The Islamic Republic of Iran's diplomatic ambitions may be broader than Western policymakers believe: Tehran sees many of Africa's 54 countries as easy picking in a zero-sum game for influence. This outreach takes many guises and is geared toward specific diplomatic and military purposes that could challenge US aims across Africa. In comparison with recent American presidents who made just three visits to Sub-Saharan Africa in the last decade, Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad travels to Africa at least annually, with key Iranian ministers visiting even more frequently.
Iran's strategy toward Africa has been threefold. First, Tehran is reaching out to countries voting in important international bodies such as the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors, as well as African states active in the Non-Aligned Movement and African Union. Second, Iranian officials seem to be prioritizing outreach to African countries that mine or are prospecting for uranium. And, third, senior Iranian officials are seeking to cement partnerships with littoral states that can provide the Iranian navy with access to strategic bases.
Key points in this Outlook:
- Iran is forging ties with African nations to leverage aid and soft power in exchange for diplomatic favors and to use Africa as cover for military or nuclear objectives.
- Iran’s Africa strategy involves courting African countries voting in important international bodies, prioritizing outreach to African countries that mine uranium, and cementing partnerships that could give Iran access to strategic naval bases.
- The Islamic Republic’s diplomatic outreach to African nations will increasingly challenge US aims across Africa and in its surrounding waters.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and its nuclear ambitions remain at the center of American diplomatic attention. Outreach to Iran was the focus of President Obama's first television interview as president in 2009. A desire for rapprochement continues into the Obama administration's second term. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on February 2, 2013, for example, Vice President Joe Biden offered direct, bilateral talks with Iran. Policy concern regarding Iran also consumes a disproportionate share of US military resources. Even as the number of aircraft carriers within the US Navy shrinks to 10-down from 12 in 2007-the Pentagon remains committed to stationing an aircraft-carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf, largely because of Iran. Before Operation Desert Shield in 1990, the United States did not generally station any carriers in the Persian Gulf.
Iran's strategy, however, is broader than Western policymakers' focus on its nuclear program and its activities in the Middle East or perhaps Latin America. American strategists might describe Iran as a "regional power," but in recent years, Iranian officials have described the Islamic Republic as an "extra-regional power." They see Iran as a pivotal state able to exert its influence not only in the Middle East, but also in South Asia, and not only in the Persian Gulf, but also in the Indian Ocean. Tehran's diplomatic ambitions, however, may be considerably broader: Iran increasingly appears to be looking at Africa as fertile ground for expanding its influence. Iranian outreach takes many guises and is geared toward specific purposes, some diplomatic and others military.
With successive US administrations and European governments effectively ignoring Africa, Tehran sees many of Africa's 54 countries as diplomatic easy picking in a zero-sum game for influence. In comparison to recent American presidents who made three multicountry African visits between 2003 and 2012, the Iranian president travels to Africa at least annually, while other Iranian ministers visit even more frequently.
In his latest tour of Africa in January 2013, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi visited Benin, Ghana, and Burkina Faso before ending his tour in Ethiopia, where he attended the annual African Union summit. Speaking in Ghana on January 7, 2013, he declared Africa to be an Iranian priority. Salehi's rhetoric is not empty; his tour tops off a concerted five-year Iranian push.
Over this time, the Iranian diplomatic strategy toward Africa has been threefold. First, with additional aid, Tehran has cultivated relationships with countries voting in important international bodies, such as nonpermanent members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council or term members serving on the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors. Additional targets for Iranian largesse have been African states active in the Non-Aligned Movement and the African Union. Second, beyond the diplomatic quid pro quo, Iranian officials appear to be prioritizing outreach to those African countries that are mining or prospecting for uranium. Lastly, senior Iranian officials have sought to cement partnerships that they could leverage into gaining access to strategic bases.
