{"id":2104,"date":"2021-05-09T05:58:09","date_gmt":"2021-05-09T04:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/codir.net\/?p=2104"},"modified":"2021-05-09T06:02:15","modified_gmt":"2021-05-09T05:02:15","slug":"zarifs-beefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/codir.net\/?p=2104","title":{"rendered":"Zarif\u2019s Beefs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A leaked gossipy interview with Iran’s outgoing foreign minister confirms that the Revolutionary Guards\u2019 domination is much more advanced than previously imagined<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/newlinesmag.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arash Azizi<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mohammad Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of Iran, smiling at a UN meeting in New York City\/Drew Angerer\/Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran\u2019s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, is used to giving interviews. In his almost eight years in the job, he\u2019s spoken to hundreds of journalists from around the world, putting forward Tehran\u2019s case, quite often in fluent English. But on Feb. 24, he sat down with the Iranian economist Saeed Leylaz for a different sort of exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organized by the Center for Strategic Studies, a think tank run by the office of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the interview was part of an oral history project meant to give Iran\u2019s cabinet ministers space to speak candidly for posterity. These interviews were meant to be edited and published months, if not years, later \u2014 only after classified material was scrubbed from the record. Or so it seemed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, three hours and 11 minutes of Zarif\u2019s supposedly confidential interview was published by the London-based and Saudi-linked satellite outlet Iran International. Millions were shocked to hear Iran\u2019s top diplomat speak more openly than he ever has and admit to what many had long suspected: that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the powerful and elite military force, controls all major aspects of Iranian foreign policy; that its slain Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, ran his own show when it came to the Iranian intervention in Syria; and that Soleimani went as far as colluding with Russia to disrupt the implementation of the Iranian nuclear deal of 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The explosive leak went viral and has already led to numerous calls for Zarif\u2019s resignation and even prosecution. Soleimani\u2019s daughter, Zeinab Soleimani, an icon for Iran\u2019s Islamist allies in the region, is among many who took to Twitter to mock the outgoing foreign minister. In the United States, Zarif\u2019s claim that he heard about Israel\u2019s attacks on Iranian targets in Syria from his then-counterpart, former Secretary of State John Kerry, before he knew it from his own government has led to calls by Republican lawmakers to investigate Kerry, who has denied ever telling Zarif any such thing. (Israel\u2019s sorties on Iranian targets in Syria were widely reported on in the international press at the time Kerry\u2019s alleged disclosures took place.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, despite all the brouhaha, very little in the interview was completely unexpected to those who closely follow Iran. Sadegh Zibakalam, a political scientist at the University of Tehran, spoke for many when he tweeted: \u201cApart from some details, what did Dr Zarif say that we already didn\u2019t know? Didn\u2019t we know the Russians don\u2019t want Iran to have better relations with the US? Didn\u2019t we know the IRGC runs the foreign policy? Didn\u2019t we know anti-Americanism unites the Russians and the Iranian hardliners?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of these revelations have indeed been open secrets for a long time. But what makes the interview unique is Zarif\u2019s open admission of their sheer extent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zarif repeatedly and unequivocally says that the \u201cmilitary field,\u201d which he uses as a euphemism for the IRGC, calls the shots in Iran and that every aspect of Iranian policy is subservient to it. We not only learn that Zarif is not in charge of Iran\u2019s embassies in the region (not news) but also that the IRGC didn\u2019t even bother to inform him and other cabinet ministers of their major decisions. This is a far cry from Zarif\u2019s official line, which has always been that he acted in complete harmony with Soleimani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A striking example Zarif gives is from June 2016, when he says Kerry told him that since the implementation of the Iran deal earlier that year and the lifting of sanctions on Iran Air, the flagship airline had increased its Tehran-Damascus flights sixfold. Zarif goes on to say he begged Soleimani to avoid using Iran Air for Iran\u2019s intervention in Syria and instead rely on the privately owned Mahan Airlines, based in