UK WINDOW ON IRAN: NGO ARGUES MORE SABERI-LIKE

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 LONDON 001203 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/20/2019 TAGS: IR JA PGOV PHUM PREL PTER ECON UK SUBJECT: UK WINDOW ON IRAN: NGO ARGUES MORE SABERI-LIKE ARRESTS LIKELY; JAPAN EMBASSY COMMENTS ON SPEED OF ENGAGEMENT; ANALYST ON IRANIAN NEGOTIATING STYLES; A PESSIMIST'S VIEW ON BOB LEVINSON; ELECTIONS Classified By: Classified By: Political Counselor Rick Mills for reason s 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (SBU) This cable responds to Department (NEA/IR) request that Iran Watcher posts, echoing IRPO Dubai's widely read "Window on Iran" round-ups, provide as feasible occasional front channel summaries of day-to-day Iran-related interactions appropriate for reporting in summary form to a wide Washington readership. ¶2. (S/NF) Summary highlights: -- Spoilers' arrests of vulnerable AmCits may be repeated (para. 3); -- Japan Embassy claims Tokyo wants faster pace on U.S.-Iran engagement (para. 4); -- Elections: Ahmedinejad seen as front-runner among expat Karrubi supporters (para. 5); -- Iranian private sector negotiator urges engagement include tough U.S. approach in private (para. 6); -- Broadcaster believes Mr. Levinson may be dead (para. 7). (end summary) ¶3. (S) TEHRAN NGO HEAD SAYS SABERI CASE REFLECTS HARD-LINE TACTICS LIKELY TO BE REPEATED. A Tehran-based NGO head, closely linked to UNHCR offices in Iran, and well-known to Department, correctly predicted to Poloff prior to the event that Ms Saberi would be released shortly before Iran's June election, but gloomily argued the recurrence of such an event -- the grabbing by hard-liners of a U.S.-related civil society figure so as to complicate engagement efforts -- is extremely high. Following Ms. Saberi's May 12 release, the NGO head reiterated this view to Poloff and argued that, unless the USG is able to absorb such provocations to an extraordinary extent, hard-line "spoilers" are likely to succeed in precluding or derailing U.S.-Iran engagement. -- Interestingly, this NGO head argues many spoilers are financially rather than politically motivated, describing the key players as being "the financial mafias" or groupings which, using generally conservative or hard-line political cover, reap huge mercantile benefits, in the form of sector and import and smuggling monopolies enabled by Iran's sanctions-based isolation. The normalization of relations would fundamentally undermine these groups' business interests. This NGO head, who has frequently argued to Poloff that the IRI regime in its present form will be unable, due to lack of domestic legitimacy, to survive in its present form in the event of a significant opening to the West, maintained that a concrete, dramatic but circumscribed USG gesture, such as a reopening of air routes and provision of aircraft spare parts, would fundamentally undermine and discredit the isolationist narrative propagated by this "mafia." Such a gesture, he argued would, because of the energizing effect on the general population, commit the regime to a course of greater openness to the United States. ¶4. (S/NF) CANDOR ON IRAN FROM JAPANESE EMBASSY LONDON: TOKYO MFA REPORTEDLY ANXIOUS FOR USG TO PUSH ENGAGEMENT FORWARD MORE QUICKLY; AIRCRAFT PARTS A KEY DELIVERABLE. Takahiro Tamura, First Secretary at the Japanese Embassy in London told London Iran Watcher May 18 that GOJ, and Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Sasae in particular, believe the USG may be allowing too much time to go by while awaiting dramatic or meaningful Iranian responses to President Obama's Nowruz message and the P5 1's April statement. Tamura referred to Foreign Minister Nakasone's May 2 visit to Tehran, which Tamura noted had been done over U.S. protests, but which Sasae had felt, according to Tamura, was important to signal to all parties the urgency of moving forward. Tamura further noted what he called Israel's likely impatience with an extended timeline for U.S.-Iran negotiations on the nuclear issue, as well as what Tamura said would be Japan's inability, in the event of a failure of engagement, to join with the United States in any pressure on Iran's hydrocarbon sector, due to Japan's high dependency on Iranian crude. -- Tamura noted the extensive discussion of engagement he said Tokyo MFA officials regularly conduct with Iranian Ambassador to Japan Araghchi and his staff. Tamura said the Japanese MFA after the Nakasone visit to Tehran had asked the Iranian Embassy in Tokyo for a list of possible USG actions that Iran believes would be likely to quicken the pace of direct U.S.