(My interview with Robert Baer former CIA agent and the author of “The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower”)-Tehran’s foreign policy toward the United States, based on the idea that “if you mess with Iran, something bad is going to happen in some part of the world…has been a very successful policy” Iranians used it after the revolution, according to Robert Baer, the author of The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower. “This is why President Bush could not afford to take any aggressive action against Iran.”
Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer in the Middle East, during an interview with Rooz, explained the details of 1980 hostage crisis and Iran-Israel arm deal as one of the outcomes resulting in the release of hostages just 20 minutes after Ronald Regan was sworn as the President of the United States.Although he said that he does not believe in the “October Surprise” theory, which is supported by many analysts in the United States and the intelligence community, specifically the Russian intelligence, he does not deny the possibility of covert negotiations to delay the release of hostages until after the 1980 U.S. presidential elections. He believes that, “a policy like this is never done by officials” in the United States. “It’s always done privately …every administration I have worked with…if you have anything sensitive to convey, you do it privately.”
According to Seymour Hersh, the New Yorker investigative journalist, Baer “is considered perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East.” Baer’s book criticizes the Bush administration’s policy towards Iran and provides a detail perspective about the influence of Iran in the region in the recent years. He told Rooz that the best alliance in the Middle East was between Israel and Tehran. “If you are ever going to solve the Middle East, it would be to the detriment of the Arabs, (this) would be (through) an alliance between Israel and Iran. That’s what scares the Arabs the most.”
Excerpts from the interview follow.
Rooz: This Tuesday is the inauguration day of Barack Obama and his administration. Thirty years ago, the hostage crisis and Tehran’s delay to release the hostages prevented Jimmy Carter from being re-elected. Do you believe in the October Surprise Conspiracy theory in the 1980 elections?
RB: No I don’t believe in any conspiracy theories. You know I spent a lot of time in Paris, and there were supposed to be these meetings between the Republicans and Iranians that took place in the Raphael hotel. I privately got reservations for the hotel, and someone totally innocent was there. I think Gary Sick is wrong.
Rooz: In what way is he not right?
RB: I think he is taking pieces of facts and drawing a bigger story than it deserves. Americans are not good at carrying out conspiracies. I just don’t think its there. I think in Tehran it was the decision to not release the hostages before the election, just like in Iran-Contra it was entirely internal. It was Montazeri who released the facts to “Al-Shiraa” [a Lebanese newspaper], but it had nothing to with American politics. It was an attempt to undermine [Ali Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani, and it was an attempt by part of the Pasdaran to undermine Rafsanjani. It had nothing to do with any sort of complicity with the United States. The Iranians don’t trust America at all. They don’t trust Republicans or Democrats. And to sit down and influence an American election like this, there is nobody in Iran to trust any political faction in the United States to carry out a conspiracy like this.
Rooz: Do you think that Ronald Reagan’s election campaign had attempted to convince Iranian officials during its talks with them to postpone the release of the American hostages until after the American elections in return for providing American weapons to Iran?
RB: No. I don’t believe that. I was part of Iran-Contra, and I worked with Oliver North. First of all, it was an Israeli operation from the beginning. If anything it was an Israeli plot to arm the Iranians to do damage to the Iraqis. At that point, the only thing Israel cared about was Iraq. They didn’t care about Iran. It was unimportant, and what happened in Iran. So what the Israelis did was start Iran-Contra, you know, weapons for hostages, in order to damage Iraq and also pure money. They were making money.
Rooz: So was the Israeli-Iran arms deal a part of the hostage crisis negotiation? In a way, the Iranians agreed to release the hostages and in response, the Israelis sold arms to Tehran. Right?
RB: Yeah there was an understanding between Tel Aviv and Tehran. The Americans very much played a secondary role.
Rooz: Regarding the difficulties of the U.S. -Iran relations at that time, how was an arms deal was possible?
RB: Well, see, I don’t look at it as difficult. I think it was an Israeli obsession with Arabs. It was Tehran’s obsession with Arabs, and I think at the end of the day – lets put out of our mind Palestine – at the end of the day, the best alliance in the Middle East was between Israel and Tehran.
Rooz: And why was it the best alliance?
RB: Well look at the geography; look at the nature of the people. The Iranians are an urban people; the Arabs are a Bedouin people. They’re Semitic. The Iranians are more Western in their mentality than the Arabs will ever be. Just as I think that Iran is America’s natural ally, simply because of the level of education and the fact that the Iranians are Indo-European. If you are ever going to solve the Middle East, it would be to the detriment of the Arabs (and) would be (through) an alliance between Israel and Iran. That’s what scares the Arabs the most. This dispute is a triangle – Washington, Tehran, and Tel Aviv. That is the Arabs worst nightmare.
And if you look at it practically, if Obama comes in, he can’t be fighting a war in Iraq. He can’t be fighting the Iranians or an embargo. He can’t be fighting the Palestinians or what is going to happen in Egypt. The United States is going to have to come down on one side, and it will largely be up to Tehran if it wants to do it or not. Tehran may say we simply can’t get around things like Gaza or the West Bank. Our Islamic identity is more important than our strategic interests. I don’t know enough about Iran to know how that will happen. Because, that is the decision being made in Tehran: is it strategic interests? Or is it Islamic interests? And you’ll have to spend a lifetime in Tehran trying to figure that one out.
Rooz: Was there a pre-determined desire to disprove the October Surprise possibility? Was it really not possible for Congress to have access to sufficient information in this regard?
