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Arash

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Nov 4, 2005, 5:06:50 PM11/4/05

Asia Times
November 3, 2005

British Arabism and the bombings in Iran

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/images/lawrence2.gif
Lawrence of Arabia

By Mahan Abedin and Dr. Kaveh Farrokh

Following the recent bomb attack in Ahvaz and the riots and bombings in late spring,
the Iranian government, as well as other sections of Iranian society both inside and
outside the country, has pointed an accusing finger at the United Kingdom.

On the surface the accusations seem implausible, not least because they invoke
irrational Iranian fears of British guile and omnipotence. However, there is a mass
of evidence that connects the British secret state to Arab separatism in Iran.

Whether these connections make the United Kingdom complicit in the recent troubles in
Khuzestan is currently unclear. But, at the very least, the British connection
fatally undermines claims that the recent troubles in Iran's strategic southwestern
province are either wholly rooted in local conditions or the work of elements in the
Islamic republic who seek to "militarize" the country.

British Arabism

An in-depth understanding of the British sponsorship of Arab separatism in Iran
requires an understanding of British Arabism in its entirety. Francis Fukuyama
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Fukuyama), in his description of the American
Arabists, opines that they are "... a sociological phenomenon ... Arabists not only
take on the cause of the Arabs, but also the Arabs' tendency for self-delusion".

That tendency for self-delusion is vividly expressed by the main tenets of Arab
nationalism, which views all non-Arab Muslim peoples as subsidiary to the Arab
language and culture.

Moreover, Robert Kaplan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Kaplan) observes that
psychologically the English-speaking Arabist is "obsessed with the Arabs ... a
defining Arabist trait". This psychological process is subsumed under British
commercial and political interests. This is vividly exemplified in the case of T E
Lawrence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence), as defined by Kaplan (1993):
"Lawrence ... among Arabs in the desert ... became pro-Arab; in Whitehall he was
pro-Empire".

British Arabism can trace its origins to geopolitical imperialism, namely the need to
project political, economic, and if necessary, military power into Persia. The first
official Arabists are Sir Charles Lyall (1845-1920
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_James_Lyall) and William Muit, both civil
servants of the British East India Company.

Lyall published works on Arabic literature, including pre-Islamic odes, while Muit
wrote extensively about the Arab caliphate. It is difficult to ascertain why they
were so keenly interested specifically in Arabic, as Arabic, along with Persian and
Sanskrit, had been banned from India's educational system since the 1830s.

Another early Arabist was a Cambridge professor, Edward Henry Palmer
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Henry_Palmer), whose knowledge of Arabic was
useful in his role as a secret agent in Egypt, where he died in action in August
1882.

It was in the Arab Bureau of Cairo, however, where British Arabism was formally
implemented as a tool for the advancement of British geopolitical and economic
interests. The Arab Bureau was set up on February 4, 1916. It was from here that the
British coordinated their activities with the local Arab sheikhs of the Persian Gulf.

Their main mission by World War I was to foster an Arab rebellion by way of the
invention of Arab nationalism, a domain viewed as a "product" by the British Foreign
Office (http://www.fco.gov.uk) and the Arab Bureau, founded in 1916
(http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-00794-X.html). The primary objective was
to accomplish the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Arab nationalism, since the
conclusion of World War I, has been encouraged to focus itself against Iran, an
ideological proclivity that was taken to its logical extremes by the Ba'athist regime
of Saddam Hussein.

Today, the Arab Bureau survives in the form of various innocuous-sounding
organizations, namely the Arab-British Center (http://www.arabbritishcentre.org.uk),
the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, CAABU
(http://www.caabu.org), the Arab-British Charitable Trust, the Labor Middle East
Council, LMEC (http://www.lmec.org.uk), the Anglo-Arab Association and (until 1979),
Middle East Center for Arab Studies (MECAS).

While British Arabism has penetrated many sectors of British national life, it is
particularly influential in the intelligence, academic and media fields. It is
interesting to note that British academic Arabists do not focus on the entire Arab
world, which includes Egypt and Libya. Instead, the British academic Arabists have
been almost exclusively preoccupied with the eastern Arab world, which is contiguous
to Iran (historical Persia) and the Persian Gulf, areas rich in fossil fuels and
hence of prime importance to British economic and commercial interests.

To summarize, British Arabism, although a genuine academic discipline and
psychological condition, is ultimately a device for furthering British interests in
the Middle East. Moreover, the apparent advocacy of Arab issues among British
Arabists is selective in three ways:

1) They have remained largely silent (or neutral) with respect to the
Arab-Palestinian disputes with the Israelis.

2) They have opposed the formation of a single unified Arab superstate along the
lines proposed by T E Lawrence.

3)They actively support anti-Persian views with respect to the role of Persia in the
geography, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, history and culture of Islam, the
Arabic world, and the Persian Gulf.

