Slow steps to dialogue

So much for first steps. Iran and the U.S. have demonstrated that last month's cautious words of amiability were more than accidental.

It's time now to move forward without letting expectations fly out of control. After 28 years of hostility, the first steps were indeed welcome, even dramatic. But many more steps must follow before relations between the two countries can approach normalcy (see related story, p. 24).

Charming Americans

After calling in a December speech for dialogue with the country that some high-ranking Iranians still label "the Great Satan," Iranian President Mohammad Khatami last week gave a CNN interview obviously designed to charm Americans. Unabashedly flattering about American culture, he called for an exchange of professors, writers, scholars, artists, journalists, and tourists. While welcoming the appeal for dialogue, a U.S. State Department response nevertheless regretted that Khatami hadn't called for direct talks between governments (see Newsletter).

Khatami deserves credit for recognizing that, if dialogue is to be at all constructive, public opinion in the U.S. must change. In that sense, the U.S. government's implication that official talks should start immediately is unrealistic. Probably at some political if not personal risk, the Iranian president addressed a central pressure point when he expressed qualified regret for the 444-day hostage outrage that began at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. He thus went further than Washington, D.C., itself has done over the years to portray Iran and Iranians as anything other than international pests. Dialogue would not progress very far if a majority of American voters believed their government to be dealing with demons.

Tehran, of course, founders in its own misconceptions. U.S. suspicions about Iranian complicity in international terrorism are not just political bluster. Nor are its concerns about Iranian efforts to disrupt the struggle for peace between Israel and its neighbors. Nor are U.S. worries about Tehran's building of a military capable of conducting offensive operations in the Middle East.

Tehran may consider some or all of the charges to be frivolous. But it must recognize that the U.S. is serious in making them and respond accordingly. Khatami made a start in the CNN interview, denying official Iranian involvement in acts of terrorism by his government's definition of the word. For its part, the U.S. should not ask the impossible; if, indeed, the Iranian government is innocent of a misdeed, how can it satisfy demands that it quit the offense?

The governments have much to talk about. At some point they need to deal forthrightly with an issue that has been too long in suspense: the June 25, 1996, terrorist bombing of Khubar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Saudi officials at one point called the bombing, in which 19 U.S. citizens lost their lives, an act supported by Tehran. The U.S. did nothing to douse the suspicion. Yet nothing conclusive has been reported, and the incident no longer appears on official lists of alleged Iranian misdeeds.

Serious issue

If Tehran did have a hand in the murder of Americans in the territory of an ally, the U.S. has a grievance that dialogue won't fix and for which trade sanctions are an insufficient response. If Tehran didn't play a role in the disaster, it needs to say so convincingly. And if the U.S. no longer suspects the Islamic republic of involvement in the bombing, it needs to say so emphatically. This is a very serious issue that will remain a legitimate impasse to the normalization of relations until it can be clearly resolved.

The oil and gas industry should welcome movement toward renewed relations between the U.S. and Iran, however long the process takes and whatever animosities it rekindles. The Islamic republic is too rich in potential and too geopolitically important to remain off limits to international investment and the subject of official oblivion.