My foe's enemy is my friend
Once again, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has found herself in an extraordinary moment in time.
What began as a narrow, domestic-focused mission to return thousands of failed asylum seekers to Iran has unexpectedly placed her at the heart of a realignment in the West’s relationship with the Middle East.
The rise of Islamic State has turned everything on its head.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend is no longer just an ancient proverb. It has become a guiding doctrine. Permanent alliances are being replaced by shifting allegiances.
Bishop’s trip to Tehran at the weekend had its origins at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York in September when she got talking with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif whom she’d first met the previous year to discuss asylum seeker issues.
Australian governments have long been frustrated at Tehran’s refusal to accept the involuntary return of Iranians who failed to get protection visas — people whom Bishop’s Labor predecessor Bob Carr had described as mostly middle class, from majority ethnic and religious groups and “motivated by economic factors and are not fleeing persecution”.
Zarif, a sophisticated diplomat with an American education and top-level Western contacts, was on the charm offensive.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, left, speaks in a joint press conference with her Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Tehran. Photo: AP/Vahid Salemi)
It was the build-up to the next round of the so-called P5+1 talks aimed at stopping Iran developing a nuclear bomb.
He suggested she come to Tehran. Bishop replied: “You want to be careful issuing invitations to Australians, because they always turn up.”
Since that invitation seven months ago, Iran’s great influence in Iraq has become apparent. Its troops have been working hand-in-hand with the Iraqi Government and the Iranian-backed Shia militias have also been taking a prominent role against Islamic State, or Daesh, as Bishop prefers calling the millennial group.
It was decided by senior ministers, including Prime Minister Tony Abbott, that Bishop must use her trip to Tehran to explicitly explain Australia’s role in Iraq, to insure against miscalculations by the Iranians.
But it turned out that Bishop’s April 18 trip would also come shortly after P5+1 talks on Iran’s nuclear program, involving the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany.
US Secretary of State John Kerry was enthusiastic about Bishop’s trip to Iran. Conflict in Iraq and Syria has seen the desire to understand Tehran’s frame of mind go well beyond exploring its nuclear intentions.
Australia, unlike America, Britain and many European nations, has never broken off diplomatic relations with Iran, maintaining an embassy in Tehran throughout various troubles.
Iran has noted this.
The original intention of Bishop’s visit to Tehran, the first by an Australian foreign minister since Alexander Downer in 2003, was overlaid by regional and global priorities.
Bishop met the top four, excluding the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — President Hassan Rouhani, Zarif, Ali Shamkhani, the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, which formulates Iran’s nuclear policy, and Ali Akbar Velayati, the Supreme Leader’s international affairs adviser who was Iran’s foreign minister for 16 years.
It was no accident that Bishop followed up her Tehran trip by going to Paris to meet her French counterpart Laurent Fabius and then to Berlin where she met German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Both were keen to hear what Bishop had learnt. Germany, which has strong business interests in Iran, wants a nuclear deal with Iran that allows sanctions to be lifted.
France is not keen at all.
Rouhani, a moderate by his nation’s standards, wants Iran to come out of the cold.
Importantly, he wants a nuclear deal, which remains key to Iran’s future engagement with the West.
Former US President George W Bush during the now famous 2002 'axis of evil' speech. Photo: AP
Iran remains deeply irritated by the Axis of Evil epithet flung its way by US president George W. Bush in 2002. Its Government has a told-you-so attitude on Syria, telling the West that it may not like Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but that if he was deposed, even worse folk such as Islamic State would fill the vacuum.
It is a very proud nation. In a region that is majority Sunni and majority Arab, Iran is neither. Iranians are Persians and they are mainly Shia.
Like the region around it, Iran is full of paradoxes.
It is a theocratic Islamic republic whose constitution entrenches the separation of powers.
Despite its reputation for being anti-West, brands such as Apple, Tommy Hilfiger, Nike and Adidas thrive in Iran.
Unlike in Saudi Arabia, women must wear headscarfs by law in Iran. Yet women make up 60 per cent of its university graduates.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier Julie Bishop, left, address the media in Berlin. Photo: AP/Michael Sohn
The whole region is rampant with hypocrisies, many involving the West.
On Yemen, the US has asked the Iranians to stop supporting the rebel Shi’ite Houthis, yet the US-backed Saudis help the other side.
Iran has long been regarded by the US as an active state sponsor of terrorism throughout the Middle East and central Asia, yet grumblings continue in the US and Europe that not enough has been done over the years to target the wealthy Saudi families who have funded terrorism groups such as al-Qaida.
IS has forced the West to reassess the binary way it has viewed the Middle East.
Non-state actors such as al-Qaida have made way for terrorist groups who want to become state actors by taking territory. IS needs to take Damascus or Baghdad to fulfil the caliphate prophecy.
This phenomenon has brought a pragmatism to the West’s dealings in the Middle East, including who it will work with and the sharing of information.
The arrangement Bishop struck in Tehran on intelligence swaps is not of the kind Australia has with its traditional allies.
Iran wants fewer foreign fighters in the region. Australia wants to stop them leaving our shores while also having access to information that aids prosecution if they manage to get home.
This is a pragmatic agreement in the national interest. It may even make Iraq a bit safer for Australian troops. But Bishop won’t be Pollyanna-ish about Iran. That would be naive and foolish.
Islamic State’s emergence has simply brought into calculation a focus on the common enemy.
After all, there is only one thing for sure about Middle East politics. It’s complicated.
Morning news break – April 24