-Iran engagement. Tamura was uncertain whether the Iranian Embassy's written reply, contained in a letter signed by the Embassy's Deputy Chief of Mission, had been vetted by Tehran authorities, but flagged to London Iran Watcher that the item heading the Iranian list was a request LONDON 00001203 002 OF 003 for the USG to permit the immediate export to Iran of civil airliner spare parts, specifically Boeing spare parts. Tamura said his MFA had asked for such a list in the context of widely repeated Iranian statements that Tehran wants concrete actions by the USG going beyond what Tamura called "the recent change in tone" of U.S. policy on Iran. ¶5. (C/NF) ELECTIONS: UK-BASED IRANIANS LIKE KARRUBI BUT SEE AHMEDINEJAD AS FRONT-RUNNER. The general view of London Iran Watcher (poloff)'s principal analytical contacts is hopeful but realistic as to the prospects of former Majles Speaker Karrubi's electoral prospects. Citing the traditionally unpredictable nature of Iranian elections, analysts such as St. Andrew's University historian Ali Ansari, Durham University Political scientist Anoush Ehtashami, civil society exchange coordinator Ali Pedram, pseudonymic blogger Nasrin Alavi, and the University of London's Nima Mina indicate personal preference for Karrubi but avoid predictions as to turnout, the order in which candidates will finish, margins of victory, and the likelihood of a runoff. Those recent UK returnees from Iran who speak to Poloff or to analysts excitedly of growing support for Moussavi or Karroubi do admit, when pressed, that their visits to Iran did not extend far beyond north Tehran, where reformist support is traditionally concentrated. -- VOA contract broadcaster Ali Reza Nourizadeh told Poloff he still believes Ahmedinejad is the front runner but that he himself is now an enthusiastic supporter of Karrubi's candidacy, and dismisses Moussavi as ideologically very close to Ahmedinejad. He argues Moussavi is still the object of Khamenei's personal enmity based on their past mutual history, despite press suggestions of a reconciliation between the two. Nourizadeh emphasizes Karrubi's ability, if elected, as a cleric to openly disagree with Khamenei, as well as Karrubi's public statements of openness to negotiation with the U.S. Nourizadeh claimed that negotiations had occurred, but had gained no traction, between Karrubi's and Moussavi's camps over giving Karrubi control of several major cabinet appointments in exchange for his own last-minute withdrawal from the race and endorsement of Moussavi. Nourizadeh said that Karrubi is thought by many to have engaged in corruption at the Shahid Foundation in the 1980's but that his campaign offers of transparency on that issue have mollified the press. Nourizadeh said "bazaaris" are a large part of Karrubi's natural constituency, and that the student reform organization Takhim e Vahdat, of which Nourizadeh has sentimental views, is a likely supporter. Nourizadeh noted that many older expats and many U.S.-based anti-regime groups had denounced Nourizadeh's refusal to join their calls for an election boycott. -- All Poloff interlocutors agree that a low turnout, and a run-off scenario, would favor Ahmedinejad, due to his control of Interior Ministry mechanisms, rural patronage, and Basij personnel. A high turnout, contacts generally agree, will bring a visibly high level of anti-Ahmedinejad voters to the polls, thus making it harder for Interior Ministry attempts at manipulation to appear plausible. ¶6. (S/NF) NEGOTIATING WITH IRAN: IRANIAN OIL CONSULTANT SAYS USG MUST COMPLEMENT ITS CONCILIATORY PUBLIC TONE WITH TOUGH PRIVATE APPROACH. A thirty-year-old Iranian financial analyst, now UK-based but prior to 2006 a consultant for Pars Phenol Iran with Iran's Oil Ministry, on May 19 privately shared with London Iran Watcher (Poloff) his views on Iranian negotiating norms; he drew on his experience of trying to secure from European banks Iranian oil sector financing on behalf the Oil Ministry. The analyst describes himself politically as a supporter of the Islamic Republic, albeit