The Quest for Diplomatic Support
Both the UN Security Council and IAEA normally have African representation. Togo and Rwanda currently serve as nonpermanent members of the UN Security Council (between 2010 and 2011, Gabon and Nigeria served in this position). South Africa held a security council seat between 2007 and 2008 and again between 2010 and 2011, with Uganda serving in the interim. Nigeria, South Africa, and Tanzania also currently serve on the IAEA Board of Governors, and in recent years, Niger and Kenya have also served there. The countries listed largely coincide with the emphasis of Iran's Africa outreach.
Iranian diplomats have long sought to cultivate ties with South Africa. The Islamic Republic's opposition to Apartheid set the foundation for warm ties after the restoration of diplomatic relations in 1994. Iranian supply of oil to South Africa has heightened economic relations. For Tehran, however, trade is not the only factor in Iran's desire to have good relations with South Africa. "South Africa is a key member of the Non-Aligned Movement, a bloc of developing countries that has resisted the efforts to force Tehran to halt uranium enrichment," a commentary in the official Tehran Times explained.
Iran's attempts to leverage its relationship with South Africa into support on the UN Security Council and the IAEA Board of Governors paid dividends. Despite the February 2008 IAEA report that found that the Islamic Republic continued to enrich uranium in violation of its safeguards agreement and two security council resolutions, the South African government used its position on the security council to oppose further sanctions against Iran.
Whether South African advocacy for Iran is sincere or cynical, the African state reaps benefits. While the international community sought to constrain Iranian sales and thereby the Islamic Republic's income, South Africa refused to cooperate. In 2010, Iranian crude oil accounted for 25 percent of South Africa's petroleum, much of it at discounted prices. Most recently, South Africa threw a last-minute wrench into an IAEA resolution criticizing Iran's failure to comply with security council resolutions. South African authorities have been helpful to the Islamic Republic in other ways: the US Department of the Treasury has accused South Africa's cell phone company MTN of helping Iran skirt prohibitions on imports of US technology.
Then-Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki reciprocated the visit the following month. Fourteen months later, in January 2012, Mottaki's successor Ali Akbar Salehi met Ohin at the 18th African Union summit and promised that the Islamic Republic would help develop Togo. Indeed, after successive visits by both then-US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and her Iranian counterpart, the Togolese opposition was quite open about how the two powers sought to court countries often ignored by larger powers. It emphasized the appeal of the Iranian approach, if for no other reason than that it caused larger countries to no longer take Togo for granted.
Once again, however, strings appear to have been attached to Iranian assistance. When Yemeni authorities accused Iran of supporting the Houthis (the Shiite minority fighting an antigovernment insurgency in northern Yemen), the Iranians denied responsibility. The ship intercepted with weaponry was actually Togolese, Iranian authorities explained.
The same pattern held true with Gabon. Shortly before Gabon ascended to the security council, the country became the subject of intense Iranian courtship. In May 2009, the Gabonese culture minister visited Tehran carrying a veritable wish list of projects for Iran to subsidize or provide. Later that month, then- Gabonese foreign minister Paul Toungui visited Tehran, where he signed a host of agreements to expand and facilitate business Early the next year, Gabonese President Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba met Mottaki on the sidelines of the African Union conference. Mottaki reiterated Iran's desire to expand political and economic ties with Gabon. Two months later, Gabon used its seat on the security council to support Iran's nuclear program
Nigeria's role in both the security council and at the IAEA translated into sustained Iranian outreach. Nigeria may be oil-rich, but with a dysfunctional economy leaving most Nigerians impoverished, the country welcomed any foreign investment to create jobs. Instead of supplying oil-Iran's strategy of first resort to countries whose support Tehran wants-Tehran offered to manufacture Iranian automobiles in Nigeria, providing poorer Nigerians with assembly-line jobs and perhaps giving Iranian agents cover to operate in the region Iranian engineers also helped Nigeria bolster its own production, lending Iranian engineering expertise to Nigerian efforts to explore offshore gas fields. During a subsequent visit to Nigeria, Salehi sweetened the commercial pot further with promises of preferential tariff reductions and bolstered trade
The Iranian government did not hesitate to leverage its investment in Nigeria.[ As with Togo and Gabon, however, there also appears to have been a more nefarious side to Iran's presence. The seizure of crates of weaponry at the Port of Lagos in 2010 exposed Iran's strategy to leverage its African partners for strategic objectives Summoned by the Nigerian foreign minister after Nigerian customs seized the arms shipment, the Iranian ambassador explained that the arms were destined for Gambia as part of an earlier agreement. When the Nigerian government asked why, then, the Iranians had labeled the sealed containers as building material, the Iranian ambassador shrugged off the question and instead blamed the private shipping company. That same year the US Department of the Treasury issued an advisory regarding the tendency of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines-already subject to sanctions-to use fraudulent documents in its operations.
