POLITICS-US: Warmer Words For Iran

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Mar 15 1998 (IPS) - Nobody in Washington can recall if any previous president of the United States ever asked a university wrestling team to drop by the White House. But in the Oval Office this week, President Bill Clinton met five Arizona wrestlers who took part in last month’s Takhti Cup tournament in Teheran – the first U.S. athletes to compete in the Islamic Republic since its 1979 Revolution.

“It would be accurate to say that he’s drawing attention to an exchange that is maybe off the beaten path of diplomacy, but has something to say about the prospect and hope for more beneficial relations between peoples,” said White House spokesman Mike McCurry after the visit.

Those were not the only warm words uttered by U.S. officials about Iran this week. In testimony before Congress Tuesday, the State Department’s top Mideast specialist went beyond praise for Iranian President Mohammed Khatami’s rhetoric of reconciliation, suggesting that Teheran was now taking action on a number of fronts, particularly against Iraq, which Washington found most welcome.

“There has been a public report of smugglers of Iraqi oil complaining that the Iranians will no longer allow their waters to be used for that process,” said Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indyk. “(That) does indicate a concrete act on the part of Iran which is designed to enforce the Security Council resolutions against Iraq.”

Indyk also cited Khatami’s recent denunciations of terror against civilians in Israel and Algeria; Iran’s “reaching out” to its Gulf Arab neighours, and a “change in (its) approach” to Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat as evidence of positive movement. “I’ve said repeatedly that what matters is deeds, not words,” he said. “But the words can also have an impact.”

Less than three months since Khatami appealed for more exchanges between the Iran and the United States in a televised interview aimed at the US public, the pace of rapprochement appears to have gathered speed in recent weeks.

Most analysts agree there still is a long and difficult way to go before Washington and Teheran actually sit down to normalise ties. But they say Clinton’s recent face-off with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has accelerated the process.

“It’s simply a matter of national interest,” says Prof. James Bill, an Iran expert and William and Mary University in Virginia. “Iran is the natural balance in the Gulf, and acceptance of that view in Washington has been hastened by the Iraq crisis.”

In the latest crisis, Washington found almost no regional support for its threats to bomb Iraq if Saddam Hussein did not cooperate with UN weapons inspectors. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan effectively saved Clinton from what could have been a major diplomatic debacle by reaching an 11th-hour accord with the Iraq leader.

Washington’s relative isolation fuelled a new debate over the viability of Clinton’s “dual-containment” policy in the Gulf directed against both Iraq and Iran. That policy marked a major departure from decades of playing one off against the other.

Key figures in the U.S. foreign-policy elite, such as former national security advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft who served with the Carter and Bush administrations, respectively, urged a detente with Iran even before the latest crisis.

Such a move would not only help contain Iraq, they argued. It would also ease tensions with Washington’s European allies which have commercial interests in Iran and ease access for US oil companies to the vast oil and gas wealth of Central Asia and the Caucasus.

But these arguments made little headway until Khatami himself, a liberal cleric who pulled off a huge upset in last May’s elections, made his January overture. He stressed then that the time was not ripe for normalisation of official ties, but that people-to-people exchanges could lay the foundation for more formal steps.

Clinton at first responded by insisting that an official dialogue was preferable. Reiterating long-held positions, the administration said such a dialogue must address Iran’s alleged support for terrorism and violent elements opposed to the Arab- Israeli peace process, and its quest for weapons of mass destruction.

After receiving several secret diplomatic messages from Teheran, Clinton gave a warmer reply. In remarks broadcast by the Voice of America to mark the end of Ramadan, Clinton stressed that differences between the two countries were “not insurmountable.”

Within three weeks – and just as the crisis with Iraq was coming to a head – the U.S. wrestlers were in Teheran; State Department officials were reviewing strict visa regulations against Iranians wishing to come here; and US scholars were on their way to take part in a foreign-policy seminar in the Persian capital. “It’s good to be back again after 20 years,” said Geoffrey Kemp, president Ronald Reagan’s top Mideast adviser from Teheran late last month.

Clinton’s meeting with the wrestlers, Indyk’s testimony, and the visit here last week of Khatami’s top adviser on women’s affairs – the highest ranking Iranian official to come to Washington since the Revolution – marked the latest advances in what is certain to be “long and bumpy road,” according to Prof. Bill.

Even if the warm words were evident this week, for example, so were some of the obstacles which still threaten rapprochement.

On Wednesday, a federal judge ordered Iran to pay almost 250 million dollars in damages to the family of a US student who was killed in a suicide bombing in Israel in 1995. The family cited US government documents which charged Iran with arming the Islamic Jihad which took responsibility for the blast. The State Department said it was “studying” the decision.

Then there was a report that Washington had intervened strongly with China’s leadership to prevent the shipment to Iran of chemicals which the administration believed were to be used for making a nuclear weapon.

“Just because the words are warmer doesn’t mean that we don’t have big problems,” said one official. “This isn’t going to be easy.”