The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict With Iran

by David Crist

  Despite reservations, the supreme leader agreed with the opening. The Swiss represented the official means to communicate between Washington and Tehran. While a new round of talks was scheduled in Geneva, the Bush administration had refused to expand their scope beyond Afghanistan and subjects only of interest to the Americans. Kharrazi reassured the supreme leader that Guldimann could get to the highest levels of the U.S. State Department. Ayatollah Khamenei expressed some concerns, but commented that he concurred with 80 to 95 percent of the points laid out as far as U.S. and Iranian goals for the talks, deliberately remaining vague about the points on which he disagreed. “But everything can be negotiated,” Khamenei said.21

  On May 2, Kharrazi met with Guldimann. After Guldimann made some minor changes to the document, Kharrazi said, “If the Americans agree to have a discreet bilateral meeting on the basis of this road map, the meeting could be arranged very soon. In this meeting our remaining reservations could be discussed, as well as the U.S. would bring in their reservations on this paper. I am sure that these differences could be eliminated.” If they agreed to the framework for talks, the next step, Kharrazi thought, would be a direct meeting between Secretary of State Powell and the Iranian foreign minister in Paris or Geneva with the supreme leader’s blessing. Kharrazi continued, adding a historic statement: “We are ready to normalize relations.”

  Guldimann clearly approved of this new opening. “This is a golden opportunity; one day we must find a solution,” the Swiss diplomat told Kharrazi. When asked if he believed that Armitage would represent the United States at the first meeting, Guldimann correctly thought he would be too senior, but recommended that it mimic the ongoing meetings with Khalilzad and Zarif on terrorism with a similar-level group, perhaps with Kharrazi or even Zarif.

  Guldimann sent the road map document with a cover letter describing his talks with Kharrazi through official channels back to the U.S. State Department. He followed it up with a quick visit to Washington, where he met with a powerful Republican, Congressman Bob Ney, a Farsi speaker known to advocate for talks with Iran. Guldimann provided a copy of the road map document to Ney and vouched for its authenticity. After meeting with the Swiss ambassador, Ney picked up the phone and called an old college friend at the White House, who happened to be the president’s close political adviser Karl Rove. Rove assured Ney that the Iranian overture would get in front of the president.

  The Guldimann fax with the Iranian road map circulated through the State Department. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Nicholas Burns brought it up to Armitage, who took it over to Powell. When Powell’s chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, read it, he immediately recognized many of the elements that Richard Haass had drafted at the beginning of the administration on the topics for negotiations. He claimed later that Haass’s memo had been slipped to the Iranians during the Crocker meeting in Geneva. “They were responding to what we gave them,” Wilkerson said.22 Hillary Mann, who had worked with Ryan Crocker during the earlier talks with Zarif and the Revolutionary Guard, recommended testing Iran’s sincerity. She drafted a memo and sent it to Richard Haass, who approved it and forwarded it up to the front office for Powell and Armitage. When the pugnacious John Bolton heard about it, he grew livid. “It was fantasy,” he said. Bolton remained convinced that talking to Iran was fruitless. “They used diplomacy-stalling techniques. This was little more than a ruse to buy more time for their nefarious activities and nuclear weapons program.”23 He spoke to Powell and told him it was a bad idea to talk to the Iranians. Then he phoned the Swiss embassy and berated them for the excesses of their ambassador, who had exceeded his instructions in managing the official channel.

  But Armitage remained skeptical about the provenance of this fax. “Guldimann was known to us as a very good person, but one who always looked on the brighter side of things. He seemed intent on bettering relations, and we had questions about where the Iranian message ended and the Swiss message began.”24 Iran’s willingness to abandon Hezbollah appeared too unrealistic. This memo seemed at odds, he told Powell, with what we had been hearing from the meetings in Geneva and our intelligence discussions. Armitage concluded “that Guldimann had gilded the lily.”25

  Powell passed the fax over to the White House for its review. With Armitage and Powell’s disinclination, Condoleezza Rice dismissed it. Elliott Abrams and the vice president already steadfastly opposed any negotiations and seized upon Guldimann’s tampering. Abe Shulsky, working for Doug Feith, dismissed the entire fax as just another probe, one of many from a very low-level functionary delivered in an obsequious manner.

