Iran's street-level Arab support negates establishment hostility - 4 May 2006

On 28 April, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, duly reported to the UN Security Council and the IAEA’s Board of Governors on Iran’s nuclear programme. He said that the IAEA has found no proof of a military application, but that it cannot confirm that Iran’s goals are peaceful. Following on from that, the United States, Britain, and France are engaged in an attempt to agree a legally binding UN Security Council resolution under Chapter 7 that would oblige Iran to give up its uranium enrichment activities and that could lead on to sanctions and even military action. But Iran appears to be confident that it can avoid draconian punishment. Why this should be so is just about the most important point in world affairs today.

One possibility, of course, is that Iran simply does not understand the trouble it is in, but our diplomatic sources say this can be dismissed. Iran’s revolutionary regime is a relatively sophisticated player on the world stage, and one of the most notable attributes of revolutionary Iran has been the pragmatism of its foreign policy and its avoidance of the colossal misjudgements that characterized, for instance, Saddam Hussein’s regime. It can be assumed, therefore, that Iran’s confidence is based upon careful calculation.

One obvious source of comfort is that Russia and China are still opposed to a Chapter 7 resolution. But Iran knows that Chinese and Russian opposition is not sufficient in itself. For a start, on 2 May the US’s ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, raised the prospect that they could be persuaded to abstain rather than veto a resolution. He said: "It is not impossible that we would proceed without them." Beyond that, the US has also said that it could impose sanctions (and, presumably, take military action) with the assistance of like-minded allies outside of the UN.

So Iran’s obduracy must be based on the belief that it can impose more pain on its opponents than they can on it. We examined this point in depth in our 2 March issue, in particular drawing attention to an International Crisis Group report that doubted the likely efficacy of a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel has since tried to reverse the impression that the military option is not a realistic one, but it has not been entirely convincing.

Iran, on the other hand, has been playing the opposite game, emphasizing the retaliatory damage it could cause. It hardly has to mention the destabilizing role it could play in Iraq, and with recent military exercises it has emphasized the obvious disruption it could cause to the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf.

This week it has reminded everyone that Israel would be an obvious target for retaliatory action. On 2 May, Rear Admiral Mohammad-Ebrahim, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander, said: "We have announced that whenever America does something evil, the first place that we target will be Israel."

Playing up the threat to Israel could be seen as counter-productive, partly because it will stiffen Israel’s resolve to take pre-emptive action and partly because it will rally waverers such as Germany to the more-hawkish party. However, continuously emphasizing its credentials as the most stalwart backer of the Palestinian cause is important to Iran as a counter to the Sunni Arab political establishment’s attempts portray it as an enemy of mainstream Islam. As we reported in our 13 April issue, the recent outburst by Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak against Shia Arabs for their tendency to support Iran indicated a hardening of attitudes by the Sunni Arab establishment against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. However, we suggested that Iran was not too perturbed by this, first because of the support it received in the Arab world not just from Shias but from radical Sunnis, and secondly because of its ability to exploit the Palestine cause to its benefit.

Iran’s confidence of street-level support, despite the opposition of the Sunni establishment, would seem to be well founded. A recent opinion poll in Lebanon, conducted among 700 Lebanese and Palestinian Muslims showed 90.7% of those surveyed supporting Iran’s right to nuclear technology. Only 11.8% said Iran’s possession of nuclear technology should be of concern to the Arab world.

On the specific issue of Iranian nuclear weapons, 78.1% said that Iran’s acquiring of nuclear weapons would have a positive effect on the Palestinian struggle with Israel. 79.3% said that Iran should acquire nuclear weapons in order to balance Israel. And 76.5% said that they would support Iran in the case of war with America. 76.9% said that they thought Hezbollah would take up arms on behalf of Iran in the event of a US or Israeli attack on Iran.

Another possible reason for Iranian confidence has been raised in the past 10 days by Russian diplomats. Speaking to Russian media outlets, anonymous Russian diplomatic sources in Tehran were quoted on 24 April as saying that it is "highly possible" that Iran already possesses a basic nuclear weapon (on the grounds that it has had no less access to the relevant technologies than North Korea) - and, as an Iranian political source added, even if Iran lacks a conventional means of delivery Tehran "can always find a dozen suicide bombers who would take them to the right place and blow them up". Not coincidentally, Iran has announced that it is recruiting "martyrdom-seekers" worldwide in order to help in its defence.

We have no intelligence ourselves on this point, but it is not a surprise to see the possibility being aired in public. It is absolutely logical for Iran to increase the level of threat to its enemies as they increase their threat to it. But this is still relatively early days, and the process is guaranteed to get more unnerving still as the crisis unfolds. Joe de Courcy, Editor