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FM AMEMBASSY JAKARTA
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 JAKARTA 001470 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EAP, EAP/MTS, EAP/MLS, NEA, NEA/IR 
NSC FOR E.PHU 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/01/2018 
TAGS: PREL PGOV ID IR
SUBJECT: IRANIAN DEPUTY FM'S SPEECH FALLS FLAT IN JAKARTA 
 
Classified By: Pol/C Joseph L. Novak, reasons 1.4 (b+d). 
 
¶1.  (C) SUMMARY:  Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammadi 
outlined a grand vision of international order in a July 29 
speech in Jakarta.  In his schema, Iran is inspiring a global 
movement of the world's oppressed peoples against domination 
by the U.S. and its allies.  Mohammadi--who extolled Shia 
Islam as truly revolutionary--left his (mostly Sunni) 
Indonesian audience perplexed.  Mohammadi was in Jakarta for 
a conference sponsored by a local Muslim organization.  It is 
doubtful that his visit did much to bring Iran and Indonesia 
closer together in any appreciable way.  END SUMMARY. 
 
VISIT TO JAKARTA 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Research and 
Training Manuchehr Mohammadi outlined his country's vision of 
the emerging international order in a July 29 speech in 
Jakarta.  He spoke to an audience of approximately 150 
current and former Department of Foreign Affairs (DEPLU) 
officials and foreign diplomats in an event sponsored by 
DEPLU and the Indonesian Council on World Affairs.  Mohammadi 
was in Jakarta to lead the Iranian delegation to the July 
29-August 1 Third International Conference of Islamic 
Scholars organized by the Indonesian broad-based Muslim 
organization Nadhlatul Ulama (see septel). 
 
THE FAILURE OF (WESTERN) THEORIES 
 
¶3.  (U) Mohammadi began by arguing that Western social 
science had failed both to predict and to explain the success 
of Iran's Islamic revolution.  He then promised to offer a 
uniquely Islamic theory of revolution and explain how it was 
shaping the evolving international order.  This theory was 
built, he argued, on an essentially Islamic definition of 
politics as "a search for justice." 
 
¶4. (U) As an alternative to Western theories of revolution, 
Mohammadi offered an "Islamic" theory that held successful 
revolutions must contain three key elements: 
 
--Leadership; 
--Mass participation; and, 
--Revolutionary ideology. 
 
Further, Islamic revolution sought to redress past instances 
of injustice.  Chief among these, he argued, was the 
subjugation of non-Western peoples to Western colonialism. 
 
SHIA ISLAM MORE REVOLUTIONARY 
 
¶5.  (U) Shia Islam was a revolutionary ideology, Mohammadi 
argued:  unlike its Sunni counterpart, Shia Islam had an 
explicit theory of political legitimacy based on justice. 
Shias could--indeed must--work to overthrow unjust rulers. 
Conversely, Sunnis were enjoined to obey rulers even if they 
were unjust.  Mohammadi also argued that Shia Islam had never 
closed the door to ijtihad (independent interpretation of 
Islamic law), as Sunnis had done.  This gave Shias a 
philosophical flexibility enabling them to deal more 
effectively with problems of the contemporary era. 
 
¶6.  (U) Iran's 1978-79 revolution was, Mohammadi argued, the 
first time in world history when all these elements came 
together in a successful Islamic Revolution.  Although Iran 
had been first, Mohammadi asserted, it would not be the last 
in revolution.  Instead, the basic alignment of forces that 
had led to the Iranian Revolution had begun to foment 
uprisings across the globe and was remaking the contemporary 
international order. 
 
WORLD ORDER IN "TRANSITIONAL" PHASE 
 
¶7.  (U) Mohammadi offered a tour d'horizon of the 
international system from the Peace of Westphalia to the 
present era, which he described as the post-Cold War 
transition period.  Throughout these 300 years, there was a 
steady evolution of a global system that favored Western 
 
JAKARTA 00001470  002 OF 003 
 
 
oppression and exploitation of non-Western peoples, he 
argued.  This system reached its climax in the Cold War's 
bipolar system of superpower competition. 
 
¶8.  (U) With the collapse of the bipolar international order, 
the world had entered a transitional phase.  Mohammadi 
dismissed several alternative accounts of the contemporary 
international order:  Krauthammer's unipolar moment, 
Fukuyama's end of history, Huntington's clash of 
civilizations, and Kagan's struggle between autocracy and 
democracy.  These accounts were flawed because they did not 
account for the forces unleashed by the Iranian 
Revolution--forces that Mohammadi claimed were reshaping the 
world. 
 
