comparing tehran’s relations with hamas, turkish akp, and the muslim Brotherhood of Egypt (see following section) provides a useful way of assessing Iran’s past cross-sectarian outreach to Sunni Islamists and its current momentum, as well as Tehran’s grand ambitions for the future. Of all the Sunni Islamist groups with which Iran has connections, Tehran’s relationships with Hamas and the much smaller Palestinian Islamic Jihad are the friendliest. In its Sunni-world outreach, Tehran likes to point to its support and close ties to these groups, which began in earnest in the early 1990s, as proof of its cross-sectarian religious credentials. How- ever, these relations are overwhelmingly political in nature and expedient given the international isolation that the Islamic Republic and the radical Palestinian groups face. The relationship is largely driven by Iran’s geopolitical aims and the need for these Palestinian groups to find a resourceful patron and financial benefactor. While both sides of the relationship share a common anti-Israel and anti-United States stance, there is no sign that Iran has made any notable efforts through such partner- ships to bridge Sunni-Shia theological differences.
A different set of enticements and pragmatic considerations have helped bring about the warmer relations between Iran and Turkey’s ruling AKP, even though Tehran avidly publicizes the role of Islam as the connecting factor.26Most likely, the
key driver behind closer ties since AKP came to power in 2002 has been growing bi- lateral trade and other mutual economic benefits. Between 2000 and 2010, Tehran- Ankara trade increased ten-fold to $10 billion per year, and the stated aim is to grow this volume to $30 billion per year.27Furthermore, as Turkey’s decades-long overtures
to the European Union are seen in Ankara as unanswered, AKP flaunts its approach to relations with Iran and other states in the Middle East as serving the country’s in- terests and turning Turkey into the principal power in its regional domain.
For the Iranian regime, improving economic and political ties with Turkey are touted primarily as evidence that Tehran cannot be isolated by international sanctions imposed on its nuclear activities.28Still, while the wide-ranging utility of close ties with the
Hamas group can bring to the table, both sets of relations should nonetheless be rec- ognized as being driven by primarily practical considerations and not sustained by adherence to any pan-Islamist dogma.
So far, any advance toward the ideal of Sunni-Shia unity has been, at best, rhetor - ical. One such example came in December 2010, when Recep Erdogan became the first Turkish prime minister to attend an Ashura ceremony in Istanbul. His address at the ceremony implored “Sunnis and Shia to put aside their differences and unite.”29Er -
do gan’s message was likely aimed primarily at mollifying Shia (Alevi) and Sunni tensions that exist within the Turkish population. But the fact that Erdogan shared the podium with Ali Akbar Velayati, a former long-time Iranian foreign minister and top advisor to Ayatollah Khamenei, suggests that a wider regional audience was also in mind.
Despite this and other symbolic gestures, and given mounting concerns among Western observers that enhanced AKP-Iran collaboration represents the emergence of an inherently anti-Western front, there are already lucid examples of growing Iranian anxieties about Ankara stealing Tehran’s thunder by becoming the de facto flag bearer of modern Islamism and pan-Islamic unity in the Middle East. A recent example that demonstrated the inherent but so far subtle competition unfolding be- tween Tehran and Ankara for leadership in the region centered on the Iranian reac- tion to the outpouring of popular Arab support for the Turks following the May 31, 2010 Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound “Freedom Flotilla.” First, the Iranian officials welcomed the operation, and they applauded the Turkish government’s stance in the standoff with Israel that followed. However, from the early days in the affair it was apparent that the Iranian regime felt a degree of discomfort with the excite- ment the Turkish action had created among Arab populations. Iranian state-con- trolled media was quick to point out that Turkey was in fact “following in the footsteps of the Islamic Republic” in adopting its tough stance toward Israel—a state- ment that tells of Tehran’s fears about becoming a secondary anti-Israel actor in the region. Should this occur, Iranian inroads made among Arab populations in recent years would likely be eroded.
Indeed, as Tehran strives to create a viable region-wide Islamic front in which it can play a leading role, AKP’s Turkey may become its greatest stumbling block. In the context of trans-national Islamist collaboration and ideology, AKP thus far reflects many of the aspirations of the “mainstream,” modernizing, religiously conservative, non-Wahhabi Sunni world that Tehran also seeks to connect. As such, AKP’s rise and the growing appeal of its model combining Islamism and nationalism present a new kind of competition for the Islamic Republic’s outreach.30
At the same time, AKP leadership’s improving relations with Iran have given Tehran’s cross-sectarian agenda a much needed boost and new legitimacy among Sunnis. Seeking to build on this new momentum, Iran has looked at the Arab
revolutions of the Winter of 2011 as a golden opportunity. Despite the abundant evidence showing that the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world have largely been a reaction to socio-economic stagnation and polit- ical repression, Iran’s leaders have sought to portray them as part of a regional “Is- lamic Awakening.” In a prompt and sustained rhetorical blast, Tehran sought to lay claim to the Arab uprisings by casting them as modeled on the 1979 Iranian revolu- tion and as fundamentally anti-Western, insofar as the Arab regimes that were top- pled had benefited from the patronage of states in the West.
As the spill-over effect of Arab unrest has gripped new countries from Egypt to Yemen to Bahrain, Tehran has intensified its efforts to “Islamicize” the popular re- volts. For example, Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, stated that people in the region had woken up to the call of Islam and that “Iran would help any uprising in the region that was anti-Israeli and anti-American.” These sentiments were subsequently echoed repeatedly by other senior Iranian figures.