The U.S. and Iran: Time for a new policy?

July 22, 2004

by Robert Nolan

While the relationship between the United States and Iran has been contentious at best since hard line Islamic mullahs seized control of Tehran in 1979 and formal diplomatic relations abruptly ceased, a number of recent events have prompted calls for a renewed examination of U.S. policy toward Iran. Revelations of possible Iranian links with al Qaeda operatives, the release of a highly-publicized Council on Foreign Relations report on U.S.-Iranian relations and the rising threat of a nuclear-armed Tehran have all provided fodder for pundits across the political spectrum, many who say that a piece-meal approach to Iran is no longer viable. Though the theocratic state, which borders American nation-building projects in Iraq and Afghanistan, has posed a unique policy challenge for every American administration of the past 25 years, the culmination of terrorist activity and nuclear proliferation in a region with a heavy American presence will make U.S. relations with Iran an inescapable issue for whoever sits in the White House come January, 2005.

Al-Qaeda Connection?

This week's release of the final report by the Sept. 11 commission established to investigate the 2001 attacks revealed that so-called al Qaeda “muscle” operatives – those who forcefully obtained control of the hijacked aircrafts before flying them into pre-determined targets – had been given free passage into and through Iran from the fall of 2000 until February 2001.

The link, first reported by Time and Newsweek, is based on information obtained by U.S. officials during interrogations with al Qaeda captives, and according to Newsweek “raises new questions about whether some Iranian security officials may have been actively assisting al Qaeda operatives while they were traveling through their country.” According to the reports, Iranian border guards may have been instructed not to stamp the passports of the operatives, since such a stamp would obviously draw the suspicion of American immigration officials when the perpetrators later attempted to enter the United States -- and could also clear Tehran of any complicity in the future.

Such revelations back an earlier statement by 9/11 commission chairman Thomas Kean that, “there were a lot more active [al Qaeda] contacts, frankly, with Iran and Pakistan, than there were with Iraq.” Similar observations were offered by former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke. “There were lots of reasons to believe that [al Qaeda] was being facilitated by elements of the Iranian security services,” he told Newsweek. “The best evidence we had of state support [for al Qaeda] was Iran.”

How active and official those ties were, however, remains unknown. Analysts at Strategic Forecasting note that the relationship that existed between al Qaeda and Iran was one that the international terrorist group had with several Islamic nations. “This was al Qaeda's strategy: forge relationships with governments or officials in every country that might be of use without becoming dependent on any of them,” they write. “Iran, for its part, had a policy of maintaining links with all radical Islamist groups, providing aid where appropriate to Iranian national interest.” An unnamed intelligence official quoted in the Los Angeles Times voiced a similar opinion. Islamic jihadists, he said, “routinely were allowed to transit Iran without being impeded or without being questioned carefully or without having their documents marked in any way.” The official added that “this was not unique to al Qaeda.”

Iranian leaders, who recently handed over a top associate of Osama bin Laden to Saudi officials and claim to have arrested hundreds of al Qaeda operatives, predictably disavowed any ties to al Qaeda. They were also quick to note that the 9/11 perpetrators were trained in the U.S., and even issued visas by the American immigration service. “It is not surprising that a few individuals may have crossed Iran's porous borders illegally. The ridiculous thing is that the U.S. is making such an allegation,” an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman told the Tehran Times, adding that, “In dealing with al Qaeda elements, absolutely, we consider our national interests.”

Nuclear Proliferation

The charges come at a time when the U.S. is stepping up its pressure on the Islamic regime to halt what many believe to be an ongoing pursuit of nuclear weapons. “It is widely assumed that Tehran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian program,” said a report in the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram. “Iranian leaders got together after the Iraq war and decided that the reason North Korea was not attacked was because it had the bomb. Iraq was attacked because it did not,” a Western diplomat told Reuters this week.

As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is subject to UN inspections under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). So far, inspections have been plagued by a lack of cooperation, according to an article by Paul Kerr in Arms Control Today. “In its October agreement,” Kerr writes, “Iran promised to cooperate fully with the IAEA's investigation. Tehran then provided the IAEA with what it said was a complete account of its nuclear activities. The next month, the board adopted a resolution welcoming this decision, but the agency has since learned that Iran was not fully forthcoming about all of its nuclear activities. These revelations led the board to adopt another resolution in March calling on Iran to accelerate its cooperation with the IAEA.” Iran's response to IAEA inspections also dealt a blow to European diplomats who advocate greater dialog with Tehran.

