Iran Crackdown Harms U.S. Interests And Delays Reform In Iran

By Dokhi Fassihian

The Clinton administration's policy of attempting to further isolate Iran in the international arena will serve no such purpose, but instead will isolate the U.S. from the existing trends in world trade and from moderate, reformist elements taking hold in Iran. In its attempt to beat congressional Republicans to the punch, the Democratic administration will implement a policy which will have no significant impact on Tehran, but is instead intended to score points among the American public in the upcoming presidential election. This domestically driven agenda, however, is not in accordance with real American foreign policy interests for two reasons.

First, without the guaranteed participation in and commitment to this effort by the international community, the U.S. will only be launching another war of rhetoric that places American business in a disadvantageous position. As for Iran, it will continue to follow its own foreign policy agenda as in the past. It will seek nuclear material from those countries willing to supply, it will sell its oil to those companies willing to buy, and it will continue to destabilize the region through those terrorist groups willing to comply.

Second, in its decision to ignore the silent and subtle trend toward liberal reform taking place in Iran today, the Clinton administration will fail once again to embrace those moderate elements struggling to establish a liberal democracy in Iran.

Iranian foreign relations within the Middle East and with Western Europe and the Far East presently are better than at any time since the Iranian revolution. Iran most likely will have no difficulty finding trading partners. And despite the administration's claims that Iran is an outlaw nation actively supporting international terrorism and in hot pursuit of nuclear capability, many of these nations will judge otherwise, concluding that Iran poses no immediate threat and has broken no international laws. These nations will argue that in its effort to obtain nuclear capability, Iran has behaved in no strikingly different way than other developing nations seeking the same goal. In fact, Iran has been in full compliance with United Nations resolutions on nuclear proliferation.

Iran experiences one of the most lively parliaments in the Middle East.

Ironically, the one recent Iranian policy not in accordance with U.N. resolutions, the arming of Bosnian Muslims, has received encouragement from U.S. officials who claim that they, themselves, are not in a position to arm the Muslims, but obviously welcome Iran's decision to do so.

Many in the international community have recognized Iran not as the radical Islamic state of the past but as a current arena for the immensely important debate on Islam's role in the modern world. Although the U.S. media have recently begun to report some of the current cultural and political realities taking place inside Iran, these observations are conspicuously missing from official U.S. analyses.

Today, prominent Islamic reform scholars who openly call for the separation of church and state, such as Abdul Karim Soroush, are not only tolerated but privately encouraged by elements within the current Iranian regime. Such dissenters are allowed to travel freely and to teach and write both inside and outside the country. The Iranian press permits limited debate and some opposition views to be expressed. Iran experiences one of the most lively parliaments and is probably the most democratic country (with the exception of Turkey) in the Middle East.

In addition, there is a clear trend toward privatization of the economy, toward increased personal security, the revival of the Iranian political and cultural intelligentsia, and the recent re-identification with and embrace of Persian identity and feelings of nationalism. In short, Iran is experiencing, however slowly, a trend toward liberal democratic reform of its own kind. It can no longer be considered an Islamic state, but rather a political battleground for the ongoing Muslim debate over Islam's future in a modern, democratic world.

Nevertheless, in the interests of domestic political gains the Clinton administration has chosen not to recognize or publicly assess these important reform trends taking place in Iran. In a country of great strategic and economic importance to the U.S., one might assume these developments to be welcomed by the U.S. government. But any rush to establish influence through the opening of limited dialogue and expanded trade is noticeably absent.

The U.S. policy will serve neither to guide that country's slow process of liberalization, nor change the conduct of Iran's rulers. What it will do is temporarily set back U.S. interests in the region, and may delay the inevitable process of reform in Iran.

Dokhi Fassihian is a 1995 graduate in Middle Eastern Studies at George Mason University in Northern Virginia.