Great Satan Gets Charitable : * Earthquake Relief for Iran Is Also Good Diplomacy

Can any good come out of the mountain of anguish, pain and death that the monster earthquake inflicted on Iran late last week?

Perhaps. A tragedy of this magnitude sometimes has the almost-supernatural ability to put lesser problems in perspective and focus attention on what’s really important. With so many Iranians dead--and countless homeless and in shock--the world reacted almost instantaneously, and apolitically, to this immense tragedy. Relief organizations fired up operations overnight. In Southern California especially, charitable groups, not to mention the area’s Iranian community, came together--their switchboards deluged with offers of money and help from fellow Californians.

In Washington, the Bush Administration was lightning fast in its pledge of assistance, and the President sent a personal message to Iran’s President Hashemi Rafsanjani, not exactly one of Bush’s closest friends. The Great Satan, for all the world to see, was sprouting angel wings quickly. Rafsanjani is too astute to miss the people-to-people message implicit in the charitable gesture.

Might someday such warmth for the Iranian people be broadened in order to at least try to achieve a more normal, regular relationship? This would be a far better course than the endless and enervating finger-pointing and trouble-making that commenced almost the moment the Shah fell.

No doubt Iran would welcome, even in its hardest anti-American heart, an end to Washington’s menacing tilt toward archrival Iraq. And its economy could only benefit from more trade. How soon might this come about? How long will it take for Iran’s religious elite to forgive the Great Satan for its sins? Not overnight. But a wise Washington, eager to regain influence in that region and increasingly aware that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein is no Boy Scout, might just possibly manage to accelerate that process with an earthquake-relief effort that is pointedly ambitious.