In Iran, Jailed Dual Nationals Are Pawns in Power Struggle
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August 28, 2016 17 News & Analysis Iran In Iran, jailed dual nationals are pawns in power struggle Gareth Smyth ish charitable foundation worker; Homa Hoodfar, an Iranian-Canadi- an social anthropologist; and Robin London Reza Shahini, an Iranian-American citizen. hen US Republican Iran’s execution of Amiri on presidential candi- August 3rd was announced by date Donald Trump his mother, who said he had told suggested leaked e- her days earlier that his ten-year mail messages from sentence for spying had been in- Whis Democratic rival Hillary Clinton creased to capital punishment. may have led Iran to hang Shahram The hanging was confirmed by a Amiri, he made the executed Ira- judiciary spokesman, who said the nian nuclear scientist’s fate part of scientist had “passed on our coun- the US election. Amiri’s death and try’s most crucial intelligence”, the mysterious events that led up presumably about the nuclear pro- to it, however, are also caught up in gramme, “to the enemy”. the factional battles in Tehran. Many reformists in Iran argue Amiri became the that the “principlists” use many latest twist in the levers to undermine their oppo- Clinton e-mail saga. nents, including the pro-reform president, Hassan Rohani, who Amiri then became the lat- faces re-election in May. est twist in the Clinton e-mail According to this analysis, Ami- saga, which began in 2015 when it ri’s execution focuses attention on emerged she used a private e-mail threats from the United States and address while secretary of State undermines Rohani’s approach under US President Barack Obama. of seeking diplomatic progress on Barely veiled references to Amiri international issues after the July were said by Trump to have led to 2015 nuclear agreement that his ad- the scientist’s death. ministration negotiated with world That claim seems far-fetched, powers. although nothing about the case Ahmed Shaheed, deputy direc- of Amiri, who disappeared on tor of the Human Rights Centre at pilgrimage to Mecca in 2009, is Essex University and the UN spe- straightforward. Since he returned cial rapporteur on human rights to Iran in 2010, where he was giv- A July 2010 picture shows Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri after his return to Tehran. in Iran, argues that human rights en a hero’s reception before being violations tie in with the election jailed, it is unlikely that the leak- cycle. ing of the Clinton e-mail messages nouncement of the arrest of a dual confirmed Tehran’s compliance Hashemi Shahroudi, then widely added to Iranian intelligence’s national, allegedly linked to British with the agreement, Rohani is well seen as the front runner for leader, Might Larijani have knowledge. intelligence and active “in the eco- aware the tests provide ammuni- was thwarted in his attempt to be- authorised Amiri’s Unlikely, but not impossible. nomic sector”, adds to the calcula- tion for the deal’s opponents in come chairman of the Assembly execution for E-mail from adviser Jake Sulli- tions of foreign companies think- Washington, including Trump. of Experts, which chooses the su- essentially political van to Clinton on July 12th, 2010, ing of investing. May’s presidential election in preme leader, by reports that he reasons? hours before Amiri approached They already face problems us- Iran will probably hinge on wheth- was under judicial investigation for the Iranian interest section of the ing the dollar, while the US Con- er voters feel Rohani’s promise of financial irregularities. “I have observed [since 2011] that Pakistani embassy in Washington gress continues its attempts to economic improvement outweighs Might Larijani have authorised [such] violations… often increase asking to return home, appears to stymie Tehran’s agreement with the principlists’ call for greater Amiri’s execution for essentially as an election approaches,” he re- confirm that Amiri had defected to Boeing that could be worth more equality and resisting foreign in- political reasons? One Iranian aca- cently wrote. “As we are now in the the United States and was not, as than $20 billion. terference. But further down the demic said he thought it possible. final year of [Rohani’s] first term, he would claim when back in Iran, Ballistic missile tests may also be line is a more important election in “I see no evidence for this being the flexing of muscles by hardliners the victim of a CIA kidnapping. tangled up in Iran’s factional con- which the Amiri execution might part of the political struggle but I who largely control Iran’s security, “The gentleman,” wrote Sulli- flict. Since the 2015 nuclear agree- play a