Category: Islam

BESA Center Perspectives No. 762, March 7, 2018

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Bahraini government has long claimed that Iran is encouraging the Shiite opposition, which is fighting for recognition and political change. This is not an empty fear. Tehran’s  push for hegemony in the archipelago is not a new phenomenon. However, unlike monarchic Iran, whose hegemonic drive focused on the international political-diplomatic arena, the Islamic Republic is working for change from within and is using both soft power and subversion.

Iran’s push for hegemony in the Persian Gulf is hardly new. It stems from geostrategic and geopolitical factors related to the region’s importance in all regards, from security to economic and trade aspects. At the same time, Iran’s hegemonic ambitions in Bahrain can be considered a special case given the fragile demographic-political makeup of the principality, in which a Sunni minority rules a Shiite majority that is fighting for its rights and its role in governing the kingdom. Tehran’s subversive activity is, of course, condemned by the ruling establishment, which has long relied on Saudi patronage.

In early March 2018, the Al-Arabiya network reported a major counterinsurgency operation by the Bahraini security forces that seized large quantities of weapons and arrested 116 suspects belonging to a terrorist network established by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This came on the heels of the reported arrest of 47 Bahraini citizens from three different terror cells working to destabilize Bahrain. Bahraini interior minister Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah al-Khalifa pointed an accusing finger at the Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah, and the al-Hashd al-Shaabi organization; these, he said, had trained, financed, and directed the terror cells. This was not the first time the Bahraini authorities had leveled such charges at the Iranians, who, they maintain, are working to subvert the Bahraini archipelago’s fragile balance of power in favor of the Shiite majority.

In a country where Shiites are about 70% of the population, the ruling establishment’s main charge is that Tehran is encouraging the Shiite opposition as it fights for recognition and political change. Members of the House of Khalifa accuse Iran of ongoing subversion in the archipelago, with the aim of destabilization and a change of government. For evidence, the Bahraini media highlight the numerous arrests of terror cells trained by the IRGC for the purpose of toppling the government. A mysterious explosion in Bahrain’s oil pipeline in November 2017 was also attributed to Iranian-backed elements. In addition, in March of last year, the Bahrain News Agency (BNA) reported the foiling of an attempted attack on senior officials, leading to arrests of suspects who had been trained in Iraq by the IRGC and Hezbollah. A month earlier the BNA reported on a wave of arrests that led to the exposure of several terror cells in the emirate.

The struggle between Iran and Bahrain predates the Islamic Republic. Monarchic Iran made a historically based claim to sovereignty over the archipelago, which it saw as an integral part of its territory. In Tehran’s view, the artificial separation created by a series of agreements between Bahrain and Britain (in 1861, 1880, and 1892), which put the principality under British patronage, stemmed from a weak governmental mechanism and not from historical reality. Tehran further claimed, on the same historical basis, that the 1951 Oil Nationalization Act, which was ratified in the Iranian parliament at the initiative of Prime Minister Muhammad Mosaddegh, also applied to the Bahrain Petroleum Company.

Britain’s departure from the Persian Gulf at the beginning of the 1970s resulted in geopolitical changes that directly affected Bahrain. After Bahrain declared independence in 1971, monarchic Iran and Saudi Arabia worked out arrangements for territorial control of the Persian Gulf. On the one hand, Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi assented to Saudi control of Bahrain and the Arab principalities; on the other, King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz recognized Iran’s role as guardian of the Persian Gulf. Moreover, during the Iran-Iraq War the House of Khalifa publicly acknowledged the House of Saud as its main patron. This dependence has continued – de facto – until the present, and was well evident in March 2011 when Riyadh sent its forces to Bahrain to shore up the Khalifa family’s rule. The Saudi move came in response to the civil unrest in the archipelago, which was seen as part of a chain reaction to the events of the so-called Arab Spring.

In the monarchical period, Iran used diplomatic channels to pursue its claims against members of the Arab League, then led by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser; the League strongly opposed those claims. Tehran went so far as to threaten the Arab states that if they did not recognize its claim to sovereignty over Bahrain, it would institutionalize its ties with Israel – a threat that remained on paper only.

The current approach of the Islamic Republic is different. It entails working for change from within and focusing considerable effort on certain interrelated spheres of activity. The first sphere involves enhancing Iranian influence through the use of “soft power”: helping to establish culture and welfare centers, providing Islamic (Shiite) guidance, contributing to the building of mosques, and setting up Husseiniyat (community-religious centers for mourning and prayer over the death of Hussein in the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE). Most of the activity is carried out in neighborhoods with a sizable Shiite population. The aim is to attract people to religion and instill sympathy for Khomeini’s doctrine of velayet-e faqih, or the rule of the Islamic jurist. The effort to attract people to religion, which is an integral part of the soft-power model, helps in recruiting potential candidates for opposition movements.

