Arms of the Octopus: Exporting
Fundamentalism to Central Asia
The great nations of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tadzhikistan are Muslims. Their credo is Islam and this shows the extent of Islam's influence.
Ali Khamenei, April 4, 19921
To realize their expansionist objectives, the Iranian mullahs have been following a step-by-step strategy to export revolution and fundamentalism. Their main targets have been Iraq and the Persian Gulf states. Although Tehran is still intervening in the Persian Gulf region, the collapse of the Soviet Union has opened a window of opportunity on Iran's northern frontier and convinced the Iranians to give priority to the new Asian republics. This temporary change in tactics has not in any way diminished Iran's strategic commitment to provide moral and material support for the fundamentalist forces in other parts of the Islamic world.
The mullahs' goal in Central Asia and the Caucasus republics is to create a powerful "Islamic" grouping, or as they put it, "the Union of Islamic Republics."2 Such a "union" would obviously have enormous geopolitical implications in regional and international equations. To say the least, it would certainly strengthen Tehran's position vis-à-vis Iran's other neighbors and other nations within the Islamic world.
The republics of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tadzhikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan were on Tehran's agenda long before they gained independence. Common religion, history, and culture as well as strategic economic and military considerations made Central Asia and the Caucasus a tempting target for the mullahs.
Until tsarist Russia and Iran signed the treaties of Golestan and Turkmanchay in 1813 and 1829 respectively, annexing Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia to the Russian Empire, the Caucasus was pan of Iran. Several of the Central Asian republics were provinces of ancient Persia, and the region as a whole was heavily influenced by Persian culture, although most inhabitants were ethnically Turkic.3 Two major cities of the ancient Persian region of Transoxania, Samarkand and Bukhara, are mentioned more often in classical Persian poetry and prose than are the names of Isfahan and Hamedan in present-day Iran. Transoxania and Azerbaijan are also considered a cradle of Iranian art and science, because many distinguished Iranian poets, scientists, and prose writers came from these areas. Transoxania was the home of Kharazmi, Abu-Rayhan Birouni, Avicinna, Rudaki, Farabi, and Daqiqi. Nezami Ganjavi and Khaqani Shirvani were from Azerbaijan and the Caucasus.
The relations between Iran's fundamentalist regime and the former Soviet republics have gone through three different phases. In the first phase, before the Soviet Union's demise, Tehran tried to strengthen political and economic ties with the Eastern Bloc nations. Improved relations with the communist world were politically vital to the mullahs while their conflicts with the capitalist West continued.
As long as the Soviet Union was viable, the mullahs emphasized their relations with Moscow. Rafsanjani's trip to Moscow, only a few weeks after Khomeini's death in June 1989, was intended to bring about closer ties with the Soviets. He met with Mikhail Gorbachev and signed several major military and economic pacts with the Soviet officials. When the old guard tried to oust Gorbachev in August 1991, the mullahs remained tight-lipped. But they congratulated Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin once Gorbachev returned to the Kremlin.
In the second phase, after the coup, as the Soviet Union began to unravel, the clerical regime stepped up its campaign in the newly independent Muslim republics. On the basis of a top-secret Supreme National Security Council policy decision made on September 3, 1991, Rafsanjani's government allocated an unlimited budget to expand its activities in Central Asia. As the first installment, the Iranian regime spent $130 million, adding $400 million in the next four months.4
But the pace of developments in the Soviet Union apparently caught Tehran by surprise. One of Rafsanjani's aides was quoted in the press as saying that the Iranians would need several months to decide how to approach the developments in the north.5 At the same time, the Supreme National Security Council regularly convened under Rafsanjani's chairmanship to discuss the situation.
