Foreign Involvement
The Charter of the general assembly of the United Nations has accepted the declaration of the "inadmissibility of interference in the Internal Affairs of States".
Foreign governments, both before and after the Islamic Revolution have often been accused of attempting to de-stabilize Iran through exploiting ethnic tensions. Western media reports and statements from former CIA operatives seem to corroborate such suspicions
While some commentators claim that these ethnic unrests in Iran are not inspired by foreign governments but by the policies of the Iranian government which have been described as discriminatory, others disagree. Professor Bernard Lewis in fact first unveiled a project for the separation of Khuzestan from Iran, formally proposing the fragmentation or balkanization of Iran along regional, ethnic, and linguistic lines especially among the Arabs of Khuzestan (the Al-Ahwaz project), the Baluchis (the Pakhtunistan project), the Kurds (the Greater Kurdistan project) and the Azerbaijanis (the Greater Azerbaijan Project).
Some Iranians accuse Britain of "trying to topple the regime by supporting insurgents and separatists". Other states however are also believed to be involved in the politics of ethnicity in southern Iran. Professor Efraim Karsh traces out the origins of Saddam Hussein's wish to annex Khuzestan using the ethnic card:
| “ | Nor did Saddam’s territorial plans go beyond the Shatt al-Arab and a small portion of the southern region of Khuzestan, where he hoped, the substantial Arab minority would rise against their Iranian oppressors. This did not happen. The underground Arab organization in Khuzestan proved to be a far cry from the mass movement anticipated by the Iraqis, and Arab masses remained conspicuously indifferent to their would-be liberators | ” |
During Iran's 1979 revolution, after sending thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites into exile in Iran and the quick and brutal suppression of Kurdish dissent,
| “ | Saddam Hussein saw an opportunity to take advantage of Iran 's instability during its political transition and the weakness of its military (which had been decimated through regular purges of military officers once loyal to the former regime) in order to seize Iran 's oil-rich, primarily Arab-populated Khuzestan province. Hussein had wrongly expected the Iranian Arabs to join the Arab Iraqi forces and win a quick victory for Iraq. | ” |
During the cold war, the Soviet Union's "tentacles extended into Iranian Kurdistan". As the main supporter of ethnic communist enclaves such as the Republic of Mahabad, and (later on) as the main arms supplier of Saddam Hussein, both the Soviet Union and its predecessor the Russian Empire, made many attempts to divide Iran along ethnic lines. Moscow's policies were specifically devised "inorder to sponsor regional powerbases, if not to annex territory". For example, in a cable sent on July 6, 1945 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Azerbaijan was instructed as such:
| “ | TOP SECRET
To Cde. Bagirov Measures to Organize a Separatist Movement in Southern Azerbaijan and Other Provinces in Northern Iran
|
” |
Foreign interest in the ethnic politics of Iran continues to resurface in modern times. In April 2006, Seymour Hersh brought widespread attention to claims of covert operations in Iran when he wrote in an article for the The New Yorker about special units that were "working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris in the north, the Baluchis in the southeast, and the Kurds in the northeast of Iran." According to the report, US troops in Iran were "recruiting local ethnic populations to encourage local tensions that could undermine the regime".
Former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter has also suggested that the US military is setting up the infrastructure for an enormous military presence in Azerbaijan that will be utilized for a land-based campaign designed to bring down the government in Tehran. He also claims CIA paramilitary operatives and US Special Forces are training special Azerbaijani units capable of operating inside Iran in order to mobilize the large Azeri ethnic population within Iran.
Statements made by various Pentagon officials have supported such claims. On September 7, 2004, referring to Iran's ethnic minorities, U.S. Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage stated:
| “ | There are some things internal to Iran that one has to look at. Demographics are one. The Persians are almost a minority in their own country now – they're like 52% or something. There are many more Azeris in Tabriz than there are in Azerbaijan, just for the record. So that has an effect over time of changing things. | ” |
Pentagon officials have further met with minority separatists such as Mahmudali Chehregani. And both Iran and Turkey reacted angrily to a map of "The new Middle East" by Colonel Ralph Peters, when it was revealed that the map was used in training programs at NATO's Defense College for senior military officers, and National War Academy.
Some representatives of Western governments have even met with leaders of such groups. An example is June 31, 2005, when Pierre Pettigrew met Rafiq Abu-Sharif, a separatist representative of the Al-Ahwaz Arab Peoples Democratic Popular Front. According to the front's website, Abu-Sharif "submitted a detailed letter to Pettigrew...detailing the nationalities under oppression in Iran", further meeting with Canadian parliamentaries "to further discuss the matter".
The Republic of Azerbaijan is also accused of encouraging ethnic divisions in the Iranian region of Azerbaijan. According to James Woolsey, former director of CIA, "Washington should also pay attention to Iran's geographic and ethnic fissures – for example, a large share of Iran's oil is located in the restive Arab-populated regions in Iran's south". Iason Athanasiadis, quotes another CIA operative describing:
| “ | Iranian Azarbaijan was rich in possibilities. Accessible through Turkey and ex-Soviet Azerbaijan, more Westward-looking than most of Iran, and economically going nowhere, Iran's richest agricultural province was an ideal covert action theater. | ” |
Iason Athanasiadis continues:
| “ | In his book Know Thine Enemy Reuel Marc Gerecht constantly mentally prods methods of destabilizing the Islamic republic, from cultivating high-ranking Azeris to inciting separatist Kurds to fostering divisive clerical rivalry between the holy Shi'ite cities of Najaf in Iraq and Qom in Iran. | ” |
The Sunday Telegraph in an article titled "US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran" on February 25, 2007, wrote:
| “ | In a move that reflects Washington's growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border regions. The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime. Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now "no great secret", according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph. His claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran 's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime. | ” |
On May 23, 2008, abc news released a report about the worsening of US-Pakistani relations that had negative effect on US support of Jundullah Militants, Led by Abdolmalek Rigi:
| “ | U.S. officials tell ABC News U.S. intelligence officers frequently meet and advise Jundullah leaders, and current and former intelligence officers are working to prevent the men from being sent to Iran. | ” |
| “ | The capture of the Jundullah members is seen by intelligence sources in the region as another indication that Pakistan's new government is distancing itself from the U.S. and U.S. intelligence operations in the country. | ” |
Seymour M. Heresh in his article on July 7, 2008 mentions that the Bush Administration is increasing its secret moves against Iran by supporting ethnic separatist groups in Iran. Hersh mentions that part of the covert activities include the support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations.
Read more about this topic: Ethnic Minorities In Iran
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