by Hooman Majd
In my father’s time, Central and South America (and the Caribbean) were thought of as too far from Iran to be significant; they were in America’s backyard after all, and America, Iran’s patron, didn’t need Iran’s input in the region. Today, Iran has tractor, automobile, and bicycle factories, housing developments, and a bank in Venezuela; construction operations in Nicaragua; and an embassy in every country (except the small Caribbean nations). And, of course, wherever there are Muslims (and Muslims are everywhere, including in South America), Iran is there to provide moral and financial support, even without an official embassy or consular office. A measure of Iran’s importance to the developing world was revealed in the summer of 2008, when I was in Tehran and Bolivia’s Evo Morales paid his first visit to the Iranian capital. Apart from the natural empathy La Paz and Tehran share as revolutionary governments, and their mutual distrust of the Yanqui, Morales announced that the sole Bolivian embassy in the Middle East, long based in Cairo, America’s ally, would be packing up and moving to Tehran, the center of state-sponsored anti-Americanism. To Bolivia, there was far more value to having close ties with Iran, potentially the regional superpower but importantly a wealthy and technologically advanced patron, than with Egypt, once the center of the middle eastern world but now less and less relevant to the world outside of its immediate neighborhood.
“IF HE ATTACKS Iran, in two minutes Bush is dead. We are Muslims. I am Hezbollah. We are Muslims, and we will defend our countries at any time they are attacked.” This not-uncommon sentiment was heard many times among avid supporters of Iran, such as members of Hezbollah. But this statement, made to Telemundo, the Spanish-language American network in 2007, was not made by a Lebanese citizen in Beirut or Tripoli, not even a disaffected man somewhere in the Middle East. It was uttered in Spanish by Mustafa Khalil Meri, a young Arab Muslim that Telemundo interviewed in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. Ciudad del Este, the city at the center of the largely lawless area intersecting Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, known as the Tri-border region, is home to a generation or two of Lebanese immigrants. Hezbollah, with the support of and as proxies of Iran, has set up shop in the Tri-border region, mainly to further the interests of Iran, not Lebanon, which can hardly be described as having special interests beyond its own fragile borders. And there is nothing the countries whose borders Hezbollah operatives move across with ease, whether smuggling arms, equipment, or cash, or the United States, can do about it. Thirty years ago, it wouldn’t have even occurred to Iranian government officials, not in their wildest dreams, that a small, unknown section of South America might be ripe for exploitation, or for creating a base for Iranian interests. Senior, well-traveled, and highly sophisticated officials in their well-tailored Western suits probably would have had trouble even identifying some of these South American countries on a map, let alone be able to describe their strategic importance to Iran. And yet in the spring of 2009, Avigdor Lieberman, a new right-wing foreign minister of Israel, undertook a tour of South America, a visit characterized by Israeli officials specifically as “an attempt by Israel to ward off Iran’s strengthening economic and diplomatic presence in the region.”
They presumably also meant, but didn’t want to say, military and intelligence presence. It is not surprising that Israel should take a keen interest in Iran’s influence in Latin America given that Israel believes Iran to be behind the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association, something Iran vehemently denies. However, Israel is also aware that when it comes to the struggle for dominance in the Middle East, economically and militarily, whoever has a longer global reach will have the advantage.
