against Iran, he argued.

========================================

Efraim Sneh (Hebrew: אפרים סנה‎, born 19 September 1944)^[1] is an Israeli politician and physician. He has been a member of the Knesset for the Labor Party and served briefly in the current Government as Deputy Defense Minister. He currently heads the Yisrael Hazaka party, which he established in May 2008.

[edit] Biography

Born in Tel Aviv in 1944,^[2] Sneh is the son of Moshe Sneh, who was one of the heads of the Haganah. His father was elected to the first Knesset as a representative of Mapam, before defecting to Maki, the Israeli Communist Party.

Sneh served in the Nahal infantry battalion from 1962 to 1964. He studied medicine at Tel Aviv University and specialized in internal medicine. Once he finished his studies he returned to military service as a battalion doctor, then as a brigade doctor for the Paratroopers Brigade. In the Yom Kippur War he commanded a medical unit of the brigade in the Battle of The Chinese Farm and battles west of the Suez canal. Sneh also commanded the medical unit at Operation Entebbe, served as commander of the elite Unit 669 and as commander of the security zone in south Lebanon. His last role in the IDF was as head of the civilian administration of the West Bank.^[3]

In December 1987, with his release from the army he joined the Labor Party. From 1988 to 1994 he served on many delegations, specifically dealing with the Palestinian leadership. In 1992 Sneh was elected to the Knesset, serving as Minister of Health from 1994 to 1996. In 1999 he was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense, and in 2001 he was appointed Minister of Transportation.^[3]

Sneh stood out in his objection to the withdrawal from southern Lebanon, though he eventually accepted it following Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s decision. Generally, Sneh is considered a “hawk” in the Labor Party.^[4] He has repeatedly expressed concern over Iran’s Nuclear Program,^[5]^[6] In 2006, Iran filed a complaint to the UN Security Council over his remarks that Israel must be ready to prevent Iran’s nuclear program “at all costs.”^[7]

In the negotiations leading to the formation of the 31st Government under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, there was extensive speculation that Sneh would be appointed Deputy Minister of Defense. Although not initially appointed to a position in the government, Sneh was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense on 30 October 2006. He served under Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who also was the Labor Party leader. The replacement of Peretz by Barak as both party leader and Defense Minister in the summer of 2007 also led to a change in the deputy position; Sneh left office on 18 June 2007 and was replaced by Matan Vilnai.^[8]

On 25 May 2008 Sneh announced that he would be leaving the Labor Party and creating a new party, Yisrael Hazaka. He left the Knesset on 28 May and was replaced by Shakhiv Shana’an.^[9]

He lives in Herzliya, and is married with 2 children.

April 4, 2010
Azerbaijani-Israeli Relations Enter a New Stage

Gulnara Inandzh

Director
International Online Information Analytic Center Ethnoglobus,

related info

https://www.turkishnews.com/ru/content/

mete62@inbox.ru

The upcoming June 28th 2009 visit to Baku by Israeli President Shimon Peres, a visit arranged during the May 6th meeting in Prague between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, opens a new stage in Azerbaijani-Israeli relations and reflects among other things Jerusalem’s desire to strengthen relations with former Soviet republics in the aftermath of Israeli operations in Gaza.

In support of that effort, one marked out in the middle of 2008, the Israeli foreign ministry has established separate departments to deal with the European portion of the CIS, the South Caucasus and Central Asia, regions that had been the responsibility of the ministry’s broader Central European and Eurasian Department. The new units are provisionally called Eurasia I (dealing with the European portion of the CIS) and Eurasia II (dealing with the South Caucasus and Central Asia). The head of Eurasia II, which will also deal with Azerbaijan, is Shemi Tsur, the son of a Jewish returnee from the Iranian province of Eastern Azerbaijan (Falkov & Kogan 2009).

