Peace Move May Bring New U.S. Era in Gulf

Iran’s move toward a negotiated settlement of its war with Iraq could lead gradually to renewed relations with the United States and a new era for U.S. interests in the strategic Persian Gulf region, analysts and diplomats said Tuesday.

In recent years, Iran’s intransigence in the 8-year gulf war has been one of the chief obstacles to resumed contacts with the United States, which had enjoyed close military, economic and diplomatic ties with Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in the 1979 Iranian revolution.

U.S. strategists hope that the end of the Iran-Iraq War could make possible the first steps toward re-establishing diplomatic relations, severed after the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was seized in 1979 and its diplomats taken hostage.

Despite a decade of bitter antagonism and a year of sporadic shooting in the gulf, the United States and Iran share strategic interests.

And with the aging Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini reported to be in ill health, American strategists are looking hopefully toward friendlier relations under a successor because of Iran’s huge oil reserves and its critical geographic position between the Soviet Union and the gulf.

“The gulf, its oil, its strategic location are just as important to the United States as they ever were,” said Frederick W. Axelgard, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “We have a new chance to carve out a basic policy in the gulf . . . and Iran is essential in the equation.”

U.S. officials said that with Iran’s acceptance Monday of a U.N. cease-fire resolution, they see signs that a new “realism” has taken hold in the highest councils of the Khomeini government. The leadership in Tehran is coming to realize, American officials believe, that ending the war and renewing ties to the West, even on less than favorable terms, are in Iran’s long-term interest.

A State Department official cautioned that serious problems remain between Iran and the United States, including the continued holding of American hostages by pro-Iranian factions in Lebanon and alleged Iranian support for international terrorism. But Iran’s acceptance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 598, which calls for a cease-fire and a negotiated end to the war, appears to mark an important political shift in Tehran, he said.

“We don’t use the word pragmatic any more” to describe the less radical elements in Iran’s revolutionary regime, the American official said. “But it’s certainly far more realistic for them to say, ‘Let’s take (Resolution) 598’ than to try to continue the war.”

Iran’s top military body, the General Command, said Monday in announcing that it would adhere to the U.N. resolution that “new circumstances . . . demand the adoption of a new stance.”

Axelgard said Iran was driven to press for an end to the war by its shaky internal political and economic conditions. It is tired of war and needs Western investments to rebuild its shattered economy, he maintained.

“I can only assume Khomeini is on the verge of death or a major change in his political outlook,” Axelgard said.

In the short term, analysts inside and outside the U.S. government said, the United States will be able to reduce its costly and controversial naval presence in the gulf if the Iran-Iraq War ends. The U.S. significantly built up its Middle East naval force last year when it took on the job of escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers through the war-torn gulf.

27 Warships in Region

U.S. officials said the American armada, now consisting of 27 ships in and near the gulf, would remain at full strength until the war actually ends and the threat to neutral shipping subsides.

Pentagon spokesman Dan Howard called Iran’s move “a positive step” but added that the key is Iran’s complete acceptance of the terms of the U.N. resolution.

Until that happens, he said, “we’ll do whatever it takes to maintain freedom of navigation in this vital area.”

In recent weeks, France has re-established diplomatic ties with Iran and Britain is moving in that direction. Canada this week said that it plans to resume normal relations with Iran.

The United States, too, has had a number of “feelers” from Iran through intermediaries, U.S. officials have acknowledged. The State Department has rebuffed these approaches, contending that they did not carry the full authority of the Iranian government.

According to a knowledgeable source, such third-party contacts have continued, even after the Navy warship Vincennes, on July 3, mistakenly shot down an Iranian civilian Airbus over the gulf with 290 people aboard. The tentative talks have taken place through go-betweens in Geneva and at the United Nations as recently as last weekend, the source said.

U.S. officials consider renewed ties with Iran desirable for a number of reasons. When the shah fell, the United States lost critical listening posts in northern Iran along the Soviet border. It was feared that Iranian hostility to the United States would drive Iran into the Soviet camp and grant the Soviet Union access to gulf oil fields and shipping channels.

The Soviets, in fact, have tried to exploit U.S.-Iranian tensions, but without much success, said R. K. Ramazani, a University of Virginia Middle East specialist.

“Relations are not even what they were under the shah,” Ramazani said.

In Israel, the most important American ally in the Middle East, the news of movement toward an end to the Iran-Iraq War was met with mixed feelings. Many in Israel would have been happy to see continued and indecisive bloodletting by its two enemies.

A terse and unusual statement released by the Israeli army after Monday’s announcement from Tehran seemed to capture the underlying ambivalence:

“The defense establishment is looking into the significance of the possible end to the Iran-Iraq War,” the statement said. “Any other pronouncements on the subject in the name of either defense or military sources are unfounded.”

As that statement suggests, there have in fact been some important policy differences on the significance of the gulf war to Israel ever since the conflict began in 1980, and those differences color reactions now that the conflict appears near an end.

The Israeli military has tended to see Iraq as the greater danger, since Iraq has already taken part in five Arab-Israeli wars. In this view, 50 battle-hardened Iraqi divisions, as well as the will to use ground-to-ground missiles, make Baghdad more of a threat.

Wrong, non-Israeli experts contend. One-time U.S. ally Iran has been fundamentally changed by the revolution, and Islamic fundamentalism is the most serious destabilizing factor in the region today. As the champion of the revolution and its primary symbol, Iran constitutes the greatest threat to Western interests, in this view.

John M. Broder reported from Washington and Dan Fisher from Jerusalem.