Iran Deals: A Plea for Protection

Although the Iran of 1972 under the shah was very different from the Iran of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1986, the underlying impulse and the policy instruments adopted by the United States in both cases were remarkably similar.

In 1972, President Richard M. Nixon offered the shah essentially unlimited access to U.S. military equipment. He agreed, in collaboration with Israel, to lend military support and training to the Kurds in their battle against Iraq, thereby weakening Iraq’s ability to threaten both Iran and Israel. In return he asked for access to intelligence sites to monitor Soviet activities and help safeguard U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf. Nixon summed it up in two words, looking across the table at the shah at the end of their meetings, “Protect me.”

In 1985-86, the United States was seeking different forms of protection--from international terrorism and for the lives of U.S. hostages in Lebanon. But President Ronald Reagan and a small circle of advisers were prepared, as were their predecessors in 1972, to use arms sales and military support as an inducement to a strategic relationship with Iran that would enhance U.S. intelligence, thwart Soviet influence and safeguard U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf.

The new story began in late 1982 when a Soviet diplomat and intelligence operative in Tehran, Vladimir Kuzichkin, defected to British intelligence. Kuzichkin was spirited out of Iran to London with a substantial collection of documents detailing Soviet covert activities inside Iran. He was debriefed by both the British and the Central Intelligence Agency and then, in a classic double cross, his revelations were fed back to the intelligence services of the revolutionaries in Tehran.

Shortly thereafter, the Soviet-dominated Tudeh (Masses) Party in Iran was closed down, its top leadership was arrested, several hundred Iranians were taken into custody and 18 Soviet diplomats were summarily expelled. Within a period of several months, much of the subterranean network that the Soviets had painstakingly developed in Iran was in dissarray. This incident demonstrated to Western intelligence officials that, despite Iran’s deep hostility, cooperation on matters of fundamental security was still possible.

The Israeli connection was a key factor in shaping Administration choices on Iran. Israel had for years displayed an aggressive interest in pursuing arms sales to Iran. That was dramatized to me in early 1980 when I was on the National Security Council staff. At that time, American hostages were still prisoners in Tehran and the United States was attempting to impose a worldwide embargo on arms shipments to Iran. I was astonished to see a cable from Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin notifying us that his country had shipped at least one planeload of Israeli-manufactured parts for F-4 fighter planes to Iran and was seeking U.S. approval to proceed with more. The answer was instant, unequivocal and negative.

As far as I know, Israeli arms shipments ceased until the hostages were released in January, 1981. But after the hostages came home, Israeli officials again sought U.S. approval to sell arms to Iran.

Israel’s interests in supplying arms to Iran were not difficult to discern. First, Israel wanted to maintain some leverage that might help protect the large Jewish community in Iran. Second, Israel had traditionally attempted to keep Iraq tied down on its eastern border, facing away from Israel. Third, Israel retained important intelligence assets in Iran after the revolution. Finally, Israel acknowledged that arms sales were good business; military items constitute more than a quarter of Israel’s industrial exports.

Iran, meanwhile, from the earliest days of the 1979 revolution, had been engaged in a bitterly contested power struggle, as Khomeini attempted to consolidate his own vision of a theocratic state. The difficulties were candidly described in 1986 by the powerful speaker of Parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, when he said “there are at present two relatively powerful factions in our country with differences of view on how the country should be run . . . . They may in fact be regarded as two parties without names.”

By late 1984, the pragmatists in one of those nameless parties were becoming increasingly interested in developing ties with the outside world. Iran was also concerned about the Soviet Union, which was beginning to make seriously threatening noises through its clandestine Persian-language broadcasting station, the so-called National Voice of Iran.

While clandestine Soviet radio was brandishing the stick of counterrevolution, officials in Moscow were dangling the carrot of technical assistance and businesslike relations. In May, the Iranian prime minister was able to say that Iran had “outstanding relations” with the Soviet Union.

This apparent rapprochement roused concern in Washington. A top CIA analyst circulated a paper asserting that the United States was lagging behind the Soviets in making Iranian contacts. That theme was elaborated in a paper by NSC staffers Howard J. Teicher and Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, suggesting that the United States relax its arms embargo on Iran as a means of cultivating contacts.

In June, 1985, these threads began to come together. The Reagan Administration was impressed with Iran’s influence over the radical Shia groups in Lebanon during the TWA hijacking, when Rafsanjani intervened and resolved the issue after the Syrians had failed.

Almost immediately thereafter, Rafsanjani underlined Iran’s willingness to deal with the United States: “Although the United States has inflicted great damages on Iran,” he said, “we do not want to have our relations with the United States cut off forever, but the United States should take the first step . . . .”

And so it began, with all the official and unofficial deals and dealers now under investigation.

Additional facts and interpretations will emerge but the basic elements of this extraordinary story are sufficiently well known to permit at least preliminary answers to some of the key questions:

--Was it ever realistic to imagine “moderates” in the revolutionary leadership of Iran? Yes, in the sense that there was a growing sense of pragmatism among many in the Iranian power structure. In time Iran will almost certainly conclude that it must have a relationship with the United States, and we should be ready for that day.

--Was this a sensible way to achieve such a relationship? No. Iran was prepared to bargain cynically with the one commodity it knew the United States wanted--the U.S. hostages held by Shia groups in Lebanon. Our acquiescence may have encouraged, rather than discouraged, future kidnapers and terrorists.

--How important was the Israeli connection? Israel provided contacts, giving Israel an influential voice in U.S. decision-making. That was risky since Israel’s interests are different from U.S. interests.

--What lessons can we learn from this incident? First, the NSC staff has no business conducting covert operations. That is not its function. The decision to send North, a young Marine officer with no Middle East experience, to conduct highly sensitive political negotiations with a hostile revolutionary regime was indefensible. Second, any Administration that deliberately bypasses key Cabinet officers and Congress can be certain that, if and when things go wrong, the political fallout will be devastating. Third, the trend toward “privatization” of foreign policy--reliance on private financiers, retired military officers and other individuals outside the government, however well intentioned,is extremely dangerous since the government cannot maintain discipline or accountability. Fourth, deception is a classic tool of foreign policy, but a government proudly proclaiming one policy while practicing the opposite puts at risk its credibility in all things.

Finally, what effect is this likely to have on the war between Iran and Iraq? Substantial shipments of arms by the United States and Israel improved Iran’s military capabilities and dealt a psychological blow to Iraq. The battle is now being played out in the gory mud flats along the Shatt al Arab estuary and is still unpredictable, but if Iran succeeds in redrawing the political map of the Middle East, vital Western political and economic interests will be in jeopardy and the world will hold us responsible. If revolutionary Iran emerges from this carnage as the new superpower of the Persian Gulf, the costs will be far higher than political embarrassment in Washington. We will pay in real treasure--perhaps real lives.

Geography and politics repeatedly thrust the United States and Iran together, almost against their wills. If there is any lesson to be learned from the jolting encounters of the past 15 years, it is that a policy conceived in secret and nourished by the sale of arms produces little but anguish. That is worth remembering as we pick up the pieces of the latest episode and prepare for the next.