  But Armitage and Powell, unfortunately, had missed the true provenance of the road map. No one bothered to validate the Swiss ambassador’s assertion that the supreme leader had blessed most points to be haggled. They never explored who had drafted the fax, and the input by Ambassador Zarif remained unknown in Washington. Had he known of Zarif’s hand behind the memo, Armitage said in an interview, “Yes, I would have taken it far more seriously.”26

  Meanwhile, on May 3, Zalmay Khalilzad and Ryan Crocker met Zarif and Iran’s Afghan ambassador, Mohammad Taherian, in Geneva, the first meeting of this group since the American invasion of Iraq. Khalilzad’s instructions—prepared by the White House the night before, following consultation with senior officials in the State and Defense Departments—were direct and confrontational. While Zarif never mentioned the fax from the Swiss, his words matched its cooperative spirit. His government was not looking for a conflict with the United States, he said, and supported the idea of a representative, democratic government in Iraq that included all religious and ethnic groups. Neither the Iranians nor the United States should impose a government in Baghdad. He added that Iran did not believe an Islamic government was desirable for Iraq, nor would it work in the multiconfessional society. Zarif provided a litany of intelligence gathered on the Taliban—new bases being built, reports about secret Pakistani support for Taliban insurgent groups opposing the United States and the Karzai government—all of which proved correct. As Khalilzad wrote to Condoleezza Rice two days later, “The meeting was more useful than previous meetings. The Iranians presented a moderate and pragmatic vision for Iraq.”

  The American delegation surprised the Iranians too. Khalilzad reaffirmed that the United States would disarm the MEK and continue to treat it as a terrorist organization, which, as Khalilzad recalled, “took the wind out of their sails.” Zarif had intended to give a lengthy lecture attacking the United States for harboring terrorists. When he heard the American position, he smiled, but added, “The way you treat the MEK is the way we will treat al-Qaeda.”

  Regarding al-Qaeda, Khalilzad pressed the Iranians to take immediate steps to thwart a planned attack. “There is absolutely reliable information that Iranian security forces have detained five members of al-Qaeda who have been operating in Iran. These same men have been planning a catastrophic attack in the Persian Gulf region. This attack will take place imminently,” the American envoy said. The U.S. government wanted these men detained and any information gleaned turned over through the parallel talks between the CIA and Iranian intelligence. If Iran did not act, the United States would hold the Iranian government responsible for the attack.

  Zarif responded that no Iranian officials harbored al-Qaeda. They would be punished, as the Iranian Supreme Council for National Security had declared the organization an enemy of Iran. But the Iranians looked surprised when Khalilzad rattled off the five names. Zarif replied that two of the men sought were already dead. An Iranian Revolutionary Guard general sitting with Zarif chimed in that just two weeks earlier their security forces had dismantled an al-Qaeda cell and arrested five men, plus more than forty family members.

  Zarif asked for more information regarding the timing of the forthcoming attack, but the Americans either did not have any more details or refused to provide them to the Iranians. Zarif agreed to look into it, and the meeting adjourned with the two sides agreeing to mee
t later in May.

  The planned attack occurred late in the night of May 12, 2003. Heavily armed militants and two suicide car bombers struck three different compounds linked to Western companies in the Saudi capital. One housed three hundred employees and family members of the Vinnell Corporation, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman that had a contract to train the Saudi national guard. Gunmen opened fire, trying to kill the security guards and open the path for the suicide vehicles. They managed to force their way into two of the fortress compounds, where they detonated their bombs, causing massive damage and killing thirty-five, including seven Americans. Two days later Secretary Powell toured the devastation, a scene eerily reminiscent of Khobar Towers, with a ten-foot crater and the front of one building sheared off by the blast.

