KHUZESTAN: THE FIRST FRONT IN THE WAR ON IRAN?
Pacifist
Early warnings
Watch the Western media for claims that Iran plans "ethnic cleansing"
on the scale of Kosovo or Darfur, in propaganda designed to manipulate
naïve liberals or human rights groups
Unquote
P
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KHUZESTAN: THE FIRST FRONT IN THE WAR ON IRAN?
by Zoltan Grossman
November 07, 2005
As their forces are increasingly bogged down in Iraq, George W. Bush
and Tony Blair are laying the groundwork for their next military
expansion, next door in Syria or Iran.
Their confrontation with Iran, in particular, has long been in the
cards. Three years before the invasion of Iraq, the Project for the New
American Century asserted that Iran "may well prove as large a threat
to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has."
When the U.S. media reports on the growing confrontation with Iran, it
invariably focuses on Tehran's nuclear program, Iranian leaders' verbal
sparring with Israel, and how both outside challenges are strengthening
the hand of Iranian "conservative" hardliners against "moderate"
reformers.
Yet little attention has been paid to the potential role of ethnic
minorities in the Iran crisis, particularly of the Iranian Arab
minority, centered in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. Events in
the oil-rich province bordering Iraq could serve as a harbinger of
U.S.-British intentions in Iran, and expose Khuzestan as Iran's
Achilles Heel. Recently, a series of bombings and ethnic clashes has
begun to show that something is rotten in Khuzestan, which could be an
early warning of a coming war.
Last June, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter warned that the
U.S. is building up military capabilities in Azerbaijan, on Iran's
northern border, and sponsoring rebel bombings inside Iran. The
obstacles to a full-scale invasion of Iran would at first glance appear
to be formidable. As Ivan Eland has observed, "invading Iran would
likely make the bloody quagmire in Iraq look like a picnic. Iran has
nearly four times the territory and three times the population of Iraq.
Also, Iran's terrain is much more mountainous than Iraq's and even more
ideal for guerrilla warfare."
Yet if ethnic tensions in Khuzestan province can be effectively
exploited by the U.S. and Britain, they may feel that a more limited
destabilization or invasion will put Iran's main oil province under
Western control. In other words, the prospects of an invasion may loom
larger, simply because Bush thinks it can be a "mission accomplished"
with less effort than an all-out conquest of Iran. Bush and Blair use
the prospects of civil war to justify their continuing occupation of
Iraq (though their actions instead appear to be stimulating an Iraqi
civil war). They are also not above stimulating a little ethnic strife
to get their way next door in Iran.
Think of Khuzestan as a "Kuwait-Inside," with most of Iran's crude oil
deposits contained within the small province. Like in Iraq, Nigeria or
Colombia, much of the oil is under the lands of a historically
aggrieved ethnic minority. The Arab Shi'ites living on the plains of
western Khuzestan share both their ethnicity and faith with the
majority Arab Shi'ites across the strategic Shatt al-Arab waterway in
Iraq. Arabs make up only 3% of Iran's population, but a majority (or at
least a plurality) of about 3 million in Khuzestan (which some Arabs
call "Ahwaz" or "Arabistan"). Iranian-speaking Luri and Bakhtiari
tribes inhabit the Zagros mountain range to the east. Persians also
live in the large provincial cities, such as Abadan, Khorramshahr,
Ahvaz, Dezful, and Bandar-e Khomeini.
A Key Pivot
For centuries, Khuzestan has been a key pivot of Iran's history and
economy. Khuzestan was the seat of the ancient civilization of Elam,
with its capital at Susa. It was overrun by numerous civilizations and
tribes, including the Persian Empire in 539 BC, and often functioned as
a frontier zone between empires. Arabs from Basra colonized the
province in 642 AD, though it usually has been formally controlled by
Persia.
In 1897, the British Empire backed Khuzestani Arab rulers to secede
from Persia and become the de facto British protectorate of "Arabistan"
(much as the British did in neighboring Kuwait). The entire southern
zone of Persia was declared a British "sphere of influence" in 1907,
and the following year a British adventurer discovered oil in
"Arabistan," at Masjed Soleyman. The discovery created the
Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later renamed British Petroleum (BP). In
1925, Reza Shah's forces retook "Arabistan," and renamed it Khuzestan,
as he renamed "Persia" as Iran a decade later.
