Examination of Witness (Questions 62-79)
14 DECEMBER 2004
DR ALI
ANSARI
Q62 Chairman: Dr Ansari, may I welcome
you again to the Committee. You gave very valuable evidence to
us way back in February 2003.
Dr Ansari: I am very pleased to
be back.
Chairman: The Committee visited Iran
in October 2003. We were hosted by the chairman of the Majles
Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr Mirdamadi, who was not allowed to
stand in the Majles election, which we cannot understand given
the extremely correct way in which he dealt with the Committee.
Since your first evidence session to us, I note from subsequent
articles you appear to have hardened your position a little. I
will move on to my colleague, Fabian Hamilton, to take that up.
Q63 Mr Hamilton: Welcome back to the
Committee, Dr Ansari. Sadly, I was unable to join the rest of
the Committee on the visit in November last year, but I did get
a very full report and we then produced our Report to the House.
In our Report to the House we noted that the elections to the
Majles "may represent a swing of the pendulum of Iranian
society back from democracy and openness towards fundamentalism
and isolationism. If such is to be the context in which the United
Kingdom must conduct its relations with Iran over the coming years,
that relationship may be a difficult one to develop. On the other
hand, in our estimation the weight of Iran's overwhelmingly youthful
population is certain to push the pendulum once again towards
reform." I wonder what you consider to be the current prospects
for reform in Iran given the context of those elections.
Dr Ansari: I do not think anyone
can deny that it has been a bad year. Both in the way domestic
politics has worked out but also in the international dimensions
of that it has been a very poor year for democratisation in Iran.
I would tend to agree with the conclusions of your own report,
however, in the sense that if one was to look at the overwhelming
structures of democratisation of any country in the Middle East,
certainly any Muslim country in the Middle East, and look at the
foundations of that, then Iran still does present us with one
of the more interesting cases of a sort of organic growth of democratisation.
That is not to say that Iranians themselves did not find recent
events quite distressing, quite traumatic or even a very serious
setback. I think the overwhelming direction is still positive.
I would say that in the long run rather than the short to medium
run we have to deal with particular issues. Part of that has to
do with the reform movement itself and the way it is organised
but also the way in which the international community dealt with
the reform movement.
Q64 Mr Hamilton: May I ask how you think
the political spectrum is going to change after the presidential
elections in which obviously President Khatami will have to stand
down. Who is likely to be the candidate?
Dr Ansari: There are a number
of candidates that are being put forward. The big issue is who
will be allowed to stand. The second issue is how many people
will vote. There is a lot of disillusionment with the process
as it stands. There may be a certain amount of compromise vis-a"-vis
the guardian council to make sure that there is some sort
of competitive electoral procedure. Iranians are well aware that
the February elections were not their finest hour. I have heavily
criticised this as well in open print and I have said to them
that it did not do them any favours. I think the contest now has
shifted to the centralists and the conservatives. My own view
is that the presidential election is probably not quite as important
as some Iranians would have us think and that is partly because
the presidency itself has been so weakened. It all depends on
who can possibly take over the mantle if Rafsanjani makes a comeback
for instance, but even there we are not sure. What is much more
fundamental is whether the more centrist conservatives, the conservative
"wets", and more of the left of centres, the reformists,
can coalesce in some way to obstruct the more hard right revolution
purists that I mentioned really seizing control of all the organisations
of power. It is very possible that the presidency will not fall
into the hands of a hard right, but the question that then arises
is what this person can do when up against some of the institutions
that are under the control of what I have termed revolution purists
essentially.
Q65 Mr Hamilton: How sustainable is the
current system given the weight of the youthful population, as
we pointed out in our Report, that within five or 10 years will
start moving into positions of authority, maybe 15 years, but
eventually those people who were born since the revolution who
very much see the establishment as the conservative establishment?
How sustainable is the current system, or will it be overwhelmed
by the desire for democratic control within 10 or 15 years?
Dr Ansari: I have long argued
that the system as it is currently constructed is not sustainable.
The sad thing is that most Iranians are well aware of this. The
question is how you manage this transformation or this transition
of power structures and economic structures. I would say it will
come much sooner than the 10 to 15 years that you have been saying
it will take.
