Minority Report

54 jir.janes.com l Jane’s Intelligence Review l January 2008RESOURCE WATCHAs Iran’s stand-off with the West continues, leaders in Tehran are preparing forpossible military confrontation with the US and its allies. The Iranian leadership, whilenot totally discounting the possibility of a land invasion, judges air strikes against nuclear, military and political targets as by far the most likelyscenario.The regime in Tehran ostensibly believes that such strikes would have a two-pronged objective: to dismantle Iran’s nuclear programme and to decapitate the regime, and therefore facilitatea change in political leadership. Political calculation As the Iranian leadership is able to withstand the loss of nuclear-related assets both politically and militarily, it is now focusing on measuresto prepare for maintaining political and social stability in a post-attack phase. A key area ofthis goal is to reduce the likelihood of internal revolt at the hands of a number of indigenousanti-regime groups, some of which are armed, and which would be emboldened following aProspects for security in oil-rich Khuzestan Minority report• As Iran plans for possible military conflictwith the US, it is anxious to prevent militantethnic groups from rebelling in the event thecentral government is weakened.• The southwestern province of Khuzestanis a centre for Iran’s energy industry in termsof recoverable deposits and infrastructure.Tehran also views it as a gateway to Iraqimarkets.• Local economic conditions in Khuzestanremain stagnant. Popular anger could fostermilitancy among the ethnic Arabs of theprovince, and jeopardise Iran’s lifeline.This article was first available online on jir.janes.com on 5 December 2007.KKEEYY P POIONTINS TS KEY POINTSIran’s oil and gas-rich province is also home to a provocative mix of a disadvantaged ethnicgroup, high local unemployment and political disaffection. As the Tehran regime turns itsattention to this vital area, Alex Vatanka examines the security and economic implications forthe next possible site of US military intervention.A January 2006 bomb that destroyed a bank in Khuzestan’s capital Ahvaz was blamed by Tehran on the Ahwaz Liberation Organisation. January 2008 l Jane’s Intelligence Review l jir.janes.com 55RESOURCE WATCHpotential US attack.This type of calculation was evident in the leadership rotation that occurred on 1 Septemberwithin the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iran’s elite 145,000-strong militaryforce. Yahya Safavi, who had been the overall IRGC commander since 1997, was replacedby Mohammad-Ali Jafari.Jafari is regarded as a theoretician on asymmetric and insurgency warfare, and a capableregime loyalist who as an IRGC commander in Tehran proved skilful in quelling anti-regimestudent riots in 1999 and 2003. Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader and thecommander-in-chief of all armed forces, also simultaneously appointed Jafari as overall chiefof the Basij militia forces, which act as the regime’s first line of defence in the face of popularunrest. The joint command gives Jafari unprecedented authority. Quoting Khamenei, Jafarihas stated that the IRGC’s and Basij’s main task is to fight “internal enemies”. The appointmentnot only demonstrates Khamenei’s faith in Jafari, but is a clear sign that the regime is becomingincreasingly anxious about the possibility of internal insurrection.In this context, ethnic-related unrest in the border regions is a primary concern for Tehran,particularly since there is a precedent for disgruntled ethnic communities rebelling at times when the central government in Tehran is destabilised. The most recent example was the 1979-80 uprising among Iranian Kurds and Arabs.Among Iran’s 30 provinces, Khuzestan presents a unique challenge, given that it is the source of much of Iran’s oil revenue. Some ethnic Arabs in Khuzestan, a province which comprises about 5.6 per cent of Iran’s population, claim discrimination at the hands of the ethnic Persian-dominated central government and its cities witnessed a number of riots and bombings in 2005 and 2006. Ethnic insurrection in Khuzestan not only jeopardises a currently critical source of income, but would also seriously hamper Tehran’s much touted efforts to integrate southern Iraq with the Iranian economy.Energy assetsIran’s Khuzestan province has been vital to the country’s economy since the first Middle Eastoil was discovered there in 1908. At 63,213 km², Khuzestan comprises only 3.8 per cent ofIran’s landmass. However, 66.2 per cent of Iran’s known recoverable