The United States, which should be far more concerned with Iran than its much smaller ally Israel is, has not completely ignored Iran’s foray into its own hemisphere, but it is unsure of what to do, or even what can be done, about it. In January 2009, in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “I’m concerned about the level of, frankly, subversive activity the Iranians are carrying on in a number of places in Latin America, particularly South America and Central America. They’re opening a lot of offices and a lot of fronts behind which they interfere with what is going on in some of these countries.” That description of Iranian activity in the region, “subversive” no less, would surprise most Latin Americans, given that the “offices” and “fronts” that Iran has opened have been mainly embassies, factories producing goods, banks, and direct airline service to the Middle East that bypasses the United States and Europe—sort of like what the United States has traditionally done wherever it has seen a market for export, import, and manufacturing. What Robert Gates didn’t want to say, evidently, was that Iran’s growing influence in the region, to say nothing of its already outsized influence in the Middle East, was a threat to American political and economic interests. Forget GM, Bechtel, Schwinn, and American bases; welcome Khodro, Kayson, and the Sepah. Catholic and socialist-leaning Latin America, oddly in some ways religiously and ideologically close to political Shiism, is one place where Iran is trying to lay the foundation for future influence and global relevance, if not renewed empire.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed Gates’s warning in December 2009, after Iran had advanced its relations further, despite domestic upheaval, in the intervening ten months. “We can only say,” Clinton said in reference to Latin American–Iranian ties, “that it is a really bad idea for the countries involved.” She accused Iran of being the “major supporter, promoter and exporter of terrorism in the world,” an argument not likely to convince any of the Latin American nations enjoying cordial relations, if not close ties, with the Islamic Republic, but she also warned that “if people want to flirt with Iran, they should take a look at what the consequences might well be for them. And we hope that they will think twice.” Hillary’s warning, some might say threat, was unusual in that Iranian relations with countries such as Bolivia and Venezuela had not been viewed until then with the kind of alarm that would warrant her choice of language. (Needless to say, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela lambasted the speech as U.S. “interference” in the internal affairs of his country.) American concerns, though, had little effect, for the president of another unlikely South American country keen on “flirting” with Iran, Guyana, showed up in Tehran in January 2010. Bharrat Jagdeo was granted a special audience with Supreme Leader Khamenei, where he remarked that Guyana welcomed Iran’s active presence in Latin America as well as in the Caribbean region. I can almost guarantee that most Iranians would not be able to tell you where Guyana is, let alone what it is.
Hezbollah setting up bases in the region, supported by Iran, could naturally be viewed as a military threat—whether in Paraguay, whose foreign minister Alejandro Hamed Franco was banned from entering the United States or even flying an American-flagged airline because of his alleged ties to the organization, or in countries like Venezuela where they can operate freely—but the real question is how much of a threat. Does Iran ever want to attack the United States or U.S. interests using its proxy, or does the implied threat of direct retaliation for an attack against itself or its interests suffice? It’s far more likely that Iran, following the Cold War playbook but with a twenty-first-century twist, and imagining itself, as unlikely as it seems, as a power to eventually rival the United States, positions itself not with armies and missiles on the borders of the United States and its allies, but with proxies able to engage in asymmetrical warfare should the need arise. That may be a practical consideration on the part of Iran at a time when it considers itself threatened over the nuclear issue. However, other factors also play into Iran’s move into Latin America, Africa, and even Asia, and they have to do with both its self-image and its economic development rather than any notions of asymmetrical warfare with the world’s greatest superpower.
AFTER THE overthrow of the Shah, one of the first things the new revolutionary government of Iran did was to define itself as neither in the Western nor in the Eastern (Soviet) ca
mp. The Iranian foreign ministry, a beautiful compound of art deco buildings with Persian flourishes set in park-like grounds in downtown Tehran, has a number of entrances, but the original building, one that houses the offices of the minister and many of his deputies, has two entrances through which all visitors must pass. Over the tall and heavy wooden doors are traditional blue Persian tiles, floral in design, with the Farsi words for “Islamic Republic of Iran” and “Ministry of Foreign Affairs” written into them. Underneath, in smaller letters, is also written, “Na gharbi, na sharghi; Jomhouri-e-Eslami”—“Neither Western, nor Eastern; Islamic Republic.” Self-image. This is Iran’s way of reminding the world, and indeed itself, that Iran is an independent nation that bows in no direction, a country that is neither the liberal democracy of the capitalist West nor the onetime atheist communist of the East. Rather, it is a state that has defined its own political system, unique in the world today, and is a sovereign entity.
