Fascinating, What Does it Portend?
02.27.2008 - 10:49 AMAFP reports that
A top Iranian cleric made a rare criticism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s verbal attacks on Israel on Wednesday, saying a foreign policy of “coarse slogans” was not in the national interest.
Hassan Rowhani, a former top nuclear negotiator who still holds several influential positions, said that Iran needed to show more flexibility and desire for dialogue in its dealings with the international community.
“Does foreign policy mean expressing coarse slogans and grandstanding?” Rowhani asked in a speech to a foreign policy conference in Tehran.
“This is not a foreign policy. We need to find an accommodating way to decrease the threats and assure the interests of the country.”
His comments came a week after the latest verbal attack on Israel by Ahmadinejad, who described the Jewish state as a “dirty microbe” and “savage animal” in a speech to a public rally….
Rowhani warned starkly: “If the international community thinks that a country wants to play troublemaker and eliminate others, it will not let the country do this and will confront it.
Clearly, at least some officials in Iran are becoming increasingly wary of an Israeli or an American strike on their nuclear facilities. But what does this really mean? Do these officials want to stop the nuclear program or merely tone down the rhetoric while they forge ahead?
Critical to understanding these issues is an exceptionally revealing speech given by Rowhani on September 30, 2005. Rowhani’s words have been subjected to a close analysis by the Israeli analyst, Chen Kane, formerly an Israeli atomic energy officia and now of CSIS in Washington. Kane’s conclusions are chilling:
Rowhani suggested that Iran use the technical progress Iran had achieved by the time [his own] speech was delivered to create a nuclear fait accompli. He recommended accelerating Iran’s efforts on the technical front: “If one day we are able to complete the fuel cycle and the world sees that it has no choice, that we do possess the technology, then the situation will be different.”
Rowhani also advise[d] his audience, however, that this objective should be pursued while keeping the avenue for negotiation open, so as to allow Iran to improve its technical capabilities while postponing referral to the Security Council for as long as possible. Warning that Iran should avoid what in fact was to occur after Iran ended its suspension of enrichment activities, Rowhani cautioned, “I think we should not be in a great rush to deal with this issue. We should be patient and find the most suitable time to do away with the suspension. . . . we must move very carefully, in a very calculated manner.”
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February 27th, 2008 at 11:39 AM
If this is the same Rowhani I’m thinking of, he was quoted in an Iranian magazine bragging about how Iran had played the EU-3 for suckers in the nuclear “negotiations.” I think it’s pretty clear that when an Iranian establishment figures criticizes Ahmadinejad, it’s because they’re afraid his crude bluster will ruin the game for them before they have the bomb, not that they’re genuinely interested a diplomatic solution.
Statements like Rowhani’s also set Ahmadinejad up as a sacrificial lamb in the event things get too dicey with the West.
February 27th, 2008 at 2:17 PM
The Iranians have never had the “information discipline” of, say, the former Soviets. Even under Khomeini, there were apparently “off the rez” statements from the clerical council that sent Westerners into an analytical tizzy. Rowhani has been a fairly regular perpetrator of such statements, and is sometimes “clarified” and mopped up after, but often not.
He’s also considered a “moderate” in the West, for various reasons, but in large part because he was in charge of Iran’s nuclear programs, and its chief negotiator in late 2003, when Iran agreed to more intrusive IAEA inspections. Rowhani was the nuclear chief in February 2003, when then-president Khatami announced Iran’s intention to resume nuclear operations. He also, however, presided over the purported slowing of Iran’s programs in 2003-4, and arranged for increased “transparency” (or at least an appearance of it) and the opening of Iran’s facilities to the IAEA inspections. Ahmadinejad replaced Rowhani when he was elected president in 2005. The sense of Western analysts at the time was that Ahmadinejad wanted someone more aligned with his own urgent, doctrinaire views.
We should note that in spite of the appearance of cooperation and slowdown presented by Rowhani’s nuclear programs during that period, the progress Iran had clearly made in uranium enrichment by 2006 had to be made partly in 2004 — which, as noted by Anthony above, was when Rowhani was closely engaged with the EU-3.
My read on Rowhani, whose Iranian revolutionary bona fides include imprisonment by the Shah in the 1970s, and a senior position directing military ops in the Iran-Iraq War, has been that he takes the long view of things, and would prefer to advance toward Iran’s nuclear future by allaying the fears of the West rather than rattling sabers and fulminating. I don’t regard his more sensible statements as a harbinger of any lurking Iranian sentiment for denuclearization (or tolerance of Israel). They are meant to reassure, not signal alternative intentions.
Rowhani is perhaps more dangerous, in his way, than Ahmadinejad. He has no history of being a foam-at-the-mouth Israel hater, but his reassuring rhetoric and ability to communicate a cooperative spirit to international negotiators are well suited to the project of developing an Iranian nuclear capability under the nose of the UN, the EU, and very possibly the US. Rowhani would not be overt and strident with a nuclear capability, if he were in charge — but therein lies his menace. It is just as bad for Israel, the Middle East, south Asia, and Europe for an Iranian nuclear-armed MRBM to creep up on them, as it is for such a weapon to send circus clowns and a steam calliope ahead of it.
February 27th, 2008 at 5:30 PM
What’s the rule when dealing with despotic governments: what they do is a lot more important than what they say. As a corrollary, rhetorical olive branches must be weighed against the cumulative nature of all the rhetoric being expressed, and all this rhetoric must be taken seriously, so that belligerent statements by government officials are not disregarded as symbolic flourishes while hopeful statements are not given more significance than they deserve. Strategic isolated statements by so-called moderates are nothing but PR if the general belligerency in word and action never changes. If a single member of the Iranian leadership is blurting out threats week after week, that outweighs everything else.
February 27th, 2008 at 6:36 PM
Iran has played the IAEA and the EU3 to the utmost. The recent IAEA report on Iran was reportedly edited by the IAEA’s el Baradei to the chagrin of IAEA experts. Neither the IAEA or the EU as a whole has much interest in facing down Iran and time is certainly in their (Iran’s) favor. If you recognize how long this has been going on and the fact that Iran has not been cooperative in their dealings, it does not seem to make any difference who says what, they are going ahead with their nuclear projects and weapons programs. The only difference is how much attention they want to focus on themselves, hence the current split in visions.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:33 PM
In the past, when Ahmadinejad’s spat his threats, the Western media placed them at center stage, bathed in limelight. That wild language frightened our public. It raised the prospect of an unwelcome conflict with Iran. That collapsed the Administration’s popularity and raised pressure to appease the mullahs, which of course served Iran.
Nowadays however, because the NIE removed fears of a conflict, at least for the moment, Ahmadinejad’s vicious language no longer serves Iran. His ejaculations no longer frighten, they merely appall. Hassan Rowhani realizes that. Iran has lost its ability to squeeze the White House.
Mukhtar al Sadr agreed to renew his moratorium because Iran’s hand has become weaker.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:51 AM
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/schoenfeld/2724