VZCZCXRO1774
PP RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHDIR RUEHKUK
DE RUEHLO #0207/01 0231556
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 231556Z JAN 09
FM AMEMBASSY LONDON
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1156
INFO RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 LONDON 000207 
 
NOFORN 
SIPDIS 
 
UNVIE FOR AMBASSADOR SCHULTE AND ANDREA HALL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/20/2019 
TAGS: IR IS KPRP LE PGOV PHUM PINS PREL UK IA SW
SUBJECT: IRAN - ANALYST KHAJEHPOUR ARGUES FOR: BROADENING 
ENGAGEMENT ON NUCLEAR ISSUE; NUANCED HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY; 
IRAN OUTREACH OPPORTUNITY GENERATED BY GAZA 
 
LONDON 00000207  001.2 OF 005 
 
 
Classified By: Political Counselor Rick Mills for reasons 1.4 (b) and ( 
d) 
 
¶1. (C/NF)  Summary: Iran's leadership is committed 
domestically to low-grade enrichment but is not irretrievably 
committed to creation of a nuclear weapon, in the view of 
Tehran-based political risk analyst Bijan Khajehpour, who met 
privately in London with U.S Ambassador to UNVIE Greg Schulte 
accompanied by London Iran Watcher (Poloff).  Khajehpour 
argued that, given a quiet, calibrated approach to the right 
Iranian audience, USG engagement on a broad range of 
strategic concerns, preferably begun after Iran's June 
elections, could be a way to avert Iran's acquisition of a 
nuclear weapons capacity. Khajehpour argued the USG should 
strengthen its chances of halting Iran's nuclear programs by 
appearing in any future negotiations to assign the nuclear 
issue a lower priority; Khajehpour offered some specific 
formulations which he said he had discussed privately with 
the Swedish Foreign Minister.  Ambassador Schulte underlined 
that the international community will do nothing to undermine 
or dilute the authority of UNSC resolutions on Iran, which do 
and will remain in force. 
 
¶2.  (C/NF) Summary continued:  In a separate meeting January 
20, Khajehpour told Poloff USG advocacy with Iranian regime 
authorities on behalf of detained human rights and civil 
society figures should include restrained and temperate 
public statements, carefully tailored to the individual case. 
  Khajehpour also described how the Gaza crisis makes 
immediate engagement with USG more difficult in the short 
term for Tehran, but provides a possible way, in his view, 
for USG to extract a longer-term positive result for 
U.S.-Iran dynamics from current international tension over 
Gaza.   End summary. 
 
¶3.  (C/NF)  On his way back to Iran from giving a speech at 
Ft. McNair's National Defense University (NDU), Tehran-based 
Atieh Group head Bijan Khajehpour, met with Ambassador 
Schulte and London Iran Watcher (poloff) during a break in 
the Ambassador's December 12 public diplomacy schedule in 
London.  Bijanpour also met separately with Poloff December 
11 and, in a separate trip, January 20. 
 
Since Nuclear Carpet is Priority, 
USG Should Appear to Look at Other 
Carpets First, or Be Fleeced 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶4.  (C/NF)  Arguing that regional security and regime 
legitimacy, not nuclear weapons, are Tehran's priorities, and 
that the regime's negotiating approach is fixed by national 
character (vice ideology), Khajehpour argued USG will get 
quicker results at a lower price by focusing its initial Iran 
outreach efforts and negotiating tactics away from the USG's 
own priority: i.e., away from the nuclear issue.  Khajehpour 
said the regime's negotiating approach is "in every way (that 
of) a carpet seller" assessing a potential customer; "the 
customer must not signal" which carpet he truly wants and 
"must be willing to walk away, or be cheated."  Khajehpour 
argued tactical sequencing of the nuclear issue after less 
vital issues are addressed could result in the end in a net 
time savings.  He argued a calculating Tehran regime will 
otherwise hold any issue to which the USG visibly imparts 
urgency hostage to its own negotiating priorities.  Iranian 
priorities, Khajehpour argued, center around the regional 
security and prestige which, in Iranian eyes, only the United 
States can bestow. 
 
Khajehpour Argues IRGC Backing for 
Ahmedinejad Is Limited, and Any Outreach 
to Iran Should Therefore Be Delayed 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (C/NF) Khajehpour, using points from his National Defense 
University presentation, put Iranian policy stances in the 
context of the regime's informal networks.  Such networks 
bind individuals and groups together through identities 
forged and shared over decades (e.g., clerical circles from 
the same seminaries and IRGC circles with shared Iran-Iraq 
War service), create broad rivalries within the IRIG, and 
limit the "political space" for innovation or rapid decision. 
 Rafsanjani when he was president, from 1989-1997, had 
neglected the post-Iran-Iraq War IRGC, a decision which 
spawned IRGC resentment, and deep and spreading IRGC 
penetration of governmental institutions; Khajehpour expects 
the steady replacement in government posts of clerics by IRGC 
figures to continue. 
 