Iran's relations with the former Soviet bloc entered their third phase when the council finally decided to accelerate and expand relations with the already independent republics and those about to gain their independence, mustering all of its military and propaganda resources to catch up with developments. To this end, on September 22, 1991, the Badjgiran border crossing between Iran and Turkmenistan was reopened. Two weeks later, the president of Turkmenistan visited Iran and met with Rafsanjani. In a memorandum of understanding signed on October 5, Iran and Turkmenistan announced they would open consulates in Tehran and Ashkhabad. During his tour of Mashad (capital of the northeastern Iranian province of Khorassan), the president of Turkmenistan announced his government's readiness to extend the open border zone by forty-five kilometers to connect Mashad with Ashkhabad. During a visit to Iran in early October, religious leaders from Azerbaijan met with Rafsanjani. A delegation of Azerbaijani women also traveled to Tehran and met with Ahmad Khomeini. Subsequently, Foreign Minister Velayati toured the six republics to discuss bilateral relations and arrange scientific and cultural cooperation. In Tadzhikistan, the two countries announced they would open their embassies within one month. The mullahs' regime also transferred the headquarters of the Guards Corps Ansar Garrison (affiliated with the G.C. Qods Force) from Zahedan in the southeast to Khorassan, where it is now overseeing the Iranian regime's covert activities in the Central Asian republics. (See Chapter IX.(
With the complete dismantling of the Soviet Union, Tehran pursued its policies in a more open, expanded, and aggressive manner. One internal document quoted a Foreign Ministry official as saying, "Some parts of [these republics] had been our own and we still feel a sense of belonging. This is the cause of concern for [the West….] Now that we have been expelled from Beirut, we would better find a footing here [in the former Soviet republics]." As one seasoned observer noted: "The Iranians are not just mischief-making in Central Asia like they have been in Lebanon. There is more to it than that. Iran is pursuing long-range political and military goals in the region."6
Initially, the mullahs opened embassies and diplomatic missions in all six republics. This provided a suitable and convenient cover for carrying out other activities. Top officials and senior clergy were given the mandate of establishing cultural ties with the people of the republics. The Organization for Islamic Propaganda became fully active, regularly dispatching preachers to the region. The mullahs' mission, as Ahmad Khomeini later explained, was to "create cultural resistance cells" and extend relations with "revolutionary Muslims" in these republics.7
Religion proved to be an important tool for the mullahs. Despite seventy years of communist rule in the Soviet Union, a time when religion was systematically suppressed, the population had deeply rooted religious feelings that made the republics susceptible to Iran's fundamentalism.8 At the same time, phrases such as "the lost children of Islam are returning to the Islamic community" and "after seventy years of separation from Islam, our brothers in the Soviet Union find the opportunity for guidance" filled newspaper headlines in Iran. One Tehran daily commented, "If the people who have been educated by the Communist Party are left free, their choice would be an Islamic government."9
Tehran employed other means to advance its designs in the Central Asian republics as well. The republics were encouraged to expand trade and commercial ties with Iran as a way to stimulate their economies, an approach that had been successful in Lebanon.l0 In the mullahs' view, economic ties would enable them to "influence the republics' political inclinations."11 Tehran proposed that Azerbaijan and five Central Asian republics join the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). To isolate Turkey and Pakistan, the mullahs also initiated the formation of the Tehran-based Organization of the Caspian Sea Countries that included Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan.12
For the mullahs, Azerbaijan has special significance. The majority of the population are Shi'ite Muslims and speak the same dialect as the Iranian Azeris do. Once part of Iran, Azerbaijan has many families whose relatives live on the Iranian side of the border. Azerbaijan is also rich in oil and natural gas reserves. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, bilateral exchanges between Iran and Azerbaijan increased, as Tehran- Baku flights resumed and border crossings were reopened. The Iranian oil minister, Gholam-reza Aqazadeh, traveled to Azerbaijan and signed several contracts. The Iranian minister of post, telegraph, and telephone also visited Azerbaijan to establish microwave communications between the two countries. The speaker of Azerbaijan's parliament met in Tehran with the leading clerical officials. The Azeri parliamentary speaker asked for Iran's support "to revive Azerbaijan's Islamic programs," and Velayati and his deputies visited Baku several times.13 Delegations of fundamentalist clerics also went to Iran and met with senior Iranian mullahs to make arrangements for Tehran to supervise the trip by Azeri pilgrims to Mecca during the hajj.14 Commentaries in Iran's state-run newspapers bring to light the mullahs' intentions about Azerbaijan and the Muslim-dominated republics in Central Asia: "It seems that the people of Chechen-Ingushetia have made up their decision to resist Moscow's pressures and keep up their struggle until the establishment of an Islamic republic in that land."15
Turkmenistan and Other Republics
Following ceremonies in 1992 to officially inaugurate border crossings between Turkmenistan and Iran, the vice president of Turkmenistan headed a delegation of four ministers and deputy ministers to Tehran, where they met and negotiated with Rafsanjani and other officials. The Turkmen president flew to Tehran to participate in an ECO meeting after his country became a member of the organization. There, he met Alireza Salari, president of ECO, and Muhammad Hussein Adeli, governor of the Central Bank of Iran. The Iranian Central Bank subsequently announced that it had set aside a $50 million credit for exporters of goods to Turkmenistan. For the first time, a seminary began activities in that republic. Bearded Iranian mullahs, "driving Mercedes and Suzuki jeeps stacked with leaflets and books" became the new "missionaries" criss-crossing the open border. Turkmen youths were reported especially vulnerable to Tehran's fundamentalist propaganda.16
Essentially the same course of action was pursued in Kazakhstan, Tadzhikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. For example, Alma-Ata's clergy began publishing Kazakhstan's first Islamic newspaper, Imam. Tadzhikistan announced Farsi would be its official written language.