Apparently, Israeli political technologists have been working on the strengthening of official contacts with Azerbaijan intensively. Jewish groups in the West have been playing a major role in this and have conditioned their support for Azerbaijani interests on Baku’s opening of an embassy in Israel. As official representatives of the two countries have noted, despite the absence of an Azerbaijani embassy in Israel and of a general treaty between Azerbaijan and Israel, there exist various interagency accords which are working extremely well. As a result, Israel receives 30 percent of the oil it needs for internal use through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, and bilateral trade is constantly expanding.

The absence of anti-Semitism in Azerbaijan, the good relations with Jews living in the country also help to fill the diplomatic vacuum. At the same time, the opening of an embassy of a Muslim-majority state in Israel and the visit of the Israeli president to a Muslim country are a moral support and example for Jews of the entire world and the Jewish state itself.

In this connection, it is worth noting that this is the second official visit of a senior Israeli official to Baku over the last decade. In 1998, Benjamin Netanyahu, then and now the prime minister of Israel, after completing a visit to China spent the night in Baku. After that time, no senior Israeli officials visited Azerbaijan for some years. But beginning in 2006, when Avigdor Lieberman, the chairman of the Our Home is Israel party became minister for strategic affairs, the number of visits increased. Lieberman himself visited Baku in the summer of 2007 just after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did.

These efforts by Israeli and Western companies and organizations in Azerbaijan have been viewed by Iranian ideologues as part of a network directed against Iran. One cannot deny that the overthrow of the current Tehran government or the forced change of its aggressive policy and the weakening of its position in the region are one of the key issues for Israel and the West and in particular the US. As a result, the concern of Iran on this score cannot be considered baseless paranoia.

On the other hand, with the assignment at the end of April 2009 of a new director of the Asian infrastructure of the Bureau for Ties with the Russian-language Jewish Diaspora Natif, Israel specified its policy concerning work with the diaspora in the CIS countries. In that, Azerbaijan is presented as a major focus of Natif’s activities (Izrus 2009). It could hardly be otherwise, given the Jewish communities of that country, as well as in Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

The Jewish lobby and Israel in recent years have attempted to establish contacts with their compatriots living in Iran. In the meantime, the Southern Azerbaijanis who live in Iran represent another issue for relations between Baku and Tehran. With the goal of removing the World Congress of Azerbaijanis out from under the influence of Iran, for example, a change in the leadership of the organization has occurred. The Committee for work with compatriots was reformed into a structure for work with the diaspora, which thus reduced its focus on compatriots in areas adjoining Azerbaijan where Azerbaijanis have lived from time immemorial on their historical lands.

As was already noted, if the visit of Shimon Peres to Baku bears a moral character for Jews, for Azerbaijan it is one additional opportunity to attract the attention of the world community and the entire Jewish world to Azerbaijan and to define new patterns of cooperation and the inclusion of Azerbaijan in new major trans-regional projects. But as one might expect, Iran’s reaction has been aggressive, including overt threats to Azerbaijan. Baku responded diplomatically but made it very clear that it did not intend to retreat from the meeting or from its expanding ties with the Jewish state.

In spite of its threatening language, it is completely clear that Iran will not violate the borders of Azerbaijan as it did earlier. And clearly, Azerbaijan was prepared for such an Iranian reaction, but in preparing for it, Baku recognized that neither the US nor Israel could advance an effective policy toward Iran without taking Azerbaijan into account. Indeed, now economically and politically strong, Azerbaijan is capable of engaging itself in pro-active regional politics, as opposed to a defensive one it had adhered to before.

References

Falkov, Mikhail & Kogan, Alexander (2009) “Izrail’ otdel’no vzyalsya za Kavkaz I Tsentral’nuyu Aziyu” [“Israel Moved to Separately Deal with the Caucasus and Central Asia”], Izrus, 19 January, available at http://izrus.co.il/dvuhstoronka/article/2009-01-19/3449.html, accessed 13 June 2009.