 
LONDON 00000207  002 OF 005 
 
 
¶6.  (C/NF) Khajehpour believes Ahmedinejad, because his war 
combat record is murky, does not enjoy unconditional IRGC 
support and is therefore not assured of re-election in June 
2009, Khamenei's stated support notwithstanding.  Khamenei 
himself, in Khajehpour's view, "feels insecure" about his own 
position within the framework of "velayat e faqih" (clerical 
rule), due to his own lack of theological achievement or 
merit-based clerical rank.  This underlying insecurity is 
what underlies what Khajehpour said is Khamenei's tendency to 
shuffle IRGC leadership and organization in times of crisis. 
 
 
¶7.  (C/NF)  Khajehpour argued that the shallowness of 
Ahmedinejad's IRGC support, and the tenuous nature of an 
insecure Khameni's endorsement, plus the President's economic 
policy woes, will likely prevent him from being re-elected in 
June absent a boost from some dramatic foreign policy 
development, such as a sudden thaw in relations with the 
United States. Such a thaw, Khajepour argued, would be 
credited to Ahmedinejad, and be seen by the regime as 
vindication of Ahmedinejad's confrontational style, thus 
scuppering any meaningful opening with the U.S. for years to 
come. 
 
Negotiations: Find a Workable Functional 
Equivalent for "Suspension" 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (C/NF)  Khajehpour said general regime distrust of the 
U.S., cumulative since the 1979 revolution, has created the 
general conviction in Tehran that the USG's nuclear end game 
is "zero enrichment" of any type by Iran.  Khajehpour argued 
USG needs to be clearer in its messaging; he said "domestic 
opponents of reconciliation will exploit every opening in 
your offer ... (the USG in effect) must sell it to the 
Iranian people."  In this regard Khajehpour recommended USG 
use the concrete example of an existing U.S. technology light 
water reactor, perhaps in Brazil, as a centerpiece of its 
public approach.  Khajehpour noted the regime's propaganda 
success in marrying the nuclear confrontation to themes of 
nationalism, and concluded that nuclear enrichment 
"suspension" is a formula on which no one in Iran's political 
establishment, including Supreme Leader Khamenei, is able to 
back down on either now or in the future. 
 
¶9.  (C/NF) In the course of a wide-ranging discussion of 
hypothetical negotiation scenarios, however, Khajehpour 
suggested a change in phrasing, which he said he had recently 
discussed with the Swedish Foreign Minister, could be key to 
USG moving toward its goal to halt or slow Iranian 
enrichment: the substitution in effect of "technical 
overhaul" for "suspension." Khajehpour said he assessed 
regime leadership would be open to a "technical overhaul" 
being followed by a period of "enrichment maintenance;" 
during "enrichment maintenance," nuclear program work would, 
with verification, not go forward, while further parameters 
for negotiations, and for further stand-still periods, were 
established.  Khajehpour pointed out it would be important 
for the regime to be able publicly to claim without direct 
contradiction that it had stood firm on its principle of "no 
suspension." 
 
"Suspension" Central to UNSCRs' 
Content and Authority 
------------------------------- 
 
¶10.  (C/NF) Ambassador Schulte underlined the international 
community will do nothing to undermine or dilute the 
authority of UNSC resolutions on Iran, which will remain in 
force, and pointed to the term "suspension" in those 
documents.  The Ambassador also pointed out that negotiations 
entail for the United States the inherent risk that they 
would be a device by which Tehran would be able to buy time 
to further its nuclear development goals -- "a way to occupy 
the customer but in the end keep the carpet."  The Ambassador 
noted Tehran's non-transparency with UN nuclear safeguard 
authorities has been problematic.  Khajehpour agreed these 
are powerful objections, but countered a case can be made 
that Iran's program has been "reactive;" he traced the 
program's roots to the late shah's efforts and reviewed what 
he called the many start-ups and stand-downs in every decade 
since then, ending with Ahmedinejad's foray, beginning in 
¶2005.  In Khajehpour's view the goal of regime planners is 
not a weapon but some degree of "nuclear ambiguity," on 
Japan's model; he argued the vagueness of this goal offers 
opportunities for compromise and meaningful limitation. 
 
Right Approach is Everything; 
 
LONDON 00000207  003 OF 005 
 
 
Substance Can Be Fashioned to Fit 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶11.  (C/NF)  Khajehpour repeatedly emphasized the content of 
any offer, on nuclear or other issues, will be less important 
than the way in which it is offered.  With respect to a 
nuclear offer, Khajehpour returned to his carpet seller 
analogy, and urged the USG sequence and craft its opening so 
as to reduce in the eyes of the Tehran regime the nuclear 
issue's apparent importance to the U.S. 
 