Soleimani\u2019s home province of Kerman and long a favorite means of conveyance for the IRGC. But Soleimani refused, according to Zarif, even though this risked derailing the Iran nuclear deal and all the hard work Iran \u2014 particularly Zarif \u2014 had put into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The anecdote is striking because according to Zarif, the country\u2019s transportation minister, Abbas Akhundi, and Iran Air\u2019s CEO at the time, Farhad Parvaresh, were not even aware of Soleimani\u2019s use of their aircraft. The notorious Shadow Commander, in other words, didn\u2019t even bother to inform his own government, let alone pretend he needed its permission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soleimani\u2019s unilateral moves weren\u2019t limited to Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the nuclear negotiations that led to the 2015 deal were going on, Zarif\u2019s team faced a propaganda campaign of opposition from the IRGC and its long tentacles in Iranian media. Despite Zarif\u2019s personal loyalty to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the latter\u2019s continued open support for him and for the talks, the IRGC constantly attacked Zarif. It has long been axiomatic that the Guards\u2019 interest lies in closer ties with Russia and China and avoiding Iran\u2019s integration in the global economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the interview, Zarif gives details as to how the IRGC actively worked to sabotage the deal\u2019s implementation after it was reached. According to him, Soleimani\u2019s celebrated trip to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin in July 2015, was done on the initiative of Moscow with the expressed aim of \u201cdestroying\u201d the nuclear deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Challenging the official narrative of Tehran on the trip, Zarif also says: \u201cWe claim that Mr. Soleimani brought Putin to war (in Syria), but Putin had already decided on that. \u2026 It was he who was able to secure Iran\u2019s ground intervention. Before the trip, we didn\u2019t have ground forces in Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zarif\u2019s sharp words against Russia are not news for those who know him. He has long emphasized the need for Iran to have better relations with the West. In the interview, he also says what many on the Iranian street have long believed (although this is sometimes mocked by certain pundits as unsophisticated thinking): If Iran relies too much on Russia and China, to the detriment of its ties with the West, they will take advantage of Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But does that mean Zarif, who\u2019s lived much of his adult life in the U.S. and has a doctorate degree from the University of Denver, is a proponent of Iranian friendship with the U.S., as some of his supporters hope and many of his hard-line detractors claim?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zarif has long been accused of harboring pro-Western tendencies. Having spent years in Iran\u2019s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, he is part of the so-called New York Boys club of Iranian diplomats who first became subject to the IRGC\u2019s ire following their role in negotiating an end to the Iran-Iraq War in 1988. Such tendencies, of course, didn\u2019t prevent the Trump administration from imposing sanctions on Zarif.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, Zarif is, in a sense, more of a true believer than many in the IRGC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what the candid conversation makes clear is not only Zarif\u2019s personal loyalty to Khamenei but also his firm belief in the Islamic Republic. Ironically, Zarif is, in a sense, more of a true believer than many in the IRGC. He genuinely appears to be under the illusion that the ideals of the Islamic Republic still have popular support and that Iran should rely on them instead of brute force. Few in the IRGC think so, and many seem to be aware of how widely discredited these ideals are among average Iranians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zarif\u2019s background and worldview, which he expounded upon in a book of memoirs published in 2013 (written when he was in retirement and had no reason to believe he\u2019d soon become foreign minister) explains this attitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Iranain Revolution led to an Islamic Republic in 1979, he was a young Islamist student activist at San Francisco State University. A rare international relations major among his Iranian peers (who were mostly studying engineering), Zarif was soon tasked by the new government to take over Iran\u2019s consulate in the city. This marked the beginning of his long career as a key figure in the development of the diplomatic apparatus of the Islamic Republic. His close ties to Khamenei date back to this formative period, too, including when Zarif was the ayatollah\u2019s interpreter during his 1987 visit to the U.N. as Iran\u2019s president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking for the entire Iranian regime on the world stage has been at the heart of Zarif\u2019s lifelong ambition. His experience and knowledge of America\u2019s culture and political system have kept him at the top of that portfolio for decades, making him, in essence, too valuable to get rid of. Even prior ructions with the IRGC couldn\u2019t sink him. For instance, following the Iran-Iraq War negotiation debacle in 1988, many of the New York Boys were marginalized or even driven to exile. Not Zarif, who got promoted and served for 10 years as Iran\u2019s deputy foreign minister. Following the conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad\u2019s election to the presidency in 2005, Zarif also stayed on as Iran\u2019s envoy to the U.N. \u2014 at the insistence of Khamenei.