role. would not rule it out,” the academ- intelligence and judicial apparatus van, “has apparently gone to his ment, Iran has carried out several Some analysts see Sadeq Lari- ic, who requested anonymity, said. may already be beginning.” country’s interests section because launches stretching the UN Securi- jani, head of the judiciary, as a “Why didn’t they execute him in Hence, runs the argument, Iran he is unhappy with how much time ty Council resolution that it refrain possible “kingmaker” in the suc- 2010? Or last year, when the Clin- has arrested several dual nationals, it has taken to facilitate his depar- from ballistic missile activity “de- cession to 73-year-old Ayatollah ton e-mails came out? Why now?” including Siamak Namazi, an Irani- ture.” signed to be capable of delivering Ali Khamenei as supreme leader, an-American who works at a petro- Amiri’s execution came at a time nuclear weapons”. while others see him as a candidate Gareth Smyth was chief leum company in Dubai; Nazanin of tightening security in Iran. Teh- While the United Nations’ In- for president. correspondent in Iran for the Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-Brit- ran’s state prosecutor’s recent an- ternational Atomic Agency has In 2015, Ayatollah Mahmoud Financial Times in 2003-07. Exporting Iranian schools to Iraq Viewpoint t seems that the Iranian The 2003 US-led invasion of skilled people flee in search of can garner the hearts and minds regime is taking advantage Iraq led to the country being stability, Iran has been filling the of generations of Iraqis who are of every opportunity it can handed to Iran. America’s void in Iraqi education facilities Iran has willing to obey the mullahs’ get to infiltrate its neigh- division of Iraq politically along with its own ideological spread. made use of directives. bour Iraq. sectarian lines gave Iran a direct The phenomenon of building the shortage In the current climate, with the Iran’s policy is not new. It presence in Iraqi corridors of Iranian schools is not new but in Iraqi help of these schools among Ifalls in line with Tehran’s power. many Arab states have awakened other Iranian-sponsored institu- ideology of “exporting the This is not in official US to the threat of seeing their education tions and projects, we can expect revolution”, called for by rhetoric but the Iranian influence citizens indoctrinated to having facilities by for the sectarian divide in Iraq to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in Iraq has been met with a sectarian outlook, directed filling the further widen. Hamed the former Iranian supreme American support. from beyond their borders. void with New generations would be al-Gilani leader. For its own reasons, Russia, Iraq is the number one recipi- brought up brainwashed, Iran’s mullahs have found it too, welcomed Iran’s presence in ent of such schools. Children its own separated from Iraq’s cultural easy to exert influence in a Iraq. attending them are being raised ideological identity, having less in common region that is politically, eco- Although Tehran’s grip on the on an Iranian education system spread. with their compatriots and more nomically and socially bankrupt. region has played a role in that channels their loyalties to loyalty to Iran. The region has become a battle- undermining peace and stability, the mullah regime in Tehran. The Iranians are making use of field between the world’s rival it is seeking to be an accepted The government of former their syllabuses and education superpowers, who have found a force through a campaign of Iraqi prime minister Nuri projects in Iraq especially via way in via their “war on terror”. international public relations. al-Maliki allowed the trend of shared religious traditions. However, Iran’s expansionist building such exploitative The sense of belonging to one’s project has also relied on its schools to flourish particularly in branch of faith gradually trans- establishing of charity, tourism rural areas, portraying them as forms into identifying with New generations would be or religious fronts — exploiting “gifts” from Iran. another country, one that is the chaos in Iraq, whose people Some of those schools carry hostile towards your own. This brought up brainwashed, are in dire need of aid. the name of Khomeini. would ensure the sectarian separated from Iraq’s Included among those fronts There is less need for Iran’s bloodshed would continue for are Iranian schools. foreign intelligence apparatus to generations. cultural identity. Amid little concern by the recruit agents to serve the international community with interests of Islamic Revolution- Hamed al-Gilani is an Iraqi the brain drain in the region, as ary Guards Corps when Tehran writer..