Iran accused of failing Chechen rebels, Muslim cause

A commentary on a Chechen rebel website has said that the current Iranian government headed by President Mahmud Ahmadinezhad is working against the interests of Muslims by failing to support the rebel Chechen cause. The only interest in Chechens Iran has is keeping the USA out of the region, which resulted in its "pro-Russian intrigues", it said. The following is the text of the commentary by Data Tutashkhia posted on the Chechen news agency Daymohk website on 7 November; subheadings have been inserted editorially:

Chechen overtures to Iran "prudent"

There is one indisputable advantage to problems of the Chechen-Iranian relationship - it is as transparent and predictable as last year's snow. In other words there is a total absence of any kind of strategy, which one can see with the naked eye. In summary this means that the Iranians, if not our enemies, are certainly not our friends.

The question of whether it is worth knocking at the Iranian door when they are not expecting us, is unlikely to cause any doubt in the minds of most Chechens, although one can understand the optimism of diplomat Ilyas Musayev, who in good faith has taken concrete steps towards getting a dialogue going, which would be useful for all concerned. As far as we know, the late public figure Vakha Ibragimov also tried to do his bit for this relationship and put before Iran a strategy for the Chechen leadership. And this was not without risk, because these people travel with a sharp blade. The Iranians could have surrendered them or there could have been a hue and cry on the part of the Russians cutting off the Chechens from any contact with Iranians. The Americans could have stepped in with their intense loathing for Iran. In a word, the Chechens prudently did what they were able to do. And their behaviour ought to be understood and valued.

Iranians at first welcome in Chechnya

The Iranians' basic conclusion is that having freed themselves from Russian influence, the post-Soviet bases have now fallen under the influence of the United States. From this arise two defining factors of Iranian foreign strategy in the Caucasus:

No 1 - We interest Iran only in the sense of keeping the Americans out of the Caucasus. The result of this is Iran's pro-Russian intrigues

No 2 - We interest Iran only as part of its plan to spread Shi'ism.

As far as the first point is concerned, a justified question arises - why not support a Caucasus region which would exist separately from everyone. Surely this would be the most sensible policy. No answer has been given to this question.

We were all witnesses to the fact that before the first war in Chechnya the first few hundred Shi-ites appeared in Naur and around. Not many knew that Iranian emissaries had their people in the central mosque of Dzhokhar [Groznyy] where Shi'ah literature was distributed

But then the Iranians went to the villages of Nozhay-Yurt, Gudermeskiy District and so on, proposing the study of Islam in Iran and Chechnya but only with Iranian teachers. Behind all this, as became apparent later, were Russian Special Forces. The goal was Shi'ism, the collection of intelligence information on developments in Chechnya and to influence them. And most people took the Iranians in good faith and suspected nothing of their actions. At that time it was not just the Arabs of the Middle East who were well regarded in Chechnya. Having only just having freed ourselves from the communist regime and practically knowing nothing about the East, we thought it was the home of the Islamic ideal. Now we have grown wiser and understood the way in which Iran trades openly with the fate of the people of the North Caucasus. We remembered that Iran had already once surrendered the North Caucasus to Russia once and for all and that Peter the Great closed the borders of the republic. Such was the fate of the Chechens.

Carefully avoiding giving any real help to the battling Chechens, refusing to shelter wounded mojahedin, refusing to give them material or moral support, admitting that Chechnya was Russia's internal affair, openly playing up to the Russians [ellipsis as received] in a word, Tehran has adopted the position of the infidels. Thus we were not brothers and probably will not be so in the foreseeable future. The Iranians are indisputably working against Islam. And the fact that they are giving help in Iraq will also continue only as long as it suits them. Until now Russia's position there is not strong enough.

Iranian president "dangerous to Islam"

Ahmadinezhad with his war-like rhetoric and demagoguery is as dangerous to Islam as he is to the Americans. The global threat to Islam is not an external threat but what undermines it from within. And the conviction of the Iranians that they are consorting with the Russians on a friendly level until they have acquired nuclear capability is no more than a fantasy. Iranians will always be Iranians, that is the people they have shown themselves to be up to now. Therefore they interest us less and less. And Praise be to Allah, that they are be a little further away from us, beyond Dagestan, Azerbaijan and the Caspian sea otherwise they would be getting up to all kinds of chaos in Chechnya and dancing to Russia's tune.

The spirit of Islam and brotherhood of the Umma in jihad - is something before which all the nuclear bombs in the world are powerless. And if this religious force is destroyed in the hearts of Muslims as Iran is doing, then the danger is greater than a bomb in one's breast. If Iran heads towards its aim, destroying the unity of the Umma, bargaining with religion and the blood of the shahids, then Muslims of the Caucasus will not be worried by their stinking tin cans. Their bombs may go off in other Islamic countries but never in Israel, America or Russia, as one of the Chechen spokesmen put it.

Comparison with Saddam

And furthermore Ahmadinezhad's bomb reminds one of Saddam's shot gun which he would fire from the balcony of the Shah's palace for any and every reason and, as a result, shot himself. Do not rouse yourself fighter for this disgrace. It is not worth it for Saddam's sake, for he was only concerned with strengthening his relationship with Russia, which today sees his mock trial as an internal affair of Iraq. There's your thanks for oil quotas and for being pro-Russian. The same thing could happen in Iran. But will the Umma come to the help of Ahmadinezhad, who is treading the same path as Saddam in the direction of the Russians. And will it not be these same Russians welcoming the noose around Ahmadinezhad's neck - the neck of a man who thought that the murder of Chechens was an internal affair of Russia.

At any rate, if I was today in the place of the statesmen of Ichkeria I would be launching a written appeal to all the leaders of the Islamic world to suggest the establishment of diplomatic relations. Yes, we all know the futility of this, but we also need to record its refusal for the future. The absence of a result is also a result.

A Caucasus independent and free - this is the issue and nothing else, whether Iran likes it or not. But Russia must get out. The criminal past could come back like a boomerang to hit future Iran-Chechen relations but that is Iran's problem. We need friendship with Russia like a dog needs a fifth leg