¶12.  (C/NF) Khajehpour underlined the desperation with which 
Tehran seeks enhanced prestige and role in the region and, 
deriving from such prestige, greater legitimacy at home.  He 
argued that, although international rhetorical exchanges had 
resulted in firm regime commitment to nuclear development, 
and acknowledging the logical inference from nontransparency 
about regime aims, Khajehpour saw no signs the regime 
specifically wants nuclear weapons capacity.  He  argued 
Tehran does want the deterrent value of an apparent or latent 
capacity, such as a stockpile of enriched fuel would provide. 
 Khajehpour claimed the proximity of nuclear-armed Pakistan, 
a potentially radicalized and hostile Sunni state, looms even 
larger than the U.S. in Iranian calculations, and draws much 
expert-level planning attention in Tehran's think-tanks and 
ministries. 
 
Khajehpour Sees U.S-Iran Opportunity In 
Gaza Crisis: Humanitarian Supply Ship 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶13.  (C/NF) Khajehpour, in London on a brief return visit, 
discussed human rights and Gaza with Poloff on January 20. 
On Gaza, Khajehpour told Poloff that, in the last two weeks 
events in Gaza have made near-term engagement with USG more 
difficult for Tehran.  Khajehpour posited a convergence in 
late 2008 between Iranian and U.S. regional security 
priorities, with both governments seeing action against Al 
Qaeda and Sunni extremism as a priority for both.  Khajehpour 
argued that, despite the lack of more than a passing concern 
by the Iranian public for Palestinians, the credibility of 
the Tehran regime as a leader among Muslim nations is now 
fully engaged by the Gaza crisis, a situation pitting Tehran 
and Washington against each other, rather than sharing an 
interest "in containing Sunni radicalism," a situation which 
had obtained as recently as last month. 
 
¶14.  (C/NF) Khajehpour said the Tehran regime will remain 
militant on Gaza until it can show Iranian support for Hamas 
generating "some tangible benefit" for Palestinians. 
Khajehpour agreed it is impossible for the USG to generate on 
short notice any lasting political measure on 
Israel-Palestine which Iran could support.  He argued, 
however, a gesture by USG such as the release, after any 
necessary inspection, of the Iranian humanitarian supply ship 
now held off the Gaza coast, would in Iran's eyes demonstrate 
"its status as a player," be a public demonstration of USG 
"respect" for Iran, and enable Tehran to ease its 
confrontational stance on Gaza. 
 
¶15.  (C/NF) Such a measure, Khajehpour maintained, would also 
create the kind of positive atmosphere needed for any 
U.S.-Iran outreach on bilateral issues beyond Gaza. 
Khajehpour added that a fellow Tehran private sector 
observer, former deputy foreign Minister Abbas Maliki (now of 
Sharif University and the Caspian Studies Institute) agreed 
with this view.  Khajehpour and Maliki believe Iran would 
readily agree to inspection of the ship; Khajehpour reasoned 
the ship is highly unlikely to carry arms, since they could 
in these circumstances be too easily detected. 
 
Human Rights Advocacy: 
USG Needs to Pick Its Moments 
----------------------------- 
 
¶16.  (C/NF) Khajehpour discussed the unnamed senior Iran 
Ministry of Information official whose January 19 comments on 
USG civil society's "velvet revolution" efforts at subversion 
were reported by international media; Khajehpour said the 
unnamed official heads the ministry's "counter-intelligence" 
department.  Khajehpour viewed the comments as evidence the 
regime has not yet decided, in the interim surrounding the 
start of a new USG administration, whether to proceed against 
activists other than the four named by the official; 
Khajehpour included Shirin Ebadi as someone whose status is 
still indeterminate in regime eyes. 
 
¶17.  (C/NF) Khajehpour commented on how to maximize 
 
LONDON 00000207  004 OF 005 
 
 
effectiveness of USG public advocacy on behalf of individual 
human rights and civil society detainees in Iran.  He 
emphasized individual circumstances, saying "each arrest is 
different," but argued a common factor is the likelihood in 
many cases that an arrestee enjoys support "somewhere within 
the system," meaning that "within a week someone will phone 
Khamenei's office" on the arrestee's behalf.  Khajepour said 
the pattern of Khamenei and his minions, who sit within a 
vast, amorphous web of political and financial patronage and 
overlapping equities, will usually respond favorably to such 
calls -- unless they have been given prior reason to be 
cautious, such as information from security officials that 
the arrestee in question appears to be working for or is of 
interest to the Americans, as evidenced by robust, immediate 
USG statements on the arrestee's behalf. 
 
