[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 173 (Friday, November 3, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16682-S16686]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SYMPOSIUM: UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD IRAN: FROM CONTAINMENT TO
RELENTLESS PURSUIT?
Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I am sure I know less about what is
taking place in Iran than some members of the Senate. I have followed
the news, but I have not tried to become as knowledgeable about Iran as
I am some areas of Africa and other areas of the world. I read about a
symposium in the publication Middle East Policy in which Ellen Laipson,
Director of Near East and South East Affairs from the National Security
Council, discusses the Iran situation with Prof. Gary Sick of Columbia
University, and Prof. Richard Cottam of the University of Pittsburgh.
Ms. Laipson gives an administrational line on what is taking place in
Iran. But coming from a base of limited understanding, it appears to me
that Gary Sick and Richard Cottam make a great deal of sense. What I
kept thinking, as I read the discussion, was that our attitude toward
Iran is very similar to our attitude toward Cuba. There is no question
that our Cuban policy has been counterproductive, appealing to the
national passion rather than the national interest. I have the uneasy
feeling that our policy toward Iran is the same.
I ask unanimous consent that their discussion be printed in the
Record at this point and urge my colleagues to particularly read the
discussion by Professor Sick and Professor Cottam.
The material follows:
Symposium: U.S. Policy Toward Iran: From Containment to Relentless
Pursuit?
(By Ellen Laipson, Gary Sick, Richard Cottam)
ellen laipson, director of near east and south asian affairs for the
national security council
It will come as no surprise that Iran has been a major
challenge for the Clinton administration's foreign policy.
Today's forum is well-timed, because it gives us a chance to
review the recent debate over the policy and the changes that
the president announced just about a month ago. I welcome the
chance to discuss this important issue and hear your views as
well, and to be able to bring those ideas back to the debate
that we have within the government.
We all recognize the importance of Iran in the Middle East
region--the complexity of its society, the richness of its
cultural traditions, and the very troubled history of U.S.-
Iran relations in recent years. I think no one would disagree
with the proposition that the last decade and a half has been
a difficult time in the relationship between Iran and the
United States. But it is our view that the situation we're in
today does derive from the conditions in the region and from
our efforts to protect our critical interests there.
I will divide my remarks into three simple questions.
First, what is the policy? Second, why did the president make
the changes that were announced on April 30? And, lastly,
where do we go from here?
To give you the current state of play in the policy, it's
important to note that our approach focuses on Iran's
actions--not the nature of the regime, not what they call
themselves, not the Islamic character of the regime, but the
specific actions that we have observed the Iranian government
get involved in. These include, first and foremost, their
involvement in terrorism, particularly that which undermines
the peace process in the Middle East--and their pursuit of
weapons of mass destruction. In addition, we focus a lot of
our concern on their efforts to subvert friendly governments
in the region, their unfortunate human-rights record, and
their conventional arms buildup which could, if realized,
pose real threats to small Persian Gulf states that are
friends of the United States.
At the same time, we also have to focus on the long-term
challenge from Iran--not just the actions of today, but the
potential, the capability that Iran could have, if it were to
fulfill its ambitions, particularly in the weapons area. We
are not trying to argue that today Iran poses a major
military threat to the United States, but we are working to
prevent it from doing so. We are looking at Iran's ambitions
and intentions, not just its current military capabilities.
The policy is trying to capture, on the one hand, our
efforts to address Iran's behavior today and, on the other
hand, to develop a strategy that tries to anticipate a future
Iran that would be a stronger and more formidable player in
the region. Our approach combines pressure with other
measures. We are trying to give Iran's leadership a chance to
make a strategic choice. They could change their policies in
order to serve Iran's interests, which we believe are
fundamentally, among other things, economic growth and
political stability. We think that Iran's government has the
chance to adapt its behavior in ways that would make it
conform more with international norms.
There has been no change in our policy on the question of a
dialogue. We are still willing to engage in a dialogue with
authoritative representatives of the Iranian government. We
believe that pressure and dialogue can go together. This
would be normal. By the rules of diplomacy, it would be
possible to have both.
Let me give you a little more detail on what the pressure
tactics involve, since they have recently changed. The policy
of containment, which was declared when the Clinton
administration first came to office, involves a comprehensive
series of unilateral measures and a series of multilateral
efforts as well. Until recently, the dimensions of our
economic policy towards Iran consisted of an arms ban, a ban
on dual-use technologies, a total import ban on Iranian
products coming into this country, controls on certain items
for export to Iran, and a diplomatic position of blocking all
lending to Iran from international financial institutions.
