Iran Gives Moderation an Exploratory Whirl

Immediately after the U.S. Navy shot down an Iran Air jumbo jet, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for all-out war with the United States. Since that initial reaction, however, Iran’s response has been unexpectedly mild--despite the emotional rhetoric of Iran’s foreign minister in the United Nations on Thursday.

Given its current economic difficulties and overwhelming U.S. military superiority, Iran can ill afford a further confrontation with the United States. Thus, seasoned Iran-watchers did not expect military retaliation or other foolish acts like harming American hostages in Lebanon. But even these observers have been surprised by the unequivocal manner in which Iranian authorities have said that they will not retaliate against the United States.

There are several explanations for this sudden moderation. Some relate to the effect of recent events; others derive from a long and painful process that Iran and its Islamic leaders have undergone in learning and adjusting to the international political system.

In March, Iraq’s massive and indiscriminate bombing of defenseless Iranian cities had a traumatizing effect; even worse in its effect on the public was the United States’ retaliatory bombing of Iranian oil facilities in April. The silent majority of Iranians has always opposed their government’s reckless actions, which have brought so much destruction and tragedy to Iran. Recently, popular fears regarding Iran’s future have increased, and so has resentment toward a government that seems incapable of either winning or settling the eight-year-old war with Iraq.

As a result, many Iranian leaders have come to realize that a continuation of the current situation could become politically very costly. Similarly, any rash action by Iran against the United States, leading to more U.S. military strikes, would increase popular dissatisfaction with, and resentment toward, the government in Tehran.

While growing more sophisticated about domestic political concerns, Iran’s leadership also has matured in its outlook to-ward foreign affairs. Like other post-revolutionary regimes, most recently China’s, Iran has reached the point of adjusting to the international political system.

When Iran’s revolutionary leaders came to power, they--like others before them--had no experience in running the country’s foreign relations (or, for that matter, its domestic affairs). Moreover, the revolutionary purification of Iran’s bureaucracy--especially its diplomatic corps--of undesirable elements deprived Iran of adequate expertise.

The result was a belief that revolutionary slogans could replace careful and painstaking diplomacy. The Iranian revolutionaries--again, like others before them--had an inordinate belief in so-called people power. If only Iran could reach the people of the Middle East or the Muslim world, it could dispense with government-to-government relations. In the view of the revolutionaries, these other governments were corrupt and unjust. Once their people heard Iran’s message, they could not last long. All that was needed to bring victory was faith and courage.

Events during the last few years have cured Iran’s leaders of many of these illusions. Irrespective of the value of Iran’s message, and notwithstanding some sympathy for it, the pull of ethnicity and sectarianism has proved stronger. There has been no mass uprising in support of Iran, not even among the Shia Muslims of Iraq and the Persian Gulf states.

In addition, many Muslim countries have joined other nations in trying to contain Iran. The result has been broad support for Iraq, even though that country started the war and despite the unsavory nature of its regime. Some countries, including those of the West, have penalized Iran by denying it military equipment, imposing economic pressures and to a great extent ostracizing it. The result has been devastation reaching tragic levels.

Iranian opinion has also been shaped lately by the deployment of U.S. naval forces in the Persian Gulf and American strikes against Iranian facilities there. These have punctured the myth that, after Vietnam and Lebanon, the United States would not use force in the defense of its interests.

As the culmination of this process, it has finally dawned on many Iranian leadersthat the international system will not bend to Iran’s ideological designs. Instead, it has tried to contain these designs or eliminate them through countermeasures. Thus, if Iran wants to avoid national suicide, to protect its interests and even to advance some of its ideological aspirations it must adjust to the international system’s requirements and act according to its rules.

Nevertheless, there are elements in the Iranian regime that are not totally convinced of these facts. In the current contest for power they try to stigmatize the realists by accusing them of the sin of having abandoned Iran’s revolutionary principles.

In order to increase the chances that realism and moderation will prevail in Iran, the international community must respond favorably to the Iranian leaders who accept that living outside the rules of the international system, no matter how unfair they might be, cannot succeed. They must be shown that good behavior does pay off.