Q66 Mr Chidgey: You wrote that "The
revolutionary regime, and especially its more hard-line elements
have become more emboldened. What they ask, can the `West' do,
having embroiled itself in the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan?
A military invasion is out of the question; a military strike
is sustainable, and sanctions, if they are ever implemented (doubtful
given the consequences for the oil price) . . . " What lessons
do you believe that Iran has taken from the situation in Iraq
and Afghanistan and the changes in its regional environment? Secondly,
how concerned do you believe Iran is about US policy towards it?
Are there serious concerns that Iran could be next in line for
US efforts of regime change? Finally, is Iran seeking to influence
events in Iraq, particularly now with the elections that are upcoming?
Dr Ansari: The first thing we
have to bear in mind is that there is no single Iran. We talk
about what Iran wants. There are obviously different groups and
different factions and what they are interested in is different.
In terms of the regional change and the war on terror in broader
terms, I think there was quite severe anxiety on the part of many
members of the establishment about what this meant. Many reformists
drew the conclusion that the swift collapse of the Ba'athist regime
shows what happens to an unpopular regime when put under coercive
pressure; others obviously took different lessons. But at the
moment there certainly seems to be this view that some of the
pressure that they felt in the aftermath of the invasion and occupation
of Iraq has now lessened and that Iran can play a much more influential
role for good or ill in the region depending on the way that its
relations develop with particularly the coalition powers. So it
does have a certain amount of leverage and it sees that, it is
not quite so one-sided. What it anticipates from that depends
on the various factions. Many of them will use Iraq as an example—and
I am sure this is how it is being portrayed on the state television
of Iran—of what Western freedom brings you, ie anarchy,
and ask if this is what you want and would you not much rather
have the stability that we have come to know and love rather than
this more anarchist situation. That is certainly used. No doubt
there are many younger Iranians who would have preferred to see
a much smoother transformation of power in Iraq than we have witnessed.
I think they would have liked to use that as an example to show
what can happen. I think on the Iranian side it is fair to say
that what all the different factions have in common is basically
they want whatever emerges in Iraq to be non-threatening, this
is overwhelmingly the sense you get. They do not want a fragmented
Iraq, they do not want instability on their western border, the
last thing they want is an influx of refugees crossing the border
and so on and so forth, but they do not want a militarily strong
Iraq either.
Q67 Mr Chidgey: Do they want to influence
directly the political power structure emerging in Iraq so that
it is more towards fundamentalism or the Iranian version of that?
Are they trying to coerce the elections?
Dr Ansari: I think what we have
to be very realistic about is that obviously the Iranians will
want to have an influence in Iraq. It is very difficult to argue
why the United States can go 3,000 miles and interfere in the
domestic policies of a country and Iran, which is right next door,
cannot. It is part of its neighbourhood and it will obviously
want to have some sort of effect.
Q68 Mr Chidgey: Are Iranian activists
migrating across the border in order to take part in the elections?
Dr Ansari: There are two views
on this. I was in the US over the summer and there are some quite
exaggerated claims about what the Iranians are doing in Iraq to
be honest. My colleagues here say clearly there is an Iranian
role, certainly in southern Iraq and among the Shias. They do
provide a lot of welfare services for instance, social welfare,
stuff which in many ways the British have tolerated. They are
offering something quite useful but, on the other hand, there
is a political angle to that. They are establishing themselves
quite well. On the other hand, there is no indication really on
the part of any Iranian faction that they want to see another
Islamic republic in Iraq. Their primary concern is a stable regime
politically and militarily, not a particularly forceful one. They
do not want a large army on their border and something that will
provide a market for potentially Iranian goods. They see it as
their back room. In terms of interfering, the Iranians are in
this advantageous position of being in a situation where as long
as you have these directly held elections the Shias are in the
majority, so they are quite happy for that to happen and they
have no reason to agitate otherwise. I do not want to over-simplify
the issue either. They have no reason to make the situation for
the Americans particularly easy. There are certain elements in
Iran that would not be anxious for the Iranians to leave either
too quickly or too easily because it would free up the Americans
to do other things in the region which they really do not want
them to, which basically comes to the final part of your question.
