Iran-Iraq pushing for Syria's balkanization

Barzani and Maliki (top) and a Balkanized Syria map

The specter of Syria’s balkanization has yet to pass from sight.

Tehran has now given the thumbs up for a “provisional civil administration” in Syria’s Kurdish areas and agreed to help clear out Qaeda-linked extremists there.

Fresh from talks in Tehran, Salih Muslim, head of the Syrian Kurds’ Democratic Union Party (PYD), an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), says Iran gave the go-ahead for a “transitional civil administration” planned by the “Western Kurdistan Council.”

Western Kurdistan refers to the Kurdish areas in northern and northeastern Syria bordering Turkey.

Muslim also tells pan-Arab al-Hayat today agreement was reached with the Iranian side “to fight our common enemy,” chiefly Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Muslim said he met with high-ranking foreign ministry and Revolutionary Guards officials during his August 7-8 stay in Tehran at the invitation of the foreign ministry.

“Iran is an important country. It is the only one in the region to have the ear of the [Syrian] regime,” he said.

Barzani

On August 10, Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, posted a statement on the KRG’s official website saying:

For a while now, the print media and a number of political and media centers have been saying terrorists in Western Kurdistan have mobilized against Kurdish citizens and that Qaeda-linked terrorists are attacking innocent civilians and massacring Kurdish women and children.

To verify such news, I am calling for a special inquiry commission to travel to Western Kurdistan and investigate. If it finds that innocent Kurdish citizens, women and children are under threat of death and terrorism, the Iraqi Kurdistan Region will make use of all its capabilities to defend innocent Kurdish women, children and citizens in Western Kurdistan.

Barzani's statement referred to Kurdish areas in Syria as “Western Kurdistan.”

Spread over large, adjoining tracts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran, the Kurdish people are often described as the largest ethnic group without their own state.

The northern Iraqi region of Kurdistan, which has its own government and armed forces, is pursuing increasingly independent energy and foreign policies, infuriating Baghdad.

Iraqi Kurds have sent fuel, food and medical aid to their ethnic kin over the border in Syria, extending Barzani’s influence, but Saturday’s statement appeared to be the first time that he had suggested intervention.

In Syria, where they make up nearly 10 percent of the population, Kurds have been widely discriminated against under Bashar al-Assad and his late father before him, who stripped more than 100,000 of their citizenship.

For Syrian Kurds, the insurrection against Assad presents an opportunity to win the kind of rights enjoyed by their neighbors in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Maliki

Quoting from Kuwait’s al-Seyassah newspaper, Baghdad’s Shafaq News reported August 9,  “Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki notified KRG President Masoud Barzani that the Assad regime is not against Peshmerga forces entering northern Syria to defend Syrian Kurds against attacks by al-Qaeda.

“A highly-placed Kurdish source in Baghdad said Iranian leaders, together with the Iraqi premier, are putting pressure on Barzani to stop supporting the Syrian revolution and back Assad’s regime… especially that al-Qaeda poses a threat to both Irbil and Baghdad.”

All this highlights the potential for Peshmerga, Syrian Kurd, Iranian and Iraqi forces banding together to help Assad win his presumed war on Takfiris, Jihadists and al-Qaeda -- at least in Western Kurdistan.

Israel

Separately, Lazar Berman wonders in his think piece for The Times of Israel this week: “Is a free Kurdistan, and a new Israeli ally, upon us?”

In his opinion, Syria’s Kurds are bent on carving out an autonomous enclave in northeastern Syria.

The PYD “has been taking advantage of the power vacuum caused by the two-year-old conflict to push out rival opposition fighters and move closer to autonomy…

“According to Kurdistan expert Ofra Bengio of Tel Aviv University, independence is not on the Syrian Kurds’ agenda any time in the near future. ‘The PYD is not talking about independence now and will be reluctant to use such terminology in order not to antagonize any of the governments or the international community. Autonomy is the safer goal now,’ she said.”

