Office of Iran Affairs to 'facilitate change in Iranian policies'

From Elise Labott
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. State Department is creating a special office to deal with foreign policy changes related to Iran and to promote a democratic transition in the Islamic republic, State Department officials said Thursday.

Traditionally, Iran has been dealt with as part of a larger grouping of Persian Gulf countries, but the officials said the new Office of Iran Affairs reflects a growing concern over actions by the Iranian regime and the need to devote significantly more personnel and resources to Iran policy.

"Certainly this signals the fact that we believe that Iran and Iranian behavior is one of the greatest foreign policy priorities we will be dealing with over the next decade," a State Department official said.

The office will deal with Tehran's support for groups on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations and Iran's alleged human rights violations. The office also will be involved in issues related to Iran's nuclear energy program, which the Bush administration fears is designed to develop nuclear weapons.

The U.N. watchdog group, the International Atomic Energy Agency, wants Tehran to take action to prove its nuclear energy program is intended for peaceful purposes. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the Islamic state to end its voluntary cooperation with the IAEA. (Full story)

The creation of the Iran office comes on the heels of an announcement last month by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of a $75 million State Department initiative to support democracy in Iran through intensified cultural exchanges, increased programs for democratic advocates and expanded broadcasting into the country.

When asked directly whether the office is being created to promote regime change in Iran, the senior official said the office is being created "to facilitate a change in Iranian policies and actions."

"Yes, one of the things we want to develop is a government that reflects the desires of the people, but that is a process for the Iranians," said the official, who spoke on the condition anonymity. "The development of democracy in Iran is important to the United States, and that is going to be a big part of the office's job, but it is also to pursue the broad range of issues in our policy."

Brian Katulis, director of democracy and public diplomacy for the national security team at the Center for American Progress, said there are serious problems with the Rice plan.

For one thing, he said in a written statement, "it is based on an irrelevant Cold War-era approach to democracy promotion."

Quoting a critique published in the Los Angeles Times, Katulis said, "current conditions in Iran make 'it likely that the administration's new strategy will backfire and only strengthen Tehran's hard-liners.'"

He added, "Democracy must come from within, and the United States needs to offer quiet support through non-governmental organizations."

Several new positions are being created worldwide for the new Iran office. In addition to beefing up Washington-based staff working on Iran, a regional center will be built in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to focus on neighboring Iran with four new foreign service posts and four local employees to do outreach. There will also be officers stationed in Germany, Azerbaijan and Britain to deal with Iranian expatriates.

"Frankly, there is an imbalance between Iran's role in the world and its impact on U.S. diplomacy and the resources we are devoting to the portfolio," the senior official said. "When you consider the fact that you have the terrorism problem, proliferation concerns, human rights, democracy issues and regional development, two officers is not enough. In order to pursue our broad agenda concerning the country, we've got to have more people doing it."

The move is part of Rice's recent restructuring of the department and her decision to redirect U.S. diplomatic priorities abroad, placing more emphasis on regional issues and threats.

Dubbed "transformational diplomacy," Rice's plan will shift several hundred diplomatic positions to what she called "new critical posts for the 21st century," such as China, India, Nigeria and Lebanon, where rapid change is creating a need for a greater U.S. presence.

This year 100 diplomats will be sent from Europe and Washington to beef up staffs in the new priority countries identified by Rice and her staff. But officials said none of the area is likely to see the increase in staff now being devoted to Iran.

The new Iran office will be based in the department's Bureau of Near East Affairs, but will also have officials working in the Bureau of Human Rights and Labor.

The Iran office will become one of only a handful of country-specific offices at the State Department that reflect the importance the United States places on the policy toward those countries. Out of about 180 countries with which the United States currently has diplomatic relations, fewer than a dozen merit their own regional office. They include Cuba, Mexico, China and Korea.

Cables are going out to U.S. embassies this week requesting volunteers for the new office. Officials said the goal is to create a cadre of Farsi-speaking foreign service officers who specialize in Iran.

In December Rice and President Bush launched a new initiative aimed at persuading Americans to study critical-need languages, such as Arabic, Chinese, Hindi and Farsi.

By Jalil Hamid

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog's treatment of Iran is politically motivated, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday, the day set for his country's last-ditch nuclear talks with European nations.

Ahmadinejad, who is visiting Malaysia, accused international bodies of bias, in remarks seen by at least one regional diplomat as aimed at his audience at home.