Izrus (2009) “’Nativ’ Izbral Kuratora po Tsentral’noy Azii I Kavkazu”, Izrus, 1 March, available at http://izrus.co.il/diasporaIL/article/2009-03-01/3883.html, accessed 14 June 2009.

source :

March 31, 2010
An Expert’s Long View on Iran

By GERALD F. SEIB

Iran is both today’s paramount foreign-policy challenge, and a quandary of the first order. Its nuclear program keeps expanding, its concern about international opprobrium seems limited, and nobody can be sure the United Nations Security Council will find the courage to impose more economic sanctions.

So where do we go from here? Few have thought about that challenge longer or harder than Zbigniew Brzezinski, the provocative foreign-policy icon who was White House national security adviser when the Iranian revolution erupted three decades ago and has followed the case ever since.

In an interview, Mr. Brzezinski lays out his formula. Try to stop Iran’s nuclear program, and make Tehran pay a price if it keeps pursuing it, but don’t count too much on sanctions; offer a robust American defense umbrella to protect friends in the region if Iran crosses the nuclear threshold; give rhetorical support to Iran’s opposition while accepting America’s limited ability to help it; eschew thought of a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities; and keep talking to Tehran.

Above all: Play the long game, because time, demographics and generational change aren’t on the side of the current regime.

“This is a country with a growing urban middle class, a country with fairly high access to higher education, a country where women play a great role in the professions,” he says. “So it is a country which I think, basically, objectively is capable of moving the way Turkey has moved.” That is, it can evolve into a country where Islam and modernity co-exist, even if somewhat uncomfortably.

Mr. Brzezinski’s views are noteworthy because he touches so many bases in the Iran debate. He hails from the hawkish wing of the Democratic party, and has a record of working comfortably with Republican administrations.

He was President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser when the Iranian Islamic revolution exploded in 1979. More recently, he teamed up with current Defense Secretary Robert Gates on a milestone 2004 Council on Foreign Relations report that advocated that the U.S. begin to “engage selectively with Iran.” Shortly thereafter, former President George W. Bush summoned Mr. Gates to be defense secretary, a job he retains under President Barack Obama.

Today, Mr. Brzezinski sees two American goals in Iran: “One is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, assuming that is its objective, and to neutralize its strategic political significance if it does. The second goal is to facilitate, carefully and cautiously, the political evolution in Iran toward a more acceptable regional role.” As he notes, those two goals—stopping Iran’s nuclear program while coaxing it into more responsible behavior—can conflict.

On the nuclear-weapons front: There’s a chance, he thinks, that Iran isn’t seeking to possess actual nuclear weapons, but trying to become “more like Japan, a proto-nuclear power” with a demonstrated ability to make nuclear arms without actually crossing that line.

But it’s impossible to know. And if a halt to Iran’s nuclear program can’t be negotiated, “then I think we have no choice but to impose sanctions on Iran, isolate it.” But sanctions alone, he says, won’t “determine the outcome.”

So if Iran crosses the line, the U.S. should “make commitments to any country nearby that America would see itself engaged if Iran threatened to use nuclear weapons against that country, or worse, if it used them.”

What does being “engaged” mean, exactly? “That means if [the Iranians] attack somebody, we have to strike at them,” Mr. Brzezinski says bluntly. “I don’t think every country in the region would want to have a formal agreement with the U.S. Some would want an understanding.”

This American defense umbrella “should be sufficient to deter Iran,” Mr. Brzezinski says. He thinks it significant that Ehud Barak, the defense minister of Israel, the nation most threatened by Iran’s nuclear program, said in a Washington speech last week that Iranian leaders were “sophisticated” enough to “fully understand what might follow” the actual use of nuclear arms, and likely would use them for intimidation.

Meantime, on changing Iran’s character: The U.S. should adopt “a kind of posture of support and endorsement” of the forces inside Iran now openly opposing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr. Brzezinski says, without deluding itself into thinking it has the ability to propel a regime change.

