Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09LONDON207
2009-01-23 15:56:00
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
Embassy London
Cable title:  

IRAN - ANALYST KHAJEHPOUR ARGUES FOR: BROADENING

Tags:  IR IS KPRP LE PGOV PHUM PINS PREL UK IA SW 
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VZCZCXRO1774
PP RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHDIR RUEHKUK
DE RUEHLO #0207/01 0231556
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 231556Z JAN 09
FM AMEMBASSY LONDON
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1156
INFO RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 LONDON 000207 

NOFORN
SIPDIS

UNVIE FOR AMBASSADOR SCHULTE AND ANDREA HALL

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/20/2019
TAGS: IR IS KPRP LE PGOV PHUM PINS PREL UK IA SW
SUBJECT: IRAN - ANALYST KHAJEHPOUR ARGUES FOR: BROADENING
ENGAGEMENT ON NUCLEAR ISSUE; NUANCED HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY;
IRAN OUTREACH OPPORTUNITY GENERATED BY GAZA

LONDON 00000207 001.2 OF 005


Classified By: Political Counselor Rick Mills for reasons 1.4 (b) and (
d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 LONDON 000207

NOFORN
SIPDIS

UNVIE FOR AMBASSADOR SCHULTE AND ANDREA HALL

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/20/2019
TAGS: IR IS KPRP LE PGOV PHUM PINS PREL UK IA SW
SUBJECT: IRAN - ANALYST KHAJEHPOUR ARGUES FOR: BROADENING
ENGAGEMENT ON NUCLEAR ISSUE; NUANCED HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY;
IRAN OUTREACH OPPORTUNITY GENERATED BY GAZA

LONDON 00000207 001.2 OF 005


Classified By: Political Counselor Rick Mills for reasons 1.4 (b) and (
d)


1. (C/NF) Summary: Iran's leadership is committed
domestically to low-grade enrichment but is not irretrievably
committed to creation of a nuclear weapon, in the view of
Tehran-based political risk analyst Bijan Khajehpour, who met
privately in London with U.S Ambassador to UNVIE Greg Schulte
accompanied by London Iran Watcher (Poloff). Khajehpour
argued that, given a quiet, calibrated approach to the right
Iranian audience, USG engagement on a broad range of
strategic concerns, preferably begun after Iran's June
elections, could be a way to avert Iran's acquisition of a
nuclear weapons capacity. Khajehpour argued the USG should
strengthen its chances of halting Iran's nuclear programs by
appearing in any future negotiations to assign the nuclear
issue a lower priority; Khajehpour offered some specific
formulations which he said he had discussed privately with
the Swedish Foreign Minister. Ambassador Schulte underlined
that the international community will do nothing to undermine
or dilute the authority of UNSC resolutions on Iran, which do
and will remain in force.


2. (C/NF) Summary continued: In a separate meeting January
20, Khajehpour told Poloff USG advocacy with Iranian regime
authorities on behalf of detained human rights and civil
society figures should include restrained and temperate
public statements, carefully tailored to the individual case.
Khajehpour also described how the Gaza crisis makes
immediate engagement with USG more difficult in the short
term for Tehran, but provides a possible way, in his view,
for USG to extract a longer-term positive result for
U.S.-Iran dynamics from current international tension over

Gaza. End summary.


3. (C/NF) On his way back to Iran from giving a speech at
Ft. McNair's National Defense University (NDU),Tehran-based
Atieh Group head Bijan Khajehpour, met with Ambassador
Schulte and London Iran Watcher (poloff) during a break in
the Ambassador's December 12 public diplomacy schedule in
London. Bijanpour also met separately with Poloff December
11 and, in a separate trip, January 20.

Since Nuclear Carpet is Priority,
USG Should Appear to Look at Other
Carpets First, or Be Fleeced
--------------


4. (C/NF) Arguing that regional security and regime
legitimacy, not nuclear weapons, are Tehran's priorities, and
that the regime's negotiating approach is fixed by national
character (vice ideology),Khajehpour argued USG will get
quicker results at a lower price by focusing its initial Iran
outreach efforts and negotiating tactics away from the USG's
own priority: i.e., away from the nuclear issue. Khajehpour
said the regime's negotiating approach is "in every way (that
of) a carpet seller" assessing a potential customer; "the
customer must not signal" which carpet he truly wants and
"must be willing to walk away, or be cheated." Khajehpour
argued tactical sequencing of the nuclear issue after less
vital issues are addressed could result in the end in a net
time savings. He argued a calculating Tehran regime will
otherwise hold any issue to which the USG visibly imparts
urgency hostage to its own negotiating priorities. Iranian
priorities, Khajehpour argued, center around the regional
security and prestige which, in Iranian eyes, only the United
States can bestow.

