Denmark reveals Iran’s dirty games

Denmark is leading a push for new E.U.
sanctions against Iran, after its intelligence agencies blamed Tehran for a
foiled plot to assassinate an Iranian dissident on Danish soil. The plot was
already uncovered in September and triggered a massive police operation, in
which Denmark shut down streets and bridges nationwide.
Agencies
revealed only this week that the operation probably had prevented what they say
was a plan to kill a member of the Arab separatist movement ASMLA, which
advocates for carving out an independent Arab state from Iran. A suspect of
Iranian origin was arrested two weeks ago.
The arrest
could play into the hands of President Trump, who unilaterally withdrew from
the Iran nuclear deal but has struggled to persuade European allies to follow
suit. The killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi in
the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 further complicated Trump’s plans to
isolate Tehran, as the Saudis are a key ally in those efforts. Despite the
setbacks, U.S. sanctions on Iran are expected to have fully begun by Monday.
In a darkly
ironic twist, Iran has condemned the Saudi killing of dissident Khashoggi even
as it has a long track record of pursuing operations against opponents living
abroad itself. President Hassan Rouhani called the killing a “heinous murder”
and suggested that the United States was complicit.
Iran is
portraying the Danish incident as an effort to harm European-Iranian relations
at a time when they are under mounting pressure from the United States.
Europe has
continued to back the original nuclear deal and sought to uphold it without
U.S. support, with Denmark being a key force behind that commitment. At the end
of last year, the Danish Export Credit Agency had approved eight Iranian banks for
credit lines or guarantees and vowed to resist U.S. pressure to dismantle those
ties. “If snapback [sanctions] make it illegal to transfer money out of Iran, we
would cover their losses.
This week’s
revelations appear to have created a far different momentum. Danish Prime
Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has called the incident “totally unacceptable”
and ordered his Foreign Ministry to summon the Iranian ambassador. “Further
actions against Iran will be discussed in the E.U.,” Rasmussen wrote on Twitter.
It is unclear whether any of those sanctions would have an effect on the future
of the Iran nuclear deal, and E.U. officials refrained from lashing out at Iran
in public this week.
“Sanctions
could be done in a delicate way in which individuals are targeted rather than
the country itself,” said Sanam Vakil, a fellow at the Royal Institute of
International Affairs in London.
“But this
incident makes it harder for the E.U. and the E3 [Britain, France and Germany]
to make their case to defend the deal. It puts them into an uncomfortable
position: They will have to put out a strong message to Iran whilst at the same
time trying to keep the nuclear deal alive,” Vakil said.
But tensions
have been on the rise for a while, especially after the Iranian regime lashed
out at Denmark, among other European countries, for providing safe harbor to
Iranian opposition members. Tehran stepped up its criticism after more than two
dozen Revolutionary Guard members were killed in an attack during a military
parade last month claimed by ASMLA.
In Europe,
governments have grown increasingly concerned that the accusations are to
justify Iranian state-led terror plots, with the aim of silencing opposition
groups. European authorities already prevented a bomb attack on Iranian dissidents
in Paris earlier this year and have spotted a broader uptick in Iranian
surveillance operations targeting opposition figures in Europe and the United
States.
The pattern
has reminded some European intelligence figures of the early days of Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini as supreme leader, when dozens of dissidents were killed
across Europe in the 1980s.
But
curiously, Europe’s response has still been far more muted than in response to
other foreign terrorist plots. After the foiled Paris attack plot, French
authorities seized Iranian assets and publicly blamed the Iranian Intelligence
Ministry, while the regime in Tehran rejected any responsibility as
“categorically false.”
Although
some European intelligence members suspect that Europe’s lack of response to
prior attacks may have encouraged larger-scale operations, others caution that
various factions within the Iranian regime are fighting for dominance. To them,
it is unclear why Iran would have pursued an attack that almost inevitably
would have disrupted a deal that has opened up Iran to foreign investment and
trade in recent years. The struggle between hard-liners and more moderate
reformers, they argue, is increasingly fought out on the streets of Europe.
That’s
certainly not how the Trump administration is interpreting the recent plots,
however. “For nearly 40 years, Europe has been the target of #Iran-sponsored
terrorist attacks,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote on Tuesday. “We call
on our allies and partners to confront the full range of Iran’s threats to
peace and security,” he added.