Muhammad Sharif, leader of the Islamic Movement Party of Tadzhikistan, visited the Iranian Foreign Ministry's Office of Political and International Studies. Tehran declared its readiness to send teachers to Tadzhikistan. After a visit to Tehran by a Tadzhik radio and television delegation, the mullahs' radio and television network agreed to produce the Tadzhik programs in Tehran. The Iranians suggested that a seminar of three Farsi- speaking nations, representing Iran, Tadzhikistan, and Afghan groups, convene in the Iranian capital. The formerly banned fundamentalist Islamic Revival Party opened an office in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent. The leader of the party, which claims one million members, later announced "Uzbekistan is an Islamic Republic."
Tehran's Jomhouri Islami editorial summed up the mullahs' strategy in the former Soviet republics. "As his Eminence the Imam Khomeini had stipulated, there are plenty of revolutionary forces in all the Muslim republics of Central Asia who have high potential and enormous love for revolutionary Islam. They must be strengthened through any possible means, and we must take advantage of this to win back more than 100 million Muslims living in the most sensitive regions of Asia."17
In April 1992, the situation in Afghanistan was in total chaos. The pace of developments caught foreign governments and international observers by surprise. The Iranian minister of foreign affairs' Twelfth Bureau (responsible for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey) drew up a confidential report, in cooperation with the Guard Corps' Qods Force, for presentation to the Supreme National Security Council. It concluded in part, "The Islamic Republic of Iran can outplay its external rivals and can turn the situation in Afghanistan completely into its own favor by adopting a two-pronged policy concerning the developments there."18 The report suggested that Tehran continue supporting the Afghan Shi'ite groups and adopt a more active policy to attract Farsi-speaking nationalities, including the Tadzhiks.
Consistent with those recommendations, the Iranians publicly endorsed the efforts by the United Nations secretary general's representative on Afghan affairs, Benon Sevan, to achieve a peaceful transfer of power to the Afghan mujahideen. Behind the scenes, however, Tehran was advancing a specific plan to gradually take control of the Afghan situation. Muhammad-Ibrahim Taherian, Iran's charge d'affaires in Kabul, had announced in January 1992 that "Najibullah must step aside. . . . Iran has decided to increase its influence in Afghanistan."19
The Guards Corps Qods Force was given the task of using Iranian-backed Shi'ite groups and Afghan refugees in Iran to expand its military network in Afghanistan and assist Afghan Shi'ite forces in the event of chaos. The Qods Force pursued this mission through Ansar Headquarters, located in Iran's northeastern city of Mashad. Radio intercepts of communication among Ansar forces stationed in the main headquarters, its tactical bases in Torbate-Jam and Taibad (on Iranian soil, and the Revolutionary Guards based in the Afghan city of Harat revealed the heavy transport of arms and troops into Afghanistan by the Revolutionary Guards. The Guards stationed in Harat also requested the command in Mashad to send "clergy and religious preachers."20
The intercepts further indicated that in their operations inside Afghan territory, the Guards Corps Qods forces were also using helicopters to ferry troops and equipment. On April 24, the counselor to Iran's minister of foreign affairs flew to Harat to take part in the city's Friday prayers. In his talks with Afghan parties and forces, he emphasized, "The future Afghan government must be an Islamic government."21
The Iranian government's current policy on Afghanistan has four major facets. First, the Iranian clerics are attempting to exploit the absence of a leadership acceptable to all nationalities and political and military groupings in Afghanistan. They see this situation as an opportunity to impose hegemony on that country. Tehran radio has broadcast messages of solidarity and declarations of bei'at (oath of allegiance) addressed to Khamenei by groups in Afghanistan such as the Afghan Hizbullah.22 Ahmad Jannati, a senior cleric and leading member of the Council of Guardians , also spoke of Khamenei's leadership role: "To deal with the problems appropriately, our brothers in Afghanistan must accept [the leadership of] His Eminence Ayatollah Khamenei, the Muslims' Vali-e-faqih. This is in the interest of Islam and the dear people of Afghanistan."23