RB: Um, no, they couldn’t because if there was an October Surprise, and I don’t think its impossible, it would have been done in a back channel. It would have been done with a business associate of Regan, and you simply would by-pass the government. This I don’t know. It was not a part of official policy. There is no official trace. So all Regan or one of his people could have done is send a private emissary without a letter, without anything and gone to the Iranians and convinced them that they might have gotten more out of releasing the hostages later. And I can’t prove or disprove that.
Rooz: In the last meeting of the Iranian Parliament on the subject in October 1980, during which it had to decide on the release of the hostages, though representatives who were opposed to the release of the hostages constituted a minority, they prevented Parliament from reaching a decision through an obstruction, thus postponing the release of the Americans until after the elections (specifically, 20 minutes after President Reagan was sworn in). Do you believe that this was an accidental event?
RB: No I don’t think it was an accident. I think it’s important for Iran to have an influence like this on American elections. Because if the Iranians can claim credit for defeating Carter, it is important for the self-respect of Iran. All respect to Mohammad Mosaddeq and the Shah and the corrupt arms deals and the rest of it…its important for the Iranian psyche to be an international player. So I think at the very least, it was a one-sided decision to say yes, if you play around with us Iran, you get to pay a price. It could be in hostages, it could be in Lebanon, and it actually was a very astute policy. As we saw with Bush, if you mess with Iran, something bad is going to happen in some part of the world. And this has been a very successful policy. And you saw this with Bush this year; he couldn’t afford to do anything against Iran.
Rooz: The then-President of Iran and the Foreign Minister at the time (who was subsequently executed by the regime) have both stressed how Iranian officials from the ruling party met with officials from the U.S. Republican party and agreed to postpone releasing the hostages to after the 1980 elections so that Carter would not be able to use the opportunity for his re-election bid. The Russian intelligence apparatus also in 1993, in response to a Congressional inquiry about the October Surprise, confirmed the views of the Iranian officials. Do you think that the above-mentioned Russians and Iranians were either wrong, or have they been untruthful?
RB: Well I always like to…you know…did they say this for internal politics? I just don’t know. A policy like this is never done by officials in the United States. It’s always done privately. Clinton administration, every administration I have worked with…if you have anything sensitive to convey, you do it privately.
Rooz: And what does that mean exactly?
RB: That means you get somebody who is credible that can call the White House but has no official position. Because what you really don’t want is a record anywhere in the government about the meeting. Because the record can be subpoenaed, brought to court, investigated by Congress. And I would feel a lot better if someone in the Regan administration came out and said, yes there was a back channel. I just haven’t seen that yet. But what they did, if there was an October Surprise, they cut out the CIA.
Rooz: Is there anything untold about the Israeli-Iranian arms deal?
RB: No I think it is pretty well established, I mean the Israeli connection. There are still contacts between Tel Aviv and Tehran now, just like there are contacts between neo-conservatives and Tehran. Informal contacts. Just as there is between Tel Aviv and Damascus. I don’t think they add up to much. They know about the concerns.
Rooz: Why did the Al-Shiraa, a Lebanese newspaper leak the information about the arms deal?
RB: That was Montezari who did that. And, of course, Rafsanjani overcame it.
Rooz: Does this even show the practical view of Ayatollahs in Tehran in regard to their friends and foes in the region?
RB: Here is the most important thing. If you are in Tehran and you are looking at Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, he is contributing and helping the killing of Muslims. I mean this is a very important ideological message for Tehran, that they Arabs can’t protect the Palestinians. Iran saying at least we are trying supporting Hezbollah and Hamas, at least we are trying to protect these people. But you Arabs have sold out to the Americans. There is considerable truth to that. What has Saudi Arabia done for Hamas? Nothing. What has Kuwait done for Hamas? Nothing. And in Egypt – why haven’t they broken relations with Israel? And what has Jordan done? Nothing. So if you’re in Tehran, whether or not you are a believer, you are going to use this and say look, at least we are trying. We don’t recognize Israel. We are giving what aid we can to Hamas and Hezbollah and what are you people are doing? Nothing. And this is an enormous advantage for Iran because they Iranians are not a Semitic people. It is more of a tribal thing. Now they have overcome those tribal differences by saying at least we are true Muslims because we try to protect Islam. I’m not saying Iran needs Israel, but Iran needs Israel in the whole issue with the United States to expand its influence across the Middle East. I think we are seeing a stronger Iran than we have in hundreds of years, at least.
Rooz: Is there anything untold about this arms deal? Iran-Israel arms deal? Why the Ashrae Lebanese newspaper leaked the info?
RB: I was in India and at the time and we were planning rescue operations supporting the military, and we were converting trucks to drive them into Iran from India. You know, one of my interesting (jobs) was briefing Oliver North around the time of Iran-Contra. I remember talking to him and telling him the whole idea of Dawah and Dawa in Iraq, and who these people were and where they came from, and he was absolutely clueless. He had never heard of Dawa. He had never heard of Maliki. He had never heard of any of these people. The story I would walk out of the White House after these briefings was American politics does not run on information. They run on ideology developed in the Democratic or the Republican Party. Iranians know the United States. They get on the Internet. A lot of people in Iranian government have been students in the United States. They read American newspapers. They calculate. What is funny is Washington is more ideological in the sense that facts are created in think tanks. And the people in the White House, to put it bluntly, they don’t read. Instead they go to meetings, and they talk about is it going to aid the political party or isn’t it. You think of Iran as driven by ideology, and, in fact, it is the United States that is more driven by ideology than Tehran.