Crucially, Mr. Brzezinski instead thinks forces at work within Iran will undermine the regime over time, so long as the U.S. and the West don’t take actions that actually interfere with that process.

Thus, it’s important to craft sanctions in a way that “doesn’t stimulate more anti-Westernism, or a fusion of Islamic extremism and nationalism.” He’d keep talking to Iran too: “Most major issues internationally that have been resolved by negotiation have involved negotiations over a long period of time.”

And he would avoid at all costs a military strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran, he said, would make no distinction between an Israeli or an American strike. “The Iranians would strike out at us, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in the Strait of Hormuz.” If energy prices then soar, “we will suffer, the Chinese will suffer, the Russians will be the beneficiaries. The Europeans will have to go to the Russians for energy.” In effect, he argues, America, more than Iran, would be isolated.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A2

March 13, 2010
Iran’s Growing Role In The South Caucasus

source

Gulnara Inandzh
Director
International Online Information Analytic Center Ethnoglobus

mete62@inbox.ru

ethnoglobus@rambler.ru

In the aftermath of the Russian-Georgian war, Iran has assumed a greater role in the calculations of all the states of the South Caucasus as well as in the thinking of the Russian Federation, on the one hand, and the United States and Israel, on the other. Its location alone makes it a key player, especially given the disruptions in trade routes that the war has caused. And its growing power – including its moves toward the acquisition of a nuclear capability if not nuclear weapons – means that it can no longer be ignored.

But precisely what role Iran will be able to play depends not only on its own resources but also on the attitudes of other players, and they are much divided. On the one hand, Russia and Armenia would like to see Tehran brought into discussions about the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and about the formation of the Ankara-proposed Platform for regional security. On the other, the United States and Israel hope to continue to isolate Iran and to use Turkey as their agent in the region, although it appears that the two have dropped any immediate plans to use force against it lest such actions further destabilize the entire region.

Whether Turkey will be willing to be used in this way, of course, is far from clear. It has its own economic interests in the region which are better served by a cooperative relationship with countries nearby rather than by following the lead of its traditional partners further away. And its government is now committed to a more independent foreign policy, one that means it may sometimes support Washington and Jerusalem and sometimes Moscow and Tehran.

But in addition to questions about Turkey’s role in this situation, there is another factor at work. Many outside powers, and the United States in particular, have tended to ignore Iranian moves other than in the nuclear area. And consequently, Tehran has been able to expand its influence under the radar screen not only among Shiite groups across the Middle East but with other governments there that it has long been at odds with. And that is reinforcing its own view of itself as a major regional power.

These new realities appear likely to lead to a correction in the policies of the United States after Barak Obama assumes office. His personal background is generating great hopes for the resolution of Middle Eastern and Iranian problems, including in Tehran. President Ahmadinejad welcomed Obama’s victory as a possible turning point in relations between Washington and Iran.

And there may be changes in the year ahead from within Iran. That country faces a presidential election, and at least some of the key leaders in the country are unhappy with the aggressive approach Ahmadinejad has adopted toward Israel and the United States. Consequently, Iran may prove more open to a new approach, especially if its leaders believe that an end to their diplomatic isolation in the West will pay dividends in the region, such as an invitation to be a participant in discussions about the resolution of local conflicts.

One of the wild cards in this situation is the possibility that the United States and Israel will try to play the Azerbaijani card against Tehran. Nearly a third of Iran’s population consists of ethnic Azerbaijanis. Most of them are well integrated into Iranian life: indeed, the supreme ruler Ayatollah Khamenei is an Azerbaijani. Baku has been reluctant to cooperate with any Western projects in this regard, but the danger exists that efforts by the US (broadcasting) or Israel (agricultural cooperation) could lead the Iranian government to revise its approach to the Caucasus.