Second, Iran has given strong political and material support to the Afghan Shi'ites and the Hezb-e-Vahdat-e-Islami (Islamic Unionist Party), which was founded in Iran through the merger of nine Shi'ite groups amid the fast-changing developments in Afghanistan in 1992. Iran's state media give elaborate reports on "the victorious return of distinguished Afghan spiritual figures" from Iran and "the Afghan people's enthusiastic reception."24 Upon their arrival in Kabul, the leaders of the Hezb-e-Vahdat-e-Islami declared that Shi'ites of Afghanistan comprised 25 percent of the population and demanded a share in power commensurate with that figure. The Iranians also supported that demand. To this end, Rafsanjani stressed "the Afghan people's need for our clerics" and ordered the dispatch of Iranian preachers to Afghanistan.25
Third, Tehran has relied on the Shi'ites as a primary base for its plans to interfere in Afghan affairs. Nevertheless, the Iranian clerics are also trying to take advantage of the ethnic aspirations and the cultural similarities of those Afghan nationalities who speak Farsi, particularly the two million Tadzhiks who have attained a more powerful stature in Afghan internal affairs since the fall of Najibullah. That is why the mullahs have taken actions such as sending a copy of Shah-nameh or other Farsi books along with every sack of flour provided in truckloads of food to the people in Afghanistan's western regions.26
In its radio propaganda, Tehran openly supports the northern Tadzhiks and Uzbeks against the Pashtus. General Rasheed Dostum, the controversial commander of the Uzbek paramilitary forces, said in an interview with Tehran radio: "If a reasonable and significant share in the Afghan government is not given to the National Islamic movement, this movement will take a different course of action."27 He then added: "Alongside the Islamic Republic of Iran, Afghanistan and the new Central Asian states which share common cultural and religious backgrounds can create a vast geographic entity through strong and close ties."28 Ironically, in August 1991, the Guards Corps Commander in Chief Mohsen Rezaii stated, "Afghanistan is a key bunker. . . Its addition to the countries in the region will turn it into a strong bastion. The resolution of this problem will strengthen Iran's position vis-à-vis the Central Asian Muslim republics, Pakistan, and one hundred million Muslims in India."29
The fourth facet of the Iranian policy in Afghanistan is to sow discord and add fuel to hostilities among different factions and groups. The goal is to weaken them and thereby pave the way for Iranian proxy groups to assume power. Reports of military clashes or political differences among groups that, prior to the fall of the communist government, were based in Pakistan were given prominent coverage by Iran's state media. Quoting the leaders of pro-Iranian groups, the Iranian media lashed out at the other factions and threatened the Governing Council. To cite but one example, from Tehran radio: "Mr. Mazari, a distinguished spiritual figure and the secretary general of the Hezb-e-Vahdat-e-Islami, stressed in an exclusive interview in Kabul with the Voice and Vision of the Islamic Republic that unity among some groups in the north led to the liberation of Mazar Sharif and acceleration of the revolution and the victory of the mujahideen in Afghanistan. He added: 'Unfortunately, the demands of those groups who played an important role in this unity have not been met. If this situation were to continue, they will not remain silent.'"30
The mullahs' regime is pursuing this aspect of its policy both in Afghanistan and Tadzhikistan. Three million Farsi-speaking Tadzhiks live in the Republic of Tadzhikistan, in addition to the two million in northern Afghanistan. When large-scale demonstrations and protests against the government of Rahman Nabiyev and the conservative government left over from the communist period erupted in the Tadzhik capital, Dushanbe, Tehran immediately supported Nabiyev's opponents and welcomed the fall of the Tadzhik government on May 9, 1992.31 Two days prior, in a fabricated report, Tehran had announced: "Tadzhikistan's President Rahman Nabiyev and his supporters have escaped from the capital, Dushanbe, and Muslims and other opponents have taken control of the city."32
