EDITORIAL Iranian elections
It is easy to ignore politics in Iran. Trade sanctions by the U.S. make business with the Islamic republic difficult if not illegal. Iranian political developments thus can seem remote and inconsequential.
Yet Iran is the site of an ominous collision between industry ambitions and U.S. foreign policy, which denies U.S. companies access to world-scale investment opportunities. What Iranian politics might say about this policy thus deserves serious attention.
Populist race
A little more than a year ago, the administration of President Bill Clinton scrapped an offshore development deal between Conoco Inc. and National Iranian Oil Co., then banned U.S. trade with the Islamic republic. Since then, the administration and congressional Republicans have run a populist race to punish a nation they accuse of supporting terrorism, resisting Middle East peace, and building a nuclear arsenal. They have demonized Iran to the point that most mention of the country in the U.S. comes by association with Hizbollah, the guerrilla group Israel has been fighting in southern Lebanon. Hizbollah claims spiritual ties to Iran and is thought to receive Iranian financial support.
The popular and official U.S. view of Iran as an anti-American, terrorist state is central to a policy that has foreclosed investment opportunities for U.S. companies. It further drives congressional efforts to punish countries not honoring the sanctions. Those efforts have angered non-U.S. governments and may at some point lead to political or commercial retaliation. Oil companies, therefore, have more than a casual interest in validity of the policy.
Evidence of political pluralism in Iran probably would surprise most Americans and at least raise questions about the monolithic view from which the U.S. policy flows. Yet Iran this month completed two-stage parliamentary elections showing that the monolith has cracks.
Since the 1989 death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolutionary leader, the main domestic outlet for Iranian radicalism has been Majlis, the parliament. The majority Majlis party, the Combatant Clergy Association (CCA), has thwarted most efforts by President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to move Iran toward economic modernization.
In the elections just completed, the CCA apparently lost its majority. Although it claimed victory and promised to harden its anti-Western posture, CCA made other concessions acknowledging a new need to work with other political groups. Among them is a reformist party formed in January by Rafsanjani supporters to sponsor candidates in the elections. According to early reports, the group, Servants of Iran's Construction, will send 80-100 deputies to the new Majlis.
What this means for Iran is uncertain. The fractious muddle that has prevailed since Khomeini's death may continue at least until presidential elections next year, when Rafsanjani will run for a third term against Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri, the Majlis speaker.
The Majlis elections nevertheless show that any one-dimensional approach to Iranian politics is bound to get things wrong. The post-revolutionary power structure in Iran is complex and precarious. The main schism lies between technocrats seeking modernization and traditionalists linked to the fundamentalist clergy and rooted in ancient trading culture.
Power shifts
A serious effort to influence Iran's direction would acknowledge these complexities and try to capitalize on subtle shifts in the power balance. Such a shift seems evident in the elections.
Yet it passed with negligible notice in the U.S., where the myopic view endures. The resulting policy plays into the hands of Iranian factions that profit by condemning the U.S. and fostering radicalism abroad. And the oil industry, yearling pawn in a costly stalemate, can only watch and wonder what future sacrifices it may have to make to official bogey-mongering.
Copyright 1996 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.