After four to five months of internal debate, the president
announced on April 30, and signed on May 6, an executive
order that is an important reinforcement or strengthening of
our policy towards Iran. He announced that, from now on, we
will prohibit all trade, financing, loans and financial
services to Iran. We will ban U.S. companies from purchasing
Iranian oil overseas, even if it is for resale overseas. And
new investment by American companies in Iran is prohibited.
The president's executive order also bans their re-export to
Iran from third countries of those goods or technologies that
are on controlled lists for direct export from the United
States to Iran. In addition, it prohibits U.S. persons and
companies from approving or facilitating transactions with
Iran by their affiliates.
The executive order does not have exterritorial application
to foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies. It does not ban
the import of informational materials from Iran. And it does
not block Iranian assets or ban private remittances to and
from Iran by private Iranian nationals.
As you can see, these are very strong, but not total,
economic measures. They form part, but not all, of our policy
effort vis-a-vis Iran. The economic pressure, in a way, has
to be seen in both the political and diplomatic context that
is our overall policy. We are working and will continue to
work hard multilaterally to make sure that the arms ban, the
limits on credit and aid, the ban on support for Iran from
international financial institutions, and cooperation with
Iran in nuclear matters continue. We have enjoyed, up until
now, what we consider to be good support from most of the
advanced Western countries in these areas, and we would like
to see more.
We initially worked within the G-7 context. But as you
know, in the past year, we have expanded our diplomatic
efforts to include Russia, China and all other potential
suppliers to Iran of these high-technology and weapons-
related items.
President Clinton and President Yeltsin last summer
announced an agreement that would involve the future ban of
all Russian arms sales to Iran. I think you will see more of
these kinds of agreements with others of Iran's would-be
suppliers.
We also have political talks with out major allies, both in
the West and in the Middle East, about Iran. These political
talks, in and of themselves, form a kind of pressure because
Iran is very aware of these discussions, and that we are
sharing information about our concerns over Iranian behavior
in these discussions. We hold the talks with the European
Union, with Canada, with Japan, with Russia, with most of our
Middle Eastern allies.
[[Page S 16683]]
In these talks, we discuss the merits of our approach--an
approach of economic pressure, and the approach of our
allies. Some of our allies prefer critical dialogue, which is
the formula that the European Union uses. Some prefer
constructive engagement, which is, I think, how the Japanese
would characterize their policy. And others would use other
formulas to describe their approach to Iran. It is true that
we all continue to believe that there's room for some
disagreement over what is the best approach to Iran. But we
are of the view that the president's recent measures have
very much caught the attention of our allies and will create
a new dynamic in our discussion on this important topic.
We also share our concerns about the long-term threat that
Iran could pose if it achieved both its conventional and its
nonconventional military objectives--the threat that it would
pose to the Persian Gulf countries, and to the region as a
whole. I believe the Middle Eastern allies, in particular,
see the American military presence in the Gulf--which most
recently has been in response to Iraqi aggression--as helpful
to sending a deterrent message to Iran.
Let me address why the change. The Clinton administration
began a review in the fall of last year that, in some ways,
was a very thoughtful assessment as we approached the
midpoint of the presidential term. We thought it was a
natural time to do an assessment of what has worked and what
hasn't, where the policy can be refined, where it can be
improved or enhanced.
We examined how Iran has responded to American policy until
now and whether Iran's behavior had changed in the areas that
we had expressed greatest concern about. We identified that,
while in some areas Iran's behavior was more or less as it
had been a few years ago, in certain areas, we thought it had
worsened. In particular, we believe that the rise in
terrorism against the Middle East peace process that began in
the fall of 1994 has some links to Iran, and is deeply
disturbing to one of our principal objectives, not only in
the region, but worldwide: the achievement of a comprehensive
peace between Israel and its neighbors.
We also saw continuing and, in some ways, accelerating
signs of Iran's efforts to procure the materials and
technology needed for a weapons-of-mass-destruction program.
So, in those two key areas, it was our judgment that the
situation was in fact getting worse and required some new
policy responses.
Second, I would cite, as a reason for the change, the
increasing challenge from our allies. They saw and told us
that they saw an inconsistency between our containment policy
and the fact that we continue to trade with Iran. That
charge--even if based on a misleading use of trade
statistics--was harmful to our efforts to maximize the
consensus among Western partners that we consider to be a key
part of our overall policy success. We feel strongly that
Iran should hear to the maximum extent possible, the same
signal from the United States that it hears from its other
Western trading partners. This would have the greatest impact
of the calculation that Iran needs to make about how its
economic interests are affected by its own policy choices.