oil and 21.4 per cent of itsnatural gas deposits (according to 2006 figures supplied by energy information provider IHS)are in this southwestern province. Khuzestan also accommodates 28 per cent of Iran’s oil refinery capacity, 34 per cent of its gas plant capacity, 25 per cent of its installed electric capacity and 26 per cent of its petrochemical plants and 19 per cent of the total length of all pipelines. Given these assets, and the fact that approximately80-85 per cent of Iran’s total exportreceipts and 60 per cent of the government’s budget derives from the export of crude oil, thestrategic importance of Khuzestan is evident. Besides being a hub for the oil and gas industries,Khuzestan’s proximity to neighbouring southern Iraqi and Shia majority provincesmake it an important gateway to Iraq’s markets. In July 2005, the governments of Iran and Iraq signed two memoranda of understanding in the fields of trade and transportation, and official trade volumes have since increased to an estimated USD2 billion in 2006 from a very low base.Joint energy projects with Iraq are also viewed as lucrative by both states. In August2007, Tehran and Baghdad revealed that an agreement had been reached to build a pipelineto carry crude oil from Iraq’s Basra to refineries in Abadan in Khuzestan province. The pipelinewill be used to export 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iraqi oil to Iran. In return, Iran will export liquefied gas to Iraq. There are also ongoing discussions about joint ventures to develop shared oil and gas fields across the border areas, such as the large Azadegan field.Policy makers in Tehran view economic integration as both commercially and politicallyprudent, since such measures will open up new markets and reduce the likelihood of a return tothe intense rivalry or outright hostility that was characteristic of bilateral relations in the period1968-2003, when the Baath party governed Iraq.The timing is also opportune for Tehran, given its close ties to the Shia-dominated governmentof Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. Such a strategy requires that Tehran has unopposedaccess to Khuzestan and that the province remains socio-politically stable. To thisend, Tehran is pursuing its own two-pronged strategy. It aims to deter militancy through anintensified security presence in the province, but also to reduce popular dissent through economic regeneration and such measures as incorporating ethnic Arab youth into the Basij Islamist militia force. Arab separatism An example of the countermilitancycampaign was the arrest of Abdullah Al-Mansouri, an Iranian ethnic Arab and theleader of the Ahwaz Liberation Organisation (ALO), in May 2006 by the Syrian authorities inDamascus. Mansouri was subsequently deported to Iran. ALO is an Arab separatist group thatseeks independence for Khuzestan. Between 800,000 and 2 million of Khuzestan’s 4 millionpeople are estimated to be ethnic Arabs. There are no accurate statistics since Iranian censusfigures, as elsewhere in the Middle East, do not include ethnic and religious records.Iran has yet to convict Mansouri, but he has already been charged with acting against nationalsecurity and being a mohareb, an Islamic legal designation that denotes ‘enemies of God’, andwhich is punishable by death. Judicial and other senior officials in Tehran have declared Mansouri, an Iranian-Dutch citizen who has lived in the Netherlands since 1989, as complicit in the bombings that occurred in June and October 2005 and January 2006 in Khuzestan. Twentypeople were left dead, when government buildings were targeted. Trials held in 2006 convicted‘Public hanging of militants has become the norm, withthe clear aim of acting as a deterrence’Major oilfields in KhuzestanName Rank in size amongIranian oil/gasfieldsVolume (billion barrels) % of total reservesAhwaz 1st 25.65 15.4Marun 2nd 22.32 13.4Agha Jari 3rd 17.38 10.4Azadegan 5th 6.11 3.7Karanj 6th 5.73 3.4Mansuri 7th 5.16 3.1Rag-e Sefid 8th 4.99 3.0Yadvaran 11th 3.00 1.8There are a total of 35 oil and gas fields in the province of Khuzestan, although not allfields are currently operational. Source: IHS 54 jir.janes.com l Jane’s Intelligence Review l January 2008 RESOURCE WATCH 39 ethnic Arabs of carrying out the bombingsand sentenced 19 of them to death. Fifteen have been executed since December 2006.On 13 September 2007, the prosecutor for the Public and Revolution Courts in Khuzestan’s capital Ahvaz (Ahwaz in Arabic) announced the execution of a further three people who were said to have been involved in the bombings.
