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Behind Closed Doors, Iran Blames Bin Laden
Nation Sees Chance to Chart Moderate Course
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 6, 2001; Page A01
TEHRAN, Oct. 5 -- In newspapers, influential Friday prayer sermons and official pronouncements, Iranians are treated to a variety of theories about who committed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States: radical American-bred militia groups, Israeli intelligence agents, disaffected former U.S. military pilots -- anybody, it seems, but Osama bin Laden.
Privately, the government has a different view. This week, high-ranking officials in the administration of President Mohammad Khatami summoned a group of Western diplomats and told them Iran had concluded that bin Laden was behind the attacks.
"They said they accept the right to punish people responsible for a crime, and they were very clear: They are sure bin Laden was responsible," said a senior Western diplomat familiar with the meeting. "They will never say that openly. They will continue asking for proof and clear evidence, but they said . . . the responsibility of bin Laden is certain."
The diplomats were told that while Iran would likely publicly condemn any U.S. attack on Afghanistan, where the ruling Taliban militia is believed to be harboring bin Laden and his associates, officials privately hoped a U.S. response would be confined to well-defined military objectives.
"They said the Taliban and bin Laden are the same, don't try to make a distinction. It's a war against extremism," a diplomat said. "They said that if you fail, they will be heroes and it will be even worse than before, so don't leave the job unfinished like you did in Iraq."
Analysts said the unfolding terrorism crisis offers Iran a chance to showcase its growing self-assurance in foreign affairs since Khatami ended nearly two decades of international isolation and repaired Iran's relations with Islamic and European countries.
Once an outcast even among its Islamic neighbors, Iran has found a new, more moderate voice on international affairs that carries influence in the Islamic world, analysts said. That is especially so in the current crisis, which comes at a time of intense anger among Muslims at the pro-Israel policies of the United States.
In this regard, where Iran comes down on the matter of responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks and how it responds to any U.S. retaliation against bin Laden and his radical Islamic network, could be a key factor in U.S. efforts to include Muslim countries in an international coalition against terrorism.
"Iran has a big role, and they are being listened to," said a Western diplomat in Tehran.
"Iran says things more vociferously and puts its money where its mouth is about Israel and the occupied territories," he said. "They do play a role in voicing the opinion of the Islamic world because they can get away with it more than, say, Egypt," which has to guard its comments because of its close relations with the United States.
The anti-terrorist campaign plays to a host of Iran's interests, highlighting it as a champion of Islam, opponent of the United States, protector of regional independence and national sovereignty, and foot soldier against Zionism.
But at the same time, the crisis provides a chance for Iran to reach out to the West and change its image as an irresponsible sponsor of terrorism, a charge leveled often by U.S. officials. And critically important, the entire episode could end up allowing Iran to get rid of a neighboring enemy -- the Taliban -- without dirtying its own hands.
The Iranian leadership -- not only Khatami and other elected reformers, but also religious conservatives in powerful appointed positions -- is attempting to rally other countries behind a unified Islamic stance on terrorism. That will be a key topic at a special meeting early next week in Qatar of foreign ministers from the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Khatami was the first head of state to call for such a meeting.
Iran will likely push for Islamic solidarity on several issues, including demands that any coalition against terrorism be led by the United Nations, not the United States; public disclosure of evidence linking bin Laden or other suspects to the Sept. 11 attacks; and a global definition of terrorism that recognizes the rights of Palestinians to fight for a homeland.
Iran has also expressed concern about a host of other issues that resonate: the long-term stationing of U.S. military forces in the Middle East; the potential for the United States to act unilaterally in retaliation; which countries Washington might target in the future; and the threat that innocent Muslims could be killed in U.S.-led military strikes.
Diplomats here are concerned that the meeting in Qatar could rally support behind positions that would put Islamic countries at odds with the evolving U.S.-led coalition against terrorism and make their participation problematic.
For instance, "if the OIC fixes a definition of terrorism among themselves, they will consider Israel a terrorist state, and that will put us in a very difficult situation," said a senior Western diplomat. "It will be a fait accompli" that could destroy the chances for bringing Islamic countries fully behind the United States.
That seems to be precisely where Khatami is headed. "I hope that Islamic countries can reach a fair and just conclusion in defining terrorism and the method to campaign against it at the global level, and try to defend the interests of the Muslims," he said in a telephone call earlier this week to Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, according to Iran's official state news agency.
At this juncture, openly backing the U.S. contention that bin Laden was responsible would be an extraordinary and unlikely step for Iran. This country has been one of the world's leading opponents of the United States and its policies since Tehran and Washington severed diplomatic relations during Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, which counted anti-Americanism among its chief ideological underpinnings.
Iranian officials have not publicly declared who they think was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, and officials at the Foreign Ministry declined to comment for this story.
A source familiar with the briefing given to Western diplomats by senior Iranian officials said moderates in the government would not want to publicly air their conclusions about bin Laden's culpability because it could undermine Muslim efforts to label Israel a terrorist state. And it could bring those moderates into conflict with hard-liners in the clergy who are continuing to peddle theories that Israel or domestic terrorist groups in the United States committed the attacks.
On the other hand, the moderates "want to be softer on the U.S. and step back from the status of permanent war," which probably was why they conducted the briefing in the first place, he suggested.
Another diplomat familiar with the meeting said it was unclear whether the Iranians had concrete evidence of bin Laden's complicity in the attacks, or if their conclusions were based on circumstantial evidence and intuition.
"We didn't ask and they didn't elaborate," he said. "They said that their feeling according to the information they had" was that bin Laden was responsible for the U.S. attacks and also for the assassination two days earlier of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the military chief of the main opposition force fighting the Taliban. "They feel that the assassination of Massoud was part of the whole scenario, and they were both performed by the same person," bin Laden.
Regardless of the Iranians' conclusions, a diplomat said, "they will condemn any U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. But if it is a well-targeted riposte against well-defined military objectives, I think they will accept that. They said, 'We will react according to the retaliation. We will have a responsible reply.' "
At the same time, sources familiar with the meeting said, Iranian officials said that any fight against terrorism would fail if it focused just on one man and his network.
"They said, 'To kill bin Laden won't be difficult, but there will be other bin Ladens,' " a diplomat familiar with the briefing said. " 'Don't hope to attack terrorism though military action. Focusing on a man will not be successful. You have to go to the roots of why terrorism exists in parts of the world, and why America is the target.' "
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