Ayatollah Khomeini, in a speech to military officers just days before the revolution, said, “The foreign hands must be cut off from this nation. How much should America loot this country? How much Britain and other powers? We must resurrect ourselves, wake up, and take back our freedom…. We want an independent army, not a servant.” No Iranian politician, from the hard-line conservatives who rule to the leftist liberals, even those in jail, would disagree with Khomeini’s sentiments today. You are either with us or against us? How about neither? How about, we have the balls to say neither, and the balls to mean it. Sitting in New York, Washington, or a European capital, it is easy to imagine Iran as an isolated, forlorn place with a delusional government. But stand in the main hall of Imam Khomeini airport in Tehran and look up at the flat-screen flight monitors. There are planes arriving from every corner of the world, every day, and planes taking off for every corner of the world, including Caracas, every day. Except from and to the United States, of course. All of these planes are transporting passengers and goods, and from that vantage point Iran doesn’t seem so isolated. IKA, as the airport is known by International Air Transport Association, or IATA, codes, is not José Martí in Havana, nor is it Sunan International in Pyongyang. Iran imagines itself as not just a power to be reckoned with, but as an influential player whereby it figures into almost every other nation’s political and economic calculations.
PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD, perhaps overly given to the Persian penchant for gholov, often says things that appear to be nonsensical, particularly when he refers to the world’s problems as soon being solved by the Mahdi, or missing Imam, the Messiah of Shia Islam (who, according to him, will reappear on earth with Jesus by his side not just soon but near Qom, in Iran). But his words about Iran’s ambitions and its place in the world are merely a cruder expression of what most of the country’s leadership, and even much of the population, actually believe. In October 2008, regarding Iran’s role in the world, he said, “The mission of the Iranian nation differs with its mission 30 years ago. Our mission is now global and we believe that only the scientists and Ulema in Islamic Iran can play a pivotal role in guiding humanity in the right path. Therefore we should be well-prepared and accountable in dealing with the needs of the world.” Huh? Prepared to deal with the needs of the world? Some Iranians might say, particularly after the post-election unrest and upheaval, that Iran might want to deal with the needs of Iran before worrying about the world, but Ahmadinejad was expressing a view shared by the entire leadership that envisions Iran leading a new Muslim enlightenment. Of course, Ahmadinejad’s view of what Islamic enlightenment means is diametrically opposed to the view of many of the reform-minded clerics and certainly the political opposition to him. However, Ahmadinejad’s personal views on Islam are not that relevant in the long term, for unlike the senior clerics who no matter what office they hold at one time or another are always in the leadership, when his term as president is up, he will, like most U.S. presidents, lose much of whatever influence he has over the direction of Iran’s domestic and foreign policy, if not completely fade into oblivion. As long as there is an Islamic republic in Iran, and as long as the Ayatollahs maintain their support among the people, it is they and not lay politicians who will decide Iran’s role in “guiding humanity.”
IN THE MEANTIME, Ahmadinejad as president has done more to win hearts and minds across the globe than any previous Iranian head of state. Despite deep unpopularity at home, he continues to be popular abroad (outside the West, of course), among those who are either reflexively anti-American, generally anti-imperialist, or living under autocratic if not dictatorial regimes—which means most of the population of the world outside the developed countries. When Ahmadinejad visited Malaysia in 2007, he was treated to smiling throngs of people—men, women, and children—lining the streets by the tens of thousands and waving his portrait at his motorcade. Even in developed countries, however, Iran is popular among those who have more sympathy for the Palestinians than the Israelis, those who believe U.S. hegemony needs to be confronted, and those who root for the underdog in every fight.
We are sometimes blinded by our misunderstanding of terrorism, particularly terrorism directed at Israel. The West considers Iran to be a state sponsor of terrorism and therefore only one step removed from evil (or evil itself, according to one U.S. administration), but the majority of the planet’s population does not view what Iran is accused of, support for Hezbollah and Hamas, as terror sponsorship. While our televisions and newspapers show an act of terror against innocent Israelis, TV sets around the world show the daily misery of Palestinians suffering in refugee camps or in Gaza under a blockade. Hamas, viewers of those TV sets are reminded, won an election demanded by the United States, only to be vilified and deemed unacceptable leaders for the Palestinians by Israel and most Western countries after their victory. Iran and Syria are virtually the only two countries that continue to support Hamas, and insist that the Palestinian organization must be included in any peace process, a fact that makes both countries popular among the masses in the Muslim and Third World but unpopular among the leaders of Arab countries reliant on, and therefore reluctant to annoy, the United States.