Another unknown number, of those Tehran alleges were complicit, are awaiting execution,and the Iranian press reports officials as stating that some 20 per cent of the culprits have yet to be arrested.Outside supportTehran maintains that senior militant ethnic Arabs reside outside the country and benefitfrom the backing of Western intelligence services which, in alliance with former Iraqi Baathists,are attempting to foment ethnic unrest in the region as part of the wider West-Iran standoff.The Baath party of Iraq was the principal patron of Iran’s Arab separatists from the early1970s and ‘liberating’ Khuzestan was one of Saddam Hussein’s stated goals when he invadedIran in 1980. Colluding with foreigners is most likely the principal charge that will be levelledagainst Mansouri.Minister of the Interior Mostafa Purmohammadi said on 13 August that while “good co-ordination and suitable measures by the security apparatus” have significantly reduced violencesince 2005, “remnants of terrorist groups are active and they are supported by foreign services,especially the US, Britain and Israel”. Purmohammadi also claimed that “a large number ofthese people were identified and their weapons depots were discovered”. Most confiscated armshave been pistols, Kalashnikov rifles and ammunitions.Meanwhile, public hanging of Arab militants implicated in violence has become thenorm, with the clear aim of acting as a deterrent. Iraq is cited as the operational base foranti-regime groups as they are perceived to be able to benefit from the patronage of US andUK militaries and operate from the vicinity of Khuzestan. Moreover, potential recruits canalso be found among the estimated 5,500 Iranian ethnic Arabs who still live as refugees inAd Diwaniyah, Ali al Gharbi and Al Kumayt in eastern Iraq. Many of these refugees fled Iran in1979 after an ethnic Arab uprising on the back of the Iranian Revolution was crushed by Admiral Ahmad Madani. Others subsequently had to flee after siding with Saddam Hussein’s regime and collaborated with its intelligence services during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad, is also hosting some 2,900 members of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, an Iranian Islamist-Marxist group which relocated to Iraq in 1985 after siding with Saddam Hussein.Tehran has pointed the finger at MEK for some of the violence in Khuzestan.It is difficult to verify the identity and size of the various purported and self-styled groupsclaiming to represent Iran’s ethnic Arabs. This is due to a high degree of flux and overlap ofpolitical platforms in this community. The four most prominent separatist organisations are:ALO, which is based in the Netherlands; the Ahwazi-Arab People’s Democratic Front, whichis based in London; and the National Liberation Movement of Ahwaz and the Ahwazian ArabLiberation Front, both of which operate from Canada.However, most ethnic Arab activists advocate the establishment of a federal system in Iran,within which Khuzestan’s Arabs can benefit from autonomy. The most noted federalist organisation is the Democratic Solidarity Party of Ahwaz (DSPA), an entity that was set up in 2002 and is part of an umbrella coalition of Iranian ethnic opposition groups. Unlike the separatist Arab groups, whose literature is dominated by either pan-Arabism or Islamist slogans, the DSPA promotes itself as a secular and social democratic outfit that denounces violence, with its greatest appeal being to the intelligentsia inside Khuzestan. The DSPA has also secured considerable support from European Social Democratic and Green parties and is active at fora hosted by the UN.The DSPA’s strategy is a reflection of broader ethnic Arab sentiment in Khuzestan. While callsfor better living conditions are commonplace, Source: IHS January 2008 l Jane’s Intelligence Review l jir.janes.com 55 RESOURCE WATCHonly a small minority of ethnic Arabs appear willing to resort to violence or seek to secedefrom Iran. The separatist path was an option during the Iran-Iraq War, and yet a clear majority in Khuzestan, Persian and Arab alike, fought the invading Iraqi army.Socio-economic motivation While successive Iranian governments have traditionallyattributed ethnic militancy to foreign agitation, socio-economic problems of Khuzestanare an undeniable factor behind much of the present local Arab resentment.With unemployment rampant, particularly among Arabs, Tehran is also accused of a rangeof transgressions, from forced land appropriation, hostility toward Arab customs and blockingschool education in Arabic to unspoken discriminatory policies that bar Arabs from certainhigh-level functions. The charge against ethnic Persians is that they view ethnic Arabs as a fifth column, and that Tehran prefers subjugation over inclusion.Such critiques are a reality that officials in Tehran are increasingly inclined to accept openly. Khuzestan’s 17 (out of 290)deputies in the parliament in Tehran often publicly highlight economic deprivation in the province and the government’s failures to address grievances. The province suffered tremendously during the Iran-Iraq war and reconstruction effortshave been slow to non-existent. Calls by Khuzestan’s local authorities to receive a larger shareof the oil wealth have been refused. A bill submitted by Khuzestan’s deputies to allocate 1.5per cent of total oil export revenues to the province has