The Islamic Revival Party (IRP), which has had the upper hand in the developments in Tadzhikistan, openly calls for an Islamic government and has very close ties with Iran. It was reported that the youths who staged a sit-in in May outside the Tadzhik Parliament were IRP members and received one thousand rubles a month from the mosques. Iranian diplomats in Dushanbe deny making direct payments to the demonstrators but acknowledge that they have generously given money to 100 mosques. The slogans of the protesters were "death to America, death to Russia, and long live the Islamic Republic." In May, the Tadzhik police was quoted as saying that an "Islamic fundamentalist group was stockpiling weapons."33 Diplomats also said that in September 1991, Tehran covertly supported an uprising against a communist power grab in Dushanbe, allegedly paying demonstrators 100 rubles a day to lead Muslim prayers and demand the resignation of Tadzhik communist leaders.34
Many observers believe that Tehran's rulers have succeeded in expanding their influence over the Tadzhiks in Afghanistan and Tadzhikistan, thereby setting the stage for the establishment of a client government in Tadzhikistan and gradual control of power in Afghanistan.35 Such a development would mean that the Iranian regime has acquired a suitable footing to export its fundamentalism beyond its northern frontiers. With Khomeiniism on the rise in these former Soviet republics, the Central Asian region-which also includes the Chinese region of Muslim-dominated Sinkiang, where the authorities have warned that Islamic fundamentalism is growing rapidly-is headed for an uncertain and turbulent future.
Pan-Islamism Versus Pan-Turkism?
Shortly after the Turkish Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel's much-publicized trip to Central Asian republics and Azerbaijan in April 1992 with a 144-member delegation of government officials and industrialists, Rafsanjani warned in a public speech that the rivalry to gain influence in that region had to be conducted "honestly."36 Simultaneously, government newspapers in Tehran unleashed a barrage of virulent attacks against Turkey and its activities in the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union. The Iranian daily Kayhan, for example, attacked Ankara's satellite broadcasting of its television programs into Central Asian republics, claiming such actions by Turkey came at a time when that country was under the influence of the West's loathsome and corrupt culture. Kayhan added that Turkey was so alienated from the genuine Islamic and indigenous Eastern culture that its cultural identity was under question. By exploiting the pure sentiments of the people of these newly independent republics, Kayhan continued, Turkey was trying to act as a springboard for its Western masters. Kayhan went on to say Turkey did not consider itself an independent country alongside the newly independent Turkish-inhabited states of the former Soviet Union. Its officials had unequivocally referred to Turkey as the motherland for all Turks across the world-a serious cause for concern, Kayhan said.
Hostile reactions by Tehran and Ankara to each others' meddling in the affairs of the Central Asian republics and the Caucasus have continued since the first signs of the Soviet Union's demise. In the intense rivalry to expand influence in the newly independent states with a population of fifty-three million, Turkey is counting on ethnic and language commonalities with most of the republics, promoting a kind of Pan- Turkism that stresses the unity of the Turkic nations from the coast of the Adriatic to Mongolia. Turkey is also recommending the creation of secular governments committed to a free market economy, modeled after its own political and economic system. The mullahs, on the other hand, pinpoint religious attachments and "Islamic" unity, at the same time underlining the republics' historical and cultural ties to Iran.
A number of Western countries, including the United States, have openly endorsed the Turkish option, reasoning that Turkey's influence in these republics impedes Tehran's efforts to export Khomeiniism and dominate the area. In a trip to several Central Asian republics, which coincided with the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Summit meeting in Tehran, former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker said the establishment of "Islamic republics" in these countries would be a "historical mistake." During Demirel's trip to Washington, D.C., in February 1992, former U.S. President George Bush praised Turkey as the "symbol of stability" and a "model" for the newly independent states of Central Asia.
