Regional Cooperation in Countering terrorism: Iran has the Nerve

By Michael B. Kraft

Regional cooperation has played an increasingly important role in international efforts to counter terrorism in recent years. Now Iran, the most active state sponsor of terrorism, claims it wants to get into the act.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the need for regional cooperation against terrorism during a phone conversation Monday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. The Iranian President said the “Campaign against terrorism would yield fruit only through the presence and joint cooperation of countries in the region," according to Xinhua, the Chinese news agency.

Ahmadinejad’s ostensible embracement of regional cooperation comes after his country’s most powerful ox was gored. When five officials of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, including the deputy leader, and about 40 other people were killed and dozens wounded in a deadly bomb attack Sunday in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan near Iran's border with Pakistan. Iranian officials accused the United States, British and Pakistan intelligence agencies of being involved in the attack and called for retaliation. These countries strongly denied by the accusations and condemned the bombings.

Iran’s accusations sound like another case of Iranian leaders blaming outsiders for their problems. The Baluchi insurgent group Jundallah — or Soldiers of God — took responsibility for the bombings, which included a roadside attack on a car full of Guards, near the city of Pishin. The Baluchi minority, who are Sunnis, have long chaffed at Tehran’s Shiite-lead rule and hardly need the help of outsiders to pick and track targets on their own territory.

Ahmadinjad now calls for regional cooperation against terrorism. This is the height chutzpah from a leader not known for understatement. Iran has been behind major terrorist attacks against the United States, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. It is a major backer of Hamas and helped create Hezbollah, terrorist groups whose trademarks are suicide bombings and firing of rockets against Israeli civilian targets. Ahmadinejad, furthermore has called for the destruction of Israel, a member of the United Nations, not exactly the stance of a leader who is against terrorism.

Iran’s main regional partner in terrorism, in addition to Hamas and Hezbollah is Syria, which also is on the State Department’s list of countries that are formally designated as repeated supporters of international terrorism and subject to resulting sanctions.

Iran’s newly found show of support for regional cooperation against terrorism comes coincidentally after a useful conference on the subject held earlier this month by The Center on Global Counterterrorism, a non-government agency that promotes stronger international cooperation against terrorism.

At the Center’s day-long conference held in Washington on Oct 8, speakers from the United Nations, Africa, South Asia, the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism, and emphasized the usefulness in working through regional organizations to enhance working relationships among neighboring countries.
One speaker, Raphael Perl of the Organization for Security and Cooperation In Europe, proposed that the regional organizations develop a cooperative alliance.

Regional cooperation has received increased attention among policy makers and various governments in recent years as a way to bolster mutual support among neighboring countries and as a supplement the more direct bi-lateral links some of them have developed as well as the more general multinational cooperation through the United Nations.

The Organization of American States, The African Union and regional groupings in European and Asia have tried to foster closer working relationships, especially in such areas as strengthening intelligence ties and law enforcement capabilities. The U.S. State Department began promoting regional cooperation in the late 1990’s, led by Ambassador Michael Sheehan, then the Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism, who initiated regional conferences with Eastern European countries. Ambassador Henry Crumpton, one of his successors, expanded the efforts when he was coordinator several years ago

In the past, most governments had placed their emphasis on developing strong bilateral working relationships, for example between the United States and Canada and Britain, or between Spain and France. Many of the bilateral meetings involved intelligence or other sensitive matters. At the other end of the spectrum is the multilateral cooperation through the United Nations, the venue for drafting and negotiating international treaties and, since 9/11 U.N. Security Council resolutions and working committees aimed at curbing financing for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

One of the most active organizations, combining aspects of the United Nations and regional groupings is the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) which currently is holding a workshop in Vienna on counterterrorism and the media.

Raphael Perl, head of the OSCE’s Action against Terrorism Unit, laid out the benefits of regional organizations and also proposed an Alliance of regional organizations in his presentation to the conference.

Mr. Perl said that “Regional organizations can be real force multipliers. Several, such as the OSCE, have already proven individually to be very effective. But I believe regional organizations could deliver even more collectively. One way for them to achieve greater impact would be, arguably, to unite into a sort of Alliance of Regional Organizations in combating terrorism.”

The OSCE expert added that the international community “has achieved over the past years great momentum in enhancing vertical co-ordination between global and regional organizations. We need to achieve similar momentum for enhancing horizontal co-ordination among regional organizations.”

A former Library of Congress Congressional Research Service specialist on terrorism issues Perl added that in his view, “Regional organizations are effective mechanisms for disseminating information, lessons learned and good practices in the fight against terrorism and can have a key capacity-building role by identifying gaps in policy implementation and in facilitating tailored assistance.” He added that they can play a “pivotal role of interface between recipients of assistance, providers of specialized expertise and fund providers.”

Additionally, regional cooperation is useful in trying to promote commonalty in counterterrorism laws and enforcement. In the seminars with African and other countries in which I have participated, US officials encouraged neighboring countries to work together to make sure that there were no weak links. For example, if one country has stricter laws governing movement of arms or materials that could be used for weapons for mass destruction, and the neighbors had weaker laws, the terrorists might take advantage of “soft spots.” The Commonwealth Secretariat and the English speaking Caribbean states even drafted model legislation.

Regional cooperation is, at best, an uneven process, hampered in some areas, such as North Africa by frictions between neighboring states. The African Union Counterterrorism center, based in Algiers, is fairly new, understaffed and underfunded.

The Asia Pacific Economic Council (APEC) established a Counter-Terrorism Task Force in May 2003 and has extended its mandate through 2010.

The Organization of American States is perhaps the furthest along, having years ago created the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism which has a permanent Washington-based staff. The committee was developed at the suggestion of Argentina, which in 1992 and 1994 suffered from two major terrorist attacks against the Jewish Community Center and the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. Argentine officials have accused Iran of providing support to Hezbollah operatives.

During a discussion of Mr. Perl’s suggestion of an alliance among regional organizations, one experienced participant in international counterterrorism efforts observed that it probably would take one or more nations or regional groups to spearhead the issue, as Argentina did in the OAS.

These international efforts to thwart terrorism are the exact opposite of Iran’s support for terrorism, despite the self serving Iranian press account of Ahmadinejad’s phone conversation with the Prime Minister of Turkey, a country that has seen more than its share of terrorism. It would nice to think that Iran has seen the light. But don’t hold your breath.

Iran’s continued terrorist activities and its efforts to develop nuclear weapons should serve as a catalyst for more international cooperation from civilized countries that oppose and do not support terrorism.