What terrorism have Iran backed?
Why Tehran hates Isis: how religious rifts are fueling conflict (newstatesman.com)
This article is by the late Michael Axeworthy who sadly passed away in 2019 , a former British diplomat to Iran and highly regarded expert on the region. He wrote a number of books on Iran and taught Arab and Islamic Studies at Exeter University. He was also my friend and we often played chess against each other online and chatted away as we played. He was an extremely bright and interesting man who had a deep love of Iran who in his words was a deeply misunderstood country.
Donald Trump ending the Iran nuclear deal is an outbreak of organised stupidity (newstatesman.com)
Another article of Michael's on Trump.
He had a number of articles published in the NS over the years and if anybody is worth listening to, it is him.
I was saddened to hear of Axworthy's passing (and was informed of this by Ali Ansari who I was fortunate enough to meet about 18 months ago), as his books and articles served as a corrective to some of the understandable but frequently misleading impressions that people may have formed about Iran, without necessarily taking into account the extent to which we have substantially meddled in the affairs of that country, as was the case with Operation Ajax and the overthrow of Mossadegh, and in relation to the tobacco protest of the 1890's.
I have Axworthy's
Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran in front of me right now. The title itself wonderfully alludes to the philosophical and literary powerhouses that have been so much a part of the Persian cultural landscape, polymaths like, for example, Ibn Sina and Omar Khayyam.
Even the blurb on the back cover challenges our preconceptions:
'Iran is a land of contradictions. It is an Islamic republic, but only 1.4 percent of the population attends Friday prayers.'
I do wonder, though, if Axworthy's love of the country might have led him to perceive the theocracy that rules it through slightly rose-tinted spectacles.
This is because earlier this year, I read Simon Mabon's
Saudi Arabia and Iran: Power and Rivalry in the Middle East. Just flicked through it again and there are plenty of references to Iran's apparent policy of exporting its revolutionary politics to other parts of the Middle East and to its support for Hezbollah, and the Shia populations of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia itself.
Whether this support is merely of a political or perhaps a financial nature or extends as far as supplying military kit is difficult to ascertain (which is frustrating - I thought it would be straightforward). Nevertheless, the targeted assassination of dissidents and other enemies abroad certainly seems to have taken place, and on page 191 Mabon quotes a commentator called Gary Sick, who notes that 'Iran was accused of sponsoring operations by other militant organisations, such as the Argentinian bombings of 1992 and 1994 and the 1996 bombing, attributed to Hizbollah organisations in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.'
On page 192 there is also a reference to a Department of Justice report published in 2001 that identifies Hizballah al-Hijaz as having carried out the aforementioned 1996 attack, as well as stating that Iran had 'inspired, supported and directed Hizbollah organisations in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, and Bahrain since the early 1980's.'
According to Mabon, these actions and those of Tehran in the aftermath of the Arab Spring seem incongruous with Mohammed Khatami's protestations that there is no Qur'anic basis for acts of terrorism. However, Khatami, who was President between 1997 and 2005 goes on to state that 'supporting peoples who fight for the liberation of their land is not, in my opinion, supporting terrorism. It is, in fact, supporting those who are engaged in combating state terrorism.'
I suspect that there is more detail to be discovered about the links between Iran and Hezbollah to be found in Robert Fisk's
The Great War for Civilisation. However, it's been ages since I read it and I haven't had a look yet.
Having said all this, I still think that we are in need someone of Axworthy's calibre to step into his shoes right now, though, as there is so much to admire in his writing.
notesfrompoland.com