How Biden’s America is likely to shape Kenya’s relations with Iran

After being sworn in as the 46th US President, Joe Biden has a tough call to steer America towards a new global consensus and heal the world.

Biden had signalled his presidency would be different from Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ populist and isolationist regime. He has signed a series of executive actions to undo much of Trump’s legacy, including lifting the travel ban on selected Muslim-majority countries and halting the erection of Trump’s US-Mexico border wall.

He now has to repudiate Trump’s 2018 decision to unilaterally withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (popularly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal), signed by Iran and major global players (China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the European Union) in 2017, which casts a long shadow on stability in Africa.

Mr Biden indicated he would lead the US back to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. But in a recent article, ‘Iran wants the nuclear deal it made’, published by the Foreign Affairs magazine (January 22, 2021), Iranian Foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called on Biden to walk away from Trump’s failed policy of ‘maximum pressure’ and return to the deal.

While Iran will return to full implementation of its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal, Zarif warns Biden’s America against seeking to expand the term of the multilateral deal and to extract new concessions.

In September 2006, Africa’s 118 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) members unanimously endorsed a resolution recognising Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy resources for peaceful means.

Since 2005, when the US and its allies demanded that Iran relinquish the right to enrich uranium and imposed sanctions through the UN Security Council, Iran has pivoted to Africa.

Iran has used development assistance through trade, oil deals, aid, infrastructure projects and investments as part of its soft power approach in Africa to counter US sanctions. 

A study by the Pew Research Center in March 2014 found about 42 per cent of Kenyan respondents viewed the Islamic Republic favourably, 34 per cent viewed it unfavourably and 24 per cent had no opinion.

During Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Presidency (2005-2013), Tehran joined the new century scramble for Africa’s resources and expanding markets. 

Tea exports 

In 2009, President Ahmadinejad visited Kenya with a 100-strong Iranian trade delegation and numerous deals were signed, including a deal to export 4 million tons of oil to Kenya annually, direct flights between Tehran and Nairobi, scholarships for Kenyans to pursue higher education in Iran and a $16 billion line of credit to Kenya for housing, dam construction, healthcare and humanitarian assistance. Under the deal, Iran would supply Kenya with 80,000 barrels of oil a day.

The number of Shia Muslims has increased to roughly half a million. Kenya’s exports to Iran rose from Sh1.95 billion in 2012 to Sh2.12 billion while its imports from Iran increased from Sh3.67 billion to more than Sh10.4 billion by 2019. Iran consumes about 20 per cent of Kenya’s total tea exports, which stood at 6.3 million kilos by 2019.

Iran’s embassy in Nairobi hosts a large cultural office aimed at creating a positive image for Iran. In December 2020, the Iranian Ambassador, Jabber Barmaki unveiled plans for collaboration between the Kenyan and Iranian universities. 

As a strategic ally in the war on terror, Kenya’s dalliance with Iran shocked the US and its allies. In June 2012, it caved in and cancelled Iran’s oil deal.

Iran’s development agenda has, however, badly crashed with its asymmetric warfare in the Horn region, organised around the Iran Quds Force, one of five branches of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specialising in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations.

A string of arrests and convictions have stymied the Iran-Kenya ties. In June 2012, a Kenyan court convicted two Iranian nationals for plotting attacks against Western targets in Kenya. The two led police officers to a 15-kilogram (33-pound) cache of the explosive RDX, large enough to topple a tall building.

Terror attack

In 2015, two Kenyans, trained in Iran to assist the Iranian state intelligence, were arrested for plotting attacks on western targets. And in December 2016, a Nairobi court charged two Iranian men and their Kenyan driver, with “facilitation of a terrorist attack” after they were caught them filming the Israeli embassy with their mobile phones. 

In March 2019, Kenya’s Supreme Court reinstated the convictions and 15-year sentences of two Iranians involved in the 2012 bomb plot. Tehran reacted by recalling its ambassador to Kenya and summoned Kenya’s ambassador to Tehran to express its dissatisfaction with the “unfair” verdict.

The January 3, 2020 assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, in a US drone strike was followed by a terror attack on a US forces base in Manda Island on January 5, 2020 in which three Americans were killed. It was speculated this was Iran’s retaliation for Gen. Soleimani’s killing, but al-Shabaab claimed responsibility and ended the speculations.

Iran-US tensions have undermined Kenya’s tea export, which dropped from 590,111 in 2018 to 532,715 kilos in 2019.

Kenya, now a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the 2021-2022 period, is expected to vote on Middle East issues including Libya, Yemen and Iran. This provides a new frontier of diplomatic engagement with Iran.

Prof Peter Kagwanja is Chief Executive of Africa Policy Institute and a former Government Adviser. This article draws from a discussion paper: ‘Iran in Kenya: The Clash of Ideology and Development’, January 22, 2021.