The US-Iran stalemate
A wonder of global affairs is the ability of two great cultures to mutually spoil potential for a relationship from which both would benefit. So it is with the US and Iran.
The US can't move past enmity that developed when Iranian radicals in the throes of revolution held a group of Americans hostage for more than a year. That was 20 years ago. Much has happened in Iran since then. But the enmity remains.
So do trade sanctions imposed by US President Bill Clinton in 1995 and expanded by Congress to cover third parties in 1996. Lately the third parties have been acting up.
Shell's deal
Most recent to do so is Royal Dutch/Shell Group, which reached an $800 million agreement with National Iranian Oil Co. to redevelop Soroosh and Nowrooz oil fields in the Persian Gulf. The US State Department is investigating to determine whether the move violates the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) and, if so, what to do about it. The department can waive sanctions, as it did for TotalFina SA's development of offshore South Pars and Sirri fields (OGJ, Nov. 22, 1999, p. 33).
The deals by Shell and TotalFina make clear that European business and government leaders mostly oppose the US approach to Iran. They apparently think the US has overstated the case against the Islamic republic. They don't agree that sanctions are the appropriate response. And they certainly resent ILSA's attempt to force them to participate in the US sanctions program.
The evident failure of that program isn't lost on Iranian officials.
"The US is more isolated than ever," declared S.M. Husseini, deputy oil minister for international affairs, after announcement of the Shell agreement. American oil companies, he said at a conference, "are the ones to lose from this policy."
Yet now come press reports about an October meeting in Tehran at which Iranian President Mohammad Khatami praised Hezbollah, the group based in Lebanon linked with terrorist attacks opposing Israeli-Palestinian peace. The behavior clashes with Khatami's stature as a moderate. He enjoys broad public support for his stated hope to restore Iranian ties with the rest of the world and to moderate Islamic rigidity. His reform effort keeps him in conflict with the conservative and diminishingly popular Islamic clergy, which retains supreme control under spiritual leader Ayatollah A* Khameini.
So Khatami's open support for Hezbollah, reported urging of its leaders to intensify their activities, and pledge of funds and logistical help to it and two other terrorist groups-Islamic Jihad and Hamas-are discouraging. They validate US insistence that Iran supports terrorism and resists Middle East peace. To that charge Tehran long has responded that Hezbollah and the others are freedom fighters, not terrorists. Khatami surely knows better. Whatever they're called, the groups have a nasty and unacceptable habit of murdering civilians. Supporting them is no way to charm the outside world.
Everything in official Iran happens in the context of a theocratic power struggle, within which Khatami's position might recently have weakened. Reform isn't happening fast enough to suit much of the public. And antireform clerics asserted themselves last month by jailing Abdollah Nouri, a popular reformist newspaper editor earlier forced out of office as interior minister.
Political duress?
Khatami thus might have committed his indiscretion about terrorists under political duress. It was unfortunate, nevertheless. It was just as unfortunate as the belief that sanctions can either exert constructive influence in the fluid complexity of Iranian politics or properly respond when political complexity breeds violence.
Husseini was right. US sanctions against Iran have failed. They hurt US interests. And they're unlikely to change as long as Iranian leaders cheer people who kill to prevent peace. It's an explosive stalemate in which neither side is right.