Shifting Caspian politics

The touchy politics of the Caspian region took portentous turns this month around two volatile poles: Iran and Russia.

Iran's status as a pariah intensified in the U.S. and spread to European countries hitherto inclined to withhold judgment in the interest of business. And as Europe recoiled, Russia maneuvered to fill the void. The consequent shift in Caspian allegiances is impressive for both its speed and its potential significance to future oil and gas development.

Deadly menace

Iran, the clerical government of which still hasn't lifted its call for the murder of British author Salman Rushdie, looks more and more like a deadly menace. On Apr. 10, a court in Germany ruled that a committee involving top officials of the Iranian government ordered the 1992 murders in Berlin of three dissident Iranian Kurds and their translator. Then came reports linking an Iranian intelligence official to the June 1996 bombing of a U.S. military building near Dhahran, Saudia Arabia. The blast killed 25 people and injured more than 500 others.

The visible response in Iran to the Berlin ruling was the usual revolutionary posturing: demonstrations in key cities, a march on the German embassy in Tehran, chants of "death to fascist Germany." Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani promised that the ruling "will not remain unanswered." The bluster was said to have been muted in deference to Iran's commercial relationships with Germany. It may even have gotten out of official hand. To the rest of the world, however, it all sounded characteristically truculent and added up to more reason to suspect Iran of the worst.

While Iranians shook their fists at television cameras, Europeans shuffled embassy staffs. After Germany tossed out four Iranian diplomats, European Union members other than Greece recalled ambassadors from Tehran, as did Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. It was an important swing for the EU, which had been sharply critical of U.S. trade sanctions against Iran and efforts to enforce the measures through third parties.

The U.S. position, meanwhile, should harden but may not. According to government reports made public days after the Berlin court ruling, Iranian intelligence officer Ahmad Sherifi had close links to a group implicated in the Dhahran bombing. Among other things, he is believed to have had direct ties to a group member, Hani Abd Rahim Sayegh, now in custody in Canada.

Evidence for this claim is reported to be less conclusive than what a criminal trial would require. But this isn't a trial. In the prejudicial realm of politics, Iran-or at least its ruling elite-is guilty. The clandestine murders in which the Islamic republic long has been suspected now include Americans. Pressure can only build on Congress and the Clinton administration to get tough.

How, though? Washington has already played the trade sanctions gambit and has little to show for it. Support from newly angered Europeans would increase the pressure on Iran-but probably not change it. It's not Iran's rulers that the sanctions hurt.

If it lasts, the European reversal against Iran at least gives the U.S. a diplomatic victory. Who knows? It might be enough to excuse Washington, D.C., from acting more decisively on intelligence that soldiers of Iran's theocracy killed Americans.

Russia's embrace

For the oil and gas industry, the immediate concern must be Russia's quick embrace of an official Iran whose denials of terrorist sponsorship sound increasingly hollow. Moscow officials made the move for the sake of domestic politics. But Russia and Iran have made no secret of their determination to control events around the Caspian.

A firming of their relations, even if by default from withdrawing European influence, changes the Caspian balance in a manner that should trouble the region's upstart states-Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan-and companies hoping to do business there.

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