Yes, there is a very serious concern that the Americans are looking
to finish up in Tehran and this is part three of the strategy.
Q69 Mr Chidgey: I think that answers
my supplementary question which in fact is, has the war in Iraq
accelerated or decelerated Iran's search to acquire nuclear weapons?
Dr Ansari: There are two catalysts
when we talk about the search for nuclear technology and leave
it up to others to enquire about how they want to use their nuclear
technology and certainly one was the nuclearisation of South Asia.
There is no doubt about it, the Pakistanis acquiring nuclear weapons
was something that did bother the Iranians and worried them to
some extent. There is the argument that the Americans are not
going to attack nuclear powers. I think it is a somewhat simplistic
argument but it is an argument that says we should look at North
Korea or Iraq and learn our lessons from those examples.
Q70 Chairman: Should we see the hand
of Iran in the compilation of the list put forward by Ayatollah
Sistani and his group?
Dr Ansari: To be honest, I hear
many different stories about the influence that Iran has, particularly
among the Shias. As far as I am aware, Ayatollah Sistani has a
relationship certainly with the Iranian clerics but also with
different factions. Sistani's relationship really is stronger
probably with Khatami and Montazeri than it is perhaps with some
of the more right-wing ayatollahs, whereas Muqtada al-Sadr will
have relationships with other sides. On the other hand, they are
all very heavily intermarried. I would be surprised if the influence
was that direct that they were actually dictating lists of candidates,
I do not think it would be that obvious and I certainly think
Sistani is in a somewhat different category. He is very well regarded
as a marja, as a supreme, a Grand Ayatollah and I do not think
he would be that easily persuaded.
Q71 Sir John Stanley: The Iranian Government
has come in for a fair amount of criticism both from the Americans
and also from the Iraqi provisional government for not doing more
to seal their border with Iraq. Could you inform the Committee
of just how realistic or completely non-realistic any such policy
is? Is it basically an open border? Is it financially ludicrous
to suggest the thing should be completely sealed, or is it actually
a realistic possibility for the Iranian Government to do very
much more in terms of controlling passage between Iran and Iraq?
Dr Ansari: The longest border
Iraq has is with Iran and it is extremely difficult to police.
Clearly there are elements where they can secure certain border
crossings, but it would be very difficult to monitor the passage
through it. I think the Americans in this case are being somewhat
realistic and probably unfair if you look at the American-Mexican
border. These are difficult borders to monitor. Even in the northern
areas you would find there is a lot of trans-national movement.
I do not think there is any doubt that there are Iranians moving
over and some of it is pilgrimages, some of it is other more political
activities. I think there is undoubtedly an element of political
exaggeration on behalf of probably the Iraqi interim government
as well as the Americans in this regard about how much is going
on.
Q72 Sir John Stanley: On the Iranian
nuclear programme, the object of the exercise as far as the EU
and America is concerned is to prevent that turning into a nuclear
weapons programme. Do you think that the EU trio have basically
gone down the right route or do you think they are guilty of naivety?
Do you think that the alternative American policy of certainly
looking for various forms of sanctions to put greater pressure
on the Iranian Government would be a better policy option?
Dr Ansari: I think this last year
has been somewhat of a shock to my system in particular because
what really has come home this year is the absence of a policy
both on the EU side and the American side, and by a policy I mean
a real long-term strategic vision of how they intend to go about
developing their relations with Iran or getting their goals. The
EU now has got it about right but it has been a long time getting
here. I think they spent a year running around and making mistakes
and having a very steep learning curve. In fact, that was the
phrase used by one of my colleagues. My argument is that there
should not be a steep learning curve at this stage. The British
should not need to go through a steep learning curve in their
relations with Iran. I think this country has probably had the
longest diplomatic relations with Iran of any European power going
back over 200 years, so we should have enough expertise to know
how to deal with the Iranians. Overall there needs to be quite
a radical re-think—this is a pretty personal view—both
on the EU side and the American side about how to approach Iran
so that we can get things constructed and get some benefit. At
the moment we tend to react rather than respond and while we were
dealing with the security issues and the nuclear issues I think
we neglected other sides which equally deserved our attention
over the past year and that was not to our credit.