an Iran with reduced clerical control, greater social and political tolerance, and more openness to the West. To Poloff, the analyst urged that USG officials who engage in private discussions with Iranian officials on nuclear or regional security issues adopt in private an approach much tougher, albeit respectful, than what he described as the USG's current "conciliatory" public tone. He agreed fully that the current, conciliatory public tone is needed to enable Iran's deeply defensive officialdom to engage with the USG, but argued passionately that, inside any non-public negotiating venue, USG negotiators will have "no chance" of achieving their goals if they do not set a firm, highly specific agenda and negotiating timeline, complete with a frank explanation of negative consequences in the event of negotiating failure. -- The analyst argued there is a danger that the USG's current public line of openness to direct engagement appears liable to produce engagement that is in substance open-ended as to time frame, subject matter, and objective, lacking LONDON 00001203 003 OF 003 clear statements of mutual equities and a firm timeline. He argued such a negotiating approach would be warmly welcomed by Iranian officials, who would, in the absence of pressure to reach any specific objectives, deftly spin such talks out for as long as the USG remained at the table. -- The analyst stressed that Iranian negotiators will, unless driven by their interlocutors to focus on clear goals, parameters and consequences, indulge what he called the IRI's systemic proclivity for meandering procrastination, even at the expense of Iran's own interests. As an example he cited his own experience of Iranian oil officials repeatedly allowing negotiations for achievable Western financing to fail because of the officials' generalized reluctance, in the presence of Western negotiators who were not pressing them hard, to make specific commitments and close a deal, despite Iran's crippling need for oil sector investment. -- The analyst attributed this dynamic to the belief within IRI institutions that failure carries a greater penalty than inaction, and to individuals' belief in hidden traps and the related assumption that an opponent will show all his cards, and reveal the true nature of his negotiating objectives, only as a last, desperate resort. ¶7. (S/NF) BROADCASTER NOURIZADEH BELIEVES BOB LEVINSON MAY BE DEAD. VOA contract broadcaster Ali Reza Nourizadeh on May 19, referring to earlier accounts he had claimed to receive (08 London 766 and previous) containing alleged details on Bob Levinson's condition and whereabouts, opined that Mr. Levinson has most likely been dead for the past year or more. Nourizadeh argued that a prisoner such as Mr. Levinson represented a lucrative opportunity to any prison, logistical, medical, or security sector employee having even indirect knowledge of a living American prisoner, making it very unlikely, were Mr. Levinson still alive, for any Iranian government authorities to hold Mr. Levinson in complete secrecy. Nourizadeh said the multiple reports he claimed to have been receiving until early 2008, with sketchy details of Mr. Levinson's condition and shifting location, all from persons with private agendas and no direct ties to the IRGC, had since early 2008 been replaced by "complete silence," a silence Nourizadeh said was significant. -- Nourizadeh flagged that a common theory in Iran about the disappearance was that the kidnapping had been done for ransom, vice political reasons, by a business "mafia" independent of regime authorities. Nourizadeh dismissed this theory, however, as inconsistent with what he called the "absolute control" the IRGC holds over Kish Island, down to and including airport baggage handlers and hotel staff: he claimed as his source for this view of Kish Island security the leader of a powerful Baluchi-Iranian resistance group which reportedly had tried but had been unable to gain access to Kish Island. -- Comment: As with previously reported Nourizadeh allegations about Mr. Levinson's kidnapping, Embassy is unable to assess with any confidence whether Nourizadeh's views are plausible and supported by credible information, uninformed conjecture, or fabrications. Visit London's Classified Website: http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Unit ed_Kingdom LEBARON