The Quest for Uranium
Another factor behind Iran's nuclear drive may be its developing nuclear program. The Iranian leadership has said it seeks up to 16 nuclear reactors for civilian energy purposes. Should Iran build such a network, it will deplete its limited indigenous uranium supply within 10 years. Regardless of Iran's nuclear motivation, two things are clear: Iran has at present no intention of abandoning its nuclear drive, and it will also never have true energy security. Its quest to find alternative sources of uranium may also bring Iran back to Africa.
A number of African states mine uranium: Nambia and Niger are major uranium exporters. Malawi and Gabon operate uranium mines. South Africa produces some uranium as a byproduct of gold mining, and prospecting continues across the continent. Uranium deposits exist in Togo, Guinea, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Iran seeks to cultivate ties with many of these states.
Hence, in April 2010, Centrafrique-Presse Online, a Central African Republic website affiliated with Ange-Félix Patassé, that country's ousted president, suggested that then-foreign minister Antoine Gambi had traveled to Tehran to negotiate the Iranian purchase of Central African yellowcake. While Patassé has motivation to cast suspicion on the man who ousted him in a coup, his speculation that there could be "a Bangui-Caracas-Tehran-Pyongyang axis trafficking in uranium" in the making might raise anxiety.
In theory, while international controls prevent African states from exporting uranium absent transparency, the reality is that poor infrastructure and corruption can enable illicit trade. In 2007, for example, Congolese authorities arrested Fortunat Lumu, director of the Atomic Energy Center, in an investigation involving missing uranium.
While visits by Iranian officials to the West African country of Guinea were relatively scarce a decade ago, Tehran has taken more interest in Conakry since the discovery of commercially viable uranium deposits in 2007. In 2010, Mottaki announced a 140 percent increase in Iran-Guinea trade, for which the mining sector accounted for the greatest proportion. Recent Iranian outreach to Gambia, Malawi, Namibia, and Uganda also coincides with the discovery of uranium in those countries. In January 2008, for example, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh announced the discovery of uranium. While Ahmadinejad had visited Banjul in 2006 for an African Union summit, he returned in the year following the announcement for further discussions with Jammeh.
Uganda announced its uranium discovery in 2004. While commercial relations between Iran and Uganda remained dormant under the presidencies of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-97) and Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), this changed in subsequent years. Visiting Tehran in 2009, Uganda President Yoweri Museveni met not only with his counterpart, but also with Iran's minister of mining. The Kampala-based Daily Monitor reported "strong indication that the two leaders discussed prospects of exploiting Uganda's uranium resources, which Mr. Museveni has often said would only be used for the generation of energy."
The Quest for a Base
A third goal for Iranian outreach to Africa may be a quest to establish Iran's own "string of pearls"-that is, if not de facto bases that could provide Iran logistical support and allow it to extend its naval reach, then pivotal states upon which it could rely to advance strategic and ideological objectives (the role that Venezuela plays for Iran in South America).
Initially, Iranian authorities cultivated a relationship with Senegal. There is no indication that the two states ever openly discussed formal bases, but the Islamic Republic did develop closer relations with Senegal than it did with other African states. Abdoulaye Wade, president of Senegal between 2000 and 2012, met repeatedly not only with Ahmadinejad but also Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The Senegalese foreign and defense ministers also visited their Iranian counterparts. Senior Iranian officials have reciprocated the visits.