Q73 Sir John Stanley: I am surprised
you are so dismissive of the EU3 initiative. Is that not a fairly
considerable achievement, having entered into an agreement with
the Iranian Government which, if you believe the Iranian Government
is going to adhere to it, will mean that the Iranian Government
is not going to go into the nuclear weapons business?
Dr Ansari: I think now this is
commendable, but we are really back to where we were last year
after having gone through a year of renegotiating, a lot of hair
pulling and a lot of frustration. Now, broadly speaking the EU,
particularly the EU3, have got the position right. I think they
are also taking seriously their own obligations under the NPT[1]in
order to give Iran certain character as well as insisting on certain
restrictions. The initial agreement signed last October I was
enormously in favour of at the time, but what I did not realise
then was that certain compromises seem to have been made on other
aspects of Iranian policy which dealt with human rights and democratisation
and that was a pity.
Q74 Mr Olner: It might well be said that
Iran is trying to talk up the conflict with the US and that is
one of its reasons for pressing ahead with its nuclear programme.
Given the negotiations with the EU3 as the way to move out of
a conflict situation, how strong do you think the voices are now
in Iran in calling for the nuclear programme to be upped a bit?
It does not really matter, does it, to the Majles deputies, the
200 of them that have signed up and said we will go ahead no matter
what with enrichment and what have you?
Dr Ansari: One of the flaws in
the thinking of the EU3 last year was that in not actually protesting
enough at what happened in the parliamentary elections we had
a group of people coming into parliament through largely fraudulent
means who were not sympathetic to an agreement. We had signed
an agreement, hoped the additional protocol would be ratified
but then effectively turned a blind eye to an election fraud.
If we compare it to the reaction to the Iranian elections, it
is quite telling to be honest, which is basically putting a group
of people into parliament that were very unlikely to ratify the
situation, they wanted extra concessions and so on and so forth.
My big concern is that there are elements not just in Iran but
in the United States, perhaps even in Israel, who have a confrontational
and a rather antagonistic view of each other and if you put these
three together it is quite a volatile mix. So in this respect
I have enormous sympathy for the Europeans. I think the Europeans
are stuck in the middle of a very volatile pot and they are trying,
as you say, to pull us back from an escalation, whereas others
are playing a very dangerous game, a bluff is the best way of
putting it. My greatest concern is that in the following 10 or
12 months we will see a situation develop where there is an enormous
amount of goodwill in the various capitals but there are also
a lot of spoilers who are going to cause difficulties. Really
the task for us over the next year is to make sure that (a) we
can anticipate some of these spoilers but (b) also have the mechanisms
and the ability to communicate with each other to be able to avoid
anything getting out of hand. One of the things we have to bear
in mind is that the United States has no relations with Iran,
they have no man on the spot. Even at the height of the Cold War
they had an embassy in the Soviet Union. We have no contact between
those two antagonists so to speak.
Q75 Mr Olner: Do you think the Americans
are prepared for us to be the honest broker and the French and
Germans? You have no contact. Are they happy with their contact
with them?
Dr Ansari: I think at the moment
they are, at least that is certainly the impression I get. One
of your other witnesses may be able to tell you better than I.
There is also a very influential group who are willing this agreement
to fail. There is no doubt about it, there is also a group of
people who do not want it to fail, who are quite happy to let
the Europeans continue for a few more months and sweat and make
all the effort, but they really will not be surprised if it fails.
I was very struck for instance when hardly had the ink dried on
this latest agreement than Colin Powell had announced that he
had evidence that Iran was converting long-range missiles for
nuclear warheads and it turned out that this was based on a single
source of evidence. One would have liked at least a week for the
agreement to settle in before we started moving on to the next
issue of contention. The Americans' attentions at the moment are
focused on Iraq and they are very happy to allow certainly the
British to be the honest broker, but there are also groups there
who would want to be able to turn round in six months and say
"we told you so".