"Regrettably most international organisations have turned into political organisations and the influence of great powers prevents them from taking fair and legally sound decisions," Ahmadinejad said in a speech.

"The IAEA's (International Atomic Energy Agency's) treatment of the Islamic Republic of Iran is politically motivated."

Top EU powers will meet Iran's chief nuclear negotiator for a last stab at dialogue before an IAEA meeting that could bring Security Council steps against Tehran over fears it secretly seeks atom bombs.

Ahmadinejad, who is known for adopting a hawkish rhetorical stance, seemed to be using the strong public statements to try and smooth his negotiator's way in the talks.

Iran wanted the talks but would not accept anything that was forced upon it, the Iranian president said.

"We never seek a fight, we believe in dialogue," said Ahmadinejad, accompanied on his trip by a large Iranian press contingent. "If some parties want to ... impose something on my nation, experience tells me and them that the Iranian nation will make them sorry.

"We are ready to talk and cooperate with everyone, with one exception, which is the Zionist regime," he said.

The West, led by the United States, suspects Iran is covertly seeking to build an atomic weapon. Iran denies this, saying it is pursuing nuclear programmes purely for civilian use.

Thursday's word of the talks in Vienna was a surprise, given Iran's defiance of international calls to rein in nuclear work.

But Iran seems keen to brake momentum towards Security Council action, and the European Union appears keen to show it will listen, if not bend, to Tehran before weighing sanctions.

But no breakthrough seems on the cards, given that Tehran is speeding up uranium enrichment work geared to fuelling nuclear power plants or, potentially, weapons while going slow in talks on a Russian compromise proposal to defuse the crisis.

Iran Focus

London, Mar. 03 – The recent announcement by the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards in Yazd that several officials from the Presidential Office of former President Mohammad Khatami had been arrested for “spying for foreigners” is part of a sweeping internal purge underway in Iran’s theocratic regime, according to well-informed sources in the Iranian capital.

The rise to power of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former Revolutionary Guards commander, as Iran’s new president last year entailed a sweeping purge of hundreds of senior and mid-level officials in the country’s burgeoning bureaucracy. Supporters of Ahmadinejad’s two predecessors, Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, have been fired from key positions in all the ministries, embassies, state banks, and other governmental institutions.

The purged officials include dozens of ambassadors and diplomats, all but one of the ministers, and more than three quarters of deputy ministers, department directors, and provincial governors, according to a confidential government report obtained by Iran Focus. Many of them have been replaced by several hundred officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) seconded to government positions.

Rafsanjani has publicly rebuked the massive purges, but sources inside the Iranian government say he and Khatami have no clout to withstand the onslaught by hard-liners under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s leadership.

Hard-liners justified the first waves of the purges as the “need for fresh blood after 16 years of misgovernment” by Rafsanjani and Khatami. In many cases, rampant corruption among officials close to the two former presidents was given as the reason for the reshuffle.

In its Thursday editorial, the hard-line daily Kayhan, called for “a bloodless purge” of “officials who belong to the petro-political mafia”. The paper, close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, defined this mafia as “a group of veteran officials in the banking, oil, and foreign service sectors who were able in the past to play a role in the formation of governments or in Majlis elections”.

“Members of this mafia have formed a complex web in the Oil Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, in banks, and in other institutions and have taken advantage of the country’s huge administrative and financial resources to serve their own political and economic interests”, Kayhan wrote.

“Ahmadinejad’s government can use patience and wisdom to wage a bloodless surgery that would rid the justice-seeking people of Iran of the ominous shadow of this network, and help the Enlightened Leader of the Islamic Revolution [Khamenei] to achieve the sacred goals of the Islamic Republic”, the editorial added.

The editorial, which called for the “dismantling of this self-serving group”, left little doubt in the readers’ mind that its references to “prominent figures” who support this mafia allude to Rafsanjani and Khatami.

“Khamenei has successfully used the nuclear issue and Israel to purge the regime of his rivals”, said Ali Nasseri, an Iranian financial analyst based in Istanbul. “Rafsanjani is on the defensive and Khatami has no clout”.

On Thursday, Hassan Rowhani, the former secretary-general of the Supreme National Security Council, told students at the Open University in Yazd that news of the arrest of Khatami’s aides on espionage charges was not accurate, but he did not deny the arrests.