with the chief military aide to the Supreme Leader erupting into a rage and threatening to limit relations with Ankara.
The regime argues that the radar has nothing to do with defending Europe from future Iranian missiles but rather is aimed at protecting Israel.
In the two weeks since Turkey stunned Iran by announcing it would host the radar system, Iranian political and military leaders have expressed uniform outrage at and disgust for Turkey.
The radar in Turkey will feed results to anti-missile missiles based in southern Romania and northern Poland. Those anti-missiles, the Standard-3, could be fired at Iranian missiles lofted into the air over Europe.
The irony is why Iran should care if—as it has stated repeatedly it has no intention of making long-range missiles able to reach deep into Europe. The longest range that Iran claims for any of its missiles is 2,000 kilometers. That range has not yet been proven. If true, it would allow Iran to reach the western side of the Black Sea and to strike the Balkans but not to go deep into Europe.
Other missiles and radar will be on US Navy Aegis cruisers that will be based at Rota, Spain, and will patrol in the Western Mediterranean. The United States has reached basing agreements with all four countries in the past month.
Russia strongly opposes the missile defense system, saying that it is really to target Russian missiles. The argument from Iran that the missiles are for the defense of Israel is lame given, first, that the missiles are so far from Israel and, second, that the United States has been helping Israel develop a missile defense system inside Israel based on the Arrow missile for almost 20 years. As a matter of policy, Israel does not base its defenses on anything that it does not control. So its missile defense system—both the radars and the missiles—must be based inside Israel.
The aide to the Supreme Leader who was so critical of Turkey was Major General Yahya Rahim-Safavi, who formerly was the commander of the Pasdaran. He denounced just about everything in Turkish foreign policy, not just the radar system, painting Turkey as charging down a highway of hostility toward Iran.
Going far beyond his military portfolio, he even threatened to restrict economic ties with Turkey—something not likely to find much support elsewhere in the regime.
In an interview with the Mehr news agency, Rahim-Safavi went beyond criticism of the missile defense radar. He described Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s invitation to Arab countries to adopt Turkish-style democracy as “unexpected and unimaginable.” But Erdogan has held out Turkish democracy as a model for others for many years.
Rahim-Safavi said Turkey’s secular system is not “a good model” for the Islamic world. He called Turkish policies incompatible with the Islamic ideals.
Turkey and Iran, the Middle East’s two major non-Arab Muslim states, are vying for influence in the Arab world as it goes through revolutionary upheaval. That rivalry has strained their relations—and has rattled many in Iran as more and more analysts say the Islamic Republic is losing the competition as respect for Turkey rises among Arabs while respect for Iran drops.
Rahim-Safavi didn’t bother with the courtesies of diplomacy. He just opened up with both barrels. “The behavior of Turkish statesmen toward Syria and Iran is wrong and, I believe, they are acting in line with the goals of America,” he said.
“If Turkey does not distance itself from this unconventional political behavior, it will have both the Turkish people turning away from it domestically and the neighboring countries of Syria, Iraq and Iran reassessing their political ties.…
“I think the Turks are treading a wrong path. It might very well be that the path was set for them by the Americans,” said Rahim-Safavi.
“The Turks have so far committed a few strategic errors. One was Erdogan’s trip to Egypt and his presentation of the secular model there. This fact was unexpected and unimaginable since the Egyptian people are Muslims.”
Erdogan has also offended Iran by publicly predicting that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be ousted “sooner or later.” Turkey is set to impose sanctions on Damascus despite a veto on UN action by Russia and China.
But it is Turkey’s decision to deploy a NATO missile early warning system that has most angered Tehran, which says, although probably does not believe, that it is a US ploy to protect Israel from any counter-attack should the Jewish state target Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Rahim-Safavi said trade ties with Turkey—which is an importer of Iranian gas and exporter of an array of manufactured goods—would be in jeopardy if Ankara does not change tack.
“If Turkish political leaders fail to make their foreign policy and ties with Iran clear, they will run into problems. If, as they claim, they intend to raise the volume of contracts with Iran to the $20 billion mark, they will ultimately have to accommodate Iran.”
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi has dubbed as an “Islamic awakening” what the rest of the world calls the “Arab spring.” The Arab revolutions have had little to do with Islam, being focused instead on corruption and democracy. But the best-organized parties in many Arab countries are Islamic, so there is widespread speculation that Islamist parties will do well in elections. The first post-strife balloting will take place later this month in Tunisia. The Ennahda party is expected to come in first there. It is Islamist—but a very moderate form of Islam.
Others denouncing Turkey include President Ahmadi-nejad, although the fire-breathing politician was unusually moderate and diplomatic in his criticism of Turkey, thus making Rahim-Safavi’s comments stand out like a sore thumb.
In an interview broadcast nationally last week, Ahmadi-nejad said, “The [missile defense] shield will be stationed in Turkey mostly to save the Zionists so that they [the Western powers] will be able to react and prevent Iran’s missiles from reaching the occupied territories in the event they [Israel] take military action against Iran and Iran launches a reciprocal missile attack.
“In the negotiations we held with the Turkish side, we emphasized that it is a wrong measure since the Zionists will ultimately be gone and such shields will not impact their survival.”
It was clear that Ahmadi-nejad wanted to paint the Turks as closet supporters of Israel in order to damage their standing in the Arab world and reverse their effectiveness in outpacing Iran within the Arab world.
