Iran-Pakistan relations in light of popular uprising in Bahrain

This article is simultaneously published in Foreign Policy Journal, American Chronicle and Online Opinion.

Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik was recently on a visit to Tehran conveying a special message from the Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to President Ahmadinejad of Iran. The Pakistani minister also met with other Iranian officials including his Iranian counterpart Mostafa Mohammad Najjar and the Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi. Besides the reports of routine diplomatic niceties over the importance of the bilateral relations of the two countries, no details have been reported on the content of the presidential message delivered by the Pakistani minister.

Lack of substantive media reports notwithstanding, there are some indications as to what may have motivated the Pakistani president to dispatch a special envoy to his Iranian counterpart and what issues may have topped the agenda of the meetings between the Pakistani minister and the Iranian officials. Over the past several years, security and economic cooperation have been the staples of the agendas of meetings between Iranian and Pakistani officials at various levels. However these issues are normally discussed in periodic meetings between the officials of the two countries and within structured frameworks governing the relations of the two countries, unless unpredicted situations arise in the relations of the two countries which would require immediate attention by both parties.

What gave urgency to the current situation in the relations of Iran and Pakistan was the ongoing popular uprising in Bahrain and the seemingly divergent positions of both countries toward the political crisis in that country. More specifically, Iran’s declared solidarity with the uprising of the Shiite majority in Bahrain and its strong opposition to any kind of military assistance provided by foreign governments to the Bahraini regime with a view to suppressing the public struggle for democracy in that country has meant that Pakistan had some explaining to do to Iranian officials in order to salvage its growing economic ties with Iran.

What touched Iran’s nerves was Pakistan’s recent decision to authorize the recruitment of thousands of its retired security officers by the Bahraini regime in an attempt to quell the public uprising there. Following this announcement, Iranian foreign ministry officials summoned the Pakistani charges d’affaires in Tehran and conveyed Iran’s strong reservations over Pakistan’s move and warned his government of serious diplomatic consequences if Pakistan followed through with its decision. The recent trip by the Pakistani interior minister to Tehran to deliver a special message from the Pakistani president to his Iranian counterpart can be understood as an effort to patch up political differences between the two countries over Bahrain and to prevent further diplomatic fallout between them.

The statements of the Pakistani embassy officials in Tehran over the political developments in the region in prelude to Malik’s trip to Tehran also indicate that Islamabad has meant to give assurances to Tehran that it does not intend to take sides in the political conflict in Bahrain. According to the Iranian media , the Pakistani charges d’ affaires in Tehran recently stated that "Pakistan's policy is maintaining neutrality and refraining from interference” in the ongoing political developments in the region including the political conflict in Bahrain. In a recent joint meeting, the Pakistani interior minister and the Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi also expressed their common view that the ongoing popular uprisings in the region are not of sectarian nature.

The degree of Pakistani concerns about Iran’s possible retributions over its position on Bahrain has been to the extent that some Pakistani media interpreted the recent announcement by the Iranian defense minister Ahmad Vahidi that Iran plans to build concrete security fence along its border with Pakistan to prevent border crossing by terrorists and drug traffickers as a response to Pakistan’s decision to deploy security personnel to Bahrain. Although building a security fence along its common border with Pakistan would make Iran less reliant on the not-always-forthcoming Pakistani security cooperation, such a strategic and long-term plan may clearly not have been motivated by short-term developments in the region. Nonetheless, border security arrangements were a major issue on the agenda of the Pakistani interior minister’s meeting with his Iranian counterpart. In this line, the Iranian interior minister Mostafa Najjar has reportedly called on the Pakistani government to step up efforts in disrupting the safe haven of the Jundallah terrorist group across the Iranian border in Pakistan.

In the past, Pakistan has extended limited cooperation to Iran by arresting and extraditing some wanted Jundallah terrorist members in its territory but it has been only a matter of time before Jundallah terrorists have regrouped and renewed their terrorist attacks against civilians in southeastern ethnic Balouchi region of Iran which borders Pakistan’s Balouchistan province. Although Pakistan suffers from a by far worse security condition in its own tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, to the extent that it presents the impression of a failed state to observers in those regions, it is capable of providing wider cooperation to Iran in fighting cross-border terrorism by dismantling Jundallah’s terrorist network in its border areas or allowing Iran’s security forces to use its soil in border areas to pursue and eradicate Jundallah’s terrorist elements.