The second sphere involves strengthening opposition elements who oppose the autocratic-tribal rule of the Khalifa family. The object is to create a governmental alternative and undermine the current government. In December 1981, for example, the organization al-Jabha al-Islamiya li-Tahrir al-Bahrain (the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain) made a failed attempt to topple the monarchic regime and replace it with a theocratic regime led by Hadi al-Modarresi. Born in Iraq and a scion of a family of Shiite clerics, Modarresi became active in Bahrain after fleeing an arrest warrant issued against him by the Baath regime. According to the researcher Hassan Tarik al-Hassan, Modarresi not only drew inspiration from the doctrine of velayet-e faqih but received support from envoys of the revolutionary regime. After the coup was foiled, a number of Iranian diplomats were indeed expelled from Bahrain.

The 1990s saw another putsch attempt in Manama. The Bahraini opposition, which called for restoring the constitution (not in force since 1975) and granting equal opportunity to all citizens, ratcheted up its struggle. Protests intensified, and in 1996 the government revealed a further attempt to overthrow the regime and replace it with an Iranian-style Islamic republic. Bahrain’s state television claimed the rebels had admitted belonging to the group Hezbollah al-Bahraini, which was supported by Iran and inspired by Hezbollah al-Hijaz – which, in turn, was active in Saudi Arabia and was blamed for the Khobar Towers terror attack on American soldiers that same year.

The Bahraini government also drew a link between the presence of Sheikh Isa Ahmed Qassim in the Iranian city of Qom (for theological studies) and the 1996 coup attempt. That allegation was not proved, and Isa Qassim was allowed to return to Manama in 2001. Today he is considered the spiritual leader of al-Wefaq, the largest Shiite opposition movement in the kingdom. However, al-Wefaq (whose operative leader is Ali Salman) was outlawed in June 2016, and Isa Qassim’s citizenship was revoked a week later.

The third sphere is a direct extension of the second and reflects changes in the Iranian approach that were largely impelled by the Saudi-led forces’ March 2011 invasion of the archipelago to quell the agitation there. This sphere draws inspiration from the model used in Iraq and involves setting up a network of underground cells with operatives who have been trained outside Bahrain, while maintaining internal compartmentalization. Individuals seen as capable of leading the cells have been sent for operational training and further theological study, all under suitable cover so as to evade the authorities.

Researchers Michael Knights and Matthew Levitt note that Iran often infiltrates people and weapons into Bahrain by sea. For this purpose, Tehran makes use of speedboats, which are an important part of the IRGC’s doctrine of maritime warfare. According to reports of the Bahraini authorities, the largest of all the underground organizations appears to be Saraya al-Ashtar. Other groups include Saraya al-Mukhtar, Saraya al-Muqawama al-Sha’biya, Saraya Waad-Allah, and Saraya al-Karar. Despite their different names, these groups appear to operate under a single umbrella based in Tehran. In sum, since the founding of the Islamic Republic, the regime has worked tirelessly to spread its revolutionary ideology to the Muslim world. Since Bahrain’s demographic makeup provides fertile ground for promoting this worldview, Iran seeks to boost its influence in the principalities whether through soft power or support for opposition groups and the training of militant organizations that serve as proxies. Manama’s complaints about ceaseless subversion on Iran’s part are therefore far from baseless.

By Dr. James M. Dorsey January 24, 2018

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 723, January 24, 2018

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Expressions of support for the Iranian anti-government protests by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have provided grist for Iranian claims that the protests were instigated by foreign powers. The assertions, while largely baseless, nonetheless offer insight into the very different strategies adopted by Iran and Saudi Arabia in their vicious struggle for regional dominance.

There is little doubt that the Iranian protests were fueled by widespread economic grievances, and Iran’s detractors abroad resembled not always helpful fans on the sidelines. In fact, Saudi Arabia, Iran’s nemesis, was the one opponent of the Islamic Republic to refrain from joining those fans publicly in a bid to stop the regime in Tehran from using it as a scapegoat. The Iranian leadership pointed a finger at the kingdom anyway, and in so doing illustrated the dynamics of the Iranian-Saudi rivalry.

Both the Iranian and the Saudi approaches to their rivalry are in flux. Protesters in Iran challenged the government’s heavy expenditure on propping up allies like Syrian President Bashar Assad and funding proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, and Yemen, not to mention proselytization campaigns in West Africa.

The protests are unlikely to change Iranian policy, which the country’s leaders view as the crux of their defense strategy in Iran’s covert wars with the US and Saudi Arabia. Those wars have been ongoing since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which toppled the shah – an icon of now waning US power in the region.

Nonetheless, Iranian leaders will have to take public grievances into account even if the protests peter out. Rather than touting its regional successes publicly, Tehran is likely to be more circumspect about its foreign involvements. While that will not change things on the ground, it may contribute over time to a lessening of tensions.

