Iran: Cold calculations in Gaza

Iran’s engagement with the war kicked off officially two days after the outbreak of hostilities, on 28 December when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made one of his strongest statements on a foreign policy issue in memory, calling Israelis “war-mongering infidels.”

Ayatollah Khamenei used his authority as the spiritual leader of millions of Muslims to anoint all those who would fall fighting Israel as official martyrs and casting aspersion on various mischief-makers.

Decrying the passivity of Sunni political and religious leaders as “more tragic than the Zionists’ crimes,” the Supreme Leader asked rhetorically: “What answer would these leaders have to give to the Holy Prophet?

“My question to the Arab world’s ulama and clerics and to the leaders of Egypt’s Al Azhar [the Sunni world’s principal theological seminary] is: Isn’t it time you finally felt obligated towards Islam and toward Muslims?”

An Iranian academic who follows these developments found this statement significant. “It [the statement] is unusual in many ways more than one,” he told ISN Security Watch on condition of anonymity.

“First it is only one grade lower than an official fatwa. Secondly, it is uncommonly emotional and full of pathos. Third, about 70 percent of it is devoted to attacking Arab political and religious leaders. Fourth, the ayatollah speaks with the authority of the leader of all Muslims as opposed to Shias or some Shias.”

On the morrow of the issue of the statement, Iranian emissaries were sent out on various diplomatic missions throughout the world while a nation-wide mobilization of sorts was called forth inside the country. Hundreds of thousands of people including school children took to the streets chanting and marching while the official media were filled with minute-by-minute analysis of the war itself.

For instance, Al-Alam, Iran’s official Arabic-language satellite radio and TV ran non-stop programming publicizing the plight of the Palestinians and their resistance and taking in callers from around the world in its talk shows.

Almost spontaneously, tens of thousands of militant university students and seminarians signed up to join suicide missions against Israel. The same individuals pelted or smeared the walls of the British, Egyptian and Jordanian embassies and threatened to seize their compounds if the war continued. One student group, calling itself Student Movement for Justice, even put up a poster announcing a price for the head of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. (They were apparently angry at Egypt because it refused to open border crossings with Gaza and relieve the pressure on civilians.)

The backlash of ambition

At first, the government was basking in the glow of its own propaganda. Many ordinary Muslims were incensed with the ongoing carnage and public opinion polls showed a discernible shift toward the Iranian position.

However, by week’s end, there were signs of a possible backlash. The government of Jordan recalled its diplomatic mission from Iran, while the Egyptian government threatened to close down the Iranian interest section in Cairo. Mubarak himself lashed out at the Islamic state, calling it “a noxious influence” bent on “swallowing non-Persian states.” Several state-controlled newspapers and TV stations in the Arab world likewise attacked Iran’s interference in their internal affairs.

But perhaps the clearest sign that the government may have been a victim of its own success was inside Iran itself. There, while the initial frenzy of the would-be suicide missions was fizzling out, a small group of hardcore student volunteers prepared to join the fight by staging sit-ins at the airports.

At first, the government seemed pleased with this development. Various officials from government ministers to presidential aids made daily visits to the students, showering them with praise and exhorting other students in the Middle East to emulate their brethren's cause. However, the government never actually meant this to be anything more than a symbolic gesture, and by early January, several officials were quietly urging the students to go back to their studies. But to no avail.

Even the personal intervention of the top commander of the Revolutionary Guards, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, did not dissuade the young volunteers from their self-described mission. Several of them told their families that they would leave for Gaza on their own if the government failed to provide them with diplomatic and logistical support.

On 6 January, an angry Davood Ahmadinejad - the president’s brother and his chief of protocol - made a personal visit to Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport and berated the students for their wayward behavior, asking them not to interfere in state policy. According to the student website, www.edalatkhah.ir, instead of giving in to Ahmadinejad’s injunction, the students greeted him with a series of scathing questions about his government’s policies. One student accused the government of favoring the interests of the rich and the powerful over those of the poor and the dispossessed. Another questioned the government’s foreign policy as motivated by self-interest and expediency.

Indeed, it seemed that only the country's top religious leaders could have stopped the students in their zealous pursuit. Thus, on 8 January, the Supreme Leader himself issued a statement in which he made it clear that he was against the volunteer missions: “On the matter of Gaza, I thank the enthusiastic and pious youth who have asked to be dispatched to Gaza from the country’s airports and other terminals,” he said. “But it must be made clear that our hands are tied in this regard.”

Even on the issue of the supposed inaction of Arab leaders, the Supreme Leader toned down his rhetoric considerably. In a 9 January speech to his supporters in the Holy City of Qum, he merely confined himself to asking the Arab leaders to change their stance on Palestine since the result of their behavior would “embolden Islam’s enemies [...]." 

In addition, Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani traveled to several Arab capitals with conciliatory messages from Iranian leaders.

It is generally believed that Iran even urged ally Hizbollah to refrain from opening a second front from southern Lebanon against Israel. Instead, it was left to a secular Palestinian group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command, to fire a few token missiles on northern Israel while Hizbollah turned a blind eye.

Fiery rhetoric meets harsh reality

“Unlike two decades or even a decade ago, the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy is now driven by cold calculation and not by rhetoric or other considerations,” the political scientist told ISN Security Watch.

“For example, it was clearly not in Iran’s interest at this juncture to be seen as a general destabilizing force in the area. While the US has been busy trying to isolate Iran for its nuclear program and its support for groups like Hamas, Iran has been countering this by reaching out to neighbors and fellow-Muslim states. Overall, US efforts have had mixed results.”

For instance, two months ago, while the 5+1 countries invited Arab governments to a special meeting in New York devoted to Iran’s nuclear program and pointedly excluding Iran, several states declined to attend. Some of those states which had attended the meeting, such as Bahrain, immediately sent emissaries to make amends to Tehran. Likewise, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice regularly visits the region asking Arab regimes to join in a broad anti-Iran alliance, few have so far agreed to US blandishments.

Even Egypt, which has no official diplomatic relations with Iran was - before the outbreak of hostilities - on the verge of restoring its ties with the Islamic state.

“Gaza presented Iranian leaders with both opportunities and risks,” said the academic. “On the one hand, it was a golden opportunity to win over Sunni Arab masses. On the other hand, it threatened to force Arab leaders into the arms of the US, undoing years of diligent work by Iranian diplomats.”

Aside from this, there is the question of Hamas itself as an important military and a political ally of Iran - and its sole Sunni friend in the Arab world.

Iran has worked very hard in the last few years to gain the trust of Hamas leaders, and a military defeat for it at this stage could badly damage Iranian long-term interests in the area. It is not known if Iran had urged Hamas not to renew the six-month ceasefire with Israel which ostensibly precipitated the fight, but there are no indications that it had urged Hamas not to break it either. Judging from the pages of the hard-line press, Iran appeared to solidly back the decision, probably calculating that Israel was in a weak position overall - given that both Israel and the Palestinian Authority would soon face elections and George W Bush would leave office within days.

Therefore, at present, Iranian leaders must be watching the ground operation in Gaza with a good deal of trepidation. A military and political defeat for Hamas would open the door for moderate forces in Palestine and the region to take center stage – something that would be viewed as a major setback for radical forces like Iran. But as the Supreme Leader himself has said, Iran’s hands are currently tied in this regard.