Third, and more recently, we did witness some erosion in
the domestic consensus that we have enjoyed over our Iran
policy. We saw a domestic debate, initiated here in the halls
of Congress, over the need to pursue a tougher policy towards
Iran. Until now, I would say that we have enjoyed
considerable domestic support for containment, and we wanted
to restore that degree of support. It was our view that an
unresolved debate, questioning whether the policy was
effective enough, would limit our effectiveness in
communicating with Iran.
The administration conducted a thorough review of the
policy options, and they were debated with some vigor among
both the national-security agencies and the economic-policy
factors within the U.S. government. We tried to balance a
complex and, I think, difficult set of considerations. We
asked ourselves, how would new economic measures, new
sanctions, affect Iran's behavior? Would they affect the
Iranian government or the Iranian people? How would they
affect American competitiveness and American jobs, and how
would they affect the willingness of our allies to work with
us in a coordinated fashion on the Iran problem?
It is true that no one of the options that we considered
would maximize all of these factors. There were trade-offs.
There were policy options that made some of these issues
easier and some harder. But we took them all into account.
Let me just end with what we see as the next steps. We do
not exaggerate our chances for any quick success on the
dramatic announcement the President made on April 30. We
don't have any illusions that, overnight, Iran will stand up
and publicly say that it is changing its behavior. But we do
see a number of important signs already. We know that the
President's announcement has had an impact on Iran. And I
think those of you who follow the currency market are well
aware of the dramatic fall in the value of the rial since the
President's announcement. We know that we have the attention
of the Rafsanjani government--witness his invitation to
prominent American media to try to explain the government's
side of the story, denying charges of terrorism, denying that
there is a weapons program, etc. To me, this very much
manifests the Iranian government's concern with the
perception of its behavior that the President's announcement
has evoked.
We think this is a process, an ongoing process that will
require a lot of diplomatic engagement, a lot of hard work,
and we are certainly aware that it has had some costs to
various interests. We will have to measure our success in
careful ways. We will continue to look for the supplier
restraint that we have already created, to a certain extent,
and for some other indicators. Will Iran need to think hard
about the trade-offs between what it wants economically and
its political behavior? We certainly hope so. Will the allies
accept, now, the firmness of our resolve and our commitment
to a containment policy? Will the allies join us in similar
measures? We hope and expect to see more restraints in aid to
Iran--loans, credits--and hopefully more political
convergence in our overall approaches.
We are doing a number of things. There are intensive
diplomatic efforts leading up to the Halifax meeting [of the
G-7] that will take place next week in addition to bilateral
meetings in which the Iran question is almost inevitably
raised. We are sharing more information with our allies about
terrorism and their nuclear plans, since some countries have
said that this will be a critical factor in determining
whether they change their policies or not. We don't know
whether this is a political posture for them or if they
really mean it. But we will make the extra effort to share
with them the information that we have found so
compelling and so persuasive, and hope that they will
agree to conduct an evaluation of their own policies and
see what else is possible.
And immediately and within Washington, we are engaging with
U.S. businesses to ensure a fair and prompt implementation of
the president's executive order. We are aware that the policy
has had some costs and has inflicted some short-term
dislocations on some of our interests. The president made his
decision because he believed it was commensurate with the
threat--both in the short-term and the long-term--that Iran's
behavior poses. We hope very much that this recent decision
will enhance our ability to exercise leadership with our
allies. It has already, in part, restored the domestic
consensus over our Iran policy.
gary sick, director, gulf 2000 project and adjunct professor, columbia
university
I agree with Ellen on many points. There are aspects of
Iran's behavior that are indeed troubling and that we should
try to change. Iran's record on human rights is deplorable.
The bounty that the revolutionary organization has placed on
the head of Salman Rushdie, which amounts to an incitement to
murder, is detestable. Iran's opposition to the peace process
is a complicating factor, and if that opposition takes the
form of money, arms and training for terrorist operations, it
is unacceptable.
The same holds true for the funding of terrorist operations
in any other country. Iran's development of military
capabilities that go beyond its legitimate needs for self-
defense and which pose a potential threat to its neighbors is
both destabilizing and unhealthy. No one wants to see Iran
acquire nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction.
