We’re Misdirected in Our Rush to Judgment Against Iran

When a future generation assembles to revise our Constitution, let it give special attention to the function of the Fifth Estate--the intelligence experts. It is this new class that, perhaps more than the press, shapes public opinion. It is they who issue the judgments that become binding truths for the executive and the legislators. Most important, it is the innocent analysts who can lead us into war.

Consider our most recent hostilities with Iran. Several days before the “measured retaliation” for the damage that was done to a U.S. frigate by an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf, the press quoted “intelligence sources” who linked Iran to the Kuwaiti jet hijacking. The plane had picked up munitions and terrorists in Mashad, its first stop, they said. The reports received sustenance from the similar assertions of Yasser Arafat, a bitter foe of the Tehran regime, who was quoted approvingly by the American press for perhaps the first time in his career.

Overlooked were the facts: Tehran had been reluctant to allow the plane to land, had condemned the hijacking, had permitted a team from Kuwait (which is in a virtual state of war with Iran) to come in for negotiations and had hurried the aircraft out of the country.

The context also was ignored. Why would Tehran want a hijacking? The now-more-pragmatic regime has worked for several years to cultivate a respectable reputation with an international community whose attitudes have been poisoned by real and imagined misdeeds in Iran. A better international reputation for Iran is essential to block an arms embargo and perhaps to win some support for an end to the Iraqi war on Iran’s terms. Blame for engineering a hijacking would defeat those purposes.

Blaming Iran for a new act of terrorism would, however, serve the purpose of convincing the American public that no punishment can be too severe for the despicable, hated clerical regime. Here it is well to recall Adm. John M. Poindexter’s disinformation plots against Libya and how we bombed that country on the basis of firm intelligence reports, since proved by German authorities to be incorrect, that attributed a Berlin cafe bombing to Libyan agents.

We collect intelligence on all countries on the globe. Curiously, the press can collect from official sources intelligence insights only about our enemies.

The proximate cause for our retaliation against Iran was the mine explosion that damaged the warship Samuel B. Roberts. Other mines were found, Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci said, that were of the same series as those found months earlier on board a captured Iranian vessel. No doubt about it, the intelligence analysts concluded, Iran had laid the mines. Of course, despite our extensive surveillance in the region, we never spotted any ship doing the dirty deed. And what did Iran hope to gain, some reporters asked? Don’t expect rationality from crazy fanatics, the congressmen and officials sagely responded.

But the recent historical evidence would lead to a different conclusion--or at least to a verdict of no conclusion. A close reading of the record of Iranian foreign-policy actions during the past four to five years suggests that Tehran is still revolutionary, but much more pragmatic and consistent in its decisions. The regime is pursuing Iranian national interests more than Islamic ideology. Long before our reflagging of Kuwaiti vessels, Tehran had carefully avoided inciting us to take violent actions against it. Iranians know that they cannot prevail against our power. Harsh words but not dirty deeds against us have been their formula.

Who does benefit from a U.S.-Iran clash? Only Iraq and its friends. Could Iraq have laid the mines? We cannot know, but stranger things have happened in the Middle East. What we do know of recent history is clear, however. From the war’s beginning, Iraq has escalated the violence and sought to draw in others for the help that it requires. Iraq started the war in 1979. It began the war on shipping in the gulf and has done more damage than Iran to innocent vessels. Repeatedly it has been proved to have used poison gas. (Where is the proof of similar allegations against Iran?) It initiated the use of missiles against cities and has caused more harm to civilians than has Iran. Finally, while the United States was punishing Iran for mining, Iraq was conducting a land offensive to retake the Faw Peninsula. Sound like collusion? Or weren’t our intelligence agents aware?

Last spring when an Iraqi bomber attacked the Stark, killing 37 American servicemen, we were outraged, but Washington explained that there must have been a mistake. Sure enough, that was the case. The Iraqi pilot had operated without orders. Could the mining also have been a mistake? Given the persisting revolutionary fluidity in Iran, it is possible that Revolutionary Guards laid mines without Tehran’s direction. Did we inquire as we did in the Stark incident? Were we prepared to wait patiently for an explanation? It seems not, despite our protestations of evenhandedness.

American policy in the war is not to be neutral. It is to help Iraq to prevail on its terms. Thus we ignore Iraqi violations of the rules of war and of human rights. We take advantage of every opportunity, whether real or contrived, to increase pressure on Iran. We give tangible assistance to Iraq and embargo Iran.

Is it a wise policy to back the autocratic regime in Baghdad, which we branded terrorist a few years ago? Will the gratitude won from Arab rulers outweigh and outlast the rising tide of Islamic politics in a region becoming inflamed by the Palestinian revolt? What loss of life, property and prestige do we risk by becoming directly involved in a regional conflict? Is it sensible to make more difficult the rebuilding of a relationship with a country as important as we once considered Iran? These are questions that we would expect “intelligence experts” to address were they not so fully engaged in public relations for policy-makers.