  On May 15, the principals committee met, with Armitage standing in for his boss, who was still in Riyadh. A phone call between the perpetrators and an al-Qaeda member inside Iran suggested that terrorists inside Iran had planned the attack. While there was no evidence that Iran knew in advance about the attack, the United States put Tehran on notice, passing through the UN secretary general, the Swiss, and CIA channels that Washington would not tolerate any more such attacks and expected known al-Qaeda leaders to be turned over. There was no response from Tehran.

  Awkwardly, as the United States looked to rebuild an Iraqi military force, Bremer found himself calling up Baqir al-Hakim, the leader of the Badr Corps, to incorporate his ten-thousand-man, Iranian-backed militia into the new Iraq military. Iran had pushed many of al-Hakim’s soldiers into Iraq shortly after the U.S.-led invasion to begin building their control over the Shia population. Now the U.S. proconsul had invited them to help form the nucleus of a new army. Bremer was pleased with the idea. In his memoirs, he recounted meeting al-Hakim, trying to gain the leader’s support for a new army: “‘I promise you this, Sayyid,’ I said, using his honorific title. ‘The commander of the first battalion will be a Shiite.’ The Coalition kept that promise.” It, however, came with a price paid to Tehran.27 While it would be a misnomer to call al-Hakim a puppet of Iran, his fondness for Tehran exceeded that for Washington.

  In addition to infiltrating the army, Iranian agents or sympathizers infiltrated the new Iraqi police force. MOIS officers recruited several police officers to build a small spy ring focused on Kuwait to obtain information on U.S. forces in the emirate and on Kuwait’s own military.

  To try to contain the influx of Iranians, Feith suggested better control over the Iraqi border crossings. With the Iraqi forces having dissipated, the precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces resulting from Secretary Rumsfeld’s desire to pull forces out as quickly as possible left the borders entirely unguarded. For example, the U.S. Army’s 5th Special Forces Group was supposed to be replaced by a cavalry regiment along the Syrian border. However, the special operators pulled out of Iraq before being relieved, leaving no Americans along the Syrian border. Likewise, U.S. Marines assigned to guard the Iranian border withdrew before establishing control over the border crossings, one of the tasks General Tony Zinni had prescribed during his development of the initial Iraq war plan in the 1990s.

  An emboldened Iran even moved its own military checkpoints several kilometers inside Iraq along a significant section of the southern border near Basra. The Iranians ignored a British request to pull their forces back, so on July 17, 2003, the United States finally sent a démarche to Iran stating that this “forward movement of Iranian border posts is unacceptable.” While Iran denied ever having moved into Iraq, it responded to the American threat and promptly dismantled the checkpoints and pulled back across the recognized border.28

  As part of a campaign to influence the Iraqi populace, Iran began systematic broadcasts in Arabic with anticoalition themes sent into Iraq by fifty different radio and television stations. The broadcasts proved popular with Iraqis, in part because they had a polished Western format. CENTCOM developed a number of ideas to counter them, but all were hampered by the overall lack of an American policy toward Iran. With no approved national strategy, the authorities needed by the military never came from the secretary. Iranian broadcasts continued with a nascent American response. Opposition by the British government also restrained American efforts. The British military refused to discuss any overt jamming, let alone military strikes, and viewed the Iranian broadcasts to be inconsequential.29

  Instead, the United States tried to influence the Iraqi media as a means to counter Iran. This included hiring individuals to plant stories in the Iraqi media that reflected well on the United States. In September 2003, the United States conducted a “thirty-day surge” to substantially increase the volume, type, and quality of media information, all of which reflected well on the American effort. Newspaper distribution increased from sixty thousand to three hundred thousand, and the United States hired a Dubai firm to provide popular pro-Western television programs. How effective these efforts were remained an open question, but at least there seemed to be an American response to Iran’s media efforts.

  On Friday, December 26, 2003, a massive earthquake struck Bam in south-central Iran. The calamity killed over twenty-five thousand and devastated the ancient city and surrounding villages. As international aid mobilized to provide relief, the following morning Richard Armitage met with President Bush and proposed offering the Iranians humanitarian aid. The president liked the idea. “Do it.”

