Ethnic Federalism: An Old Prescription for Shy Separatists
Ethnic federalism is an old prescription for shy separatists. According to Iran Gate, the primary motivation for forming a federal government and insisting on ethnic boundaries, which is also ideologically supported by the Marxist-Islamic group People’s Mojahedin Organization, is to divide the shared capacities of Iran’s central government and eliminate the sources of regional competitive power by resorting to decentralized division, ultimately reducing the defensive depth to zero and leading to its disintegration.
Today’s mourners of ethnic federalism, who significantly contributed to shaping the destructive religious revolution of 1979, are now, with the scent of the ruling system’s demise in the air, aligning with Islamic Marxists and leftist republicans in a new collective effort to renew the unholy alliance of the past and finalize the destruction of what remains of Iran after forty years of Islamic Republic’s devastations.
The banners of ethnic federalism propaganda in Iran have been handed over to those who previously had the least commitment to preserving the territorial integrity and the history of Iranian civilization and cultural heritage, with their perpetual desire being to draw separation lines around ethnic groups that have lived peacefully together for centuries.
The reduction of Iran’s defensive depth, which has been the target of strategic plans by global powers and the motive for numerous military attacks from east to west and north to south of the country over the past two centuries, has, since the 1979 revolution and the change from monarchy, become an unofficial foreign policy for some neighbors and regional powers, included in both overt and covert plans of relevant intelligence and security organizations.
Iran’s geographical depth, or the distance from the center to the threatened borders and frontline encounters with invading forces, is the most significant aspect of the country’s strategic depth and a determining factor in maintaining national security.
Other aspects of Iran’s strategic depth, or in other words, its defensive depth, include the vastness of its land, population count, political geography, and the unique blend of national wealth, particularly energy reserves, which, if managed properly, could make the country an impregnable defensive bastion and provide its inhabitants with the highest possible level of welfare.
After the Islamic government came to power in Tehran, the application of Iran’s strategic depth and growing power capacities, which should have been used to defend the country’s integrity, stabilize regional security and neighbors, and foster collective cooperation, was instead used to implement the theory of developing and consolidating the Shia Crescent and the motivation to export the Islamic Revolution, turning it into a threat against the existence and integrity of regional countries.
Since then, several predominantly Muslim neighboring countries, along with Israel, have aimed to counter the security threats posed by Iran’s religious government through preventive or deterrent measures, targeting the reduction of defensive depth and the depletion of the country’s capacities in their overt and covert plans.
The Partition of Iran in the Great Game
During the 19th and 20th centuries, the Russian and British Empires, more than ever, aligned the reduction of Iran’s defensive depth with their strategic interests and, to achieve this goal, resorted to military capacities and war against Iran and mutual compromises.
The initial military assaults by the Russian Empire against Iran, separating the Central Asian and Greater Khorasan territories in the east and Ganja, Shirvan, Talysh, and Baku in the north of the country from the 19th century, intensified after Napoleon’s final defeat, influenced by the decisions of the Congress of Vienna in 1819 and the establishment of a new order among the victorious countries of the war. After reducing Iran’s defensive depth from the northeast to the northwest of the country, Russia gained a superior position and, relying on the positions acquired after conquering Bukhara, turned its attention to Iranian territories in Herat in competition with Britain’s presence in the Indian subcontinent.
Britain’s invasion of southern Iran in 1856, during the early reign of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, although somewhat a preventive measure against the Russian Empire’s advance in Central Asia and to neutralize the threat against its sphere of influence, also aimed at reducing Iran’s defensive depth.
During the British military attack on the south of the country, Kharg Island was occupied, and Naser al-Din Shah, after little resistance, abandoned the siege of Herat, resulting in Afghanistan being separated from Iranian soil.
The separation of Herat from Iran, a fertile and wealthy region and the former center of Greater Khorasan and the birthplace and growth site of Shah Abbas Safavid, was the result of foreign conspiracies and the weakness of the central power, which, after changing hands several times among the Abdalis, Afghans, and Uzbeks, eventually became definitive in the course of British and Russian rivalries. The opportunism of great powers and their continuous intent to reduce Iran’s defensive depth and weaken the country did not end with the separation of major parts of Iran’s land and water.
The continuation of foreign greed and the exploitation of the Iranian central government’s weakness led to a treaty in 1907 between the British and Russian Empires, assigning the south of the country to the British government and the north to the exclusive spheres of influence of the Tsars.
After agreeing on dividing the country into northern and southern spheres of influence, the central region was ostensibly left to the central government as a neutral zone, but in practice, these areas also became arenas for the raids, claims, and competitions of the two dominant powers.
After the end of World War I, British forces, aware of the complete weakness of the Iranian central government during the final days of the Qajar dynasty and Ahmad Shah’s rule, landed in Bushehr and attacked Fars Province to fully capture Shiraz.