Berman says “Israel has long developed alliances with non-Arab countries on the periphery of the Middle East. Today, that policy rests on partnerships with Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, and Caucasian and central Asian countries. Kurdistan fits perfectly into that framework…

“With few friends in the region, the Kurds will likely look to Israel to help them gain security and closer relations with the United States. As Arab governments in the Middle East totter and fall, and Islamists look to exploit the chaos, the alliance is one that both countries may find beneficial to pursue.”

Kissinger

This reminds me of the presentation former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made at the Ford School in New York City last June, when he said a Balkanized Syria is the best outcome to emerge of its current Assad-controlled unity.

“There are three possible outcomes. An Assad victory, a Sunni victory, or an outcome in which the various nationalities agree to co-exist together but in more or less autonomous regions, so that they can’t oppress each other. That’s the outcome I would prefer to see. But that’s not the popular view,” he said.

Are Assad’s allies heeding Kissinger’s counsel and pushing Barzani and Syria’s Kurds to go down that route?

Iran: "Ahmadinejad arrested, quizzed and released”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to have been arrested and held for questioning for seven hours this week by order of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad was quizzed about his campaign to promote his favored candidate in the much-anticipated June 14 election of the Islamic Republic’s seventh president.

I have collated these two reports, one detailing news of his arrest and questioning and the other shedding light on Ahmadinejad’s campaign for his chosen successor.

The arrest

By Reza Kahlili, writing for World Net Daily (WND) under the title “Iran source: President Ahmadinejad arrested”:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was arrested and held for seven hours Monday and warned to keep his mouth shut about matters detrimental to the Islamic regime before he was released, according to a source within the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence unit.

After his visit to Tehran’s 26th international book fair Monday (April 29), the source said the head of Ahmadinejad’s security team informed the Iranian president that he had been asked to appear at the supreme leader’s office for an urgent matter.

On the way to the meeting, contact between the security team within the president’s convoy was disconnected while three other cars joined the convoy, instructing the lead car to take a different direction. Ahmadinejad, instead of being taken to the supreme leader’s office, was taken to a secret location in one of the buildings belonging to the Foreign Ministry, which is under the control of the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit.

As soon as Ahmadinejad exited the car, he and his security team were involved in an altercation with Guards’ members in which his team was disarmed and communications equipment confiscated. Ahmadinejad was then forced to enter an office belonging to Hossein Taeb, the head of the Guards’ intelligence, located underneath the building.

As this was happening, the source said, hundreds of other Guards’ members from the intelligence unit sought out Ahmadinejad’s associates throughout Tehran and questioned them on the existence of documents detrimental to the regime.

Ahmadinejad was questioned for hours in a meeting with Taeb; Asghar Hejazi, the head of intelligence at the supreme leader’s office; Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader’s son; and Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, the attorney general. He was warned to back down from his claims against regime officials and given an ultimatum. The source added that Ahmadinejad was released back to his security team at 11:45 p.m. Monday, Tehran time.

Earlier, the regime’s media outlet Baztab reported that with just days remaining for the registration of presidential candidates, Ahmadinejad warned associates that if his hand-picked candidate to succeed him, a close confidant and a top adviser, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, was rejected as a candidate, then he would reveal tapes that will show the regime defrauded the voters in the 2009 presidential election.

One tape reportedly quotes officials as telling Ahmadinejad in 2009 that they will announce his total winning tally as 24 million votes where the real number was 16 million. In the same tape, Ahmadinejad insisted that the officials not do that. The Baztab site was immediately taken down by the regime’s security forces and is still offline.

Millions of Iranians took to the streets after the 2009 election results were reported, calling Ahmadinejad’s 62 percent tally of voters a fraud and demanding a free election. Thousands were arrested, with many tortured and executed. Ahmadinejad’s opponents, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, have been under house arrest ever since.

Under the constitution of the Islamic Republic, the 12-member Guardian Council decides the eligibility of who can run for office in the country, and anyone with any history of opposing the regime is barred from participation. The council is made up of six Islamic faqihs (experts in Islamic law) appointed by the supreme leader and six jurists nominated by the head of the Judiciary (who is himself appointed by the supreme leader), and then approved by parliament.