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of which is to say that Zarif might be a \u201cmoderate,\u201d in the sense that he believes the Iranian regime should work to have good relations with the West, but as Iran scholar Karim Sadjadpour pointed out, he is nevertheless the hard-liners\u2019 favorite moderate for a reason. He has never wavered from supporting the first principles of Khomeinism and has repeatedly defended its support for groups such as Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah or the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such orthodox thinking means that, on the possibility of ties with the U.S., Zarif remains thoroughly unsentimental. \u201cSo long as the identity of the Islamic Republic remains intact,\u201d he has said, \u201cIran will never be friends with the United States.\u201d He insists that what Iran should aim for instead is \u201cmanaging conflict,\u201d so long as the U.S. accepts that Iran won\u2019t budge on some issues, including the fundamentals of the Islamic Republic and the \u201crecognition of the Zionist regime (Israel).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The manner of the audio file\u2019s leak and its source has been a source of incessant chatter in the Iranian public sphere. Some Zarif supporters (including the Rouhani administration itself) have claimed it was a treacherous act aimed at undermining him as a credible diplomat. On the other side, \u201cAkhbar o Tahlilha,\u201d the public bulletin of the IRGC\u2019s Political Department, attacked Zarif, defended Soleimani, and mockingly asked the foreign minister: \u201cWhy should a Foreign Ministry that is incapable of keeping a voice file confidential be trusted with secret military information?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there is much in the audio file that Zarif might have wanted to use to burnish his own image. He might have thought that this account would show him as a hardworking diplomat, standing up to Russia, and confronting Soleimani. One could even imagine Zarif having been behind the leak himself, perhaps with the political ambition of running for Iran\u2019s presidency, as many, including Leylaz in the interview, are pushing him to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that\u2019s the case, he might have been too clever by half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zarif\u2019s own account shows the degree to which he is used by the IRGC and the military establishment, without him ever being allowed to play a role outside their plans. It hardly inspires confidence. In fact, his account seems to confirm that the process of the IRGC\u2019s domination of Iranian politics is much more advanced than previously imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If, as it seems likely, an IRGC commander such as Saeed Mohammad, who ran the militia\u2019s mammoth construction wing until a few months ago, comes to win the presidency in June, most of the country\u2019s main institutions will belong to the IRGC (an IRGC man is already the speaker of the Parliament.) With Khamenei\u2019s eventual demise (he is 82 and not doing well), the next supreme leader is likely to be a pliant figure, controlled by the IRGC. Iran will thus turn into a military dictatorship, akin to Egypt or Algeria, a transformation with many unexpected consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is still possible for this process to be disrupted. Khamenei might fear giving too much to the IRGC and attempt to prevent Mohammad from winning in June. Iran\u2019s most courageous reformist politician, Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister during Mohammad Khatami\u2019s presidency, has launched his own, long-shot candidacy, with the promise that he will \u201cdrive back the IRGC to the barracks\u201d and abolish the position of Supreme Leader. Even if he is somehow allowed to run for the presidency (and that is very unlikely), he will have an uphill task in convincing people that he has what it takes to confront Khamenei and the IRGC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for Zarif, only history will show whether the leaked file was his swan song or a new beginning. In the topsy-turvy world of Iranian politics, everything is possible; even the presidential candidacy of a foreign minister who couldn\u2019t appoint his own ambassadors.<\/p>\n

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