Iran Specialists Critique U.S. Policy

By Mike Mansoor

President Bill Clinton's May 1 executive order outlawing all U.S. trade with Iran further complicates the already enigmatic nature of U.S.-Iranian relations since 1979. While Clinton's action has been described by some as a pre-emptive move to stave off a draft congressional bill containing even stronger sanctions being prepared by Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-NY), it also has been criticized as essentially ineffectual. Only three days before Clinton announced his ban in a speech before a World Jewish Congress meeting in New York, a conference was held in Washington, DC to analyze the nature of the U.S.-Iranian relationship.

The April 27-28 conference, sponsored by a coalition of U.S. universities and private corporations, was entitled "Revisiting Iran's Strategic Significance in the Emerging Regional World Order." It provided a forum for some of America's well-known Iran specialists to express their opinions on U.S. policy toward Iran. Not only the views themselves, but the fact that they were presented in Washington, DC when current U.S. policy toward Iran is under review, made the conference particularly significant.

Three Main Issues

Three main issues were presented as the focus of U.S. dissatisfaction with Iran: the threat of nuclear weapons development in Iran, the buildup of conventional weapons by Iran, and Iran's refusal to endorse the Oslo agreement signed between Israel and the PLO last September.

Participants in the conference disagreed over the real military threat posed by Iran in the Gulf. While Geoffrey Kemp, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and National Security Council deputy Middle East adviser during President Ronald Reagan's first term, believed that Iran's threat to Gulf security and the extent of conventional arms buildup by Iran in real terms is exaggerated, he argued that the U.S. has legitimate concerns about the extent of Iran's military and nuclear threat five or ten years down the road. Gary Sick, National Security Council deputy Middle East adviser in President Jimmy Carter's administration, argued that Iran is not building nuclear weapons or increasing its conventional weapon stockpiles any faster than its neighbors. Iran does not present any "clear and present danger," and any fears to the contrary should not be allowed to harden U.S. policy toward Iran.

Regarding Gulf security, there was general agreement among participants that control over the Tunb islands is basically a "non-issue." In fact, one participant declared, Iran is probably the most stable of all the countries bordering the Persian Gulf. If the U.S. is concerned about domestic volatility, or the breakdown of the status quo in the Gulf, it should look elsewhere.

Iran's failure to endorse the Oslo agreement was cited as the issue which most disturbs the United States. Sick argued that the U.S. policy in the Middle East is entirely subordinated to the issue of the peace process. By coming out against the recent Israeli/Palestinian accord, therefore, Iran placed itself at loggerheads with the primary drive of U.S. Middle East policy. It is this position of Iran's, more than any other, he argued, that creates animosity between the two nations.

Iran's failure to endorse the Oslo agreement most disturbs the United States.

Why does Iran oppose the recent peace agreement? While some participants suggested that Iran is concerned that the agreement fails to satisfy the Palestinians' needs, this motivation was dismissed by others as essentially illusory. Rather, as Vahan Zanoyan, senior director of the U.S. Petroleum Finance Company argued, there is no good reason for Iran to oppose the peace agreement. Sick and Zanoyan agreed that Iran has persistently and consistently been its own worst enemy, never missing an opportunity to antagonize the U.S.

The real impediment to a normalization of U.S.-Iranian relations is mistaken assumptions and misguided, inconsistent policies carried out by both governments, Zanoyan said. Since the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, the parameters of world politics have changed dramatically. Iran is playing and will certainly continue to play an important role in the Middle East. In addition to vast oil and natural gas reserves, Iran's geopolitical situation makes it critical in any equation concerning Gulf security. Equally significant, Iran is poised to play a major role in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

Many participants warned that the real unknown variable in the region was Russia, and that it is too soon to predict the nature of U.S.-Russian cooperation, or lack thereof, in the Middle East. Indeed, U.S. dual-containment policy has weakened the U.S. vis-â-vis Russia in Central Asia and, in Zanoyan's view, endangered U.S. long-term interests in the region.

