The rash of recent Iranian defections fits a pattern that was familiar in Europe at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Now, after three decades of blistering antagonism, Iran and the West appear to be sliding into their own Cold War.
Physicist Shahram Amiri, a researcher at Tehran’s Malek Ashtar University, went missing in June on the third day of a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
His family says the medical isotope specialist, who worked in an institution identified by the European Union as a possible secret nuclear weapons lab, phoned home when he first arrived but hasn’t been heard from since.
The pro-government Iranian newspaper Javan (Young) said this week Saudi immigration officials questioned Mr. Amiri extensively when he first arrived for a personal pilgrimage, but three days later he left his hotel in Medina and never returned.
A week ago, four months after his disappearance, Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran’s Foreign Minister, finally went public with the case, blaming the United States and Saudi Arabia.
“We have obtained documents that show U.S. interference in the disappearance of Shahram Amiri in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “We consider Saudi Arabia responsible for the situation and we consider Americans to have been involved in his arrest.”
Neither Washington nor Riyadh will comment on the case.
A second Iranian scientist, identified only as “Ardebili,” was apparently arrested in September while on a business trip in Georgia. He was allegedly secretly extradited to the United States.
His name and details of his and Mr. Amiri’s case, along with those of three other suspected abduction victims, are said to have been given to Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, during a private meeting with Mr. Mottaki.
Perhaps most damaging to Iran’s nuclear ambitions was the disappearance two years ago of Ali Reza Asgari, a general in the Revolutionary Guard . He vanished into thin air while on a business trip to Turkey, days after 10 members of his immediate family left Iran and also disappeared.
The former deputy defence minister was supposed to have been in charge of logistics for Iran’s nuclear program. He had access to its highest classified information.
Some observers speculated he may have worked for years as a U.S. mole and simply fled with his family when he learned he was about to be exposed as a spy.
At the time of his defection, an Israeli newspaper said Gen. Asgari had originally been recruited by the Mossad, Israel’s secret service, but he thought he was working for a European intelligence service.
A London-based Arab newspaper mused that the general took with him documents definitively linking Tehran to the actions of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the two main insurgency forces in Iraq, the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps.
Other reports surrounding the defection also claimed he blew the whistle on Syria’s collaboration with North Korea to build a secret nuclear facility, which Israel destroyed just weeks later in September 2007.
The rash of recent Iranian defections fits a pattern that was familiar in Europe at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Now, after three decades of blistering antagonism, Iran and the West appear to be sliding into their own Cold War.
What started as an ideological rivalry in the tense aftermath of the 1979 Iranian Revolution has gradually become a shadow war tinged with nuclear fears.
Trapped between failed bids at diplomatic détente and the risks of a direct military strike at Iran’s suspected nuclear weapon sites, Tehran and Washington are sliding uncomfortably into a strategic standoff that mimics the old showdown with the Soviet Union.
It is a conflict marked by complex regional manoeuvring, militant posturing, a surge in covert activity and shrill propaganda.
Tensions are growing on several fronts, as Washington accuses Iran of secretly trying to build nuclear weapons and supporting terrorism, while destabilizing Iraq, covertly supplying weapons to insurgents in Afghanistan, arming Hezbollah in Lebanon and funding Hamas in Gaza.
Iranian officials counter by accusing Washington of trying to foment a “velvet revolution” in Iran.
In the absence of formal ties and with limited commercial and cultural exchanges, the two countries rely heavily on their intelligence agencies to collect data on each other’s intentions.
Washington is also employing “soft power” – broadcasting, cultural programs and the promotion of democracy and human rights – to try and influence Iranian public opinion.
The leaders of Iran’s Islamic Republic try to rally international support to their Islamic cause.
Shying away from direct military contact, Iran and the U.S., like Washington and Moscow of old, compete in a series of peripheral surrogate conflicts.
Tehran has resupplied Hezbollah with thousands of rockets after its recent war with Israel. It also pumped millions into Gaza after the territory was cut off from international aid following the election there of Hamas. It has maintained an intricate web of contacts with Shiite leaders in Iraq and has been accused of supplying explosives to Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.
For its part, Washington has doubled up on its aircraft carrier deployments in the Persian Gulf, urged Arab states to join anti-Iranian regional alliances and orchestrated economic sanctions against Iran.
As in the old Cold War, the new showdown has moments of growing tension.
Israel has held nation-wide air raid drills in anticipation of an Iranian attack. Iran has held naval manoeuvres at the mouth of the Straits of Hormuz, through which 40% of the world’s oil passes.
Tehran has also responded to Israeli war games and perceived U.S. threats by test-firing medium- and long-range missiles and threatening to annihilate its enemies if attacked.
Throughout the confrontation a propaganda war has raged. Iran claims to have uncovered spy networks, arrested Iranian-Americans, accused the West of playing on ethnic divisions to foment regime change, and sentenced political dissidents to death.
Like the original Cold War, the West has run sophisticated disinformation campaigns against Iran and undermined its economy with sanctions and currency manipulations.
Still, a steady stream of defections remains a prime tool for curbing Iran’s nuclear programs and manipulating public attitudes toward its leaders.
Just on Friday, the daughter of one of Mahmoud Ahdaminejad’s top advisors sought political asylum in Germany.
Narges Kalhor, a 25-year-old filmmaker, whose father Mahdi Kalhor advises the Iranian President on cultural affairs and is a government media spokesman, decided to defect after attending a documentary film festival at which she publicly criticized Iran’s human rights record.
JNN News 