Although Iran supports Hamas morally and economically, and is accused of supporting it militarily, it hasn’t cut off relations with the Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinian embassy in Tehran, on the site of the old Israeli embassy, is still an outpost of the Palestinian Authority, which means Fatah, the West’s allies, and Abbas appoints the ambassador. Hamas has an office and official representative in Tehran, though, and Iran has continued to court both parties, indicative of its wanting to play a role, so far denied it, in the peace process.
In early 2005, before President Khatami left office, I saw him one day at his office at Sa’adabad Palace in northern Tehran. The nuclear issue was then, as it is now, the primary concern of the West, and although Iran had suspended uranium enrichment while waiting for the West to deliver its proposals for a package of incentives, there was still much concern in the United States regarding the possibility of Iran joining the nuclear club. “I know,” Khatami said to me, smiling broadly, “they say we’re going to build a bomb and then hand it over to terrorists!” I explained to him that most Americans were concerned with Iran’s anti-Israeli stance and its support for Palestinian groups known to have engaged in terror, but not necessarily concerned with Iran attacking the United States. “Our position on the Palestinians and Israel is very clear,” he said, turning serious. “Iran will fully support whatever the Palestinians decide.” And although it appeared that his successor Ahmadinejad held a different view with his constant baiting of Israel, including his denials of the Holocaust, on at least two occasions his boss, the Supreme Leader, publicly repeated exactly what Khatami said to me, almost word for word, after particularly troubling Ahmadinejad outbursts. Ahmadinejad’s statements seemed to indicate, at least to those uninitiated in the ways of Persians, that Iran might independently seek to destroy Israel, something Iran has been at pa
ins to deny while at the same time keeping up a steady flow of anti-Israeli invective. But the official Iranian position of supporting whatever the Palestinians decide means supporting Hamas as well as maintaining relations with the Palestinian Authority, and that, whether we like it or not, is perfectly logical to the millions of hearts and minds who give a damn.
In the case of Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, Iran’s support for it is, again, extremely popular across the Muslim world. Israelis and many Westerners may view Hezbollah, a creation of the Islamic Republic, as a terrorist group, and it does consider Israel a mortal enemy, but unlike Hamas, Hezbollah is neither seeking to gain land at Israel’s expense (with the exception of the disputed Shebaa Farms) nor looking to help the Palestinians do so. A Shia group that is far more interested in power in Lebanon, Hezbollah has committed terrorist acts, including against Westerners in Beirut, but it has fought to expel foreigners, including an occupying Israeli army, and as such is viewed, rightly or wrongly, as a freedom movement that has twice defeated the most powerful army in the Middle East. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is popular among Shia and Sunni alike, and among Iranian leaders, conservative and reformist (one of the most liberal reformists I know in Tehran, a man who despises Ahmadinejad and the hard-line clerics who support him, is a close personal friend of Nasrallah’s, and he entertains him at his home whenever Nasrallah quietly visits Tehran).
Iranian citizens by and large support Hezbollah, perhaps more than they support the Palestinians, but in recent harder economic times some have begun to question the amount of Persian treasure devoted to a non-Persian cause. The leaders of Iran are unconcerned, though, mainly because they never make public the amount of money that goes to Hezbollah or Hamas (and in fact they deny they contribute militarily). They also know that whatever grumblings their overt financial support may cause, Iranians are still generally predisposed to support anti-Israeli groups over Israel itself. The hearts and minds Iran wins across the globe are, at any rate, paramount to its long-term ambitions of becoming a power to be reckoned with, and this means not only securing its legacy as the guardians of a resurgent Islamic Persian empire but also ensuring its longevity as those guardians. The election of 2009 in Iran, but more particularly the bloody aftermath beamed to televisions across the world, may have given pause, but many in the Muslim and Third World resent Western interference in their countries to such an extent that anything the West supports, even its questioning of the Iranian government’s legitimacy in the wake of the 2009 election, is viewed suspiciously.