Three Regional Scholars Condemn Unilateral U.S. Embargo on Iran

By Dokhi Fassihian

At a conference entitled "Should the United States Deal with Iran?" sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, three area experts participated in a panel discussion on present U.S.-Iranian relations. They were Eric Rouleau, former French ambassador to Tunisia and Turkey and guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center; Shaul Bakhash, Robinson Professor of Middle East History at George Mason University and former Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center; and Anthony H. Cordesman, co-director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Middle East Program.

After presenting an analysis of Iranian political society and U.S. policy toward Iran, each speaker addressed the question of how the U.S. should deal with Iran. Though each participant emphasized a different aspect of the issue, all three strongly denounced present U.S. policy toward Iran.

They agreed that U.S. demonization of Iran embodied in the Clinton administration's embargo is a failure of policy-making based wholly on a domestic agenda, and that Iran is slowly, but recognizably, moving toward increased moderation and liberalization, needing only a few incentives from the West to continue on its present path. They agreed that trade and diplomacy were the only methods for reintroducing Iran to the international arena and eventually opening a dialogue with this strategically and economically important country.

Rouleau spoke first, giving detailed observations of Iranian politics and society from his recent trip. He said there is in Iran today widespread debate on Islamic interpretation, Western-style democracy and pluralism, and the betterment of relations with the United States.

"It's not taboo," said Rouleau. "People are talking about it. President Rafsanjani wants to normalize relations with the West. I didn't meet one person who was against it."

Rouleau said one mullah in Qom told him, "The regime should recognize secular parties, the National Front, and even the Tudeh." There also is open debate concerning women's rights and secularism.

Rouleau said that although Iranians with whom he spoke were not fearful of being quoted, some taboos still exist such as fear of speaking out against velayat-e-faqih (Khomeini's "rule of the jurist," which places power in the hands of religious scholars) or of specifically denouncing the chador. He was convinced, however, that since the beginning of the second republic in 1988, the revolutionary era in Iran has ended and that liberalization is taking place in the economic sphere and, to a lesser degree, the political sphere.

Rouleau said the ruling regime was forced to ease controls for three reasons. The first was the defeat in the Iran-Iraq war which was a big shock to some Iranians who felt betrayed and humiliated. "They believed they were fighting a holy war to find out later that Allah had not overcome Satan," says Rouleau. This was a blow to the legitimacy of the Islamic republic as the population became disillusioned.

Secondly, economic and social deterioration led to further dissatisfaction. Rouleau noted that the GNP is less than half of what it was before the revolution, the population has doubled, and half of it lives below the poverty line. He cited also rampant inflation with one out of three unemployed, the doubling of domestic oil prices, a loss of personal freedoms, and the difficulty of converting to a free-market economy.

Finally, Rouleau spoke of Iranian youth, who make up more than half the country's population. Nicknamed the "lost generation," they appeared to him as either totally indifferent or completely hostile to the regime. He pointed out that the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Ham-Shahri, which has the largest daily circulation in Iran, credits the newspaper's success to its non-political and non-ideological stance.

Rouleau concluded by citing U.S. policy with Syria, China, and North Korea, countries whose policies, he claimed, are as much, if not more, at odds with U.S. policy than is Iran's. "Syria harbors 15 known terrorist groups, China continues its massive human rights violations, and North Korea is much farther along in its nuclear program than Iran," said Rouleau. "But the U.S. deals with them diplomatically and successfully."

"The U.S. is in fact already dealing with Iran," said Rouleau. "But in a way which is detrimental to both Iranian and American interests. The embargo will only deprive the U.S. of the unique opportunity of reintroducing itself to the oil industry in Iran."

Rouleau predicted that the policy of containment will not destabilize the Islamic regime because, he said, sanctions alone have never toppled a government. Clinton's embargo on Iran, he maintained, might instead strengthen the hand of the hard-liners.

The former ambassador advocated a more diplomatic approach in dealing with Iran wherein the U.S. would enjoy the support of its allied G-7 countries.

Important Distinctions

Anthony Cordesman also criticized U.S. policy with Iran, emphasizing the need to distinguish between military, economic and political containment, which he claimed U.S. policy-makers had failed to do. In his view, the U.S. needs to contain Iran militarily but without blowing out of proportion the threat that really exists from Iran.

"There is a tendency to take limited indicators and let them represent a threat which is grossly out of proportion," said Cordesman.