On these issues, there is agreement not only in this room,
I think, and in Washington, but also in the capitals of
virtually every country in the world. The question is how to
pursue these objectives, and it is on that question that I
disagree most vigorously with the policies that are being
pursued by the Clinton administration.
There are two cardinal tests, it seems to me, that should
be applied to any foreign policy initiative. First, is there
a realistic prospect that the policy will accomplish its
intended objective? Second, does it do more harm than good?
Present U.S. policy fails both of these tests.
Economic sanctions are always problematic, as we've seen in
the case of Iraq, where the entire international community is
united. But unilateral sanctions do not work. The United
States is a powerful country and arguably the sole superpower
in the world. However, it cannot impose its will on Iran
without the support of many other countries that maintain
diplomatic and commercial relations with that country. At
present, there are only two countries in the world that think
the U.S. embargo strategy is a good idea; the United States
and Israel. If you like, we can add Uzbekistan to that list.
(Laughter.)
But not one of Iran's major trading partners has indicated
a willingness to join in this embargo.
This was not a surprise. The U.S. government did not
consult in advance with any other government before the
signing of the executive order on May 6. We knew that no
other government would support it, so we didn't bother.
Although this is a form of economic warfare, we did not raise
it at the U.N. Security Council because we knew our position
would attract no support.
We took this very grave step for our own reasons in the
certain knowledge that it would not have the kind of
international support that would, in fact, make it
successful.
The United States in the past has undertaken unilateral
sanctions as a matter of principle, even when we were unable
to forge an international consensus. One example is the grain
embargo against the Soviet Union. However, in that case,
there was a triggering event: The invasion of Afghanistan.
In this
[[Page S 16684]]
case, as Ellen just pointed out, there was no triggering event.
We knew other nations would not follow our lead--in fact,
we counted on it. Although we have chosen not to purchase any
Iranian oil, we really do not want to have Iran's 2.5 million
barrels a day of exports withdrawn from the world market.
That would create chaos in the oil markets and a very
substantial increase in price that could affect our own rate
of inflation as well as that of the rest of the world.
In reality, we have been hurting Iran very, very severely
over the past several years. Oil, as you know, is denominated
in dollars, and the decline in the value of the dollar has
substantially reduced Iran's purchasing power. To put it
another way, in recent years, the real price of oil for Japan
has declined by over 70 percent because of the dollar's
decline against the yen. This has a real effect on the
Iranian economy but is inadvertent and unrelated to the
sanctions we are adopting.
One of the weaknesses of our policy is its
disproportionality. We are in the process of adopting much
more stringent sanctions against Iran than we imposed against
the Soviet Union, which was a real threat to U.S. national
security, even at the height of the Cold War.
Let me give you a couple of small examples. Against all
odds, the Coca-Cola Company managed to reestablish itself in
Iran some years ago. Local soft-drink producers in Iran were
outraged. Many of them are owned by parasitic revolutionary
so-called foundations. This, they said, was a reintroduction
of the Great Satan into Iran. Even worse, it cut into their
profits. They asked their leader for a fatwa prohibiting good
Iranians from drinking Coca-Cola, but he refused. However,
the Clinton fatwa will succeed where the hard-line
revolutionaries failed, by forcing Coca-Cola to withdraw from
the Iranian market.
Tehran is holding its annual book fair this month. Several
American publishers withdrew from the exhibition after
hearing of the executive order. Frankly, I wish Iranians had
access to American books. I think that's our loss.
Federal Express and UPS have both terminated their service
to Iran. I was planning to send some materials to a colleague
of mine in Iran, a political scientist, about a conference
that we have planned, and I'm now going to have to find some
other way to do it.
Can I subscribe to an Iranian journal or newspaper, or is
that trade with Iran?
Although the executive order is not intended to interfere
with normal academic contacts and freedom of expression, it's
going to have a chilling effect in many little ways. It will
impede or interrupt our few existing channels of reliable
information about what is being said and though and done in
Iran, and we need that information.
Our policy is also based on some false premises. I was
struck by Secretary [of State Warren] Christopher's recent
statement to an interviewer. He said, ``We must isolate Iraq
and Iran until there is a change in their government, a
change in their leadership.''
That statement recalls a very similar comment made by
Defense Secretary [Casper] Weinberger some years ago, when he
said, ``There must be a totally different kind of government
in Iran, because we cannot deal with the irrational,
fanatical government of the kind they now have.''
These offhand comments, calling, in effect, for the
overthrow of the government, seem more consistent with
U.S. actions and the reality of U.S. policy than the
repeated official assurances that we heard this morning
that we accept the Iranian revolution as a fact and that
it is not our objective to try to overthrow it. The voices
of our leaders suggest otherwise, at least when they are
caught off guard.
