Beyond Polarity

IT’S DIFFICULT HAVING CONVERSATIONS with people we respect but don’t necessarily agree with—especially when the issue is sensitive and polarized. Recently, I reached out to a former colleague, Iranian by birth, to talk about what’s going on in the Middle East. Bijan and I don’t agree on who is to blame.  But we do agree on what’s at stake at this very dangerous time in the Middle East. It was a difficult, yet essential, conversation.

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In the throes of 2009 Persian Spring uprisings in Iran, Bijan Khajehpour was arrested by Revolutionary Guards at the Tehran airport. Although he took no part in the anti-government protests, he was accused of espionage in a “show trial” and held for more than three months in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. 

Iran’s intelligence apparatus denied him access to a lawyer; withheld meds prescribed to manage his diabetes; even took away his much needed eye-glasses. 

The hardliners’ goal, then and now, Bijan explains, “is to marginalize or push out people who help the Iranian relationship with Western countries.” The intimidation worked, Bijan grimaces; sentenced to five years imprisonment, he was forced to close down his business in Tehran and relocate his family to Austria. He hasn’t set foot in Iran since being exiled.

I first met Bijan in 2006, in Tehran; he was founder and CEO of Iran’s leading business consultancy, Atieh Bahar Consulting. We were introduced by Charles Gurdon of Menas Associates. In the wake of allegations of bribery against Statoil, Norway’s state oil company, Bijan had invited me to talk to the Iranian energy industry about transparency. Armed with graduate degrees in economics and management from Germany, the U.K. and France, and a heavy dose of ethics, Bijan earned the trust of many blue-chip companies operating in Iran. 

In the heat of this moment—with all the competing narratives about the Middle East, and biased reporting masquerading as some kind of truth on the ground—it’s extremely challenging to know what’s really going on. Bijan’s no longer in Iran but he has family and colleagues there who keep him informed. I reach out for his perspective. You won’t necessarily agree with his analysis, but he’s a guy worth listening to and here’s what he has to say.  

There’s no denying “it’s a very dangerous situation,” Bijan nods in our screen-to-screen conversation. But ever the optimist, he holds out hope the escalation can be managed. 

Bijan predicts Iran will launch a strike against Israel. But first, they will wait to see the outcome of the Gaza ceasefire talks hosted by the U.S., Qatar and Egypt. “The Iranians will say the ceasefire is more important to us than punishing the Israelis,” Bijan suggests, and in doing so, Iran will gain some soft power, taking credit for making a ceasefire in Gaza possible. 

Hardliners try to “increase the strategic distance between Iran and the West,” Bijan explains.  And, he concludes, this serves Russia very well: “Russia knows the farther Iran is from Western governments, the more it has to rely on Russian technology and Russian security support.” Some very famous people in Iran, Bijan reports, privately say they are even paid by the Russian intelligence. 

For many in the West, I suggest, the Abraham Accords (normalization agreements between Israel and individual Arab countries) were, in effect, blown up with the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel. Bijan prefers to talk about how the Chinese have de-escalated tensions, most recently brokering a detente agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. 

Perceptions about China are changing in Iran, Bijan cautions: “I would say, deep down, the majority of Iranians still trust the West as the main source of latest technology and sophistication. But China is achieving better results.”

Western sanctions created this opportunity for China, he chides, ignoring my furrowed brow.

“There is a very deep acknowledgment in Iran that they should not fall into the game that Netanyahu wants to play,” Bijan continues. In essence: Don’t take the bait by reacting harshly and leaving the U.S. with no choice but to side with Israel and risk igniting a regional war. 

It’s a comforting thought. But we all know Iranians don’t like to lose face. 

“When the Americans killed Qasem Soleimani (an Iranian military officer) in 2020,” Bijan counters, “the Iranians, again, because of dignity, had to respond.” But they didn’t want to create a reason for the Americans to react harshly, Bijan explains, so they said, “All we want to do is to show the Americans and the regional players that our missiles are very accurate.” They told the Americans where they were going to strike, the Americans evacuated, the Iranians hit within a 7-meter accuracy, and that was that. Bijan’s prediction? Iran will do something similar, and may even select a target that is not on Israeli soil. 

Again, I hope Bijan’s best case scenario plays out. But there are so many red lines being crossed in the Middle East. How do you sort out the tangle of nuanced loyalties? 

Admittedly, the Iranians founded Hezbollah, Bijan replies, and Shi’ite ideology is the glue. With Hamas, it’s different: “The enemy of your enemy became your friend” and Hamas is a useful instrument for Iran to harass Israel. As for the Houthis in Yemen (believers in a brand of Islam neither Sunni or Shia), they are causing havoc for Iran, Bijan declares: “They took a Brazilian ship hostage, which was carrying Iranian wheat…and Iran has been sending warnings to them, saying, you know, this is against our interests.” While there are people in Iran who cheer on the Houthis and send them weapons, it’s his view they aren’t a proxy for Iran.  

Bijan returns again to the sensitive topic of sanctions, blaming “superficial” Western policies for creating the space these networks need to operate. “Food and pharmaceuticals are exempt from sanctions,” Bijan submits. “But because banks don’t want to engage in Iran business, you have basically shut the door to food and pharmaceuticals as well,” he asserts, paving the way for money laundering, smuggling and corrosive capital. 

“Hundreds of top Iranian officials have their children study in the U.S. and in Canada,” Bijan rails. “I would have revoked all their visas…instead of enforcing sanctions that hit a lot of innocent Iranians, cancer patients and average people who want to study in the West.” While I hear what Bijan’s saying, I disagree with his argument that Western sanctions justify Iran’s behaviours.

Many Iranians—especially those who rallied to get Masoud Pezeshkian elected as Iran’s moderate president in 2024—want to emigrate, Bijan continues. “All the Iranians who can afford to emigrate are tying to emigrate,” he shrugs. “They say, ‘We don’t care anymore. We just sell everything.’” Pezeshkian is not the top decision-maker in Iran, Bijan acknowledges, and he has to interact with the supreme leader and a long list of formal and informal centres of power.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has issued a fatwa (a decree) “delegitimizing the use of nuclear weapons,” Bijan reports when I ask about the elephant in the room—the nuclear risk. He admits, “if the balance of power changes in Iran, that decision could also be revised.” I can’t resist questioning how a fatwa by a religious hardliner would protect so-called infidels. 

Bijan is diplomatic but I notice he bristles ever so slightly when I ask, somewhat brazenly, about the horrifying possibility of Iran resorting to biological weapons. “The industrial capacity exists,” he acknowledges, but it’s never been considered a strategy.  And Iran’s been tested, he posits: “In the 1980s, while Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was using chemical weapons (mostly provided by the West) against Iran, the Islamic Republic did not reciprocate.”

That was forty years ago. But I’m courteous enough to keep that thought to myself.  

BEYOND POLARITY is the consensus opinion of the writers Donna Kennedy-Glans & Don Hill. If you haven’t already, please subscribe — scroll down on your phone or tablet, or look to the right in the panel beside this post. Enter your email to FOLLOW, a wheel spins, hamsters get fed.