Earlier this week, on the eve of naval exercises with the SA Navy and others off Simon’s Town, Iran pulled out. But there are still plenty of pictures of Iranian naval vessels on the Simon’s Town quay and their senior officers shaking hands with South African Navy Admirals.
The episode has shown SA foreign policy as confused and hypocritical.
At a time when protesting masses were being shot on the streets of Tehran, SA was keen to host the Iranians.
And Iran must have been happy to receive recognition as a friend and ally at a time when it faces international opprobrium over its nuclear weapons programme and human rights abuses. In the face of extreme economic difficulties, Iran sent three ships to the exercises.
The days in which the Iranian vessels were in port shows SA’s foreign policy as morally bankrupt. It also showed a disastrous SA foreign policy move.
What makes SA’s hypocrisy so glaring is that June 16th this year, will mark the 50th anniversary of the Soweto uprising. That is when the apartheid government shot protesting school children on the streets. If any event marked the beginning of the end of apartheid it was the Soweto uprising.
The screaming hypocrisy shows up in SA’s rush to take Israel to the International Court of Justice, yet its defence of Iran in UN human rights bodies and its willingness to build close relations.
SA likes grand standing in foreign policy to prove its moral worth and endlessly demonstrate that it is neutral and pursuing its own path. Its closest friends are dictatorships who supported the liberation struggle like Russia and Cuba, and other countries considered revolutionary. Yet many of these dictatorships supported the ANC out of sheer political expediency at the time of the Cold War. Today, Sweden is a long-forgotten friend. Much to the ire of the Swedes, SA’s took a neutral stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It is not clear whether the Iranians were asked to leave by SA or departed on their own accord due to their fears that the Islamic Republic might be about to fall. It is probably the case that after two weeks of shootings by security forces of demonstrators on Iranian streets, the SA foreign affairs department suddenly realised that such naval exercises would not look good.
Why did it take nearly two weeks to wake up to this?
That’s because the ANC is deeply tone deaf and ideological?
SA’s fear of antagonising the US is what is likely to have triggered the wake-up call and decision to ask Iran to pull-out of the exercises. US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a new 25 percent tariff on any country doing business with Iran must have focused the minds of the ANC.
SA probably sent out invitations to the exercises to all members of the expanded Brazil, Russia, India, China, and SA (BRICS) grouping. This points to the danger of making the BRICS an anchor of foreign policy.
In the case of Iran, the ideological foundations of the relationship with SA are strong. The Islamic Republic came to power through a revolution which overthrew the late Shah who sold oil to SA and maintained a strong pro-US stance. Seeing itself as a revolutionary movement, even more than 30 years after coming to power, means the prospects of an overthrow of the Mullahs behind the Iranian Revolution on the streets strikes fear into the ANC.
Relations with the US took a bad turn when SA hosted Russia and China for naval exercises three years ago. And trying to restore normality even while asking the Iranians to withdraw from the exercises will not ease matters.
An SA official has said that the naval exercises are “essential” to protecting “maritime economic activities” and shows these navies will work together in the future. That is hardly convincing. The exercise is a pure diplomatic show rather than demonstration of an alliance that will come into play in the remote possibility of attacks on our sea trade routes. SA wanted to show it has good ties with Iran, Russia and China, and was pleased to have the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a moderate Arab country with a growing reach, participate.
With many of the vessels bought under the mega arms deal in the mid-1990s rusting in port, SA no longer has much of a navy, and no real purpose to undertake such annual exercises. Don’t expect any of these countries to rush to our aid.
Joint exercises are very often more about diplomatic events than demonstrations of military deterrence. In this case the message is to give the US yet another snub.
The massive demonstrations against the ruling Mullahs in Iranian cities could not be predicted, but the Islamic Republic has a long and terrible record of human rights abuses. The foreign affairs department should have been much more alert to the consequences of an invitation to Iran.
Over the past decade there have been repeated waves of demonstrations on the streets of Iran. About four years ago, the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who had been arrested for not wearing a hijab properly, sparked months of widespread protests, and killings by the security forces.
The country is in revolt as a result of a cost-of-living crisis, and years of dictatorial Islamic rule, yet SA cannot face up to this.
Yet, in the face of Iran’s dire record, SA has been keen to build ties. We do not import Iranian oil and our trade with the country is insignificant. What gives the relationship significance to SA, is that the Islamic Republic is a symbol of a “revolutionary” government, is anti-American, and generally anti-Western.
While the ANC is democratically elected, it shudders at the idea that a government brought to power by a revolution is now on a knife edge.
South Africa like some in the international pro-Palestinian movement has been side-swiped by the mass protests in Iran. Some in the ANC and the pro-Palestinian movement may have real sympathy for the Mullahs, but others who see Iran as repressive just can’t get themselves to express any outrage at what is happening on the streets.
That’s because they don’t really care about human rights and detest the idea of the emergence of what might be a pro-US and pro-Israel Iran.
[Image: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1202107512094757&set=pcb.1202107925428049]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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