Pakistani officials may think that putting a decisive end to Jundallah’s terrorist activities in its border areas may not be in their best interests as it might dampen Iran’s incentives for cooperation with Pakistan in other issue areas, especially in the energy sector, once the threat of terrorism is gone for good. In other words, Pakistan may consider its cooperation over combating cross-border terrorism as a bargaining chip for gaining economic concessions from Iran and would thus prefer to keep the option open for a long time by extending a limited rather than full-fledged security cooperation to it . While this may work in Pakistan’s interests for a short while, its drawback is that it would erode Iran’s trust and jeopardize Pakistan’s long-term interests in its relations with Iran. Under such a situation, Iran may be forced to seek a permanent and long-term solution to the threat of cross-border terrorism and thus end its reliance on security cooperation with Pakistan. Iran’s recent decision to build a concrete security fence along its entire border with Pakistan can be interpreted as a response to Pakistan’s irresolute cooperation with Iran in dismantling Jundallah’s terrorist safe haven in its border areas.

The stakes for Pakistan are high in its relations with Iran given the ongoing investment projects between the two countries in the energy sector. The existing natural gas pipe line project which is expected to become operational in 2014, will supply the bulk of Pakistan’s domestic natural gas needs from Iran’s massive South Pars gas field. Forging a strategic relationship with a neighboring country which possesses the second largest natural gas reserves in the world and is expected by official accounts to supply ten percent of the world’s natural gas needs in a not so distant future, owing to enormous investments in its natural gas sector over the past couple of decades, would be on top of the foreign policy agenda of every astute state leader. Pakistani politicians seem to be looking to that horizon despite some contradictory signals emanating from Islamabad every now and then, as in the case of their recent dispatch of security personnel to Bahrain .

　

Celebrating Nowruz in Tehran: Persian identity in Iranian diplomacy

Heads of regional states celebrating Nowruz in Tehran, March 2011

This article is simultaneously published in Foreign Policy Journal, American Chronicle and Middle East Online.

While the world's attention has been focused the nuclear crisis in Japan and the ongoing political turmoil in the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa, Iran has been engaged in summit diplomacy in recent days, hosting five heads of state and several other high-level political officials from regional countries, and commemorating Nowruz, the ancient cultural tradition marking the start of the Persian new year synchronizing with the beginning of spring. The hosting of this event by Iran is in large part thought to send the unmistakable message to the world that despite the claim of its adversaries to the contrary, Iran is too important and influential a nation to be isolated, at least in its own region. Regardless of its actual and symbolic significance to politicians, the hosting of the Nowruz international festival in Tehran and the political incidents surrounding it provide insights into how the Islamic and Persian elements of the Iranian national identity interact to influence its foreign policy.

By now the world is too familiar with the Islamic or ideological sources of Iran’s foreign policy, yet scant attention is paid to how the Persian element of Iran’s national identity plays out in its diplomacy. The Persian element of Iran’s national identity has for a long time influenced Iran’s relations with its Muslim, especially Arab, neighbors by defining it as ‘the other’ at different points in its history. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 which brought political independence to the Central Asian and South Caucasus republics opened up new avenues through which the Persian element of Iran’s national identity could influence its foreign policy alongside its Islamic component.

The fact that most of the newly-independent countries of the region belonged to the Iranian civilization zone and shared historical and cultural ties with Iran meant that the Persian element of Iran’s national identity could serve as a gateway for Iran’s influence in these countries. Common cultural and literary heritage could work as a bridge across political boundaries between Iran and these nations. Just to name a few, the Persian literary masterpieces of Roudaki, Ferdowsi, Roumi, Hafez and Saadi, some of which were produced over a millennium ago, are still recited and cherished by the Persian-speaking peoples across Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and some other parts of the Central Asia. To indicate the importance of this region also to ‘the self’ of Iran, it helps to note that the national identity of Iran would miss important elements without including the historical cultural heritage of Iran which rests in the historical cities and regions of Bukhara, Samarqand, Khojand, Merv, Balkh, Herat and their like, all of which are located outside the borders of the contemporary Iran .

