Iran Turns Down All Invitations

Rooz Online

As Iran’s leader ayatollah Khamenei was leaving the hospital this week after his prostate surgery, ­­­he spoke about not being invited to Paris where an international conference is underway to build support and coordinate efforts against ISIL militants in Iraq and Syria. “We are proud that America is not interested in Iran’s participation at the wrong collective event. We do not know of a greater pride than this,” he said. But there are analysts and observers in Tehran who disagree with that perspective and have expressed disappointment that Tehran is not part of the international anti-ISIL effort.

Prior to the ayatollah’s remarks, Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had said during a live televised program in Iran, “If we agree to do a series of things in Iraq, the other side in our talks must do some things in return. One of these is for the P5+1 group to go to the UN Security Council and lift its sanctions, which will be written in agreements. While there has been some talk on this and both sides have a clear picture, it is still not clear what we need to do in Iraq and what they need to do in return. This is being battled right now and this is the difficult part.”

But the new international coalition led by the US against ISIL has in any case once again raised the possibility of cooperation between Iran and the West. And even though Iran’s official policy is to not cooperate with the US, there are speculations that speak of precisely this possibility.

Earlier, on another regional issue, even though Iran had been recognized as one of the countries influencing events in Syria’s civil war, at the end of the day it was not invited to attend the so called Geneva-2 conference, the international gathering organized to coordinate efforts regarding the fate of Bashar Assad’s regime. At that time Iran did not reject participation if it had been properly invited. In fact Iran appeared to be working to be invited. Zarif at the time had said, “Iran would not accept any preconditions and would participate at the conference only if it was formally invited to it, in the same manner that other participants had been invited to.”

Regarding the current Paris conference over ISIL, Iran’s initial position was the same. It was said and speculated that Iran could be invited. Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Danaifar went even further and welcomed France’s invitation to attend the conference. “Iran is prepared to provide any assistance to its neighbor Iraq to bring stability to it,” he stressed.

After it became clear that the US was not prepared to invite Iran to participate, Iranian officials changed their position.

Even prior to the formation of the new international coalition against ISIL, Iran kept the same posture and appeared open to participate.

Hassan Rouhani for example had implied about such cooperation and participation when he said, “So far, nobody has confronted DAESH (the Persian equivalent to ISIL) except the government and nation of Iraq. Even the US has not yet taken any action. When the US initiates action against DAESH, one can start thinking about cooperating with it.”

In time and especially as American officials rejected such cooperation, Iran’s position hardened against it until Iranian officials finally announced that Iran was not going to cooperate with the US.

Iranian media behaved true to form and was divided. A part of it did not reject cooperation with the US over ISIL, while another part called such cooperation improper. Now that the new coalition led by the US has seriously altered all the alignments in the region, Iranian officials are angry at not being invited.

Ali Akbar Velayati, the foreign policy advisor to Iran’s leader made that clear a few days ago when he said, “Those who created the DAESH terrorist group and helped it expand its activities in Syria, Iraq and the region, are today taking steps to confront it. But fighting DAESH and terrorism without Iran’s involvement is definitely not going to be successful.” His remarks are important because they usually reflect the thinking of ayatollah Khamenei. Having said that, Velayati did not explain whether the anti-ISIL effort would fail because of Iran’s absence or even if Iran was part of it.

Earlier last week, Vatan, an Iranian newspaper wrote that some believed that US president Barack Obama did not want to involve Iran and consequently dilute the nuclear talks between the West and Iran where cooperation over ISIL would be used as a bargaining chip in nuclear discussions.

Javan newspaper also headlined a story on these events as “A Coalition Against the Security of the Region” and wrote, “Iran’s position vis-à-vis this has to be very wise and the remarks by Iran’s ambassador to Iraq in welcoming this coalition, and consequently resulting in a response from the US, were premature and not befitting our diplomatic machinery. This is because even if the US-led initiated coalition takes real shape and they get into the operational phase, Iran’s capacity in the field to resolve Iraq’s crisis will still be much more than that of this coalition.” In another story, the same newspaper argued that the coalition lacked international legitimacy because the UN had not sanctioned it, while acknowledging that the Iraqi government had requested the US to engage in air strikes inside the country, adding that such authorization did not exist for operations in Syria.

Excluding Iran from this coalition has also produced displeasure by pro-government newspapers. Farhikhtegan newspaper for example wrote that the differences Western countries had regarding inviting Iran to the conference or not, was not limited to the ISIL issue and pointed to the Geneva-2 conference on Syria.

Sharq newspaper on the other hand pointed to the benefits of Iran’s inclusion in the anti-ISIL coalition and listed them to be: relaxation of tensions with the US, utilizing the improvement in relations with the West in the nuclear talks, becoming a formal player in regional affairs, and speeding up the defeat of ISIL. “But Iran has its own concerns as well. It is difficult for Tehran to accept America’s leadership in fighting terrorism when it views Washington as the cause of the birth of such terrorist groups as ISIL through its financial and military support and those of some regressive regional regimes.”

Iran newspaper, which is the official newspaper of the Iranian government, also criticized the coalition and said that a strategy that relies on arms alone would not destroy terrorism.