Tehran Terrorfest

[igloo]

TEHRAN TERRORFEST

By AMIR TAHERI

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January 26, 2004 -- THE other day at the World Economic Forum's inaugural session at Davos, Switzerland, Iran's President Muhammad Khatami repeatedly nodded his head in approval as forum founder Klaus Schwab called for the eradication of international terrorism. In his own speech, Khatami called for a "dialogue of civilizations" as an alternative to war and terror.

Meanwhile, militants from some 40 countries spread across the globe were trekking to Tehran for a 10-day "revolutionary jamboree" in which "a new strategy to confront the American Great Satan" will be hammered out.

The event starts Feb. 1, to mark the 25th anniversary of the return to Iran from exile of the late Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini, the founder of the "Islamic Revolution." It is not clear how many militants will attend, but Iran's official media promise a massive turnout to underline the Islamic Republic's position as the "throbbing heart of world resistance to American arrogance."

The guest list reads like a who's who of global terror.

In fact, most of the groups attending the event, labeled "Ten Days of Dawn," are branded by the United States and some European Union members as terrorist outfits. These include 17 branches of the Hezbollah, a worldwide militant Shi'ite movement created by Tehran in 1983.

For more than two decades, Tehran has been a magnet for militant groups from many different national and ideological backgrounds. The Islamic Republic's hospitality cuts across even religious divides. Militant Sunni organizations, including two linked to al Qaeda - Ansar al-Islam (Companions of Islam) and Hizb Islami (The Islamic Party) - will enjoy Iranian hospitality. So will Latin American guerrilla outfits, clandestine Irish organizations, Basque and Corsican separatists and a variety of leftist groups, from Spartacists to Trotskyites and Guevarists.

Tehran is the only capital where all the Palestinian militant movements have offices; some have training and financial facilities there, too. Iranian officials claim that the presence of these organizations is limited to "cultural and information activities."

The militant offices are known as "daftar ertebat" - "contact bureaus" - while the training offered by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards is presented as "courses in self-defense."

But the war in Iraq and the capture of Saddam Hussein have shaken the traditional Khomeinist assumption that the United States will never risk a direct confrontation with the Iranian regime.

The old view is expressed in a celebrated dictum of Khomeini that is painted on the walls of the conference center where the militants will meet: "America Cannot Do A Damn Thing!"

Now, however, many in Tehran believe that unless the Khomeinist regime modifies aspects of its behavior, notably in its relations with terrorist groups, it might find itself in military conflict with the United States. "Anyone who ignores the presence of the American war machine all around us suffers from deadly illusions," says Imadeddin Baqi, a member of the outgoing Islamic Majlis (parliament).

Until at least last December, one idea was to either cancel the terrorist jamboree or curtail it to a single prayer session at Khomeini's mausoleum in Tehran.

That idea was vetoed by the "Supreme Guide," Ali Khamenei, who believes that any show of weakness by the regime could encourage its numerous opponents inside and outside the country. Thus Khamenei plans to use the global jamboree to show that Iran is still a revolutionary force to be reckoned with, and that he alone, and not the ineffective Khatami, calls the shots in Tehran.

Khamenei also hopes that the next elections, to be held 10 days after the terror jamboree ends, will produce a new majority that shares his strategy. His game plan is to unify the regime by cutting the so-called "reformists" down to size and adopting a wait-and-see tactic until after the American presidential election.

The militants headed to Tehran will likely be told they must lie as low as possible for the next few months without abandoning their radical goals.

The Tehran gathering is also expected to deepen the recent informal alliances made between Islamist militant groups and a variety of communist, anarchist and environmentalist militant groups against the "American common enemy." The Khomeinist leadership has taken note of the success of the Islamist-Leftist alliances in organizing rallies against the liberation of Iraq last year.

Khomeini himself presided over an alliance of Islamists, communists and other Marxist-Leninist groups that brought down the Shah's regime in 1979.

"Today, mankind has a common enemy," says Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, who heads the powerful Council of Guardians in Tehran. "And that enemy is the American Great Satan. Anyone who fights the Great Satan for whatever reason is on our side, and anyone who does not is on the opposite side."

Nevertheless, it is clear that the Khomeinist regime is prepared to change aspects of its behavior and even concede some tactical retreats to weather what many in Tehran call "the Bush storm." But the regime's strategy - aimed at driving America out of the Middle East, destroying Israel and replacing all Arab regimes with "truly Islamic" ones - remains unchanged.

It is no accident that two words are popular in Tehran these days. One is détente, often used by Khatami and the so-called "reformists." The other, used by the more hard-line Khomeinists, is hudhabiah, which is the name of a truce signed by the Prophet Muhammad with a Jewish tribe in Medina at a time Muslims found themselves in a weak position.

At the end of the truce period, the Prophet's army, having rebuilt its strength, attacked the Jews and massacred all its adult male members, seizing women and children as war booty.

It is against this background that the question of what to do with Iran must be debated. The Khomeinist leadership, isolated abroad and threatened at home, appears ready to offer almost all the behavioral changes required by Washington and the Eureopean Union. But it cannot change its nature. And there is no guarantee that this particular beast will not bite again, and hard, as soon as it feels that it is no longer threatened. A scorpion does not sting because it is naughty; that is dictated by its nature.

The current mood of retrenchment in Tehran may lead to a brief détente, as Khatami wants. But that would mean nothing but a tactical move; the strategy of terror remains unchanged.

E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com

[igloo]

A lot of "chatter" in the media about Iran lately

[mr mahs]

I've noticed that to bud.... They is a thirts for freedom in that country hopefully the Mullahs will lose power, so it can become a reality.