Khajehpour Argues IRGC Backing for
Ahmedinejad Is Limited, and Any Outreach
to Iran Should Therefore Be Delayed
--------------


5. (C/NF) Khajehpour, using points from his National Defense
University presentation, put Iranian policy stances in the
context of the regime's informal networks. Such networks
bind individuals and groups together through identities
forged and shared over decades (e.g., clerical circles from
the same seminaries and IRGC circles with shared Iran-Iraq
War service),create broad rivalries within the IRIG, and
limit the "political space" for innovation or rapid decision.
Rafsanjani when he was president, from 1989-1997, had
neglected the post-Iran-Iraq War IRGC, a decision which
spawned IRGC resentment, and deep and spreading IRGC
penetration of governmental institutions; Khajehpour expects
the steady replacement in government posts of clerics by IRGC
figures to continue.


LONDON 00000207 002 OF 005



6. (C/NF) Khajehpour believes Ahmedinejad, because his war
combat record is murky, does not enjoy unconditional IRGC
support and is therefore not assured of re-election in June
2009, Khamenei's stated support notwithstanding. Khamenei
himself, in Khajehpour's view, "feels insecure" about his own
position within the framework of "velayat e faqih" (clerical
rule),due to his own lack of theological achievement or
merit-based clerical rank. This underlying insecurity is
what underlies what Khajehpour said is Khamenei's tendency to
shuffle IRGC leadership and organization in times of crisis.



7. (C/NF) Khajehpour argued that the shallowness of
Ahmedinejad's IRGC support, and the tenuous nature of an
insecure Khameni's endorsement, plus the President's economic
policy woes, will likely prevent him from being re-elected in
June absent a boost from some dramatic foreign policy
development, such as a sudden thaw in relations with the
United States. Such a thaw, Khajepour argued, would be
credited to Ahmedinejad, and be seen by the regime as
vindication of Ahmedinejad's confrontational style, thus
scuppering any meaningful opening with the U.S. for years to
come.

Negotiations: Find a Workable Functional
Equivalent for "Suspension"
--------------


8. (C/NF) Khajehpour said general regime distrust of the
U.S., cumulative since the 1979 revolution, has created the
general conviction in Tehran that the USG's nuclear end game
is "zero enrichment" of any type by Iran. Khajehpour argued
USG needs to be clearer in its messaging; he said "domestic
opponents of reconciliation will exploit every opening in
your offer ... (the USG in effect) must sell it to the
Iranian people." In this regard Khajehpour recommended USG
use the concrete example of an existing U.S. technology light
water reactor, perhaps in Brazil, as a centerpiece of its
public approach. Khajehpour noted the regime's propaganda
success in marrying the nuclear confrontation to themes of
nationalism, and concluded that nuclear enrichment
"suspension" is a formula on which no one in Iran's political
establishment, including Supreme Leader Khamenei, is able to
back down on either now or in the future.


9. (C/NF) In the course of a wide-ranging discussion of
hypothetical negotiation scenarios, however, Khajehpour
suggested a change in phrasing, which he said he had recently
discussed with the Swedish Foreign Minister, could be key to
USG moving toward its goal to halt or slow Iranian
enrichment: the substitution in effect of "technical
overhaul" for "suspension." Khajehpour said he assessed
regime leadership would be open to a "technical overhaul"
being followed by a period of "enrichment maintenance;"
during "enrichment maintenance," nuclear program work would,
with verification, not go forward, while further parameters
for negotiations, and for further stand-still periods, were
established. Khajehpour pointed out it would be important
for the regime to be able publicly to claim without direct
contradiction that it had stood firm on its principle of "no
suspension."

"Suspension" Central to UNSCRs'
Content and Authority
--------------


10. (C/NF) Ambassador Schulte underlined the international
community will do nothing to undermine or dilute the
authority of UNSC resolutions on Iran, which will remain in
force, and pointed to the term "suspension" in those
documents. The Ambassador also pointed out that negotiations
entail for the United States the inherent risk that they
would be a device by which Tehran would be able to buy time
to further its nuclear development goals -- "a way to occupy
the customer but in the end keep the carpet." The Ambassador
noted Tehran's non-transparency with UN nuclear safeguard
authorities has been problematic. Khajehpour agreed these
are powerful objections, but countered a case can be made
that Iran's program has been "reactive;" he traced the
program's roots to the late shah's efforts and reviewed what
he called the many start-ups and stand-downs in every decade
since then, ending with Ahmedinejad's foray, beginning in

2005. In Khajehpour's view the goal of regime planners is
not a weapon but some degree of "nuclear ambiguity," on
Japan's model; he argued the vagueness of this goal offers
opportunities for compromise and meaningful limitation.