Our policies do make Iran's life more difficult in many
ways, but the notion that we're going to drive it into
bankruptcy and thereby bring down the Islamic government are
romantic and infantile pipe dreams. The Iranian government is
under great stress due to its own mismanagement of its
economy. About one-third of Iran's oil revenues this year
will go to pay off its creditors as a result of a consumer
import binge following the end of the Iran-Iraq War.
Iranians are dissatisfied with the economy and they are not
shy about making their views known. There will be change, but
it will take the shape of reforms to the existing system, not
of collapse or overthrow. There is no viable political
alternative to the present system. We may not like this
regime, but we're going to have to live with it. We are not
going to bring it down by an act of self-flagellation.
Our policy of demonizing Iran has affected our own
credibility in a number of areas. For example, the recent
State Department report on international terrorism in 1994
states that Iran is still the most active state sponsor of
international terrorism. But if you read the report--and I
have read it now three or four times--it is remarkably silent
on evidence.
When Secretary Christopher recently claimed that Iran was
responsible for the bombing of the Argentine-Israel Mutual
Association in Buenos Aires last July, the Argentine foreign
minister immediately wrote a letter to Christopher asking him
for any verification or evidence that he had, but he said to
reporters at the same time that he wrote the letter, ``We do
not expect any news. There is no more information now than
there was in December.'' There have been no arrests. The
principal U.S. source, who was a paid informant of the CIA,
has been discredited, and the Argentine government is
resuming normal relations with Iran.
There are other major flaws in the terrorism report that in
some respects, make it more of a propaganda tract than a
serious statement of fact. The United States is reportedly
spending $4 million on a propaganda campaign designed to
destabilize Iran. It's one thing to conduct propaganda
against another state, but there is a real danger if we start
believing it ourselves.
The nuclear issue is simple. We do not want Iran to get the
bomb, and on that we are joined by virtually every government
in the world, notably including Russia, which does not want
to see the emergency of a nuclear-weapons state on its
southern borders. Again, the question is not the goal, but,
rather, how we get there from here.
The United States, in my view, has manufactured an
unnecessary crisis by focusing its attention on the sale of
nuclear power stations to Iran. Granted, all of us might
prefer to see Iran completely devoid of any nuclear
infrastructure, but we have diluted our moral and political
authority by attempting to deny to Iran a right that is
enshrined in the very terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty [NPT] that we just recently fought so hard and
successfully to sustain.
The NPT explicitly promises in Article IV that states in
compliance with the treaty will have access to peaceful
nuclear technology. Iran is in compliance. The power stations
that Iran is buying from Russia and China are no different
from those we are offering free to North Korea in order to
gain their compliance with the NPT.
Our decision to focus on the sale of power stations is a
case of superpower swagger. We suggest that the rules of
international law apply only when we say they apply. That
attitude is not popular even among those states which have
good reason to fear Iran.
I believe that one of the reasons Iran is seeking nuclear
power stations is as part of a broader effort to develop a
nuclear infrastructure that would permit it to build a
nuclear weapon. Iran fought a bloody eight-year war with
Iraq, and I am sure that they were just as shocked as we were
to discover how close Saddam Hussein had come to having a
nuclear weapon, especially knowing that it most likely would
have been used on them, just as chemical weapons were.
They may also have the mistaken notion that nuclear weapons
will provide some form of insurance against superpower
intervention, having watched Iraq go down to defeat with such
apparent ease after they themselves had been beaten on the
battlefield by that same army. The Iranians almost certainly
wish to shorten the time required to build their own weapon
if they see the threat again emerging on one of their
borders.
It's worth noting in passing that we should be careful
about using the argument that Iran does not need nuclear
power because it has so much oil and gas. The two are really
not mutually exclusive. Russia has the greatest gas reserves
in the world. It also has the largest nuclear power industry
in the world.
In reality, Iran is currently short of gas. Every bit of
Iran's gas is being used domestically, and there is no
surplus. It is also, increasingly, short of energy. Its
domestic needs for electricity and heating are increasing
faster than it can produce them.
In addition to nuclear power, which may be a silly
solution, Iran is involved in major efforts to develop wind
power, thermal power and hydroelectric power. I would note in
passing that the Japanese loans that we are arguing so hard
to try to stop are for a dam on the Karun River in the south
that is designed to produce hydroelectric power.