The Senegalese leadership seemed interested in reaping the benefits from its Iranian courtship. "Energy, Oil Prospecting, Industry: Senegal Benefits from Iranian Solutions," the official government newspaper declared after Wade's first visit to Tehran. After the reciprocal Iranian visit, Wade announced that Iran would build an oil refinery, chemical plant, and an $80 million car-assembly plant in the West Africa nation. Within weeks, Samuel Sarr, Senegal's energy minister, visited Tehran and returned with a pledge that Iran would supply Senegal with oil for a year and purchase a 34 percent stake in Senegal's oil refinery. Such aid may not have come without strings attached. On November 25, 2007, during the third meeting of the Iran-Senegal joint economic commission, Wade endorsed Iran's nuclear program. Wade's visit to Iran the following year provided a backdrop for Khamenei to declare that developing unity between Islamic countries like Senegal and Iran can weaken "the great powers" like the United States.
On January 27, 2008, a week after then-Senegalese foreign minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio announced that he too would visit Tehran, then-defense minister Bécaye Diop met with his Iranian counterpart to discuss expanding bilateral defense ties between the two states. While Iranian Navy Chief Habibollah Sayyari is prone to hyperbole, Senegal could have brought to reality-at least symbolically-his pledge to have Iran establish a presence in the Atlantic.
Bilateral relations suffered a significant setback in 2011, however, when Senegalese authorities accused Iran of smuggling arms to rebels in Senegal's restive Casamance region. If the Senegalese allegations were true-Iran hotly denied them and accused foreign intelligence of fabricating evidence-then they might have reflected lack of coordination among various Iranian security elements. The Iranian ministry of intelligence, Quds Force, and the foreign ministry have, on occasion, run foreign operations at odds with each other and broader Iranian policy. Regardless, the break in relations was only temporary. On February 7, 2013, Tehran and Dakar restored bilateral ties, although whether Senegal will pursue as effusive an embrace of Iran under Wade's successor Macky Sall is far from clear.
While its relations with Senegal were in stasis, Iran's courtship of Sudan reached new levels. The Islamic Republic is willing to embrace any African state estranged from the West. In the past, this was the basis for ties between Iran and Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe (which in recent years has also become a uranium producer). Iranian officials apparently have also found Sudan ripe for picking.
European governments and the United States have sought to isolate Sudan because of its role in Darfur Genocide; on March 4, 2009, the International Criminal Court issued an indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. As the international community tightened sanctions on Khartoum, Ahmadinejad moved to embrace Bashir, visiting the country before and after Bashir's indictment. Iran's defense minister visited Khartoum and called the African state "the cornerstone" of the Islamic Republic's Africa policies.
Indeed, as the Syrian regime-since 1979 Iran's only loyal ally-has teetered, Iranian authorities have increased military cooperation with Sudan. Twice in late 2012, Iranian naval ships docked at Port Sudan on the Red Sea. While Sudanese officials have denied any military alliance between Tehran and Khartoum, there is widespread speculation that Israel might have conducted an airstrike on Sudan, targeting Iranian arms.
Iranian officials have denied rumors that the Islamic Republic has also established bases in the littoral Red Sea nation of Eritrea, a country that has both endorsed Iran's nuclear program and also suffered increasingly strained ties with the West because of its increasingly dismal human rights record. (Eritrea is the only country to rank below North Korea in press freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders.) Iran explains its presence in regional waters as part of its own antipiracy operations, although Iranian officials tend to exaggerate their own operations.
Conclusion
While supposition is not proof of Iranian aims, there does appear to be determined Iranian outreach to Africa. At best, Tehran appears to be leveraging aid and soft power in exchange for diplomatic favors; at worst, some individuals in the Islamic Republic appear to be using Africa as cover for other military or nuclear objectives. Either way, the Iranian government has shown that its self-description as an "extra-regional" power is no longer rhetorical exaggeration, but will instead increasingly challenge US aims across Africa.
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