Islamic fundamentalism has, nevertheless, established itself as a serious alternative in all of Central Asia. This was acknowledged by Demirel during his trip to the United States: "After suffering from the Soviet Empire's years of pressure and oppression, the former Soviet republics must not come under the fundamentalists' pressures and oppression," the Turkish prime minister said.37 The principal question, therefore, is whether Turkey can outplay Iran. Will Pan-Turkism or fundamentalism eventually fill the vacuum created by the collapse of the Soviet Union and Marxism?
The governments taking power immediately after independence consisted mainly of conservative ex-communist officials or secular political figures. The new governments were a cause for premature optimism from some Western observers who perceived them as an indication that fundamentalism would not make much headway in this region. Several months later, however, a more troubling reality came to the surface. One after the other, governments in Azerbaijan, Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan became engulfed in severe crises, during which it be came apparent that Islamic fundamentalism was a powerful phenomenon threatening the status quo. These developments further demonstrated that in the Tehran, Ankara face-off, the mullahs will have the last word in Central Asia and the Caucasus, for several reasons.
Following several decades of religious oppression, the collapse of the Soviet Union has led to a wave of religious awakening in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The Central Asia correspondent of the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet has said of the republics: "The people are deeply religious, but at government and intellectual level, they have been trained by the former Communist Party." During the communist rule, out of 26,000 mosques and seminaries in these republics, only 400 mosques and 2 seminaries were allowed to operate. But today, throughout these republics one finds mosques being built or renovated. The London Sunday Times reported from Ashkhabad, the Turkmenistan capital, that after years of living under the communists' oppressive and antireligious rule, the youth in Turkmenistan now consider themselves to be, before anything else, Muslims.
In such a social setting, Tehran has a clear advantage. Parties advocating fundamentalist Islam have grown rapidly by taking advantage of the public's religious sentiments. In Tadzhikistan and Uzbekistan they are now the largest political organizations. Religion has become so important among the people of these republics that even secular politicians such as Azerbaijan's former President Ayaz Motalebov tried to pose as an advocate of Islam during election campaigns. Secular Turkey itself could not ignore this important element. Contrary to its vigorously secular constitution, Demirel's government sent 40,000 copies of the Quran in Turkish to these republics and dispatched representatives from the State Religion Organization. But the mullahs' "Islamic Republic" is in a much better position compared with Turkey to exploit this religious factor. It has used radio broadcasts, the dispatch of several thousand religious preachers, financial backing, and propaganda support for mosques and political and religious groups that are under its influence.
Iran has a 2,000-kilometer-long border with the Caucasian and Central Asian republics. Turkey, on the other hand, has a common border with the non-Muslim republic of Armenia and a few kilometers of border with the autonomous Nakhichevan republic, part of the Russian Republic. What is more, some of the largest and most populated Iranian provinces, such as Khorassan in the northeast, Mazandaran in the north, and Azerbaijan in the northwest, are neighbors to the new republics. Iran's geopolitical location is also important, because it can act as a bridge between Central Asia and the outside world. In a conference titled "The Collapse of the Soviet Union and its Effects on the Third World" held in Tehran in March 1992, an Iranian official said: "With the Soviet Union's collapse and the republics' independence, the regional and global maps have undergone changes. In place of one country that since the tsar's time was trying to reach the warm waters of the Persian Gulf, fifteen republics have been established. By connecting them to the international waters and obtaining permission to use these republics' ground routes to the Black Sea and Europe, the interests of Iran and the republics could be served."
In May 1992, Rafsanjani spoke about rebuilding the Silk Road that in ancient times linked Iran to China via Central Asia.38 Not only would such commercial routes increase Iran-Central Asia trade, they would also further attach these republics to Tehran. The Iranians are also strongly motivated to activate the transit route to Europe via the Caucasus and the Ukraine, thereby removing the Turkish monopoly on Iran's land access to Europe.
Whereas none of the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union has ever been a part of Turkey or the Ottoman Empire, Iran enjoys ancient historical and cultural ties to these regions. While capitalizing on the religious and Islamic feelings, the Iranian clerics have also emphasized these historical bonds.