Ahmadinejad had previously warned that he would release documents not only on high-ranking Guards officers but also on leading members of parliament and the Justice Department that prove financial fraud.

The source added that it will be interesting to see if Ahmadinejad takes the warning or if he creates more problems with the regime, but one thing is sure: He could end up dead if he doesn’t.

The public relations office of the Iranian president subsequently issued a press release rejecting the existence of such a tape that points to fraud in the 2009 elections. In its release, it stated that publishing such news, by the regime’s media Baztab, is only with the intention of creating instability before the upcoming elections.

The UK DailyMail reporting on this WND story added that U.S. and British diplomats in the area are said to be aware of the reports and are viewing them “with interest.”

“It is potentially of considerable significance given the on-going internal political struggles as the election approaches,” one diplomatic source said.

The campaign

By Saeed Kamali Dehghan, writing for The Guardian of May 1 under the title “Who’s afraid of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad”:

As the countdown begins for elections that will usher in Iran's first new president in eight years, all eyes are still on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the unpredictable and mercurial man who looks unlikely to go quietly.

Shortly after the 14 June poll, he will have to relinquish his office in Tehran's Pastor street and hand over the keys to his successor. Given the tight timetable for Iranian elections, it is almost impossible to guess who that person will be.

With just six weeks to go, registrations for presidential candidates are only due next week. A number of hopefuls have already announced plans to run but their candidacies will not be valid until the powerful Guardian Council vets their competence and loyalty to the Islamic republic. In 2009, out of 476 registered nominees, only four candidates were allowed to stand – two of them, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, are under house arrest for refusing to accept the results and for alleging fraud.

The final list of this year's candidates is expected on 23 May and a three-week campaign period will follow.

Despite this, Ahmadinejad has embarked on an extensive schedule of provincial visits in what is suspected to be part of an election strategy designed to promote his favoured candidate. On Wednesday, he was visiting Rasht, the capital of northwestern Gilan province, situated on the coast of the Caspian Sea. At the weekend, he went to Tabriz in the East Azerbaijan province. Previously, he visited a number of other provinces, such as Isfahan, Khuzestan and Semnan. He is not alone; other nominees are following his footsteps.

Under Iranian law, the president cannot run for a third term but all the signs indicate that the 57-year-old Ahmadinejad, a relatively young politician in the Iranian hierarchy, has no plans for retirement. On the contrary, he is accused of planning a Putin/Medvedev-style reshuffle by grooming his chief of staff and close confidant, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei.

In the eyes of loyalists to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, today's Ahmadinejad bears no resemblance to the young revolutionary and later Tehran mayor who rose to become president in 2005. Back then, he quickly became the ayatollah's protégé, enjoying an unprecedented influence over Iranian politics. Now, Ahmadinejad is at odds with his erstwhile patrons in the Revolutionary Guards and widely seen as a lame duck.

Ahmadinejad has fallen foul of the loyalists because of his unwavering support for Mashaei, who is accused of leading a deviant current in the inner circle of the president, loathed for their advocacy of greater cultural openness and nationalism.

Many are already counting down Ahmadinejad's dying days in office, believing they are his final days in power. Others think he still has a chance and, in case Mashaei is disqualified from running, is issuing challenges to the establishment by threatening to go out all guns blazing and pulling down the edifice of the political system that championed him.

But who is afraid of Ahmadinejad? In February, the president played a secretly filmed tape in the Iranian parliament - to the astonishment of millions of Iranians listening on national radio - that revealed the speaker's brother was allegedly trading on his sibling's influence for financial gain.

Many fear that the president's team have many more secret tapes and videos that could pose serious challenges to the Islamic republic; others say that is a bluff. "They have installed hidden cameras, listening devices in order to collect information and release them in public," Mohammed Ali Montazeri, a judicial official, warned this week.

Baztab, a conservative news website critical of the government, said in a report that Ahmadinejad was rumored to possess a tape that shows he received a phone call from the authorities right after the 2009 elections telling him they planned to announce that he had won millions more votes than the real tally. This was denied by the president's office this week and Baztab was taken offline on Wednesday.