And Israel’s interest in developing contacts with the 20,000 Jews of Iran, combined with its close relations to Baku could also play a role in changing Iran’s approach, possibly in quite unpredictable ways in the coming months. Interestingly, the Jewish community in Azerbaijan is also keen to make its contribution to the further developments in the region. In this context, the following appeal of the chairman of the religious community The Jews of Azerbaijan, Director General of the Jewish educational complex Habad or-Avner, and the chief rabbi of the Ashkenazim Jews of Azerbaijan Meier Bruk to Iran’s ambassador in Baku, Nasiri Hamidi Zare, is a logical extension of the actions of the other Jewish organizations in the broader region:

“The development of relations between the two countries has always been based on mutually profitable and vitally necessary conditions and as a rule the principles of public diplomacy have provided the foundation of these ties… In the Islamic Republic of Iran are living a sufficiently large Jewish community, and according to reports by its members, all the conditions for fruitful activity exist….” Also, the Jewish educational complex Habad or-Avner whose construction began in 2007 in Azerbaijan is envisaged to have an intake of Jewish students from the entire region, including Iran.

In this situation, because it enjoys good relations with both, Azerbaijan has the chance to serve as an intermediary between the West and Israel, on the one hand, and Iran and other Muslim countries, on the other; or it might be expected to in one quarter or another, expectations that could drive policies as well.

March 3, 2010
Did Moscow Prevent a US Attack On Iran By Its Moves In Georgia?

soursce –

Gulnara Inandzh

Director International Online Information Analytic Center Ethnoglobus

mete62@inbox.ru

ethnoglobus@rambler.ru

While it is still too early to speak in detail about the results of the behind the scenes talks between Moscow and Washington about the resolution of the Georgian-Russian conflict, it is clear that these discussions, like the calculations of all those involved in this conflict, reflected not just the immediate situation in Georgia and its two breakaway republics, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Some of these larger or more distant goals have been mentioned by various officials and analysts, but some of the most interesting, even if they remain in the realm of speculation, say a great deal about just how consequential this conflict is.

Many, especially in the Russian capital, saw Georgia’s moves as part of a larger U.S.-sponsored effort to push Russia out of the Caucasus and to place American bases there in order to protect American energy interests. Others, especially in Washington, viewed what happened as a Russian effort to bring a former Soviet republic to heel and thus to demonstrate not only that it is a world power that can take actions independently of what others think but also that other former Soviet republics must consider Moscow’s views first and foremost.

There is more than a little truth in each of these perceptions. Obviously, the Georgian conflict has had a serious impact on the energy situation throughout the Caspian region and thus on the dynamics of prices in the world market, and equally obviously, both the United States and Russia want to be able to protect their interests in the region, interests that are sufficiently at odds that it is difficult to imagine just what a negotiated settlement in this area will look like.

Indeed, by provoking a war with Georgia, the Kremlin was able to create obstacles to the transportation of energy resources via routes bypassing Russia. As a result, it created the conditions for the realization of Iran’s Neka-Jask project, which envisages the transportation of the Caspian oil and thus allows for Moscow to preserve its control over the transportation of energy resources from the region. The statement made by the deputy executive director of the Iranian National Oil Company for investment issues Hojatollah Ghanimifard that the Iranian Neja-Jask pipeline will be a serious competitor to and eventual replacement of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline [4] attests to this line of thinking. In the meantime, the problems arising with pipelines in Georgia have forced Azerbaijan for the first time to send its oil into Iran. [5]

But as large an issue as the control of the flow of hydrocarbons out of the Caspian basin is, there are clearly still greater equities involved. When Russia launched its drive against Georgia, the international community did not devote much attention to the ways in which this may have been a move by a great power in the complicated politics in the Middle East. It is important to note that almost at the same time as the events in Tskhvinvali began, there were major American, British and French naval exercises in the Persian Gulf, an action that dramatically increased the number of ships and hence firepower in that region. The exercises were explicitly intended to prevent Iran from taking any action in the Straits of Hormus which might impede the flow of oil, but at least some analysts, pointing to statements in Washington and Jerusalem, have suggested that these forces might have been assembled to launch an attack on Iran. [1] And hence it could well be that in the complex play of forces which always affect international relations, the Russian move into Georgia may have prevented an American-led move against Iran. Some evidence points in that direction.