Right Approach is Everything;

LONDON 00000207 003 OF 005


Substance Can Be Fashioned to Fit
--------------


11. (C/NF) Khajehpour repeatedly emphasized the content of
any offer, on nuclear or other issues, will be less important
than the way in which it is offered. With respect to a
nuclear offer, Khajehpour returned to his carpet seller
analogy, and urged the USG sequence and craft its opening so
as to reduce in the eyes of the Tehran regime the nuclear
issue's apparent importance to the U.S.


12. (C/NF) Khajehpour underlined the desperation with which
Tehran seeks enhanced prestige and role in the region and,
deriving from such prestige, greater legitimacy at home. He
argued that, although international rhetorical exchanges had
resulted in firm regime commitment to nuclear development,
and acknowledging the logical inference from nontransparency
about regime aims, Khajehpour saw no signs the regime
specifically wants nuclear weapons capacity. He argued
Tehran does want the deterrent value of an apparent or latent
capacity, such as a stockpile of enriched fuel would provide.
Khajehpour claimed the proximity of nuclear-armed Pakistan,
a potentially radicalized and hostile Sunni state, looms even
larger than the U.S. in Iranian calculations, and draws much
expert-level planning attention in Tehran's think-tanks and
ministries.

Khajehpour Sees U.S-Iran Opportunity In
Gaza Crisis: Humanitarian Supply Ship
--------------


13. (C/NF) Khajehpour, in London on a brief return visit,
discussed human rights and Gaza with Poloff on January 20.
On Gaza, Khajehpour told Poloff that, in the last two weeks
events in Gaza have made near-term engagement with USG more
difficult for Tehran. Khajehpour posited a convergence in
late 2008 between Iranian and U.S. regional security
priorities, with both governments seeing action against Al
Qaeda and Sunni extremism as a priority for both. Khajehpour
argued that, despite the lack of more than a passing concern
by the Iranian public for Palestinians, the credibility of
the Tehran regime as a leader among Muslim nations is now
fully engaged by the Gaza crisis, a situation pitting Tehran
and Washington against each other, rather than sharing an
interest "in containing Sunni radicalism," a situation which
had obtained as recently as last month.


14. (C/NF) Khajehpour said the Tehran regime will remain
militant on Gaza until it can show Iranian support for Hamas
generating "some tangible benefit" for Palestinians.
Khajehpour agreed it is impossible for the USG to generate on
short notice any lasting political measure on
Israel-Palestine which Iran could support. He argued,
however, a gesture by USG such as the release, after any
necessary inspection, of the Iranian humanitarian supply ship
now held off the Gaza coast, would in Iran's eyes demonstrate
"its status as a player," be a public demonstration of USG
"respect" for Iran, and enable Tehran to ease its
confrontational stance on Gaza.


15. (C/NF) Such a measure, Khajehpour maintained, would also
create the kind of positive atmosphere needed for any
U.S.-Iran outreach on bilateral issues beyond Gaza.
Khajehpour added that a fellow Tehran private sector
observer, former deputy foreign Minister Abbas Maliki (now of
Sharif University and the Caspian Studies Institute) agreed
with this view. Khajehpour and Maliki believe Iran would
readily agree to inspection of the ship; Khajehpour reasoned
the ship is highly unlikely to carry arms, since they could
in these circumstances be too easily detected.

Human Rights Advocacy:
USG Needs to Pick Its Moments
--------------


16. (C/NF) Khajehpour discussed the unnamed senior Iran
Ministry of Information official whose January 19 comments on
USG civil society's "velvet revolution" efforts at subversion
were reported by international media; Khajehpour said the
unnamed official heads the ministry's "counter-intelligence"
department. Khajehpour viewed the comments as evidence the
regime has not yet decided, in the interim surrounding the
start of a new USG administration, whether to proceed against
activists other than the four named by the official;
Khajehpour included Shirin Ebadi as someone whose status is
still indeterminate in regime eyes.