The Russians, who, after the end of the First World War and the establishment of the Bolshevik government in 1917, briefly reconciled with Iran, resumed their ambitions for partitioning Iran after consolidating the new government’s power in Moscow, particularly after defeating Nazi Germany during World War II, echoing the situation after Napoleon’s defeat and the establishment of a new order. They pursued the goal of further reducing Iran’s defensive depth and partitioning Iran by creating two ethnic republics, the Republic of Mahabad and the Autonomous Government of Azerbaijan.
Mobilizing Neighbors Against Iran
After the sudden transformation of Iran’s political system and the emergence of an ideological, expansionist revolutionary government instead of the previous conventional nationalist government eager for regional cooperation, neighbors acted using their available tools and capacities to counter the new situation.
The full-scale military invasion of Iran by Iraq a year after the revolution and the eight-year war, providing sanctuary to the People’s Mojahedin Organization and equipping their forces as the Liberation Army, forming a proxy war within Iran’s territory, the Mersad or Eternal Light operation, assisting separatist elements in the western and southern regions of the country, Kurdistan and Khuzestan, are the headlines of actions that only one neighboring country, Iraq, has taken to reduce strategic depth and counter the threats posed by its religious government.
As a result of the Islamic Republic’s misuse of Iran’s power and natural capacities against regional countries, Pakistan and Turkey, which before the 1979 revolution perceived defending Iran’s integrity as defending themselves under the Baghdad Pact, CENTO, and regional development agreements, now support the policy of partitioning Iran under the guise of promoting ethnic federalism and asserting the rights of peoples.
Pakistan is a haven for armed separatist groups in Sistan and Baluchestan, which occasionally capture patrol soldiers and lower-ranking officers within Iranian territory, and Turkey hosts Azerbaijani-speaking groups in Ankara, promoting Southern Azerbaijan, and its intelligence agency, MIT, organizes seemingly independent republican conferences in European countries by funding separatists.
Turkey’s unofficial support for the idea of Southern Azerbaijan joining the Republic of Azerbaijan, aiming to reduce Iran’s strategic depth and deplete its capacities, sounds like music to the ears of Baku’s government agents, who, in turn, have supported the separatist provocations of ethnic federalism theorists over the past two decades.
Saudi Arabia, which before the revolution had friendly and peaceful coexistence relations with Iran and accepted Iran’s regional dominance, has not fallen behind other neighboring and transboundary countries like Israel in countering Iran’s strategic depth and aiming to weaken it. According to its capacities and capabilities, it supports, financially, in media, and in cyberspace, the separatist groups Al-Ahwaziya and pioneers of ethnic federalism, who in their sinister plans have renamed Khuzestan, with its over a thousand-year-old name, to Arabistan.
The Israeli government, formerly an unofficial military ally of Iran, despite recent expressions of solidarity by the Tel Aviv government with the Iranian people in their confrontation with the Islamic Republic, sees the theory of creating a Greater Kurdistan and separating a part of Iran’s territory as serving its security interests and supports the advancement of such an idea with a flickering light.
The effort to partition Iran, organizing armed separatist uprisings in border regions, promoting the theory of ethnic federalism under the guise of a managed transition from the Islamic Republic and establishing a secular-democratic federal republic, each represents separate parts of a unified plan whose different aspects have been pursued for years with the funding and direction of intelligence agencies of neighboring countries and the consent of major powers against Iran’s existence.
Current efforts by claimants of ethnic federalism to recruit within opposition groups also imitate Khomeini’s dissimulation, who, with the deceit of Marxists and so-called national-religious opponents of the Iranian monarchy, took Iran under his cloak to give a legitimate form and mask of independence to this foreign idea.
The banners of ethnic federalism propaganda in Iran have been handed over to those who previously had the least commitment to preserving the territorial integrity and the history of Iranian civilization and cultural heritage, with their perpetual desire being to draw separation lines around ethnic groups that have lived peacefully together for centuries.
The primary motivation for establishing a federal government and insisting on ethnic boundaries, which the Marxist-Islamic group People’s Mojahedin Organization has supported in the past, is to divide the shared capacities of Iran’s central government and eliminate the sources of regional competitive power by resorting to decentralized division, ultimately reducing the defensive depth to zero and leading to its complete disintegration.
Today’s mourners of ethnic federalism, who significantly contributed to shaping the destructive religious revolution of 1979 and forty years ago formed the fake People’s Muslim Party for ethnic shareholding but failed to achieve results, now, with the scent of the Islamic system’s demise in the air, align in parallel with Islamic Marxists and leftist republicans, and in executing plans drafted in foreign intelligence organizations, are preparing a new effort to renew the unholy alliance of the past and finalize the destruction of what remains of Iran after the Islamic Republic’s devastations.