British intelligence and Iranian Arab separatists

The severing of Iran's Khuzestan province and its "Arabization" has been a long-held
British goal. In fact, this policy was made clear in the November 2, 1944 editorial
of the Times of London, which proposed Iran's dismemberment by having Khuzestan
appropriated by the British.

To achieve this long-term objective, British Arabists have supported Arab nationalist
activities (academic and military) against Iran and in Khuzestan in particular.
Needless to say, this plan neatly converged with the ideology and geopolitical
aspirations of Arab nationalists, particularly of the Ba'athist variety.

When Iraq invaded Iran on September 22, 1980, with the stated intent of annexing
Khuzestan, the BBC news network and English print media, as well as other major
Western media outlets, provided full overage of the Iraqi invasion in the first week.

There were two main premises to the reporting:

a) Iranian resistance would collapse quickly;
b) the Arabs of Khuzestan would fully support the invasion.

These premises proved to be utterly unfounded, with Iranian resistance actually
stiffening, leading to the permanent expulsion of Saddam's armies from Khuzestan in
1982. The vast majority of Iranian Arabs not only did not support Saddam, but were in
fact at the forefront of resistance to the Iraqi invaders.

The failed Iraqi invasion of Khuzestan (which was partly based on British invasion
plans dating back to 1937) has been, to date, the most concerted and determined
effort to sever the province from Iran. The fact that it failed was a massive blow to
small groups of separatists in the area, and they would have likely faded away had it
not been for the patronage of the Iraqi and British intelligence services.

Although Iranian Arab separatists have had a presence in the UK since the 1970s,
their activities became noteworthy after the 1979 Islamic revolution. Working in
concert with Iraqi intelligence services, Khuzestani separatists engaged in low-level
sabotage operations against Iranian interests in the UK and mainland European
countries.

These sabotage activities reached a dramatic climax on April 30, 1980 when
Iraqi-backed Khuzestani separatists seized the Iranian Embassy in London. The
subsequent siege lasted for five days, during which time Iraqi agents killed two of
the embassy's staff. But the terrorists offered virtually no resistance when
Britain's elite Special Air Services stormed the embassy building, killing five out
of the six Iraqi agents
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/5/newsid_2510000/2510873.stm).

The dramatic events at the embassy were very much the exception to the rule, as far
as British pressure on UK-based Khuzestani separatists was concerned. Indeed, from
the early 1980s, the UK has been home to almost all expatriate Khuzestani separatists
(with a small number also based in Baghdad), where their activities are tolerated as
long as they do not engage in brazen acts of violence on British soil.

Behind the scenes, however, British toleration in the 1980s translated into active
cooperation with the separatists. In some cases, the British even shared separatist
agents with the Iraqi intelligence services. In two specific cases dating back to
1985, the British used Khuzestani separatists to infiltrate the Iranian consulate in
Manchester and the Iranian Air Force logistics office in the National Iranian Oil
Company office in Westminster.

It is interesting to note that both the Iranian consulate in Manchester and the
logistics office were closed down by the British government in 1987. It is unclear
whether information supplied by the separatist agents was a decisive factor in the
closure of these establishments.

But the spirit of public toleration and private cooperation collapsed, almost
overnight, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Saddam's brazen
challenge to the West and Iraq's desire to change the geopolitical balance of the
region forced Western intelligence services to cease their cooperation with their
Iraqi counterparts. Khuzestani Arab separatists were one of the many victims of this
sudden collapse in relations between Iraq and the West.

The Second Persian Gulf War of early 1991 and the catastrophic defeat of Iraq further
added to the separatists' woes. Today, Khuzestani separatist spokesmen in the UK
claim that their cooperation with Iraqi intelligence services ended after the
Iran-Iraq War in 1988.

While it is clearly convenient for the separatists to make such claims, this stance
raises far more questions than answers.

Firstly, intelligence links (particularly those that are deep-rooted and underpinned
by ideological affinity, as in the case of the Khuzestani separatists and the Iraqi
Ba'athists) are too complex to be severed so immediately and abruptly.

Secondly, given that Khuzestani separatism (because of its unpopularity with almost
all Iranian Arabs) is only viable when allied to the foreign policy of a powerful
state, severing links with the Iraqis would have been followed by patronage by
another state.

But this was not the case. The only other state with the historical motivation,
connections and unique resources to consistently support the separatists is the
United Kingdom, but evidence strongly suggests that the British authorities
dramatically decreased their cooperation after the events of 1990 and early 1991.
Indeed, in some cases the British even put up serious obstacles, for instance making
it difficult for separatists to travel to countries such as Greece, Cyprus, Turkey
and Lebanon to meet with their Iraqi handlers.