been repeatedly defeated in the parliament in Tehran. As a result, Khuzestan’s share of the oil revenue remains below this level, as the central government retains some revenue and then allocates the remainder equally among all 30 provinces. When oil pipelines and infrastructure have been targeted, as in 2005 and 2006, the culprits have left behind leaflets stating that no one would benefit from the oil revenue unless ethnic Arabs receive a fairer share.A 2006 report by the UN Economic and Social Council on Iran highlighted ethnic disparitieson different levels in Khuzestan. The Iranian parliament’s own research arm, the IslamicMajlis Centre for Research, stated in a 2006 report that swift anti-poverty action was requiredto foil future unrest akin to that experienced in Ahvaz in 2005, when fears over an alleged programme to relocate Persians to Khuzestan led to riots that left an unknown number dead. It cited unemployment as a major danger, given that Arab youth are most inclined to be receptive to radical ideas. Political disillusionment also underpins much of the militant momentum.Economic deprivation is therefore a major source of Arab disaffection, compounded bya lack of political representation. While Khuzestan has favoured reformist candidates in parliamentary and presidential elections, the growing sentiment is that the political system cannot be reformed from within. President MahmoudAhmadinejad, for example, did not appoint any Arabs to his cabinet, unlike his reformistpredecessor, Mohammed Khatami, who had Ali Shamkhani, an ethnic Arab, as his defenceminister.One of the results of this disenchantment with the Shia clerical establishment in Tehranis the emergence of a trend among Khuzestan’s overwhelmingly Shia Arabs to convert to SunniIslam, a phenomenon never before experienced in contemporary Iran. While sectarian violenceis minimal at the moment, there are warning signs. In June, Hesham Seimori, a mid-rankingShia cleric in Ahvaz known for his anti-Saudi and anti-Salafi preaching was killed by unidentified gunmen.Critics of Tehran’s policies also argue that in Khuzestan, communities largely comprised ofethnic Persians tend to be the primary beneficiarie of government policies and aid. For example, some two decades after the end of the Iran-Iraq War, de-mining occurs mainly whenlarger energy projects are implemented but not when local small Arab farming communitiesneed access to agricultural land. The energy industry in the province, the recipient of the bulkof government investment, is primarily staffed by ethnic Persians.Tehran’s responseTo mitigate further unrest, the supreme leader has stated that he will personally oversee development plans, and the government of President Ahmadinejad has vowed to hold a special session on the province. Tehran’s fiscal allocation for Khuzestan in 2008 specifically targets development in tribal and rural areas, where ethnic Arabs tend to live.Parallel to promises of more economic regeneration, Tehran is seeking political assurances.In September, elders from Iran’s Arab tribes met Ayatollah Musavi-Jazayeri, the provincialrepresentative of the supreme leader, and renewed their pledge of allegiance to Ali Khamenei.Meanwhile, Jafari, the new IRGC and Basij commander, has already replaced a number oflocal IRGC officials in Khuzestan, including in the strategically vital cities of Abadan and Khorramshahr.The Basij Islamist militia is also on a recruitment drive in Khuzestan, with a recordnumber of military parades and events in 2007 aimed to stimulate a sense of Iranian nationalism. Tehran’s efforts to include ethnic Arabs in a dialogue would be a much more welcome development than to dismiss all critics and acts of militancy as the creation of externalpowers. While not discounting possible foreign assistance to ethnic Iranian militants, socio-economic realities in Khuzestan speak for themselves. It is also true that Arab disgruntlementis near identical to other ethnic minorities such as Kurdsand Baluchis. Still, Khuzestan’s strategic economic status setsit apart. Further deterioration of relations between the centralgovernment in Tehran and ethnic Arabs most likely will resultin more violence in Khuzestan, and expose its vital energy-relatedassets to possible attacks and sabotage, as in 2005.Such a scenario would have considerable ramifications for oil markets. Iran’s oil reservesare the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia, with the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) putting it at 136.3 billion barrels. Iran also remains OPEC’s secondlargest producer and the world’s fourth largest oil exporter. Many of the pipelines that supplythe Kharg Island oil terminal, Iran’s main export outlet, travel across Khuzestan.However, emerging militancy in Khuzestan is not inevitable. While a limited number ofArab activists seek independence, most of Iran’s Arabs see themselves as Iranians and are aspiring for a fairer political representation and economic distribution of resources. Tehran still has time to defuse a potentially disastrous crisis. n1. Khuzestan: Iran’s Achilles’ heel?2. Anger among Iran’s Arabs3. Natural Resources/IranAuthorAlex Vatanka is Jane’s security editor inWashington DC.RELATED ARTICLESWWW.JANES.COMSearch for these articles atwww.janes.com‘Iran’s oil reserves are thesecond largest in the world,with OPEC putting it at136.3 billion barrels’