Skeptical About Iran Embargo, Analysts Warn That It Could Bolster Hard-Liners : Mideast: Even emigre opponents of the Tehran regime doubt that the country’s economy will suffer without U.S. trade.

As the Clinton Administration campaigned vigorously Monday against Tehran, analysts from America, Europe and the Middle East predicted that new U.S. sanctions banning trade with and investment in Iran will have little economic impact there--and might even backfire.

President Clinton’s decision to eliminate the last visible ties with Iran sends “an unmistakable message to friend and foe alike” that the United States is “determined to stop them,” Secretary of State Warren Christopher said Monday.

He pledged to redouble U.S. efforts to prevent the sale of nuclear technology to Iran by Russia and China and to persuade European nations not to extend credits for trade with Tehran, saying the issue amounts to a test of American leadership in the world.

“Certainly they should end all of their concessionary credits, which allow Iran to divert scarce resources in military programs into sponsoring terrorism,” Christopher said of the Group of Seven industrial powers, which include Germany, Japan, Britain, France, Italy and Canada in addition to the United States.

But even Iranian opponents of the Tehran regime warned that the effect of a new executive order, expected to be signed later this week, might turn out to be the opposite of what Washington wants.

“Economically, Iran is not going to be hurt. And politically, this will strengthen the regime at home, not weaken it,” said Jahangir Amuzegar, minister of finance and commerce under the deposed shah and now an oil industry consultant in Washington. “This will become a rallying cry for the government.”

A White House spokesman said that some G-7 members are reviewing their economic ties to Iran. But envoys from several of the countries that do business with Iran said Monday that any major change in their policies is unlikely.

Diplomats said Britain already has as many restrictions as either its economy or public opinion will tolerate. French diplomats said a major decision might even have to be made at the level of the European Union, because individual European countries would be reluctant to act alone. Sanctions have limited impact unless applied by all major parties, they noted.

And Germany, which does a larger volume of trade with Iran than any other country in Europe, traditionally has argued that continued trade is the most effective instrument to influence Iranian actions.

Japan did agree to postpone financing a major development project, the Karun Dam, as a result of American pressure. But the agreement with Iran is scheduled to resume this summer.

In recent years, Iran’s imports have amounted to between $10 billion and $12 billion annually, of which the $326-million U.S. share was comparatively small. “There’ll be plenty of interests eager to take the place of the Americans. And there’ll still be third-party transactions of American goods, which will be extremely difficult to stop,” Amuzegar said.

European reaction and the range of alternatives available to Iran underscore the new embargo’s vulnerability. “For a policy to force the regime to think again--whether toward moderation or radicalism--it must first be effective,” said Shaul Bakhash, an Iran expert at George Mason University and author of “Reign of the Ayatollahs.”

Politically, the cost to the United States of the new plan may be high. Rather than moderate the Tehran regime’s positions on extremist groups, nuclear proliferation and the Middle East peace process, the new U.S. policy could bring more hard-line attitudes and leaders to the fore, several analysts said.

“This step discredits the pragmatic position in Iran because the hard-liners can argue that the United States was never really interested in a dialogue. The moderates who’ve been losing out for the last year or so will be further weakened,” Bakhash said.

Administration officials discounted those concerns.

“Frankly, we don’t think that (the Iranians) can be any more extreme than they are,” Madeleine Albright, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in Jerusalem on Monday. “That there can be some kind of relationship with them . . . to soften them up, that approach has simply not worked, and as the superpower here, it is our responsibility to make clear that this kind of behavior is unacceptable.”

In the most specific description to date of Iran’s nuclear program and its links with international terrorism, Christopher said Tehran has had an “organized structure” dedicated to acquiring nuclear weapons for more than a decade.

Its activities have included trying independently to produce plutonium and enriched uranium, both basic to nuclear weapons. When its own efforts failed, Tehran aggressively “scoured the former Soviet Union in search of nuclear materials, technologies and scientists,” Christopher said at a State Department briefing Monday.

He called Iran’s backing of terrorism “pervasive,” saying the Islamic republic has backed violence throughout the Middle East. But its reach is also now global, Christopher said.

Iran dismissed the new embargo as meaningless to Tehran but hurtful to U.S. interests. “Today’s world of economy is the world of competition, and Iran has various alternatives for its trade,” a Foreign Ministry statement said.