¶18.  (C/NF) Khajepour cited the Haleh Esfandieri case as a 
textbook example of effective human rights advocacy; he 
emphasized the "decisive" effect on Khamenei of Lee 
Hamilton's letter on behalf of Dr. Esfandiari.  Khajehpour 
argued the letter demonstrated American interest in an arrest 
case, provided a message and tone respectful of Khamenei and 
of Iran, and enabled the regime to act with deliberation, and 
grant a face-saving release on humanitarian grounds. 
 
But An Occasional Dash of 
Ice Water Can Also Be Useful 
---------------------------- 
 
¶19.  (C/NF) Khajehpour noted, however, that immediate 
forceful advocacy is both necessary and effective when the 
IRIG, as in the Alaei brothers case, makes especially 
outrageous and implausible accusations, such as the use of 
"scientists, medical treatment, or sportsmen" for nefarious 
purposes; he said implausible allegations and hopelessly 
overheated rhetoric demand the reintroduction, by sources 
outside Iran, of minimum levels of rationality to human 
rights dialogue.  (Embassy comment: HMG officials reporting 
from Iran observe regularly that IRIG interlocutors sometimes 
begin political interactions with incredible, seemingly 
unhinged allegations or lines of argument.  The usual 
prescription HMG reports,  a respectful but pointed and 
factual rebuttal, redirects discussion to more rational, 
productive channels, with little lasting damage.  End 
comment) 
 
How Detainees Can Embarrass IRIG 
Interrogators: Stay Calm, Open All 
Files, Remember Names and Numbers 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶20.  (C/NF) Khajepour believes his own past success, in not 
drawing regime authorities' ire despite his frequent external 
travel and U.S. connections, stems from his track record of 
"transparency with the authorities."  Khajepour, who has 
headed his independent risk analysis firm (Atieh Group) in 
Tehran since the mid-1990's, said he came to regime attention 
in 1998 and again in 2006, when Ministry of Intelligence 
(MOIS) officials questioned his business travel to the West. 
Khajepour said he has always in response offered full access 
and details of all work and travel to regime questioners who, 
Khajepour claims, have always declined even to examine any of 
his activities or files.  Khajehpour said "fear of 
embarrassment" is a powerful consideration for most IRIG 
functionaries, who are themselves operating within a complex, 
opaque legal and political hierarchy in which many 
relationships are personal rather than institutional; 
interrogators try to bully and bluff subjects into agreeing 
not to travel, as the interrogators do not in most cases have 
full authority themselves to deny someone the right to 
travel. 
 
¶21.  (C/NF) Khajepour related the extended, harrowing 
interrogations he endured in 1998, and claimed the key 
factors in persuading MOIS interrogators to relent were "100 
percent transparency" about activities and motivations, calm 
demeanor in the face of harsh "good cop-bad cop" questioning, 
and refusal to surrender his passport without a written MOIS 
receipt.  Khajepour also said his own proactive follow-up 
afterwards about his continuing travel plans, using a 
telephone number given by an interrogator at a dramatic 
moment during a "bad-cop" session, appeared to convince MOIS 
questioners that Khajepour enjoyed the protection of some 
(unknown) patron within the regime. 
 
¶22.  (C./NF) Khajepour said he does not expect to be 
arrested, but recognizes he could be targeted even now, given 
the current repressive atmosphere.  If arrested, Khajepour 
 
LONDON 00000207  005 OF 005 
 
 
said he would not want USG to intervene immediately on his 
behalf, preferring low-key USG approaches via his wife 
(please protect) and his former Atieh Group partner Siamac 
Niazi (please protect), who Khajepour said has himself moved 
to from Tehran to Dubai to avoid IRIG arrest. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶23.  (C/NF) Khajepour has long been a respected USG 
interlocutor on Iran.  Moving frequently between Western and 
Iranian environments, he has quietly provided USG 
interlocutors with analysis and insights on regime dynamics 
which are consistently measured, nuanced, and informed. 
Khajehpour's support for delaying engagement until after 
Iran's June elections is not shared by all Iranian analysts 
with whom Poloff meets in HMG and that community. 
 
¶24.  (C/NF) Khajepour said he plans travel to the United 
States, if the U.S. visa for which he recently applied, is 
issued by February 6, for the Cambridge Energy Conference in 
Houston February 11.  If he is asked, he may be able, as in 
the past, to include a stop in Washington, D.C. on his way 
back to Iran.  He also said he would, as opportunities arise, 
reach out to USG officials abroad. 
 
Visit London's Classified Website: 
http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Unit ed_Kingdom 
 
TUTTLE