U.S. Allies Won’t Like Detente With Iran

The latest hostage crisis has been taking place at a delicate moment in the political evolution of the Middle East. If not properly handled, the crisis may reverse positive trends of the last few months, thereby prolonging the hostages’ anguish and worsening the political atmosphere in the region--particularly regarding Iran.

Increasingly in recent months, Iranian politics have become introspective. Under its new leadership, focused on newly elected President Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran has clearly indicated that its first priority is to rebuild its economy and to improve the conditions of its long-suffering people. Iran also needs to rebuild its military forces, which are now inferior to almost all of its neighbors’.

To achieve these goals, Iran must abandon its adventurous policies and normalize relations with the outside world. Thus, Iran’s new spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said that it can be an object of emulation for other Muslims only if it builds an economically advanced and just society at home. In effect, this means abandoning the aggressive export of revolution.

The impact of this new thinking has been evident in Iran’s attitude toward factions in Lebanon. During the last few months, it had begun to distance itself from Hezbollah (the Party of God) to improve its relations with Amal, a more moderate Shiite movement, and to reach out to other Muslim groups. Only two days before Israel abducted Sheik Abdul Karim Obeid, reports emanated from Beirut to the effect that changes in Iran and in its relations with the Lebanese Shiites might lead to the release of Western hostages, who were becoming a political liability. Since their confinement has long been viewed in the United States to be the principal impediment to better--or at least non-hostile--U.S.-Iranian relations, these developments were raising hopes of progress in resolving this long-standing impasse.

The capture of Obeid, a village clergyman in southern Lebanon, gave the Iranian radicals a new lease on life. In an emotional outburst, Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashemi said that any conciliatory gesture toward the United States, including on the hostage question, would be a betrayal of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s teachings. Mohtashemi even challenged the legality of Rafsanjani’s presidency, arguing that the outgoing president (Khamenei) technically remains in office until Oct. 3, and that Rafsanjani must get the approval of Parliament before assuming power.

By the same token, recent calls in the United States for military retaliation against Iran could undo much of the recent gains for Iranian pragmatists, just as last spring’s controversy over the novel “Satanic Verses” aborted Iran’s nascent moderate trend.

In handling the hostage crisis, it is important for U.S. leaders to judge the impact of the options on the evolution of Iran’s political scene. Here U.S. interests may diverge from those of some of its regional allies. Many countries in the Middle East have taken advantage of Iran’s misguided extremism and its estrangement from the United States to advance their own goals. They would not look favorably at the prospect of a more moderate Iran and better U.S.-Iranian relations.

Similarly, Israel and some Arab states have used Arab-Iranian tensions to divert attention from the Palestinian problem. Egypt has used these tensions to gain influence in the Persian Gulf and to be readmitted to the Arab fold. And, along with Jordan, it used Iraq’s problems with Iran to try persuading Baghdad to be more forthcoming on the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Some countries would therefore view a more moderate Iran as a mixed blessing. Israel, which has suffered from Iranian extremism, would be unlikely to welcome an Iran that no longer kept Arab states preoccupied. Saudi Arabia, which has used U.S.-Iranian estrangement to consolidate its foothold in Southwest Asia, would not welcome efforts by a moderate Iran to be included in a settlement in Afghanistan. Iraq, of course, fears that Iran’s move toward moderation would make it more acceptable to the West. Last week Baghdad called Rafsanjani’s conciliatory remarks about the hostages a “trick.”

Thus its regional allies’ pursuit of their own goals has complicated America’s agenda, especially efforts to ease tensions with Iran. U.S. policy has already begun paying the price of the recent Soviet-Iranian rapprochement and Iran’s possible accommodation with the regime in Kabul.

Both U.S. domestic politics and competing concerns in the Middle East make it difficult for Washington to take the initiative in moving toward better relations with Iran, and they could also constrain a U.S. response to any Iranian lead. In judging its course of action, the United States should focus on its own short- and long-term interests and not to be swayed by the parochial interests of its allies.