Despite the protests, Iran has little reason to change facts on the ground. With access to the world’s most advanced weapons systems severely restricted for decades because of sanctions and boycotts, some in response to provocative Iranian actions and policies and others part of regional power struggles, Iran has sought to fight its battles far from its borders. Many Iranians bought into the argument that that policy had largely shielded their country from the instability and jihadism wracking the rest of the region.

Simultaneous Islamic State attacks last June on the Iranian parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, which killed 12 people, were viewed as exceptions that proved the rule. That perception has changed, however, among a significant segment of the population. Protesters demanded that funds allocated to Iran’s defense doctrine and enhancement of its regional influence be invested instead in improving deteriorating living standards.

“Our military doctrine is…based on historical experience: During the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein rained Soviet-made missiles on our cities, some of them carrying chemical components provided by the West. The world not only kept silent, but also no country would sell Iran weapons to enable us to at least deter the aggressor. We learned our lesson,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote in The New York Times weeks before the protests erupted.

Speaking recently at a Brookings Institution seminar in Washington, Iranian-American journalist Maziar Bahari described Iran’s doctrine as a more brutal and militarized version of the late Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion’s policy of the periphery: in the absence of relations with Israel’s neighbors, he sought to forge ties with neighbors of the neighbors.

Zarif represents the view of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s pragmatic government, a view shared by conservatives as part of a far greater ambition that they have no compunction about articulating.

In a column in the conservative Tehran Times entitled “What makes Iran stronger than Saudi Arabia?”, sociologist and journalist Muhammad Mazhari argued that “the Saudi regime has no comprehension that money cannot replace ideological values.” By contrast, Mazhari wrote, “there are common ties between Iran and Hezbollah, but the crux of those ties is not monetary. What drives Iran is not a superficial goal; it is working hard to restore the empire, but this time culturally, while Saudi Arabia and its alliances have no clear vision nor project in the Middle East save for keeping their thrones.”

Prince Muhammad vowed, months before Zarif articulated Iran’s defense doctrine, that the fight with Iran would take place “inside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia.” In so doing, the crown prince was playing on deep-seated Iranian fears rooted in a history of foreign intervention that stretches from ancient to modern times as well as highlighting the fundamentally different Saudi and Iranian strategies.

Since coming to power in 2015, Prince Muhammad has shifted the emphasis of Saudi strategy from 1) long-term cultural and public diplomacy focused on the promotion of Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism as an antidote to Iranian Shiite and revolutionary ideology and 2) passive reliance on the US to defend the kingdom by containing Iran to a more assertive confrontation with the Islamic Republic everywhere but in Iran itself.

Prince Muhammad’s approach is a power play based primarily on checkbook diplomacy, pressure tactics, and projection of the kingdom as the custodian of Islam’s holiest cities. It is an approach that is void of any ideology or worldview beyond the need to counter Iran and support autocratic or authoritarian rule in a bid to ensure the survival of the royal family’s rule.

Prince Muhammad’s approach has so far produced mixed results at best. His effort to force a political crisis in Lebanon by pressuring Prime Minister Saad Hariri to resign backfired. King Abdullah of Jordan and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the crown prince’s demand that they not attend an Islamic summit in Istanbul convened last month to condemn Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The prince’s one military adventure, the intervention in Yemen, has produced a quagmire, severely tarnished the kingdom’s image, and even provoked criticism from one of his greatest fans, President Trump. Egypt has adopted an independent foreign policy that is at times at odds with positions adopted by Saudi Arabia despite being financially dependent on the kingdom.

Hanging in the balance is the question whether Prince Muhammad’s declaration last year that he wants to return the kingdom to a yet undefined moderate form of Islam means he will introduce an ideological element to his strategy that would replace the increasingly problematic propagation of Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism.

It’s a tall order in a country whose religious establishment and culture is steeped in ultra-conservatism despite support for more relaxed religious and social codes among a significant segment of a predominantly young population.

A successful redefinition of Islam would not only significantly enhance confidence in Prince Muhammad’s ability to change the nature of Saudi society and economy but also strengthen the kingdom in its struggle with Iran, which – despite being fought as a zero-sum game – can only be resolved with an agreement that recognizes both Saudi Arabia and Iran as key regional players.

Economics rather than Tehran’s rivalry with Riyadh and hostility towards the US and Israel is at the crux of the anti-government protests in Iran. Nevertheless, the protests are likely to force Iranian leaders to repackage their foreign involvements at a time when Prince Muhammad is seeking to revamp his kingdom as part of an economic and political survival strategy. In the longer term, that could unintentionally create building blocks for the lowering of tensions in a dispute that has wreaked havoc across the Middle East and the wider Muslim world.