That Continual Matter of Iran
February 08, 2004
The New York Times
Steven Weisman
WASHINGTON — Iran has been the siren of the Middle East for successive American administrations. Each presidency, it seems, has brought a new opportunity for influence that ends badly. The question is: Will President Bush follow the examples of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and be lured in, only to run aground on the Iranian shoals?
The Bush administration's policy makers, like many experts, are riveted by the power struggle between reformers and hardliners in Iran. But administration officials are divided over whether to press for democracy if it could jeopardize other priorities, like getting Tehran to end support of terrorism against the United States and Israel or to dismantle its nuclear arms program. Most immediately, the administration needs Iran's help to keep Iraq and Afghanistan stable.
It is not as if Washington can do much to nurture Iranian democracy. Indeed, increasingly, administration officials conclude that the reformers are likely to be routed by hard-line clerics led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the power behind his religious throne, former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
"Put it this way: we're not holding our breath for democracy to break out," said a senior administration official. "We could be heading toward a situation where the mullahs are even more unambiguously in control and moderates have completely disappeared."
Last week, Iran's leading reform party said it would boycott the parliamentary elections scheduled for this month because nearly half its candidates were rejected by the 12-member Guardian Council, established to ensure rule by the religious elite. But even if reformers compete fairly in an election, many analysts say they would have trouble winning because President Mohammad Khatami, the leading reformer, is widely seen as having failed to bring about much improvement in Iranians' lives since his election in 1997.
Still, the turmoil poses many tactical questions for the Bush administration.
Administration officials wonder, for example, whether American support will make it harder to bring about democratic change. Would pressure for democracy undercut efforts to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program, or shut down its support of terrorist organizations? Just as bad, would this cost the administration the backing it has received from Iran, and been grateful for, in establishing new regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan?
And if reformers ever gained power, might they loosen religious control in Iran, letting in more jeans and lipstick, but not ease policies inimical to the West?
"Right now, it's safe to say this administration is somewhat paralyzed," said one American official. "The feeling is that, sadly, there is no one in the Iranian government, not even the reformers, who can be the champions of the Iranian people."
Mr. Bush's team has long been divided over how to proceed. Since taking office, the administration has seemed to swing between seeking an opening and cutting off talks. Indeed, the joke in some circles is whether the administration's hardliners and accommodationists are as much at odds as they are in Tehran.
Until last May, the accommodationists were ascendant in Washington. Then came the bombings of residential compounds in Saudi Arabia, and American intelligence suggesting that Iran was sheltering the Al Qaeda operatives believed responsible. A series of meetings between mid-level Iranian and American envoys were suspended.
Last summer, the administration grew increasingly alarmed about Iran's nuclear weapons program and headed toward a nasty confrontation at the International Atomic Energy Agency. The focus of concern was what appears to be a plant to make highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons at Natanz in central Iran, a site not known to nuclear experts until two years ago.
In part because of their desire to avoid another confrontation in the Middle East, Britain, France and Germany won American approval in October for a diplomatic initiative in which Iran agreed to suspend its enrichment activities at Natanz, which it maintains is a peaceful facility, and to accept additional inspection protocols.
Some American officials fear that compliance with that pledge may be slipping, and that, in any case, a confrontation over Natanz is virtually certain. "The European deal may have postponed the reckoning, but unless the Iranians give up their program, it's not going to avoid the reckoning," said a senior American official.
Even many Europeans say they are not sure of Iran's intentions. A senior European envoy said that after a meeting recently with the leader of Iran's national security agency, Hassan Rohani, it was not clear whether Iran truly intended to end its weapon program or was simply playing for time.
"We are very suspicious of their intentions," he said, adding that it was often hard to tell even in meetings who was a reformer and who was a hard-line cleric.
Many American officials argue that, terrorism and nuclear weapons aside, the most pressing concern with Iran has to do with Iraq. That is because the leading Iraqi cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is calling for elections, which would almost certainly lead to Shiite control of Iraq for the first time in modern history.
Born and reared in Iran, Ayatollah Sistani is a mysterious figure himself. Many American policy makers fear that his ascension to power in Iraq could lead to a theocratic state with headquarters in Baghdad.
But some others say that Ayatollah Sistani is a moderate who opposes an Iranian-style theocracy. His authority should be encouraged, according to this reasoning, because it would enhance Iraq's status as a Shiite citadel and ultimately offer an alternative to hard-line clerical rule in Iran.
"Our biggest hope for regime change in Iran is to get things right in Iraq," said Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "If a secular government can be established in Iraq with Sistani's blessings, it's going to have a huge underlying effect next door."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/08/weekinreview/08weis.html