Iran Warms to Soviets--but Not to America

As recently as last October, Iran’s spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spoke of the “criminal Soviet Union and world-devouring America,” a sign that both superpowers were near the top of Iran’s list of demons.

But as Iran celebrates the 10th anniversary of its revolution, the Iranians--although maintaining the hard line against the United States that has prevailed for the past decade--have begun to relax their attitudes toward the Soviet Union.

When President Bush hinted recently that relations with Iran might be restored if the Tehran government helped to free Western hostages in Lebanon, the Iranians responded angrily.

‘Arrogant Ways’

“We have always said that we will restart relations with America . . . when it has given up its arrogant ways,” President Ali Khamenei said. “It is we who set conditions for the United States, because we do not accept American oppression and interference in the affairs of other countries.”

But as Iran was excoriating the United States, a personal envoy of Khomeini was calling on Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev with a lengthy message that was, the Iranians indicated, of historic importance.

“I hope,” Khomeini wrote Gorbachev, “that you will achieve the true glory for eradicating the latest rotten layers of 70 years of deviousness of world communism from the face of history and from your own country.”

While the Soviets have not publicly responded to Khomeini’s message, they were undoubtedly more interested in the geopolitical importance of the message than in its philosophical observations.

In an illuminating remark in the final part of his message, Khomeini said to Gorbachev: “Yes, a religion which may be used as a means to place the material and spiritual resources of Islamic and non-Islamic countries at the disposal of superpowers and which exhorts the people that religion is separate from politics--that religion is the opium of the masses. However, that is no longer true religion but is a religion which our people call American religion.”

Despoiling Religion

Although the Soviets have been denounced by Khomeini for preaching atheism, it is the United States that is singled out for despoiling religion--an indication of the shift in the power balance in the region.

In recent weeks, there have been many signs of the improving Soviet-Iranian relationship.

Economic links are being strengthened. Natural gas exports, cut off since the Islamic revolutionary regime took power in 1979, have been resumed between Iran and the southern Soviet republics, according to IRNA, the official Iranian news agency. IRNA said gas is being sent to the Soviet Union at a rate of 3 billion cubic meters a year and said Soviet-Iranian trade is expanding “remarkably.”

The Soviets have also agreed to help in the construction of two Iranian dams, increasing the capacity of two Iranian power stations and the Esfahan steel mill.

In the political sphere, Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Yuli M. Vorontsov has visited Iran in an effort to win its support for a peace settlement in Afghanistan that would include the Soviet-backed government of President Najibullah.

More Cooperative

The Iranians have appeared to be more cooperative with the Soviet effort in part because they would like to secure a major role in the future of Afghanistan, a role that could be threatened if Pakistan-based, American-supported Afghan guerrillas come to power.

“Iran’s relations with the Soviet Union have in the recent period achieved a very high level and are developing in a direction that allows them to be raised to an even higher level,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Larijani was quoted as telling the Soviet media. “We have openly supported Soviet policies in our region, and we think that Iranian-Soviet relations can achieve a strategic level.”

Iran’s apparent change of heart seems to have been helped along by the cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq War, which went into effect last August. The Soviets had been denounced by Iran for providing Iraq with most of its arms.

The end of the war has also brought about a change in relations with Western nations other than the United States. Iran has resumed relations with Canada, Britain and France. Western European business executives now fill Tehran’s hotels in the hope of taking part in the country’s reconstruction, even though they know that Iran has no money at present.

Opposition to U.S.

The one constant in Iran’s foreign relations seems to be its implacable opposition to the U.S. government, in spite of and perhaps because of the disclosure of secret Washington-Tehran arms sales during the Iran-Contra affair.

While the United States has made it a condition of restoring relations that Tehran bring about the freedom of the hostages in Lebanon, Iran has said that its good will depends on Washington’s releasing several billion dollars in assets that were frozen in the United States when Iran seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

“How can America expect us to intervene for its interest in a case which has nothing to do with us, while the U.S. continues its hostile policy against the Islamic revolution?” Rafsanjani asked recently.

The Iranians are also bitter about the shooting down last July of an Iran Air jetliner by a U.S. Navy cruiser in the Persian Gulf. It has become part of Iranian propaganda that the attack, called a mistake by Washington, turned the tide in the Persian Gulf War and forced Iran to accept a cease-fire.

“A major rapprochement in U.S.-Iranian relations is not going to happen,” James Bill, a professor at the Center for International Studies at Virginia’s College of William and Mary, told a recent London conference on the future of the Iranian revolution. “Some baby steps may be taken.”

While Iran is improving its relations with Western Europe, it has also pushed for rapprochement with the Arab nations situated on the Persian Gulf, nations that were regarded as enemies as long as Iraq and non-Arab Iran were battling.

“We have announced that we are willing to solve our difficulties with the Arab countries of the southern Persian Gulf,” Rafsanjani said. “Most of these difficulties were in connection with the war, and we do not expect anything from them.”

Even Saudi Arabia, which was shaken by an Iranian-inspired riot in the holy city of Mecca in 1987, is reported to be on the verge of normalizing relations with Iran.

However, the threat raised by Islamic fundamentalists still persists, in part because the chain of events set off by the Iranian revolution has found a sympathetic audience in parts of the gulf states, especially those with large populations of Shiite Muslims. Shiites predominate in Iran, although most of the gulf states are ruled by Sunni Muslim monarchs.