British government opposition notwithstanding, Khuzestani separatists continued to
operate in the UK in the 1990s. In many cases they were absorbed by the Anglo-Arab
organizations mentioned earlier. While in many cases these organizations are engaged
in genuine academic, media and advocacy work, there is little doubt that they are
ultimately controlled by the British secret state.

The US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 and the consequent pressures this
has exerted on Iran has made Khuzestani separatism (and other separatist movements in
Iran) relevant insofar as it can be used by the West as a pressure point on Tehran.
The recent events in Khuzestan are a good example of this.

Trouble in Khuzestan

The riots and bomb attacks that occurred in Khuzestan in late spring, coupled with
the latest bombing, have been attributed to widely different causes. The Iranian
government claims that both the riots and the bombings were essentially the work of
foreign elements.

The Khuzestani separatists in the UK, anxious to deflect attention from separatist
violence, pin the blame on elements in the Islamic republic which seek to militarize
the country. Both positions suffer from serious flaws.

Firstly, while the Iranian government is correct to attribute the bombings to foreign
elements, it is not being wholly truthful when it dismisses the riots as
foreign-inspired. Iranian Arabs in Khuzestan have a number of economic grievances,
with roots that may go back decades. These economic woes were sharply exacerbated by
the failed Iraqi invasion of Khuzestan, which destroyed the livelihoods of many
Iranian Arabs. It would be safe to assume that economic grievances were, at the very
least, a factor in the riots of late spring.

Secondly, the Khuzestani separatist position that the bombings were the work of the
Iranian government smacks of clumsily constructed conspiracy theory that does not
stand up to even perfunctory scrutiny.

The statement by the Khuzestani separatist spokesman that the bombings were either
the work of the "Pasdaran or the Basij" immediately discredits their argument, as the
Basij and the Pasdaran (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) are effectively the same
entity.

The contention that terrorist organizations do not target their own people is clearly
false, as virtually every terrorist organization in the world has victims (in varying
degrees) among the people they purports to represent. Furthermore, claims that the
Khuzestani separatists are "non-violent" fly in the face of their actual record (the
seizure of the Iranian Embassy in London and the killing of two of its employees was
clearly not an example of peaceful activism) and is in fact oxymoronic: how can
dismembering a nation and producing false historical narratives be achieved by
"non-violence"?

Sources in Tehran are in little doubt that the recent bombings are the work of
separatists in Khuzestan who are ultimately controlled by the remnants of the former
Iraqi intelligence services. These intelligence services controlled impressive
intelligence and sabotage networks in Khuzestan, and it is safe to assume that some
of these networks have remained intact since the collapse of the Ba'athist regime in
April 2003.

The motivation behind the bombings is not altogether clear. While sources in Tehran
claim that former officers of Iraq's Istikhbarat and Mukhabarat agencies are keen to
export the Iraqi insurgency into Iran, it is unclear how this can be done with
infrequent and isolated bombings in Khuzestan.

A more likely explanation is that the remnants of Istikhbarat and Mukhabarat are
exacting revenge on Iran for the targeted assassinations of their members since the
collapse of the Ba'athist regime. A generally under-reported feature of the troubles
in Iraq is the very careful and systematic targeting of influential elements in the
former regime by either Shia organizations (in particular the BADR Organization -
formerly the BADR Corps - of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq,
SCIRI) or by covert Iranian operatives in Iraq. The BADR organization has been
particularly prolific in this regard, and has recently been accused of even targeting
Arab Sunni pilots in the Iraqi air force.

Iranian allegations that the British government is complicit in this terrorist
campaign have as yet not been substantiated by any evidence on the ground. But
warming relations between the British government and the very small number of
Khuzestani Arab separatists in the UK does raise concerns about the British
government's position on this complex situation.

But it is important to place these concerns in perspective, not least because,
contrary to their claims, the Khuzestani separatists have no proper organization in
the UK. Their presence is reducible to a few key personalities who run several
websites that try to create the impression that there are large socio-political
networks behind them. [1]

What all these websites have in common is the desire to produce a spurious ethnic
counter-narrative. To do this the Khuzestani separatists (and their British patrons)
amalgamate a series of suppositions, half-truths and myths. All of this is
underpinned by the assertion that the Arabs in Khuzestan constitute a majority, yet
no valid ethnic statistics have been produced to verify such claims.

Little mention is made of the fact that Khuzestan is inhabited not only by Arabs but
by an array of ethnic groups, including Bakhtiaris, Behbahanis, Lurs in the north,
Afshari and Qashqai tribes, and Persians in the major cities.

Moreover, the separatists' counter-narrative is guided by a very biased selection of
information and the retroactive Arabization of Iranian history and civilization.
Furthermore, claims that Arabs in Iran constitute a persecuted minority are as false
as they are amusing. In fact, since the Islamic revolution of 1979, the Iranian
government has gone out of its way to promote the Arabic language (at the expense of
Persian) in its drive to "Islamize" Iranian society.

