After the Baluchistan attacks, Iran faces two options heightened confrontation or accommodation, argues Mohammed Said Idris Tehran's heavy-handed reaction to the suicide bombing attack by the Sunni Jundullah (Soldiers of God) insurgent group at the municipal building in Sistan-Baluchistan on 18 October is symptomatic of the new political psychology that governs the actions of the Iranian leadership. Times have definitely changed in Iran since the wave of protests that rocked the country following the announcement of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory in the tenth presidential elections in June. Those demonstrations showed there is a powerful opposition capable of challenging the regime and, indeed, willing to defy the supreme guide, the most important symbol of the Islamic Republic's essential principle of rule by the clergy, in the pursuit of greater democratic freedoms. Clearly taken by surprise by this challenge, leaders in Tehran have since been determined not to show any signs of weakness in the face of what they regard as threats to their status and pressures to make concessions. Those developments also deepened these leaders' beliefs that the Iranian regime is the target of a foreign conspiracy that has succeeded in infiltrating deep into Iranian society. Their response was to portray the opposition uprising as the work of agents working for western powers bent on engineering a "velvet revolution" akin to those variously coloured revolutions that swept Eastern European countries following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Such suspicions were aggravated by disturbances in Iranian Kurdistan and in Sistan-Baluchistan before the elections in June. The most serious incident that took place at the time was the bombing of a mosque in Zahdan, the capital of the Sistan-Baluchistan province, in May 2009. The incident, for which Jundullah again claimed responsibility, targeted a pro-Ahmadinejad campaign rally and claimed 25 dead and a large number of wounded. Statements by congressional and other political leaders in the US seemed to corroborate Iranian suspicions. As the Iranian regime clamped down on pro-reform demonstrators, many of these politicians urged Washington to show more active support for the opposition in Iran, with neoconservatives in particular clamouring for a budgetary allocation to support covert activities inside Iran. Iran also interprets western opposition to its nuclear energy programme as a sign of the West's determined hostility to the regime, prompting Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei personally to warn officials in Tehran against showing any weakness in their handling of the domestic disturbances and, specifically, opposition leaders with outside contacts, or in responding to outside pressures aiming to deprive Iran of its legitimate right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Any sign of weakness will aggravate the threat to Iran, he said. This political-psychological state has come to govern its reaction to any threat, in particular, the recent suicide bombing in Sistan-Baluchistan which claimed several Revolutionary Guard leaders, among whom was the Deputy Commander of Land Forces, General Nur-Ali Shushtari and the Commander of Land Forces in Sistan-Baluchistan, General Mohammed Zadeh. The attack also led to the death of several local tribal leaders who were attending a meeting intended to strengthen relations between Sunni and Shia. Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice for the incident for which President Ahmadinejad blamed "Pakistani security elements" demanding that the Pakistani government apprehend those responsible. At the same time, Revolutionary Guard Commander Mohammed Ali Jaafari claimed that Iranian security authorities possessed documents that proved beyond a doubt "direct links" between Jundullah and British, US and Pakistani intelligence agencies, and stated that he planned to go to Pakistan to deliver these documents to Pakistani authorities and to share with them the information that Tehran has about the agencies that support "terrorists" in Pakistan. He too vowed to find those responsible for the crime, pointing the finger at US and British intelligence agencies. The natural outrage in Iran in response to the suicide bombing was also expressed by Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani who, alluding to Obama's hand extended to Iran, said the US had "burned its hand" in this terrorist attack. Nevertheless, it is difficult to conceive of Iran masterminding retaliatory operations against US, British or Pakistani targets at this point. Instead, its most probable response will be to toughen its position in the talks that began in Vienna between Tehran and the "5+1 group" (the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) over Iran's uranium enrichment operations. Ahmadinejad had just offered to have its uranium enriched abroad. Now, he might either retract this offer or insist on a solution that combines foreign and local enrichment processes and link this to a package of political and economic incentives. However, the more important toughening of the Iranian position will occur on the home front, not only toward Jundullah but also toward the reformist opposition. This will no doubt include a media campaign which will exploit the recent suicide bombing to generate greater domestic cohesion behind the regime. At the same time, opposition elements of all hues are certain to be the objects of even harsher treatment in a bid to pre-empt any future assaults against the Revolutionary Guards and other security forces. The anticipated excessive force brought to bear against the opposition, especially in the absence of political, economic and cultural solutions, may prove counterproductive and actually work to aggravate the threat to security and stability. This applies in particular to the areas with large sectarian and ethnic minorities in order areas such as Sistan-Baluchistan in which the Baluchi tribal connections extend into Afghanistan and Pakistan. This region, as well as Iranian Kurdistan in the northwest and the Arab dominated Ahvaz region in the southwest, complain of political, social and economic discrimination. The more these peoples feel oppressed, the greater the chances that they will attempt to rebel and to look abroad for help. Thus, demographic circumstances could combine with short-sighted policies on the part of the regime to give impetus to foreign infiltration at a time when international and regional forces are converging against Iran in order to halt its nuclear programme, curtail its expanding regional influence and clip its wings. In short, Iran is headed for a new phase of domestic upheaval and tensions in its relations abroad if the regime does not summon the courage to disengage domestic from foreign threats and problems and to devise innovative solutions to its diverse problems. In order to break free of the vicious cycle of crisis, most commentators conclude the regime must make concessions to the desire for greater democratic liberties and show more flexibility in its international and regional relations in order to reverse the external impetus towards harsher economic sanctions and even war.