"There are things to say..." Ahmadinejad said on a recent visit to the holy city of Qom, promising to reveal them at a future date. The president's menacing language has infuriated his rivals and, as elections approach, everyone is watching for any unexpected movements that may embarrass the supreme leader.

“48 Iranians preferred to 200 Alawites”

ON AIR: Moaz al-Khatib in Cairo and Giselle Khoury in Beirut 

President Bashar al-Assad this week preferred the release by the Free Syrian Army of 48 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to freedom to 200 of his Alawite kinsmen.

The revelation by Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, head of the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary Forces, came in the course of a half-hour live TV interview aired late Thursday night.

Ghiyath Matar

He was speaking from Cairo to Alarabiya TV’s Beirut anchorwoman Gisele Khoury.

Khatib said the FSA offered to release the 200 Alawite military in its custody in exchange for 2,000-plus men and women detained by Assad’s security forces.

Abu Firas al-Halabi

In the end, Assad freed 2,130 of his tens of thousands of detainees, to win the release of the 48 Iranian Revolutionary Guards captured by the FSA in Damascus last August.

While the Iranians are now back home, Khatib said the 200 Alawites remain in custody with the FSA in northern Syria.

In other highlights of the interview, Khatib described Assad’s Sunday speech at the Opera House in Damascus as a “soliloquy” showing “he wants to talk to no one but himself.”

Khatib said the National Coalition was compiling evidence and drawing up a list of 200-to-250 war crimes suspects for the International Criminal Court.

He disputed Assad’s claim that the Syrian revolution had no intellectuals or leaders, citing the late Ghiyath Matar (aka Little Gandhi), as one of its foremost thinkers and Muhammad al-Halabi (aka Abu Firas) as one of its outstanding leaders.

Abu Firas was the FSA commander killed by random shelling hours after his men stormed the Aleppo Infantry School in mid-December.

Khatib also appealed for donations from Syrians across the globe to help alleviate the winter hardships descending on Syrian refugees in host countries.

“For Assad, one Iranian worth 43 Syrians”

Brahimi slams Syrian president

Out of captivity: Iranian Guards and Syrian women

President Bashar al-Assad today freed 2,130 of his tens of thousands of detainees, including 76 Syrian women, to win the release of 48 Iranian Revolutionary Guards captured by the Free Syrian Army in Damascus last August.

The FSA said the Iranians had been assisting the Syrian military, but Tehran claimed they were “Shiite pilgrims” to the Sayyidah Zeinab shrine in the Syrian capital.

Qatar and Turkey jointly brokered the swap on Tehran’s demand. It involved the 48 Iranians in exchange for 2,125 Syrians, 76 of them women, four Turks and one Palestinian.

The 48 Revolutionary Guards were taken to the Sheraton hotel in Damascus, where the Iranian ambassador received them, before being flown to Tehran.

Syrian activist @The_47^th tweeted: “For Assad: 1 Iranian = 43.7 Syrians.”

He then re-tweeted “يا ريت كان عندنا نصف مليون إيراني كنا استبدلناهم بحرية ٢٣ مليون سوري” (Arabic for “Wish we had half a million Iranians. We could have won freedom for 23 million Syrians.”

The exchange came on the day Syria troubleshooter Lakhdar Brahimi said Assad’s speech on Sunday was a "lost opportunity" to stop Syria’s killings and devastation.

Brahimi told the BBC the address had called for a repeat of previous initiatives that had not worked, and had been sectarian and one-sided.

"What you need is reaching out and recognizing that there is... a very serious problem between Syrians, and that Syrians have got to talk to one another to solve it," Brahimi added.

The Algerian diplomat also confirmed reports that Assad had told him when they last met on 24 December that he hoped to run in the next presidential election scheduled for 2014.

However, Brahimi said this was too far away and that people believed one family ruling a country for 40 years was "a little bit too long".

"Change has to be real and President Assad could take the lead in responding to the aspirations of these people, rather than resisting."