Hardliners Link Rezaian “Espionage Network” to Rouhani

 

On Tuesday, October 20, Fars News Agency set out further claims that jailed Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian had orchestrated a major espionage operation — and that President Rouhani’s administration was most likely aware of his conduct. 

The media agency, which is closely affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, published a lengthy but vague outline of the charges against Rezaian, who was arrested on July 22, 2014, using these claims to make direct attacks against Rouhani. 

The timing of the article is key. Two days earlier, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told delegates at the Munich Security Conference that he was trying to find a “humanitarian solution” to the Jason Rezaian case. Fars’ editorial agenda is part of a larger hardliner campaign to damage Rouhani —  and blocking any hopes for a resolution on the Rezaian case is an easy way of doing this.

In an interview with Fars, hardliner Mashhad politician and member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Javad Karimi Ghouddousi said that, prior to Jason Rezaian’s arrest, the correspondent had close ties to President Rouhani, regularly traveling with Rouhani’s team as part of his work. “They were flying in his plane," he said. "They participated in the most confidential meetings of the president and sent their reports to the spy network. In one of his reports to the Americans, Jason says ‘I have become so close to the president that I even know the taste and the brand of his chewing gum.'’”

Rezaian’s “infiltration” was not limited to the office of the president, according to Fars, but also included the president’s Center for Strategic Research, the foreign ministry, the governmental Cultural Heritage Organization, the office of the Expediency Council chaired by former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and even sections of parliament. In other words, the hardliners have issued a warning: More espionage cases could be revealed, implicating some of Iran’s most powerful people.

The Fars report reiterates recent Revolutionary Guards claims, including a propaganda video, that Rezaian fronted up an espionage network for US Congress, setting himself up as an operative with inroads to Iranian media and government agencies. The network, the agency claimed, had been actively gathering information about the nuclear case, but also about sensitive issues such as who would succeed Ayatollah Khamenei as the Supreme Leader. And, unsurprisingly, it also draws a link between the alleged spies and the protests that followed the disputed presidential election in 2009.

In the past, Fars has accused members of the president’s family or close political allies of wrongdoing. But this time, Fars and Ghoddousi have directly targeted Rouhani. 

Fars is sending a direct message to the Iranian government: The more it tries to secure Jason Rezaian’s freedom, the more they should expect new revelations against Rouhani — each more damaging and sensitive than the last.

Media Games

The latest report focuses mainly on Ghouddousi’s claims. Fiercely anti-Rouhani, Ghouddousi has been an enthusiastic promoter of conspiracy theories about Rezaian — whose family originally comes from his constituency in Mashhad — and has been particularly eager to launch smear campaigns against the journalist in the media, offering up so-called proof for Rezaian’s security crimes. Fars, which has been one of the key sources for providing information about the dual-national’s case because of its access to Guards intelligence forces, has been only been too pleased to reproduce these claims. 

In addition to publishing revelations from Ghoddousi, Fars also interviewed Ebrahim Agha Mohammadi, a Khorramabad MP, also a fierce opponent of Rouhani. In a bid to persuade more discerning readers and build credibility, the report also included comments from Nozar Shafiei, a more moderate member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission. 

Fars reported that Shafiei referred to a meeting in parliament about the Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit’s work on the Rezaian case, when in reality Shafiei had only announced on October 4 that the commission had received the report. It presented his comments as further corroboration of what has become the accepted narrative around the Rezaian case: Espionage on a grand scale. In reality, the new Fars report simply presents the details of the original Guards’ report as told by Ghoddousi, and attempts to pad it out with insubstantial support of these claims from others. 

The Fars article offers insight into some of the most important power struggles in Iran's political arena. Ghoddousi told the media outlet that two months previously, MPs had been told that a possible prisoner exchange between the US and Iran was in the making. “After learning about this,” said Ghouddousi, “members of the commission warned the judiciary to be careful. In the end, the security and judiciary stood their ground and he was put on trial.”

On October 5, eleven members of Iran’s parliament demanded that the minister of justice broadcast Rezaian’s confession on television — seen by many as a cynical attempt to gain public support for the judiciary and its processes. 

 

Corruption, Immorality and Familiar Tactics

As a means of defending the Revolutionary Guards and those with ties to it, Fars also draws a link between Jason Rezaian and increased sanctions against Iran. When corruption cases come before the court — such as the case of Babak Zanjani, accused of withholding 2.8billion euros in Iranian oil money — security officials, including those who belong to the intelligence unit of the Revolutionary Guards, have regularly been implicated. By linking Rezaian to sanctions and government officials, Fars is making a case of criminality against Rezaian on a large scale with far-reaching implications and connections, a case that cannot go unnoticed by the Iranian public.

In its attacks, Fars employs the routine tactics of Iran’s security establishment, levelling charges of corruption and immoral conduct at Rezaian. Ghoddousi argues that Rezaian had connections with the “heretic” party the National Front, and that he had formed illicit and immoral relations with one of the children of the party’s secretary-general. “If they [the spies] could not find something on the official himself,” said Ghoddousi, “they tried his children, his brothers and his relatives, recorded them and used it to blackmail him.” This brand of allegation has a long history in Iran, with Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, first using it against his opponents. The party was founded in 1949 by the nationalist Mohammad Mosaddegh who later, as prime minister, nationalized the Iranian oil industry and was overthrown in a coup engineered by British and US intelligence agencies. The party is a favorite scapegoat for some hardliners, but has no real influence in Iran. 

A Symbol of our Times 

Allegations that Rezaian had been gathering information on the nuclear issue is particularly important in the current climate, following Ayatollah Khamenei’s claims that what happens following the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is more important than the deal itself, and because of hardliners’ beliefs that the plan is part of a US long-term bid to infiltrate Iran.

And, of course, the Rezaian case has repeatedly been held up as a cautionary tale for foreign or dual-citizenship journalists in Iran, or even other dual nationals. “One of the ways for infiltration [by the Americans] is the question of dual-citizenship,” Ghoddousi told Fars. “Parliament has made plans to investigate this but unfortunately so far the steering committee has not picked it up. But it’s something representatives really want.” In reality, there is little support for such investigations.

Some of the charges against Rezaian are widely received to be ridiculous, including the claim that he and his team “wiped off pictures of Iran-Iraq war martyrs from Tehran’s walls and replaced them with scenes from nature” and then alerted US agents to a  “change of behavior in Iranian society.” Another claim said that “during nuclear negotiations, Jason Rezaian received $3000 for each second of filming inside Iran.”

But all the more humorous elements in any of the Islamic Republic’s security cases have a more serious philosophy behind them. Jason Rezaian has become the symbol of a full-fledged war between the hardliners and the government of President Rouhani. This is a set of accusations hardliners will want to present again and again to forge ongoing media wars between the two polarized political factions. 

The Fars report is the latest in a series of attempts to slow down resolutions for some of the biggest issues affecting Iranian politics and society, whether it is the nuclear case, human rights or corruption. This dragging tactic is a familiar one. By repeating claims about Rezaian’s activities as told by the Revolutionary Guards, the Guardian Council and the supreme leader, Fars news agency is once again presenting Rezaian as a symbol of US hostility, while at the same time reminding Rouhani that hardliners have a few more battles to fight, and ammunition with which to do it.  

 

Related Articles: 

Iran Reaches Verdict on Jason Rezaian — But Stays Silent on Details

New Guards’ Film: Jason Rezaian was part of Extensive Spy Network

Jason Rezaian: Crime, Journalism