Mullah Abaii, Mashad Friday prayer leader, has said, "These Muslims are closer to us. The Treaty of Turkmanchay expired several years ago, and these countries are now parts of Iran." Government media systematically call for the abrogation of the Treaty of Golestan (1813) and Turkmanchay (1829), which gave Russia vast portions of Iranian territory in the Caucasus-inciting much irredentist sentiment. Some in the West argue that Central Asian Muslims will not become trouble-making allies of Iran because most of them speak Turkish and not Farsi, and having been just liberated from the yoke of communism, they reject revolutionary Islam.39 This view ignores the fact that after many centuries, the new republics and Iran still have the same music and handicraft, and almost the same culture.40 Moreover, Turkish is extensively spoken in northern Iran. Iran's Turks are among the most influential figures in Tehran and have dominated the armed forces for many centuries.
Despite offering the new Central Asian republics a free market model, Turkey lacks sufficient economic capacity either to help start these republics' stagnant economies or absorb their new markets. It cannot compete with oil-rich Iran either. Vast segments of the Iranian economy have been devastated during the mullahs' rule, but Iran has considerable oil revenues. In countries such as Lebanon, the Iranians have demonstrated their readiness to spend extravagantly when it comes to "exporting revolution." Commenting on Tehran-Ankara economic competition in the former Soviet republics, the London Observer wrote that, plagued by a poor economy, high inflation, and large unemployment, Turkey cannot compete with Saudi Arabia or Iran, who spend cash. The Turks are aware that they cannot by themselves help reconstruct the economies of the former Soviet republics:41 In short, as one analyst has noted, "Turkey cannot be counted on to block Iran's move. It is busy with its own problems."42
Discussing the increasing economic ties between Iran and the Central Asian republics, Alireza Sheikh-Attar, an Iranian official, said:
After the war [with Iraq], economic prosperity [for Iran] is impossible without export markets. Our difficulties in export are the quality and high tariffs in the West which have denied us the chance to compete in the world markets. Now these republics are the best market for Iran, because the people's tastes are in harmony with Iranian products. The vast mineral resources of these republics can fulfill Iran's needs.43
By founding the Organization of the Caspian Sea Countries, the mullahs succeeded in bypassing Turkey and assuring direct relations with Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan.
In the Tehran conference on the collapse of the Soviet Union, Iranian officials listed the activities the "Islamic Republic" of Iran would pursue to expand its relations with the Central Asian republics:
1. Setting up industrial and commercial exhibitions in Baku, Ashkhabad, Alma-Ata, Dushanbe, and Tashkent;
2. Facilitating traveling of citizens;
3. Allowing trucks from Azerbaijan to commute via Nakhichevan;
4. Establishing Islamic Republic Airlines offices in the republics' capitals;
5. Opening Iranian banks, joint production investments, and commercial centers;
6. Opening embassies and diplomatic representations;
7. Setting up Farsi language classes to spread the Farsi language;
8. Endorsing the Muslim republics' membership in international bodies such as the Islamic Conference Organization;
9. Providing assistance to increase the republics' economic potential and granting them export credits;
10.Reviving the Silk Road to China and Europe through construction of the Mashad-Sarakhs railway;
11.Offering help in renovating mosques and historical sites;
12.Creating the possibility of those countries' membership in the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO(.
Given the different historical, religious, political, economic, and cultural parameters, it must be concluded that Pan-Turkism cannot sweep aside the Pan- Islamism the mullahs are advocating in Central Asia and the Caucasus. If the situation is left on its own and fundamentalism is not eliminated in Iran, the Iranian clerics will take further steps toward dominating these republics. Turkey itself has been the target of Iranian-inspired fundamentalists.44 It cannot itself compete with Iran.
Stressing that the Central Asian region "will turn into the most complex case of the transitional period," Henry Kissinger warned that fundamentalism seriously endangers the region.45 It would be against the Russian and American interests for fundamentalist regimes to spread in these republics, he said.46 That specter would affect the entire Middle East and would lead to a new tide of radicalism.47
A multitude of wide-ranging regional issues only complicates the situation in Central Asia and the Caucasus, from Kazakhstan's possession of intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads to the bloody territorial conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Indeed, with so much potential for instability and conflict, it is no surprise that some analysts have predicted that Central Asia will become a major crisis point before the turn of the century. The mullahs in Tehran, through their export of Khomeiniism to the republics, are making sure that prediction will come true*
