December 1998
By Dariush Sajjadi
With the Iranian Information Ministry gang responsible for domestic murders busted, Iran’s political wings are still implicitly accusing each other of involvement in the recent spate of crimes inside the country.
Underlining the conservatives’ approving stances toward violence over the past years, the reformists have not hidden their bent to ascribe the recent murders to the former.
The conservatives in turn have endeavored to attribute the said crimes to their rival, giving out that since the current minister of information is a conservative from the Jameah Rouhaniyat Mobarez (JRM), the reformists want to attribute the crimes to him in a bid to take the reins of the ministry in hand by replacing him with a reformist.
The passage of time, as well as both wings’ sincere demand for identification of those behind the crimes has, however, elucidated the complexity of the murders and proved that the crimes did not stem from factional differences. In addition, despite their serious differences of views, Iran’s political wings are by nature incapable of committing murder to assume power.
The reformists claimed that the conservatives committed the recent murders to give out that the country was insecure and President Khatami incompetent. Their ulterior motive was to justify a coup de’tat against the President on the ground of restoring national security. But this analysis is erroneous, for even if the conservatives really cherished such an objective, it was politically wise enough to make a pick of more prominent figures to assassinate.
On the other hand, the reformists, and generally speaking the pro-President front, are incapable of crimes due to their views and beliefs emanating from their quest for freedom and the rule of the law, elements which enabled the front to gain 20 million votes through democratic strategies.
As such, traces of the murderers should be sought elsewhere.
Al-Hayat daily has recently reported that one of those involved in the murders was a British spy who received 5,000 pounds per month from London. The news item serves as a good clue for analysis of the recent wave of murders in Iran.
Ever since Mohammad Khatami rook the reins of affairs in hand, the US has displayed its recognition of the President elected by the Iranian people. As such, the US has endeavored to assist Khatami to stabilize his power or to avoid barring the Iranian President’s diplomacy, as far as possible. The White House has, over this period, given as many stimulating "green lights" to Iran as possible.
The speeches by Madeleine Albright, Cyrus Vance, Robert H. Pelletreau are indicative of Washington’s resolve to approach Iran.
In the meantime, Britain does not seem to have a high opinion of Khatami as indicated by the February 1997 secret negotiations between the then British Foreign Office’s Director General for the Middle East and the present British charge d’affaires in Tehran Nicke Browne and conservative Majlis (Parliament) deputy Mohammad Javad Larijani. From the very first, London believed that investment on Khatami would not be beneficial and rewarding.
British actions, historically, illustrate that the Buckingham Palace, in its secret rivalry with Washington, especially over the Middle East, has always well resorted to the mechanism of "perpetration of crimes".
Seventy four years back, the then Iranian premier Qawam ul-Saltaneh adopted the policy of "third power" based on which he tried to give the Americans a foothold in Iran’s politics and economy in the face of Russian-British rivalries over Iranian oil.
He thus wanted to increase Iran’s maneuverability and choice. This policy allowed the American Standard Oil Company to arrive in Iran. But the British slyly stopped Standard Oil and then Sinclair from oil operations in Iran.
At the said juncture, deputy US consul Colonel Embry was mysteriously killed during an incident at Tehran’s Asheikh Hadi Saqakhaneh (holy place where people light candles and pray for their wishes to come true).
The British had realized Iran’s eagerness to give the US a foothold in the country. In July 1924, the British set forth the rumor of a miracle in Tehran’s Asheikh Hadi Saqakhaneh. They sent British Embassy officer in Tehran Baldwin Seymore to Embry to encourage the latter to take photographs of the Saqakhaneh, photographs for which Embry gave his life.
After arriving at the Saqakhaneh, Embry faced people who stirred the masses’ religious sentiments to kill Embry as an unbeliever and alien at that sacred! site. This could have brought on frosty relations between Iran and the US and proved to Washington that Iran was not a safe and appropriate place for American enterprises.
The interesting point is that Colonel Embry, who represented "The National Geographic", solely wanted to take the picture of the Saqakhaneh for publication in "The National Geographic". This is while representatives of the said magazine who arrived in Iran over the past month to take pictures and prepare reports were also accused by several conservative dailies of being American spies and had to immediately leave the country.
Seventy two years after Embry was killed, unidentified assailants attacked a group of 13 American merchants who were returning to their hotel in Tehran on November 21, 1998.
On the face of it, the assailants were anti-US religious forces.
The visiting group comprised American merchants who had traveled to Tehran to seek new avenues for commerce and trade in Iran. In fact, they were members of an organization which embraces 500 American companies and acts against the US economic embargo on Iran.
Even though Khatami has time and again stressed that he does not intend to resume diplomatic ties with the US, he has made every effort to have US commercial and trade bans on Iran lifted.
A few days later, an unknown group, calling itself "Fadaiyan Islam Nab" (Devotees of Genuine Islam), claimed responsibility for the mysterious attack on the American merchants. Yet reminiscence of events leading to Embry’s death reflects traces of mischievous British policy in the aforementioned incident.
The interesting point about Embry’s death and the attack on American merchants in Iran is that the US realized British involvement in both cases. Contrary to what the public opinion expected, Washington, in both cases, abstained from adopting hostile and negative stances toward Iran.
After Embry was murdered, the US avoided violent reaction toward Iran and rather granted scholarships to Iranians wishing to study in the US, the sums of which equaled the expenses of transferring Embry’s body to the US with an American warship.