Most notably, as the events in Tskhinvali and the international reaction to it were unfolding, Turkish prime-minister Erdogan visited Russia with his new “Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform” – an initiative Moscow wholeheartedly embraced. Shortly afterwards Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad paid a “working visit” to Turkey – his first visit to a NATO country which Israel harshly objected. [2] These developments attest to the fact that Ankara and Russia combined their efforts to prevent the United States and Israel from an attack against Iran.

One additional report that lends credence to this reading was the statement of Haled Mashal, the head of Hamas which won the Palestinian elections. He too was received both in Moscow and in Ankara. And by this maneuver, Turkish and Russian officials demonstrated their willingness to use the Palestinian lever of influence in the event of the use of force against Iran, something that neither saw as being in its economic or geopolitical interests.

Of course, the place Azerbaijan with its rapidly developing economy has in the calculations about the Georgian-Russian military conflict should not and cannot be ignored. Some in Azerbaijan were extremely critical of the government for failing to react sharply against Russian aggression, given Azerbaijan’s membership in GUAM and its strategic partnership with Tbilisi. But President Ilham Aliyev continued to pursue his step by step balanced diplomacy and spoke only about the importance of maintaining the territorial integrity of states, something Azerbaijan itself is very much interested in.

That was striking given the role Baku had always played in maintaining friendly ties with Georgia, in supplying its neighbor with oil and gas and thereby mitigating its energy, and hence political as well, dependence on Russia.

But of course there is yet another implicit negotiation going on here. That concerns the competition between Moscow and Washington for influence in the former Soviet republics. Moscow’s actions in Georgia sent a clear message to Ukraine, Moldova and Azerbaijan, who also have frozen conflicts on their territories that Russia can intervene if it chooses to, a new element in the foreign policy calculations of all these states. Indeed, it may be that Moscow was especially interested in sending this message to Azerbaijan given the upcoming electoral campaign in which some candidates will push for greater integration with the West.

In that connection, it is worth noting that at the time of the crisis, David Harris, the executive director of the Jewish Committee of America, was in Baku. Considering the role of the Jewish lobby in the US and the well-known sympathy of that lobby for Azerbaijan, it is entirely possible that Harris made clear that Baku would be defended from aggression from its northern neighbor. [3] Whether that message was received, however, is unclear, given that the United States has not yet taken any dramatic actions as opposed to tougher rhetoric in response to Russian moves in Georgia.

In short, Baku appears likely to become a place des armes not for military action but rather political discussions not only about its own status but about the status of Iran in the world and the influence of Moscow and Washington in the post-Soviet states.

Notes

[1] See http://www.ethnoglobus.com/?page=full&id=344 (last accessed August 21, 2008).

[2] “Iranian President Makes First Visit to Turkey”, VOA News, August 14, 2008, available at (last accessed August 21, 2008).

[3] (last accessed August 21, 2008).

[4] “Иран планирует составить конкуренцию экспортному нефтепроводу Баку-Джейхан”, Iran News, August 12, 2008, available at https://iran.ru/news/politics/52773/Iran_planiruet_sostavit_konkurenciyu_eksportnomu_nefteprovodu_Baku_Dzheyhan (last accessed August 30, 2008).

[5] “Азербайджан впервые отправил через Иран партию нефти на Запад”, Iran News, August 27, 2008, available at https://iran.ru/news/economics/53024/Azerbaydzhan_vpervye_otpravil_cherez_Iran_partiyu_nefti_na_Zapad (last accessed August 30, 2008).

March 3, 2010