British troops occupied Khuzestan during World War II, but after the
war Iranians grew more concerned that Westerners had a stranglehold on
their oil wealth. In 1951, the Iranian nationalist leader Mohammed
Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry based mainly in Khuzestan
(including Anglo-Iranian's holdings), drawing the wrath of Western
powers. Two years later, a CIA-engineered coup ousted Mossadegh, and
installed the new Shah Reza Pahlevi, who opened Khuzestan to a
U.S.-British oil concession.
In 1978, Arab oil workers in Khuzestan went on strike against the Shah,
and played a central role in the Iranian Revolution that toppled him
the following year. They openly supported the revolution in its early
months, when it included leftist and other secular parties (that were
later crushed by the Islamic Republic). Encouraged by Western powers
that were threatened by the revolution, Saddam Hussein launched a
brutal invasion of Khuzestan in 1980, and occupied its western Arab oil
region. He tried to engineer the secession of the province from Iran,
and backed an Arab separatist rebel group (which also briefly seized
the Iranian Embassy in London).
Yet in the Iran-Iraq War, most Iranian Arab Shi'ites fought on the side
of Persian-ruled Iran, just as Iraqi Arab Shi'ites fought on the side
of Saddam's Sunni-ruled Iraq. State territoriality trumped both ethnic
and religious territoriality, in a massive slaughter complete with
trench warfare and "human wave" attacks, aerial bombing and missile
strikes, and the use of chemical weapons on both sides. Iranian forces
pushed the Iraqis out of Khuzestan in 1982, but the province's cities
and oil refineries were the most heavily damaged in the war, that
finally ended in 1988. (The U.S. had cynically had supplied aid to
bleed both sides, including a naval intervention to escort vessels
carrying Iraqi oil, and the sale of missiles to the Iranians.)
COLOR MAP of Iran's ethnic groups and oil fields:
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/KHUZESTAN.gif
Iran remained neutral during the 1991 Gulf War, which was waged within
earshot of Khuzestan. After the war, the U.S. allowed Saddam to crush
an Iraqi Shi'ite rebellion next to Khuzestan, in fear that a
Shi'ite-majority ruled Iraq would become a satellite of Tehran. Yet
although Iraqi Ayatollah Sistani was born in Iran--and the holiest
Shi'ite cities of Karbala and Najaf are within Iraq--the Iraqi Shi'ite
clerics do not generally favor an Iranian-style theocratic state that
might alienate their youth from the religion.
Tehran opposed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, even if it was glad to
see Saddam's capture. The contrast in U.S. and Iranian policy stands as
a textbook case of the advantages of a political strategy over a
military strategy. Washington invaded Iraq, lost at least 2,000 troops,
was bogged down by a growing insurgency, and saw its influence (and its
favored exile candidates) rejected by Iraqis. In contrast, Tehran
watched as its second-greatest enemy eliminated its greatest enemy,
advised its Iraqi allies to play along with the occupation so their
candidates could run in elections, then saw the Shi'ite parties come to
power--all without firing a shot.
New Rumblings
In 2005, the conflict between Iraqi Shi'ites and the occupation forces
has grown more intense, particularly in the oil-rich British occupation
zone around Basra. A violent series of events has oddly pointed toward
neighboring Khuzestan as (once again) the best barometer of conflict
along the Iran-Iraq border.
In Basra on September 19, British troops clashed with Iraqi police and
Shi'ite militia, who had ironically welcomed the toppling of Saddam two
years ago. The police had arrested two British undercover commandos who
possessed suspicious bomb-making materials. British troops launched an
armored raid on the jail to free their agents, fighting the same Iraqi
police they had earlier trained. Iraqis had thought it strange that
British agents would be caught with the types of bombs associated with
insurgents attacking "Coalition" troops, and some assumed that the
agents were trying to pit Iraqi religious groups against each other.
Yet at the same time, bombs were going off across the border in
Khuzestan. In June, a series of car bombings in Ahvaz (75 miles from
Basra) killed 6 people. In August, Iran arrested a group of Arab
separatist rebels, and accused them of links to British intelligence in
Basra. In September, explosions hit Khuzestani cities, halting crude
oil transfers from onshore wells. On October 15, two major bomb
explosions in an Ahvaz market killed 4 and injured 95. A November 3
analysis in Asia Times blames Iraqi Sunni insurgents for the bombings.
Iranian officials accused Britain of backing the attacks, and tied the
rebel bombs to the British commando incident in Basra. The Daily Star
of Beirut reported on October 17 that Iranian officials "point to
Western collusion in the sudden spike this year in ethnic unrest in the
strategic, oil-producing province of Khuzestan and describe it as proof
of a shadowy war that is receiving far less coverage in the
international press than events in Iraq. Since the beginning of 2005,
riots and a bombing campaign timed to coincide with the June
presidential elections rocked Khuzestan's major cities."