The Conoco deal that we were so outraged about and
interfered with was an attempt to develop a gas field in the
south that would increase their supply of gas. I argue that
we are shooting ourselves in the foot repeatedly. Our recent
policies have tended to thwart Iran's development of non-
nuclear alternative energy sources.
But these facts, regardless of one's interpretation, are
not an argument for complacency about the nuclear issue.
Instead, in my view, our policy should focus on the central
issue of nuclear-weapons development. A sensible U.S. policy
should have the following objectives: First, we and our
allies and all prospective nuclear suppliers should convince
Iran to renounce technologies that provide direct access to
weapons fuel, specifically enrichment. That, of course,
includes centrifuge technology and reprocessing.
To that end, we should pressure Russia to reaffirm its
adherence to the nuclear suppliers' guidelines which go
beyond the NPT in restricting export of these two dangerous
technologies. We should also do everything in our power to
tighten the international regime, the successor to COCOM, to
prevent sale of long-range delivery systems which could be
used with nuclear weapons.
Second, any training of Iranians should be limited to what
it takes to operate a reactor, rather than providing broad
access to nuclear technology.
Third, we should insist on clear-cut agreements about the
disposal of spent fuel from the reactors. Iran has said that
it would return the nuclear waste to Russia, but we need to
ensure that there are safeguards at every stage to ensure
that both the fuel is returned and that Iran exercises no
control over that fuel once it has been returned--
[[Page S 16685]]
again, a crucial point, and something that can be done in the
agreements that Russia is signing with Iran.
Finally, we should take Iran at its word that it will
permit frequent and intrusive inspections by the IAEA
[International Atomic Energy Agency] on demand and with
little or no advance notice. That should be an absolute
condition of any continuing nuclear power assistance which
Iran will require for the next decade or more. I would also
add that might be useful to explore this idea that's been
raised recently by the United Nations Association of a
nuclear rapporteur who would conduct independent
investigations to explore evidence of nuclear-weapons
development around the world and report directly to the
Security Council.
All of these steps are things that we could do, and a
negotiating package that is composed of these elements and
perhaps others of a more technical nature would be greeted by
understanding and sympathy by most if not all of our friends
and allies. It is consistent with international law and is in
the immediate national interests of potential nuclear
suppliers themselves. In short, it offers what our present
policy does not: a workable strategy to achieve our most
important objectives.
Our present policy is not really a strategy, since it lacks
a definable endgame. It rails against Iran's behavior, but
really doesn't offer anything like a credible roadmap for
changing it. And pious hopes that Iran is suddenly going to
change its spots really don't suffice, especially when we're
making such stringent efforts as we are.
So, in closing, let me suggest a five-point framework for
U.S. policy. I do so in the full understanding that any such
suggestions are probably fated to fall on deaf ears in the
present political climate in Washington.
First, we should cool the rhetoric for a while. At times
lately, we have sounded more shrill and ideological than the
ayatollahs. Let's put the thesaurus aside for a while. We
don't need any more synonyms for rogue, outlaw, or even
backlash, whatever that means.
Second, let's take some time to get our priorities
straight. Iran may be bad, but it's not all bad, and some of
the actions are worse than others. If the nuclear issue is at
the top of our agenda, and that's where I think it should be,
let's put together a strategy that addresses the central
issues, rather than painting everything with the same brush.
Third, let's begin to develop a strategy that engages our
allies and lets us work with them, instead of bullying them
and ignoring their own legitimate interests. Despite what
Ellen said, I think that's what we've been doing.
Fourth, we should adopt a policy of selective neglect. When
we disagree with Iran or find its behavior outrageous and
unacceptable, we should say so, but where we see improvement
in their policies--and there are, in fact, areas of
improvement that we could talk about--we should not be afraid
to acknowledge them or at least to remain silent. Distorting
the truth in the pursuit of a policy is demeaning to us as a
nation and ultimately self-defeating.
Finally, we should apply the Waco test. Yes, we have over
there what we perceive as an encampment of religious
extremists. They propound ideas that offend us. They are
armed, and they may represent a danger to the neighborhood.
But we should never forget that no matter how bad it is, our
policies, if misconceived, can make it worse for everyone
concerned.
RICHARD COTTAM, university professor of political science emeritus,
University of Pittsburgh
I want to talk about two things primarily: one, the long-
run trends in Iran; two, Iranian intentions, as I see them.