Q76 Mr Olner: You touched before on the
trade agreement between Iran and the EU. Do you think that is
of vital importance in getting the message over to ordinary Iranians
that we have no wish to control them or anything like that and
that to trade is a great leveller in bringing back prosperity?
How widely amongst the general public in Iran are the trade agreements
with the EU known about, spoken about or whatever?
Dr Ansari: I think the relationship
of the EU to Iran is enormously important and enormously influential,
which only heightens the fact that the lack of any response last
year had a very bad effect. Trade agreements are a very useful
way forward. My only wish is that in some ways the EU had been
able to do this earlier. There is a general consensus that had
a trade agreement been signed when Khatami was at his height it
would undoubtedly have boosted his position domestically. In that
way we have somewhat missed the boat. Nonetheless, it would be
enormously beneficial and plain to an Iranian audience, a general
audience, that the Europeans are not there simply to wield a big
stick and constantly berate us for various reasons.
Q77 Chairman: Dr Ansari, how do you respond
to the cynics who say that since the agreement with the EU3 in
October of last year Iran has been playing games and it has pursued
a fairly consistent line towards obtaining military nuclear capability?
Evidence pointed out would be that of concealment and brinkmanship
in terms of the UN Security Council and that ultimately they know
that Russia and/or China would veto any sanctions of the Security
Council. So, having bought off that referral, they would get fairly
shortly to the point of nuclear breakout and achieve their aim.
Dr Ansari: I think there is a
lot of validity to the argument that what the Iranians have been
doing since the original agreement signed in October 2003 has
been a lot of brinkmanship, a lot of manipulation of the political
process. Part of the problem, however, still lies on our side
of the negotiating table. One of the biggest complaints about
the EU is that it is a very difficult organisation in some ways
to co-ordinate to be able to have a single policy coming out of
the EU. I think the Iranians were very effective in being able
to exploit various disagreements between EU partners and there
needed to be a strength of determination in wills among the EU
partners to let Iranians know these are the red lines and we would
rather you did not cross them, but the trouble was that from an
early stage there was a lot of provocation on a number of different
partners, not necessarily the EU3 but certainly other partners
as well may have sent different messages and I think that was
certainly an issue. In terms of inconsistency, however, I feel
that we must also bear in mind that as far as the Iranians are
concerned there has been quite a heavy amount of inconsistency
from the West as well and this has resulted in quite a deep sense
of mistrust in actual fact and that we are in the situation we
are in not because of the success of policy but the failure of
policy. If I was to look at the most recent failure, in a sense
it is the whole "axis of evil" speech. This thing put
the final nail in the coffin of Khatami as a reforming president
who had gone out of his way to give the West things it wanted
during the Afghan war and he was rewarded with this. So a lot
of Iranian leaders are extremely sceptical and suspicious about
how to deal with the West. In that sense I can fully understand
that.
Q78 Chairman: But the suspicion of the
West goes back far longer than that.
Dr Ansari: Absolutely. You are
absolutely right, it goes much further back. The "axis of
evil" was maybe the latest in an unfortunate series of perhaps
miscalculations on both sides.
Q79 Chairman: If it is a consistent aim
of the Iranian authorities to obtain a military nuclear capacity,
what is the relevance of the sweeteners, the carrots, the trade
agreements?
Dr Ansari: I can tell you what
I believe they may be up to and I can tell you what I know they
may be up to and what I know they may be up to is very limited.
If we knew what they were up to then we would not be in this difficulty.
Clearly they have this determination that says that nuclear technology
in its variety of forms—and it is a very widely held view
among many Iranians which I disagree with but I am probably a
minority of people in this respect—is a sign of modernity,
it is a sign of being modern, it is prestigious, it is like Europe
in the Sixties when the idea of having nuclear power was essential
and it is something that they played very well on a nationalist
card and even diaspora Iranians would be very positive on. I think
much of the money could be spent on much more fruitful things.
Nonetheless, I think the way to handle it perhaps is the way that
Europe has done at this stage, which is to say, "Look, if
you want to pursue the civilian side of it by all means do. We
are not going to prevent you having the technology, but we need
reassurances that you are not going to go down the other route",
and I think that is why you have to have a very transparent procedure
as far as possible.
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