The US was likewise, expected to adopt a negative stance toward the attack on American tourists in Tehran in November 1998. But the US State Department took an unprecedented stance, declaring that notwithstanding the said incident, Washington was eager for promotion of relations between the Iranian and American nations. It also removed Iran from the black list of narcotics-producing countries.
Three days after the attack on the American merchants, Dariush Forouhar and his wife, Parvaneh, were mysteriously killed. In a matter of days, two not-so-famous Iranian authors Mohammad Pooyandeh and Mohammad Mokhtari were also murdered.
As already mentioned, in case the wings opposing Khatami wanted to use the murders to prove the President’s inability to maintain law and order, they would have definitely found more prominent preys, whose death would have seriously excited the public opinion.
The news item run by Al-Hayat daily (to the effect that one of the murderers acted as an agent for Britain) shows London’s insistence on paving the ground for disorder in the face of Khatami’s drive for civil community.
This time, however, the US seems intent on neutralizing Britain’s measures.
Perhaps there are traces of US assistance in the sudden discovery of the gang responsible for recent murders in Tehran and perhaps these could be taken as a response to the British mischief.
Al Sharq al-Awsat has reported the accidental discovery of a tape that carries dialog between murderers of the Forouhars and their masters after the crime was committed. The paper said the tape has been handed over to the officials. This discovered item might be a clue indicating the possible US response to the British mischief and the US effort to prove its good will to Iran.
A review of history elucidates such covert rivalries between Washington and London over Tehran.
In 1968, Ismaeel Raeen published the book "Freemasonry Documents" which introduced anglophile Iranian statesmen. Immediately afterward, the book "Inheritor of Colonialism" was published by Dr. Mahdi Bahar, introducing Iranian Americophiles and disclosing US colonial policies in the region.
The objective behind this "battle of the books" was to remove both sides’ agents in Iran.
Before the 1953 American-orchestrated coup de’tat in Iran, hostility raged between Britain and Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq. London slyly deceived Washington by portraying Mosaddeq as a communist and thus convincing the US to launch a coup de’tat against communist influence in Iran.
Some 25 years later, the US had to pay a heavy price for being deceived by Britain in 1953. Washington lost its most strategic regional ally and faced an intensely anti-American government system that has questioned US political moves over the past two decades.
The unacknowledged point about the 1953 coup de’tat was that it did not primarily suppress Iran’s national movement but rather cut off Britain’s hands from Iran. From then on, Washington took the lead, with London following it, when it came to reaping benefit of Iran’s oil and economic resources. Ironically, Britain was the sole contender of the said resources and interests beforehand.
For Britain, the choice was like a dilemma. Britain preferred to incite the Americans to stage a coup against Mosaddeq. In place of loosing total control over Iran, Britain decided to bring in a new and powerful rival in a drive to retain the minimum for itself.
Fifteen years later, London slyly gave wide coverage to Iran’s anti-American revolution through the BBC. Though London was not able to influence and affect the revolution to its own benefit, it at least directed the revolution’s waves against its old rival.
There was good reason why the extensive tide of Iran’s Islamic Revolution would quiet down in 1977-1978 at 8 pm each night, since the majority of Iranians spent the nights listening to the BBC after a day’s combat struggle. This was because the BBC practically served as the revolution’s mouthpiece in those turbulent days.
In addition, Robert MacFarlane’s secret 1984 visit to Iran can be analyzed within the same framework. Interestingly, both Iran and the US were reluctant to release any news on the visit for two months. Only after the news was mysteriously disclosed in Lebanon’s Al-Sharaa magazine did then Majlis Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani officially reveal the visit.
The 1989 assassination of Shahpour Bakhtiyar, the last premier of the Pahlavi regime, can also be reviewed within this light.
Bakhtiyar was assassinated in France on the threshold of the former French President Francois Mitterand’s visit to Iran. The first impact of the assassination was that Mitterrand’s visit, which was of great significance for Iranian statesmen at the time, was cancelled.
In like manner, Dr. Kazem Sami, health minister in Mahdi Bazargan’s cabinet, was assassinated concurrent with the then German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher’s visit to Iran in 1987. The result was that upon his return to Bonn, Genscher declared that Iran was not safe enough for foreign investment. This can also be viewed within the same light.
If we consider Britain intolerant of betterment of Iran-US relations, we can subsequently conclude that London abhors betterment of Iran’s relations with Germany and France as well.
On the other hand, some analysts claim that the Monica Lewinsky scandal is in part the price White House has to pay for getting close – or showing the bent for getting close – to Iran. Though these analysts hold that Zionist lobbies are mainly behind President Clinton’s ordeal, one can trace the strategic unity of the Zionists and London in this attempt.
Traces of London’s involvement in recent unrest in Iran do not rule out "loner" Information Ministry agents’ involvement in the recent spate of murders in Tehran. This is because the claim that London was involved in recent murders does not signify the direct presence of M16 in Iran. Rather it refers to the incredible legends created by the commoners to the effect that the administrative structure of Iran’s Ministry of Information has been established through consultations with general Hussein Fardoost, who founded the Information-Security Organization in the Pahlavi regime and who was highly devoted to Britain.
Also when the Russian diplomat in Tehran Vladimir Kozitkechen sought asylum in London in 1982, M16 furnished an Iranian conservative with the list of names of Toodeh Party members collaborating with the KGB.
One should also bear in mind that foreign agents can never work in a vacuum, as they always rely on domestic agents who pave the way for them to act, especially since conservative structures worldwide share common features. It is not a far-fetched claim to say that Britain has indirectly brought some ignorant conservative circles under its command through operating a "remote control" system.
As a result, there is every possibility of future unrest and insecurity in the country.
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