He also cautioned U.S. officials against using misleading language. "We must be very careful when talking about military build-up because in reality Iran has lost almost 40 to 60 percent of its military force in the Iran-Iraq war," said Cordesman. "The rest of it is not just parked, but quite worn.

"No one I know in the U.S. intelligence community believes Iran to be in the middle of a 'massive build-up,'" Cordesman cautioned. "You can say it, but once in a while you need statistics to back it up."

Cordesman referred to the lack of evidence presented by the Clinton administration in denouncing Iran as a terrorist state. The U.S. State Department Report, he said, cited two acts against dissidents in which six to nine people were killed. "Six blocks south from here [in Washington, DC] is probably more of a terrorist danger zone than what Iran has managed to create," chided Cordesman.

Speaking with security officials from Bahrain, Egypt, and the Palestinian National Authority about problems in their countries, Cordesman said he heard no evidence of direct support from Iran. "All in the intelligence community are very uncertain about linkages," said Cordesman.

Nevertheless, he did not completely dismiss Iran as a threat, since he said it has one of the largest conventional forces in the world and the ability to use proxies effectively. He also believes Iran to be carrying out a military build-up, though not a massive one. Cordesman maintained that there was no doubt in his mind that Iran had passed the stage of biological research and was in the process of developing weapons.

"There is a real effort to obtain weapons of mass destruction, but it is nothing new," said Cordesman. "It was also taking place under the Shah. We don't know where the material was stored, but you track a country's intentions through what they import rather than if you can place it."

Cordesman condemned U.S. demonization of a country and of a people as wrong and ineffective. He declared present U.S. policy toward Iran to be a failed policy of economic and political containment and recommended instead a consistent policy of military containment and limited dialogue. He characterized the Iran issue as a competition in the U.S. government between both the executive and legislative branches and the Republicans and Democrats as to who can demonize Iran the most.

"The administration must get its act together and put it on white paper," he concluded. "We must get to the point where we don't generalize about issues of nuclear proliferation and terrorism."

Iranian Intricacies

Speaking last and for the shortest amount of time, Shaul Bakhash confessed that he was in agreement with both speakers, but more so with Rouleau's sharper criticism of dual containment. Bakhash spent some time, nevertheless, discussing the intricacies of Iranian society, which he partly blamed for the hostilities between the two nations.

Bakhash described Iran as a country full of contradictions, which makes it difficult to analyze and deal with. Over the past 15 years, Iran has not been consistent in its policies, he said, due to the many conflicting views which have prevailed in Iran ever since the revolution.

"The U.S. is probably as desirous of improving relations as Iran is," said Bakhash. But in order to do so, the U.S. "must be prepared to deal with Iran's contradictory behavior for a long time to come."

Bakhash agreed with Rouleau that Iran's revolution had come to an end and that it was now experiencing its "thermidor" stage of revolution. He described the Islamic regime as aware of public discontent and alienated from its constituency. He said the regime continues to make decisions based on ideology, with very little sense of the economic and political costs involved.

"Iran has very few interests in the Sudan, but continues to see itself as the spokesperson of this world-wide movement of Islamic revival," said Bakhash. He also used the example of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, claiming that compromise on this issue was impossible for Iran due to its ideological stance.

Rouleau, however, chose to disagree. No longer do Iranians and the Iranian regime claim or want to speak for the Islamic revival, said Rouleau. "The only one who still believes that is Khamenei," he joked. He added that Iranians had in fact lost credibility among many of the world's Sunni movements.

Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, Rouleau quoted a friend in Tehran as saying that the only problem Iranians have with Israel is the United States' deep involvement in the dispute, and that Iranians have never had problems with Jews in the past.

Bakhash maintained that prospects for dialogue have now become even bleaker since Clinton placed a full embargo on Iran. He professed his doubts about the likelihood of improved relations in the short run. "I feel very pessimistic about a dialogue," he said. "It seems that there are difficult barriers on the U.S. side now as well as on the Iranian side."

Although the experts were in fundamental agreement in their disdain of U.S. policy toward Iran, each represented a different outlook for future normalization of relations. Bakhash was the most pessimistic. Cordesman projected a cautious optimism, and Rouleau was clearly the most optimistic.

Dokhi Fassihian, a recent graduate in Middle East studies at George Mason University, is business manager at the Washington Report.