Common cultural heritage has endowed Iran with a political capital which can be used for diplomacy purposes. The successful experience of Iran in mediating a peace accord , along with Russia, between the Tajik warring parties in the mid-1990s, which brought an end to the civil war in that Persian-speaking nation through a power-sharing arrangement, bears witness to how Persian cultural elements could serve Iran’s foreign diplomacy.

However, despite some isolated cases of its successful application, the Persian element of Iran’s national identity has been underutilized in its foreign diplomacy. The main reason for this has been the absence of consensus among Iranian political and religious elites on how different components of the Iranian national identity should be balanced and factored in defining Iran’s foreign policy. There is a perception among some segments of the conservative Iranian elites that the Persian and Islamic elements of Iran’s national identity are incompatible and that promoting the pre-Islamic Persian culture would undermine the Islamic component of Iran’s national identity.

The opposition to the promotion of the Persian component of Iran’s national identity is not purely ideological and is also in large part driven by power politics considerations. There is a concern among some conservative political groups that any emphasis on the Persian element of the Iranian national identity in both domestic politics and foreign policy would bolster the position of secular nationalist political forces at the expense of Islamist forces in the Iranian politics. This concern was at its peak in the first few years of the post-revolutionary politics in Iran when Islamist political forces were embroiled in an intense power struggle with liberal nationalist political forces.

The recent political reactions by various hard-line political and religious figures to the planned international commemoration of Nowruz in Tehran is yet further evidence pointing to the absence of a political consensus among Iranian political elites on the role of Persian identity in Iranian domestic politics and foreign policy and show how internal power struggle has hampered Iran’s efforts in utilizing its Persian identity to advance its national interests and foreign policy goals.

A look at the statements of various political and religious officials who took an opposing position on the holding of the recent international Nowruz event in Tehran shows that several motives were at play. Some justified their opposition to the event by claiming that there is an inherent conflict between the promotion of Persian culture and Islamic identity of Iran while a larger number of them argued that the holding of the event is not politically expedient at this juncture given the political developments in the Arab world. Not lost in the various reasons mentioned for opposition to the event was the fact that a controversial political figure namely Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who is a close aide to President Ahmadinejad, was behind organizing the event. This makes particular sense knowing that Mashaei has stirred the wrath of the conservative political and religious officials by making nationalistic statements in recent years .

The absence of political consensus among Iranian elites on the extent to which the Persian component of Iran’s national identity should be incorporated in Iran’s foreign diplomacy either on ideological or practical grounds has led to the underutilization of Iran’s potentials in foreign relations with regional countries . Stressing only the Islamic element of Iran’s national identity in situations where Iran’s national interests could be better served by promoting its Persian identity has cost Iran opportunities in its foreign relations. Resistance to Iran’s influence in some of the former Soviet republics in the Central Asia and the Caucasus can in large part be attributed to the prevalence of this approach to Iran’s foreign policy. Given that most of the secular post-Soviet states of the region deal with Islamist opposition forces, it comes as no surprise that an unbalanced emphasis on Iran’s Islamic identity at the expense of its Persian identity in foreign policy has presented Iran as a threat to some of these states.

The international celebration of Nowruz in Tehran which also follows its recognition by the United Nations as an international day last year, is a step toward redressing the past shortcomings and utilizing Iran’s potentials in foreign diplomacy. Persian culture including Nowruz is an essential and undeniable element of Iran’s national identity along with its Islamic element which has survived through millennia against all odds. Notwithstanding domestic opposition by some conservative political circles, it is the belief of a large segment of the Iranian political elites that capitalizing on this potential in foreign diplomacy will serve Iran’s national interests in the region and beyond, a fact which explains why Iran took the initiative along with some other countries at the UN General Assembly in late 2009 to give official international recognition to Nowruz.