REVOLT OF OPPRESSED PEOPLES 
 
¶9.  (U) Mohammadi dubbed his new paradigm the "clash with 
domination."  In this schema, the world was gradually 
dividing into two competing camps: Domineering and 
Counter-Domineering.  The central player in the domineering 
camp, Mohammadi argued, was the United States.  It also 
included the EU; industrialized countries aligned with the 
West, such as Russia and Japan; developing states influenced 
by the West; and Islamic states dependent on the West. 
 
¶10.  (U) Iran had emerged as the key player in the 
counter-domineering camp.  This group also included other 
Shia populations; "independent" Islamic countries; developing 
nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America; and some 
populations in the West.  He cited "anti-war groups, 
environmentalists, and Greenpeace" as examples of 
counter-domineering groups in the West. 
 
¶11.  (U) Mohammadi provided a lengthy explanation of how the 
domineering and counter-domineering groups differed on key 
issues.  According to his view, the counter-domineering camp 
would continue to garner support from the "oppressed masses" 
around the world.  It would also continue to foment uprisings 
against the domineering powers, as Mohammadi argued, was 
occurring in places like Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq. 
 
INDONESIANS PERPLEXED 
 
¶12.  (C) The Indonesian audience--which had expected a policy 
speech and was served a graduate seminar instead--seemed 
puzzled.  (Note:  Mission has sent a copy of Mohammadi's 
presentation to EAP/MTS.)  One participant commented that he 
still did not understand Iran's position in the nuclear 
standoff with the P5 1--a subject Mohammadi did not address 
in his speech.  Ambassador Wisber Loeis, one of Indonesia's 
most senior retired diplomats, commented that Indonesians had 
heard many of these themes before--from former President 
Sukarno, who was known to love grand revolutionary theories 
(and basically brought Indonesia to its knees through his 
Socialist economic policies). 
 
¶13.  (C) Mohammadi's proposed global order also ran afoul of 
Indonesia's long-standing preference for multilateral 
approaches to global issues.  Makarim Wibisono, Indonesia's 
PermRep to the UN in Geneva, commented to poloff that 
Mohammadi's approach had no place for the UN.  Nor did it 
offer any substantive role for regional organizations like 
ASEAN.  This, according to Wibisono, rendered the Iranian's 
theory fundamentally unrealistic.  Mohammadi also alienated 
Indonesians with his dismissive comments about Sunni Islam. 
 
¶14.  (SBU) Mohammadi also alienated foreign diplomats. 
During the Q&A, for example, Mohammadi triggered a heated 
exchange with the Egyptian Ambassador by asserting that 
Nasser's efforts had failed--despite having mass 
support--because there was not enough genuine mass 
participation.  The Egyptian diplomat walked out during the 
exchange. 
 
A SPEECH THAT FELL FLAT 
 
¶15.  (C) Although he promised something new, Mohammadi's 
 
JAKARTA 00001470  003 OF 003 
 
 
theory offered little more than warmed over speechifying. 
His rhetoric seemed designed to tap into Indonesian 
resentments over their history under Dutch colonial rule. 
Yet it fell flat in a country that is more focused on 
competing in a globalized economy than it is in nursing 
historical grudges.  In addition, his comments about 
triumphant Shias and subservient Sunnis did not do much to 
ingratiate himself to the mainly Sunni audience.  All in all, 
Mohammadi offered a bleak future.  Nobody in his Indonesian 
audience seemed keen to have their country follow Iran's 
revolutionary example. 
 
¶16. (C) Senior Iranian officials visit Indonesia 
intermittently and Mohammadi's visit fell into this general 
pattern.  It is doubtful that his visit did much to bring 
Iran and Indonesia closer together in any appreciable way. 
We are not aware of any new bilateral initiatives that 
resulted from his visit. 
 
BIO INFORMATION 
 
¶17.  (C) Mohammadi completed his MA and PhD in the United 
States.  He previously served as governor of Iran's 
Baluchestan Province.  He speaks very good English and 
appears to read widely in American and European literature on 
political science and international relations.  Although he 
has held a number of government positions, Mohammadi conducts 
himself very much as an academic.  One DEPLU contact 
described Mohammadi as the Iranian Foreign Ministry's most 
prominent strategic thinker and policy planner. 
 
HUME