Comment

The Great Iranian Public Relations Exercise

Reg Lee

In a comment written for this journal titled 'Iran: The Next Target for US Aggression?' (October 2005) I wrote:

'… Ahmadinejad is an Iranian nationalist and he is driven by the idea that he must pander to Iranian nationalism. As Dr. Hooshang Amirahmadi of Rutgers University, New Jersey claimed in 1996 nationalism has replaced religion as the main Iranian ideology: 'The time has come to reconsider the image of Iran as a rigidly religious society, governed by Islamic fundamentalist ideology. Iranians and their government are increasingly moving away from political Islam and toward secular nationalism. This trend has been most vivid since Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's second term as president began in 1993.'

As viewers watched the unfolding of events surrounding the capture of British military personnel by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, many TV commentators were scratching their heads and asking why? I note that on BBC's Newsnight programme for instance (Wednesday April 4th 2007) that Jeremy Paxman asked 'Who has won in this very public confrontation?' Well, certainly not the British establishment who were given a very public bloody nose by the wily Iranians.

Paraphrasing the US neo-con John Bolton, Paxman said 'there was an unequivocal winner in this … [Iran] … it emerged emboldened and stronger'. In response Mike Gapes (Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee) then said 'I think that's rubbish, I think the neo-cons have had a defeat here …' and going on to criticise the methods Bolton was suggesting said that this was 'a triumph for diplomacy'. Strangely both Bolton and Gapes were right. Bolton was correct to say that Iran was the clear winner and Gapes was right also but only in so far as the methods used to help release the British military personnel; besides what other reasonable options were there?

On the same programme Sir Richard Dalton (British Ambassador to Iran 2002-06) said: 'I think Iran has obtained a short-term advantage … ' then stating 'they've snatched a short-lived victory from the possibility of a serious defeat, they had no support in the International community... '.

Dalton's comments however were way off the mark because the main aim of the capture was to consolidate and strengthen Ahmadinejad's position within Iran and beyond into nations where Arabic is understood, and this is clearly based on building an Iranian nationalism, which is partly due to the fact that Iran is boxed-in by American backed forces. To the West is Iraq and the East is Afghanistan; both have US forces along Iran's borders. To the north are a couple of the pro-US 'Stans' and to the south-west is Qatar with a strong US presence and then there's Saudi Arabia. There is then a siege mentality amongst the Iranian leadership. The British military personnel were never in any serious danger, but were simply pawns for what was in reality an Iranian public relations exercise. The other reason that Dalton was mistaken was that this wasn't meant to force the hands of the British or US to submit to any external demands (nuclear building springs to mind), but was used to bolster Iran's standing amongst Arab speakers; after all, the State run Arab language Al-Alam network led with all the stories only to be followed in stages on Farsi language channels.