I want to begin with something you all remember but I think
need to be reminded of and that is in December of 1978, on a
religious holiday, eight million people, journalists tell
us, demonstrated in Iran against that shah's regime. That
would be one out of every five, even though they knew that
attack helicopters could be used against them. Two months
later, the revolution was successful. It was without
question, I think, the greatest populist revolution in
human history.
In days following that revolution it began to unravel, and
the liberal element, which was very important in the
directorship of the revolution itself, began to desert or to
be regurgitated. A terrible process began to take place that
we haven't noted enough the development, wherever resurgent
Islam appears, of a polarization of the populations with two
sections of people, one religious and one secular, starting
to dislike each other to a point of intensity that is almost
genocidal. It takes place everywhere. In a better world, what
we on the outside should want to do is to try to bring about
some kind of reconciliation of these forces. Strangely
enough, our policy in Algeria seems to show slight signs of
doing exactly that.
Within a year of the revolution, the polarization was
pretty well complete in Iran. There was a regime pole, which
I would estimate, for what it's worth, at about 20 percent of
the population. And that pole followed Khomeini's great
leadership (that was their view of him). And within that
group there were two major factions or tendencies as they
called them, one you could call reform and one revolutionary.
Khomeini's decisional style was such that he didn't allow
either of these factions really to win and consolidate.
The result was that within the bureaucracy itself, many
bureaucrats reported to very different elements in the
revolutionary elite. Although there has been some
consolidation of control, this is still a phenomenon and
probably has a lot to do with explaining the assassinations
of Iranian dissidents abroad.
An intransigent opposition developed that looked almost
exclusively to the United States for salvation. And then
there appeared the phenomenon of a substantial majority of
the Iranians--a large acquiescing and accommodating majority
of the country--who saw no alternative to the regime,
accepted it and wanted to go on with their lives.
Fifteen years later, the change is very substantial. The
radical leadership has been defeated. It was rather
decisively defeated, although remnants, I believe, still are
in the bureaucracy. Its support base has shrunk even further,
I'm not allowed in Iran, one of the few Americans who is not
acceptable there. But people whom I respect who go all the
time have estimated that between 15 and 1.5 percent of the
population really supports the regime. It's a very
dangerously low level of support. I agree with Gary Sick that
it's not likely that there will be any kind of revolution.
But what is possible with this level of support is a
spontaneous uprising against a miserable economic situation
which could get out of control and go to something
unpredictable.
I think the major failing, though, of the regime has been
its failure to recruit a significant section of the
intelligentsia. The revolution has lost its vitality. It is
now a revolution striving to survive. [Ali] Khamenei, the
supreme leader of Iran is, a sincere advocate of the Islamic
movement, but he did participate in the defeat of the radical
element. And the president, [Ali Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani,
is, I believe, a realistic individual who's very interested
in reconciliation and would move far in the direction of
bringing people together if he had the latitude to do that.
The intransigent opposition, I think, can be largely
disregarded. It's important in the expatriate community, but
it seems to have virtually no real meaning within Iran
itself. Center stage today is held by the accommodationists
and the acquiescers. This is now a huge majority that
dominates the universities to a striking extent, both
faculty and student body. It dominates the progressive
element of the economic community. It's omnipresent even
in the bureaucracy and in the professions. It therefore
has created a picture that is very different from what
we've seen in the past and one that we should take
seriously into account.
This large majority grants the regime very little
legitimacy and in the past has been unwilling even to explore
the possibility of engaging it and becoming part of the
system. It is right now showing signs of a willingness to do
that. The Freedom Front, for instance, has openly told
American reporters that it's thinking of running for
parliament in the elections. They certainly believe the
liberalization process and the growth of pluralism are a real
possibility in Iran.
In foreign policy, this group is very different from the
regime. It has no interest in messianic Islam. It isn't
interested in the peace process or the Arab-Israeli dispute.
There is very little support from this large majority of the
Iranian people for an activist policy in support of what we
think the Iranian government is up to. I think this is a fact
that is extremely important.
This majority is, however, extremely nationalistic. And
those barren islands [Abu Musa and the Tunbs] sitting in the
Gulf are more important to it than any of these other issues
I've mentioned. We could easily offend this very
nationalistic element of the population. It yearns for
rapprochement with the United States and for a return to the
international system. It doesn't like to be a pariah state.
It wants to interact. it wants to become prosperous. It's
deeply disappointed in U.S. hostility, finding it
increasingly bemusing.
To return to the question of the regime's intentions,
first, I would say, is to position itself favorably in the
global economic system. A good competitive position for its
oil is vital for the survival of the regime itself. I believe
it will make that its first priority in its foreign policy.