The erratic behavior has increasingly frustrated American officials, who are loath to return to the kind of cat-and-mouse diplomacy reminiscent of Iraq under Saddam Hussein. John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, has called the Iranian program a “threat to international peace and security,” and former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft said the U.S. is “in a critical moment” regarding the program's rapid development. In language all too familiar to those who followed the run-up to the American-led war on Iraq, one international diplomat told the New York Times last week that “We all think the American assessment is probably right, because there is no other explanation for the Iranian activities,” adding that there was still no “smoking gun.”

In response, the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a resolution authorizing the use of “all appropriate means” to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon by a vote of 376 to 3, according to the Washington Post. The Senate is expected to take up the issue when it reconvenes in September. The more likely course, however, will be for the U.S. to pressure the IAEA to bring the case to the UN Security Council, where stronger sanctions and other punitive actions can be taken against the regime.

Shaping a New Policy

The new challenges emerging out of Iran, due largely to the changing geopolitical realities of the region, have prompted calls for a more comprehensive U.S. policy. Though the threat of terrorism and proliferation are issues that continue to dominate U.S. foreign policy around the globe, American and Iranian interests are also converging in ways that were unthinkable before the arrival of U.S. forces in the region. Since September 11, the U.S. and Iran have been engaged in a kind of covert dialog, and some insist that without at least minimal Iranian cooperation, the situation in both Afghanistan and Iraq could be much worse.

“Finding the right strategy for dealing with an Iran that has nuclear ambitions and terrorist capabilities won't be easy,” writes the Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. “But Iranians and Americans who were involved in the dialogue of the past several years remain convinced that the only answer is a "grand bargain" that builds on the two countries' shared interests - and seeks to satisfy each country's security concerns.”

That sentiment was partially echoed in a Council on Foreign Relations report released this week, spearheaded by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and former Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates. The report states that it “is in the interests of the United States to engage selectively with Iran to promote regional stability, dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons, preserve reliable energy supplies, reduce the threat of terror, and address the democracy deficit that pervades the Middle East as a whole.”

Some experts, however, question the feasibility of such a dialog. “The question remains whether the Iranian state, given its very nature and the increasing influence of the conservatives, is able to respond to a call for dialog,” said Daniel Brumberg, an Iran expert at Georgetown University, in a Christian Science Monitor report. Hard line conservatives in Iran regained much of their power in recent elections, dealing a blow to strides made by the nation's reformers and rapidly spreading youth movement. Such fluctuations make a comprehensive American policy even more difficult to achieve.

“In the cases like relations with the U.S., it is not solely the [Iranian] government that can make decisions,” said Mohammad Ali Abtahi, an Iranian vice-president who has called for détente with Washington. “There are other organizations, and particularly the supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei], who have their own ideas and opinions. And the main point of the supreme leader is ‘Mistrust the U.S.'”

Such sentiments give support to those in Washington who disdain the idea of dialog and support more extreme measures, such as regime change, in Tehran. Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute claims that the advocates of even selective diplomacy are “deluding themselves into thinking we can make a reasonable deal with mullahcracy in Tehran.” At present, the relationship between the U.S. and Iran is back to square one, as cooperation is reported to have ended last spring, when Washington suspected Tehran of supporting radical groups in neighboring Iraq.

For now, President Bush is unlikely to make any dramatic changes in the U.S. policy, particularly as the presidential elections near, despite calls for the administration to do so. “What the president has said is that the aspirations of the Iranian people are now clearer and he supports those aspirations,” one senior administration official told the Financial Times. “He has not talked about regime change.”

Nonetheless, the issue will most certainly return in 2005, if not sooner. “Iran has yet to become a political volleyball in the U.S. presidential campaign, as Iraq and North Korea have been. But it should,” said a Christian Science Monitor editorial. “Either John Kerry or George W. Bush will need to deal with this problem by next year, and the solutions won't be easy. A national debate might help prevent many of the mistakes made over the war with Iraq.”

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