It is also important to note that Iran's current defense minister, Ali Shamkhani, is
an ethnic Arab from Khuzestan. Claims by Khuzestani separatists that the Iranian
regime is engaged in the persecution of minorities is particularly strange when one
considers the fact that the Islamic republic has shown extreme sympathy for Arab
causes both inside and outside of Iran.

Conclusion

The terrorist campaign in Iran's Khuzestan province is essentially a by-product of
the invasion and occupation of Iraq. There can be little doubt that the terrorists
are ultimately controlled by insurgent networks in Iraq. There is simply no other
rational or convincing explanation for these unusual events.

Moreover, the deteriorating security situation in Iraq makes it likely that Khuzestan
will continue to experience terrorist bombings for the foreseeable future.

While the Iranian government is keen to implicate the British in the terrorist
campaign for obvious propaganda and counter-propaganda reasons, the British have much
to answer for their historical connections to Khuzestani separatists.

Furthermore, it is clear that the British see the situation in Khuzestan, and the
presence of separatists in the UK, as a useful pressure point on the Islamic
republic, as the stand-off over Iran's nuclear infrastructure steadily deteriorates
into a crisis.

In the final analysis, Khuzestani Arab separatism does not pose any serious threat to
Iran's territorial integrity.

The only entity with the overriding ideological and geopolitical motivation to
provide significant support to Khuzestani separatists was a strong Iraqi state, and
this was blasted away - probably forever - by the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Notes
[1] The main so-called "Ahvazi" websites are the following:

* al-Ahwaz (http://www.al-ahwaz.com) This site has a fancy introduction along with a
"national anthem". Their symbols are almost a carbon copy of Ba'athist Party insignia
(note the Ba'athist eagle). There is a Persian version of the al-Ahvaz site
(http://www.alahwaz.com).

* The Ahvaz Studies Center (http://www.ahwazstudies.org) purports to be an academic
establishment, when in fact it is an anti-Persian site complaining of "ethnic
cleansing". This is a dangerous and misleading term - falsely implying violence. For
instance, the article on Minoo Island conveniently fails to mention that in any
industrial project people are relocated.

* The London-based British-Ahvazi Friendship Association
(http://www.ahwaz.org.uk/2005/04/ahwazi-unity-in-eu-appeal.html) is a relatively new
site and claims as its chairman Daniel Brett, an Englishman. The site is linked
directly to the aforementioned Ahvaz Studies Center, the Democratic Solidarity Party
of Ahvaz, Ahvaz Human Rights Organization, and al-Ahvaz Television. Interestingly,
the site is also selectively linked to other separatist organizations such as "The
Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan" as well as to the "Iraqi Turkmen Human Rights"
organization. Of interest is the "treasurer" of the British-Ahvazi Friendship
Association: Mansour Silawi-Ahvazi, who also hosts a separate and particularly
amusing site. On this he posted An Arab National Re-Birth Searching for its Identity
(http://www.alahwaz.info/mansour1.html) in an attempt to convey the impression of a
separate Arab state since 4000 BC; ie about 4500 years before the efflorescence of
Arab civilization on the Arabian peninsula.

* Mahan Abedin (http://jamestown.org/employees_details.php?employee_id=7) is the
editor of Jamestown's Terrorism Monitor (http://jamestown.org/terrorism/AboutTM.php).
He co-edited "Unmasking Terror: A Global Review of Terrorist Actitives"
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0967500931). He is an expert on Iran,
Iraq and Islamic movements and ideologies. Mr. Abedin makes contributions to numerous
publications, including the Beirut-based Daily Star and Asia Times. He gained his MSc
in Political Theory from the London School of Economics in 2000. Mr. Abedin has since
worked as a consultant on financial, political and security affairs related to the
Middle East.

* Dr. Kaveh Farrokh has a PhD. from the University of British Columbia, specializing
in the cognitive and linguistic processes of Persian. He has researched and written
extensively on the role of British imperialism in Persia
(http://www.venusproject.com/ecs/aFarrokhArab.html), as well as the pan-Turanian
movement (http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/ReleaseFrame.cfm?ID=10609). His
book, Sassanian Elite Cavalry AD 224-642 was published by Osprey Publishing
(http://www.rozanehmagazine.com/SeptOct05/asassanianFarrokh.html). The Alexander
Movie: How are Iranians and Greeks Portrayed?
http://www.grecoreport.com/The_Alexander_Movie.htm

He lectures on the history of pre-Islamic Persia at the University of British
Columbia in Vancouver (http://cnrs.arts.ubc.ca/index.php?id=3464). A new book
encompassing Persia's military and cultural relations with the Greco-Roman world
between 553BC-637 AD is due to be released in the fall of 2006.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GK03Ak02.html