17. (C/NF) Khajehpour commented on how to maximize

LONDON 00000207 004 OF 005


effectiveness of USG public advocacy on behalf of individual
human rights and civil society detainees in Iran. He
emphasized individual circumstances, saying "each arrest is
different," but argued a common factor is the likelihood in
many cases that an arrestee enjoys support "somewhere within
the system," meaning that "within a week someone will phone
Khamenei's office" on the arrestee's behalf. Khajepour said
the pattern of Khamenei and his minions, who sit within a
vast, amorphous web of political and financial patronage and
overlapping equities, will usually respond favorably to such
calls -- unless they have been given prior reason to be
cautious, such as information from security officials that
the arrestee in question appears to be working for or is of
interest to the Americans, as evidenced by robust, immediate
USG statements on the arrestee's behalf.


18. (C/NF) Khajepour cited the Haleh Esfandieri case as a
textbook example of effective human rights advocacy; he
emphasized the "decisive" effect on Khamenei of Lee
Hamilton's letter on behalf of Dr. Esfandiari. Khajehpour
argued the letter demonstrated American interest in an arrest
case, provided a message and tone respectful of Khamenei and
of Iran, and enabled the regime to act with deliberation, and
grant a face-saving release on humanitarian grounds.

But An Occasional Dash of
Ice Water Can Also Be Useful
--------------


19. (C/NF) Khajehpour noted, however, that immediate
forceful advocacy is both necessary and effective when the
IRIG, as in the Alaei brothers case, makes especially
outrageous and implausible accusations, such as the use of
"scientists, medical treatment, or sportsmen" for nefarious
purposes; he said implausible allegations and hopelessly
overheated rhetoric demand the reintroduction, by sources
outside Iran, of minimum levels of rationality to human
rights dialogue. (Embassy comment: HMG officials reporting
from Iran observe regularly that IRIG interlocutors sometimes
begin political interactions with incredible, seemingly
unhinged allegations or lines of argument. The usual
prescription HMG reports, a respectful but pointed and
factual rebuttal, redirects discussion to more rational,
productive channels, with little lasting damage. End
comment)

How Detainees Can Embarrass IRIG
Interrogators: Stay Calm, Open All
Files, Remember Names and Numbers
--------------


20. (C/NF) Khajepour believes his own past success, in not
drawing regime authorities' ire despite his frequent external
travel and U.S. connections, stems from his track record of
"transparency with the authorities." Khajepour, who has
headed his independent risk analysis firm (Atieh Group) in
Tehran since the mid-1990's, said he came to regime attention
in 1998 and again in 2006, when Ministry of Intelligence
(MOIS) officials questioned his business travel to the West.
Khajepour said he has always in response offered full access
and details of all work and travel to regime questioners who,
Khajepour claims, have always declined even to examine any of
his activities or files. Khajehpour said "fear of
embarrassment" is a powerful consideration for most IRIG
functionaries, who are themselves operating within a complex,
opaque legal and political hierarchy in which many
relationships are personal rather than institutional;
interrogators try to bully and bluff subjects into agreeing
not to travel, as the interrogators do not in most cases have
full authority themselves to deny someone the right to
travel.


21. (C/NF) Khajepour related the extended, harrowing
interrogations he endured in 1998, and claimed the key
factors in persuading MOIS interrogators to relent were "100
percent transparency" about activities and motivations, calm
demeanor in the face of harsh "good cop-bad cop" questioning,
and refusal to surrender his passport without a written MOIS
receipt. Khajepour also said his own proactive follow-up
afterwards about his continuing travel plans, using a
telephone number given by an interrogator at a dramatic
moment during a "bad-cop" session, appeared to convince MOIS
questioners that Khajepour enjoyed the protection of some
(unknown) patron within the regime.


22. (C./NF) Khajepour said he does not expect to be
arrested, but recognizes he could be targeted even now, given
the current repressive atmosphere. If arrested, Khajepour

LONDON 00000207 005 OF 005


said he would not want USG to intervene immediately on his
behalf, preferring low-key USG approaches via his wife
(please protect) and his former Atieh Group partner Siamac
Niazi (please protect),who Khajepour said has himself moved
to from Tehran to Dubai to avoid IRIG arrest.

Comment
--------------


23. (C/NF) Khajepour has long been a respected USG
interlocutor on Iran. Moving frequently between Western and
Iranian environments, he has quietly provided USG
interlocutors with analysis and insights on regime dynamics
which are consistently measured, nuanced, and informed.
Khajehpour's support for delaying engagement until after
Iran's June elections is not shared by all Iranian analysts
with whom Poloff meets in HMG and that community.


24. (C/NF) Khajepour said he plans travel to the United
States, if the U.S. visa for which he recently applied, is
issued by February 6, for the Cambridge Energy Conference in
Houston February 11. If he is asked, he may be able, as in
the past, to include a stop in Washington, D.C. on his way
back to Iran. He also said he would, as opportunities arise,
reach out to USG officials abroad.

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