If You Seriously Want to Fight Terrorism . . . : New expanded embargo at least gives Clinton consistency

In acting to end all American trade and investment with Iran, President Clinton has done what consistency of policy and purpose require. The theocratic regime that seized power in 1979 continues unrelentingly trying to sabotage U.S. interests and undermine regional stability. Iran bitterly opposes efforts to achieve peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. It acts, in Clinton’s words, as “inspiration and paymaster to terrorists.” And it seeks to gain a nuclear weapons capability that would dangerously upset the region’s balance of power. To maintain even indirect trade relations with Iran in the face of such behavior would be to follow a policy notable more for its hypocrisy than its logic.

The inconsistency of American policy up to now was put on embarrassing display in March with the Conoco case. The big oil company, working through its Dutch subsidiary, had plans to develop two large offshore oil fields for Iran. Clinton, citing national security, issued an executive order outlawing all such deals involving U.S. subsidiaries.

That action, however, called attention to the quiet trade with Iran that has been going on despite the embargo imposed 16 years ago, after the Islamic regime seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held its 52 American occupants captive for 444 days. American oil companies, through their foreign subsidiaries, were shown to be Iran’s biggest single customer, legally buying more than one barrel of oil out of every five that Iran exported. The oil could be sold only outside the United States, but the trade, along with sales of some U.S. farm and oil field equipment, was worth close to $4.5 billion a year. That degree of commercial coziness inevitably gave a hollow ring to Washington’s exhortations in behalf of maintaining and deepening Iran’s international isolation.

The new expanded embargo at least helps raise policy to a somewhat loftier moral plane as Washington tries to influence others to join it in pressuring Iran to better behave itself. Regrettably, it’s the United States that is now likely to find itself more isolated. Before Clinton announced the embargo, the Administration solicited the support of a number of friendly states that continue to trade with Iran. That support has not been forthcoming. Nor is it realistic to expect it will be offered any time soon, whether by Western Europe, Russia, Japan or China.

Indeed, the very fact that the United States has now acted in a way that modestly damages its own economic interests is likely to deepen its sense of frustration with those who trade with Iran. That could well show up first in Moscow, where Clinton is to meet with President Boris N. Yeltsin next week. Russia is determined to sell up to four light-water nuclear reactors to Iran, a deal Washington fears could accelerate Tehran’s timetable for making its own nuclear weapons. China similarly seems unwilling to stop selling military and nuclear equipment to Iran.

The consistent U.S. argument against such commerce is that Iran has repeatedly shown itself to be an outlaw state, not to be trusted. By moving to cut virtually all trade ties with the rogue regime, Washington puts itself on politically firmer ground. But whether others can soon be persuaded to share that turf remains very much in doubt.