Tony Blair and his Foreign Secretary Jack Straw denied the charges, and
in turn accused Tehran of sending agents to stir up trouble in Basra
and other Iraqi cities, by supporting Iraqi Shi'ite militias. A
London-based Arab exile group claims that the Iranian Revolutionary
Guards are establishing an exclusive military-industrial zone along the
Iraqi border to support infiltration into Basra, is carrying out
"ethnic cleansing" of Arab farmers for this Free Zone project, and has
conducted large exercises to practice quelling Arab unrest in
Khuzestan.
Has London tried to encourage Iranian Arab rebels in Khuzestan? In
March, Secretary Straw had met with London-based Iranian Arab exiles.
The following month, a letter allegedly from the Iranian Vice-President
was read on Al-Ahwaz television (broadcast from the U.S. via satellite)
supposedly advocating the removal of Arabs from Khuzestan and the
importation of Persians to settle the strategic region. Though Tehran
denounced the letter as a forgery, Arab youths took the streets of
Ahvaz and clashed with police. Five were killed, and over 400 Arabs
were arrested in a crackdown after the riots. A November 4 Eid protest
of the continuing arrests of Arab activists reportedly ended with 2
protesters dead and 200 arrested, according to the British Ahwazi
Friendship Society.
The Arabs of Khuzestan have long resented Tehran for failing to
alleviate chronic poverty and unemployment in the oil-rich province,
and for neglecting postwar reconstruction of the bombed-out cities. But
even if Arab minority grievances are real and legitimate (which they
are), the timing of Western interest in their grievances coincides too
neatly with the larger desire to pressure and isolate Iran. Both
Washington and London have a long history of championing the rights of
an ethnic minority against an "enemy" government, then abandoning or
selling out the minority when it is no longer strategically useful.
Early warnings
Watch the Western media for claims that Iran plans "ethnic cleansing"
on the scale of Kosovo or Darfur, in propaganda designed to manipulate
naïve liberals or human rights groups. Watch Fox News for the new
neo-con warning of an emerging "Shi'ite bloc" of Iran, southern Iraq,
Alawite-ruled Syria, and Lebanese Hezbollah (which incidentally has had
training camps in Khuzestan). Neo-cons may even urge Bush to pull back
support for Iraqi Shi'ite leaders, and to take a harder line on Iran's
nuclear and human rights violations.
Even if the truth of exaggerated claims and conspiracy theories can be
easily challenged, their main purpose is to win public support in the
West for a new war against Iran, just as false WMD claims were used to
win congressional support for an Iraq invasion. Some Democrats may be
gullible enough to again accept such claims, including those who
criticized Bush for confronting Iraq rather than Iran on WMD (such as
John Kerry, who wrote that "tougher measures" may be needed against
Iran).
Many of Khuzestan's Arabs may seek to regain their autonomy from
Tehran. But it is not clear that they wish to secede from Iran, nor to
join Iraq--even if it is now ruled largely by fellow Arab Shi'ites.
Iraqi Shi'ite leaders (many of whom recently returned from exile in
Tehran), would not want to alienate their old friends by encouraging
Khuzestan's Arabs, or allowing Iraqi territory to be used as a
launching pad for a new invasion.
The Americans and British, however, do not necessarily need Iraqi
territory to invade Iran. They can launch strikes from aircraft
carriers against Iranian nuclear power installations. If their goal is
only oil-rich Khuzestan, they could again use nearby Kuwait as a
staging ground for this new invasion to "liberate" oppressed Arabs. If
their ultimate goal actually is Tehran, they could use Afghanistan or
Azerbaijan as a staging ground. They could stimulate rebellion among
ethnic Azeris in northwestern Iran (much as the Soviets did at the end
of World War II), or among Iranian Kurds -- at the risk of inspiring
Kurdish separatists in Iraq and Turkey.
The "Khuzestan Gambit"
But the key to the future of Iran is in its southwest, in
Khuzestan--with its oil fields, its shared ethnic-religious identity
with Iraq, and its proximity to U.S. and British forces eager to secure
final revenge for the ouster of the Shah. The Beirut Daily Star
predicts that the "first step taken by an invading force would be to
occupy Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan Province, securing the sensitive
Straits of Hormuz and cutting off the Iranian military's oil supply,
forcing it to depend on its limited stocks."