  Armitage asked the State Department’s command center to contact Javad Zarif, and it did so that afternoon. “Mr. Secretary, we’ve got Ambassador Zarif on the line. We’re dropping.”

  “Good morning or good afternoon,” said Zarif. The Iranian was in Tehran and had just walked in the door of his house.

  Armitage offered American assistance, adding, “There is no political agenda. We are not going to play any games. This is strictly a humanitarian gesture.”

  “It’s early in the morning here, and it won’t be until tomorrow before I can get an answer for you,” Zarif answered in his flawless English.

  “I understand,” replied Armitage. “The president instructed me to call you, and whenever you get an answer, just call me.”

  The next day, while Armitage watched football on his couch at home, he received a call back from Zarif. “We accept.”

  A mere two days after the earthquake, a gray-painted U.S. Air Force transport plane touched down in the airport at Kerman, Iran. Iranian soldiers came on board and helped the Americans off-load five pallets of medical supplies. Over the next few days, a mini airlift arrived in Iran, carrying tents, blankets, and an eighty-one-person hospital and search and rescue team. After two weeks and treating 727 patients, the Americans left Iran.30

  Armitage hoped the Iranians would use the humanitarian opening to counter with a gesture of their own. Instead, once the U.S. aid workers left, Iran fell silent. “If they wanted an opening with the U.S., that was a good opportunity, and I hoped they would. But nothing more came from the Iranian government,” Armitage later said.

  By the beginning of 2004, Iran believed it had the upper hand. With the threat of a U.S. invasion receding, Iran had positioned its surrogate forces and operatives throughout the key areas of southern Iraq. It had cooperated with Bremer in forming a new Iraqi governing council with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and other sympathizers as prominent members. The MOIS and Quds Force targeted recruitment of Iraqi government officials, and Iranian agents had even penetrated the Green Zone. Iranian-backed Shia clergy had assumed major roles in the holy cities. As the United States moved forward with Iraqi control over their government, pro-Iranian Iraqis continued to occupy key positions. The newly appointed Iraqi ambassador to Iran had long ties to Iranian intelligence and may have been a paid agent. The governing council that was formed in the summer of 2004 had the tacit approval of the Iranians through al-Hakim.31 Iran’s newly appointed ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Qomi, had served as the country’s chargé d’affaires since December 2003 and was a classic diplomat and Revolutionary Guard officer. He had
served as a Quds Force intelligence officer in Lebanon, and later as a diplomatic representative in the Iranian stronghold of Herat in Afghanistan. He was one of perhaps two dozen guard officers working undercover as diplomats in Iran’s Baghdad embassy. Iranian Quds Force operatives were all over Iraq, undercover as reporters, tourists, pilgrims, and businessmen. Meanwhile, the growing Sunni insurgency played into Iran’s hands. In a February 2004 interview, former president Hashemi Rafsanjani gloated, “[The United States is] stuck in the mud of Iraq, and they know that if Iran wanted to, it could make their problems even worse.”

  Twenty-Five

  THE FREEDOM AGENDA

  On a bright winter day with the National Mall covered in a dusting of snow, George Bush gave his second inaugural address. That fall, the president had comfortably won reelection, and after four years in the White House as a wartime president, Bush showed more confidence in himself and his core beliefs. The president wanted this inaugural address to be more than a litany of policy objectives. He wanted a grand statement about his vision, a Bush Doctrine, and he termed this “the freedom speech.”

  That day President Bush outlined a national manifest destiny to spread freedom and democracy. This was not only a historical calling of the United States, he argued, but it had become a security imperative: “For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny, prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder, violence will gather and multiply in destructive power.” Only freedom and liberty would break this hatred. “America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one,” Bush said. The ultimate goal of his manifesto was nothing less than “ending tyranny in our world.” The idea had fermented in the president’s mind after 9/11 and in the lead-up to attacking Iraq. Free elections in Iraq had lit the spark, one that would sweep across the Middle East, and “one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world,” he said.1