Fereidun Fesharaki, director of programs on resources at the East-West Center in Hawaii, and Zanoyan both pointed out that as demand for oil escalates in Asia, Iran inevitably will turn eastward in its search for economic, financial and commercial markets. Since Iran is in no way dependent on U.S. oil purchases, it will be unaffected by any U.S. boycott of Iran. Furthermore, Zanoyan attributes the U.S. policy of "dual-containment" of Iran as having paved the way toward Iran's alliances with Russia, China and India. What is the benefit to the U.S., Zanoyan asked, of a policy which not only alienates the U.S. from Iran, but which actually accelerates Iran's search for ties to other, Eastern powers?

Iran's domestic situation also has undergone important transformations in the last decade. Hooshang Amirahmadi, professor of planning and international development at Rutgers University, described how, increasingly, Iranian society and government are looking beyond a purely Islamic identity, to a more nationalistic, Iranian emphasis. He predicts that, eventually, the role of religion in government (though not society) will be reduced, and that a healthy civil society with strong non-governmental organizations will re-emerge, despite its destruction in the 1979 revolution. Amirahmadi assured the audience that Iranian Prime Minister Hashemi Rafsanjani not only is firmly in control of the government, but that he is in the process of eliminating other, competing sources of power in what has been a fairly decentralized governmental structure.

Sick, too, emphasized the changing nature of Iranian government and identity. He argued that national interest is replacing revolutionary ideology as the driving force in Iranian domestic as well as foreign policy. "The revolution is over," Sick declared, adding that economic and financial concerns dramatically outweigh ideology in the formation of current Iranian policy. With the re-emergence of politics based on national interest, Sick explained, it is possible to conduct a rational dialogue with Iran.

The real impediments to a U.S.-Iranian dialogue, according to Sick, have been mutual misperceptions. Iran thus far has failed to resolve completely its identity crisis. In seeking to retain its revolutionary image, it goes so far as to accept responsibility for affronts to the U.S. which it did not commit.

On the other hand, U.S. policy toward Iran is absolutist and intransigent, and based on the mistaken assumption that Iran is incapable of change. After years of pursuing a failed policy of searching for moderates within the Iranian government, the U.S. renounced the possibility of dialogue with Iran. Why, Sick asks, if the U.S. declares itself interested in change in Iran, has it steadfastly refused to offer inducements toward that goal, or to engage in serious bargaining, as it has with other "rogue" states such as North Korea?

In concert with all the other participants, Sick denounced the U.S. State Department's refusal to let top Iranian officials participate in the conference. It was the perfect opportunity, he insisted, for a resumption of dialogue. And, as others pointed out, the Iranian delegates would inevitably have done more listening than talking. In short, both Iran and the U.S. are guilty of giving off mixed signals toward each other, and of intransigence for ideological reasons.

Whereas Sick and Amirahmadi convincingly argued for the mutual benefit to the U.S. and Iran of dialogue, Zanoyan made an equally convincing case for simply ignoring each other. In an address he had prepared for debate with the Iranian representatives refused admittance to the conference, Zanoyan asked rhetorically, "Why does Iran insist on remaining its own worst enemy?"

The only reason the U.S. policy of dual containment has had any effect at all, Zanoyan argued, was because Iran never fails to provide ammunition for an anti-Iranian stance by the U.S. He went on to accuse the Iranian government of inexcusable incompetence and lack of vision in failing to address Iran's severe economic difficulties. Zanoyan proposed to Iran that it ignore the U.S.: "Why bother trying to dialogue when it is obviously destructive? Ignore each other." As proposed by Edward Royce of the U.S. Information Agency's Voice of America, "Let's have a moratorium on insult," and then proceed to resolve the problem.

While participants differed on the viability and need of U.S.-Iran dialogue, all agreed that the U.S. dual-containment policy and the imposition of further sanctions will be ineffectual in hurting Iran economically. Nor will the policy result in a weakened regime. As Zanoyan and others pointed out, Iran is probably the most stable of the countries in the area. More importantly for U.S. interests, by following such a short-sighted policy, the U.S. will endanger its long-term influence over the Gulf and Central Asia.

Mike Mansoor is a student in Iranian studies living in Washington, DC.