Second, this regime believes that America, collaborating
with Israel, is ineluctably hegemonic in its ambitions. The
Iranian regime feels terribly threatened and believes that
the danger is from us. When it thinks in terms of arming
itself, it's almost pathetic. It can't seriously think in
terms of deterring us if we took it on directly. It can only
think in terms of deterring our puppets, as they see it, who
might attack them.
The most difficult part for me in making this case to you,
I believe, is this point: that as far as Islam is concerned,
the regime has stopped talking about becoming the great
leaders of an Islamic state. The imam of the umah was the
title for Khomeini, the leader of the entire community of
believers. In its place there is a much more defensive
concern.
I don't mean to understate the importance of Islam for this
regime. There are four external communities that it is
particularly interested in helping, Islamic communities
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that it sees as under attack. These are the Shia communities of Iraq
and Lebanon, the Palestinians and the Bosnian Muslims. It
sees its support for all four of these as an integral part of
the same policy.
It understands that some of these groups resort to the
tactics of terror, but I have not seen evidence to indicate
that Iran ever pinpoints any appropriations, any money that
it gives, for that purpose. It would trivialize the
communities we're talking about to assume so. Iran does not
see itself as supporting terrorism. It sees itself as
supporting regimes that are fighting for their lives or for
the return of their property, of their territory. And it's a
sincere belief. They are bemused, again, by our depicting all
of this as support for terrorism.
I want to quickly give Iran's rationale for opposing the
peace process because I think it is underestimated and
misunderstood. It's not an irrational position. They argue
thus: one, the Arab-Israeli conflict is obviously highly
asymmetrical, and that asymmetry in Israel's favor is
declining. The reason for this is the appearance of major
popular movements. Hezbollah and the intifada in
particular, have improved the overall power picture in the
relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. Given
this favorable trend, this is the wrong time for peace
negotiations.
Second, the negotiations are being mentored by Israel's
protector, a country that promises the Israelis eternal
superiority in dealing with the Arabs. This adds to the
asymmetry and is not a format that the Iranians think they
would like to participate in.
Third, there has been no effort in this major movement to
deal explicitly with Islamic spokesmen in a process that
affects their lives intensely. This seems to indicate that
this large and vital movement is to be disregarded. Iran's
position, therefore, I believe, is exactly the same as the
position of resurgent Islam everywhere, and it isn't one they
can just bargain away. That's not a possibility for them.
They believe that even if there is a resolution between
Israel and the Palestinians, it will not last, because too
much of the population has been disregarded in the process.
At the same time, if you look in terms of man hours spent
on diplomacy, Iran is expending extremely little effort in
opposing the process. It has, in effect, said that if [Syrian
president Hafiz al-] Asad makes an agreement with the
Israelis, it will think it's a mistake, but it will go along
with the agreement.
I need to spend also just a minute on a very big subject
which Gary Sick has talked about: nuclear weaponry. I do not
believe the United States has seriously addressed the problem
of Iran, the Arab states and many other countries in the
world on this issue. There are many states that believe they
may someday be given a nuclear ultimatum with no possibility
of support from another nuclear power.
In the Middle East, the nuclear power that they expect the
ultimatum from is Israel. And no one in that area believes
for one second that the United States or any other nuclear
power would help them if Israel were to issue an ultimatum.
Consequently, since they think this is a realistic scenario,
they are going to try to defend themselves against it. I
think they have done very, very little in that direction so
far. They've made clear that they want a nuclear-free zone in
the area, but I would assume that any Iranian government,
including a future Iranian nationalist government, would have
to develop nuclear weapons unless this point is dealt with by
the international community. I do not believe we have been
serious on this issue at its most fundamental level.
In summary, then, I'm arguing that the United States has
misread Iran's intentions. Much more seriously, it has
misread basic fundamental trends in Iran, most of which are
favorable to American goals, and is taking actions that are
likely to reverse those trends. The worst case in my view is
for American policy ultimately to so anger Iranian
nationalists that they will become as hostile to the United
States as Iranian nationalists were under the shah's regime.
Therefore, the policy that I would prefer is the policy Gary
Sick calls ``playing it cool.''
I don't think dialogue means much at all. There are too
many misperceptions of each other's intentions. To have
people who totally misunderstand each other talking doesn't
seem likely to produce much. But let's just stop punishing
Iran gratuitously and allow trends that are moving in the
direction of a real change in the area to proceed as they're
proceeding.
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