The defense website Globalsecurity.org even names this invasion
strategy the "Khuzestan Gambit," astutely observing that the province
"is the one large piece of flat Iranian terrain to the west of the
Zagros Mountains. American heavy forces could swiftly occupy Khuzestan,
and in doing so seize control of most of Iran's oil resources, and
non-trivial portions of the country's water supply and electrical
generating capacity."
In a "Khuzestan Gambit" strategy, U.S. and British forces aiding an
Arab uprising would turn Khuzestan into a de facto autonomous
protectorate of "Arabistan" or "Ahwaz," in order to take control of the
country's oil-dependent economy. By holding the region as an economic
"hostage," they could then dictate their terms to Tehran. Pentagon
strategists' fanciful thinking may be that, without access to the
country's oil wealth, the ruling clerics would be undermined and
Iranian reformers would lead a new revolution.
Yet like previous strategies in Iraq, this one will also be sure to
backfire, by destroying any chance of reform in Iran, and rallying
"moderate" Iranians around their government. Even a limited
intervention--for example, to halt an Iranian crackdown on Arab
dissidents--could inspire Arab Gulf States to militarily assert their
claims to islands long disputed with Iran. If Khuzestan officially or
unofficially secedes, the move could set into motion the
"Balkanization" of Iran, which would inevitably tear apart neighboring
countries.
On top of all that, the Americans and British may simply lose a new war
against Iran, just as they are losing the war in Iraq today. Iran's
Revolutionary Guards are more formidable fighters than Saddam's
Republican Guard. The Iranian military could launch a counterattack or
effectively melt into an Iraq-style insurgency. If Tehran feels backed
into a corner, it may desperately retaliate with exactly the strategy
that Bush and Blair have accused it of -- backing attacks on the West
and Israel, or deploying nuclear weapons. If their land and oil is
being occupied anyways, what would Iranians have to lose?
Zoltan Grossman is a Member of the Faculty in Geography and Native
American Studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
He received his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, and has written and organized around connections
between military interventions, natural resources, and ethnic
nationhood.
His writings are at http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz and e-mail
at gros...@evergreen.edu (Thanks to Ali Abootalebi for draft
comments.)
Constantinus
Brits are finished in irak , they will pull out next year
btw
you don´t need Darfur or khuzistan
If you want to see the ethnical conflict and civil war , just look
at France .
Pacifist
It is the stated intention of USraeli Neocons to break up Iran and
other, larger Middle Eastern nations that are strategic competitors of
Israel. All the US chest beating about Human and ethnic Rights ought
to be seen in that context.
America should be defreated in the Middle East, or Iran shall die.
P
constantinus
The time of iran is coming.
"Pacifist" <mushr...@hotmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1131990717.1...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
Sirknight67
in soon so shut up and eat the grass before the snow comes
constantinus
and time for you , to change your sex.
stop to be a poor gay , transexual
"Sirknight67" <sirkn...@prodigy.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1132000992.7...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
RBRK
Sirknight67
you truly are the STUPIDEST dumbfuck nitwit jack ass that has ever come
to this group. I don't think in 7 or 8 years time, there has bene a
single individual who's scored so low on IQ as you. MORON, someone
who's gay is GAY you miserable idiot, a transexual is a totally
different thing. A guy (YOU) likes to take it in the ass. A transexual
is someone who wants to get a sex change because he/she feels trapped
in the body of the wrong sex.
You're a fucking donky trapped in the body of a goat. I have never come
across anyone so miserably under-informed, ill-educated and
knowledgeable about zip in his miserable thirty plus years. ooh wait,
actully I did, when I was in the third grade!
constantinus
you don´t feel like a woman , you feel like a dog.
"Sirknight67" <sirkn...@prodigy.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1132024569.4...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Pacifist
then jump in the middle of a thread that is about Iran's integrity and
make cheap shots against another, without any provocation.
Was it really necessary to post what you did to constantinus?
You don't need to answer me. Just think about it.
P
Sirknight67
MADAR JENDEH TOOLE SAG have you ever once opened your filthy trash
sewer hole you cocksucker anti-Iranian Albanaian without spewing shit
out of it? ONE SINGLE positive contribution to SCI besides showing your
utter stupidity and making everyone laugh and wonder how one comes to
have a negative IQ?
kiram to dahane madar jendat algooz, people have known for decades that
smoking crack while pregnant results in heavy brain damage. You are the
poster boy for a campaign against mothers on drugs
Sirknight67
sinking in. he is a worthless fucking moron. Frankly, I have never met
anyone in my entire life who was as stupid and ill-educated as that
moron. God knows what shithole he crawled from.