U.S. Signals Readiness for Iran Dialogue

The White House and Congress, responding to overtures from Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, signaled a willingness Monday to end almost two decades of animosity between the U.S. and Iran--a step that could bring enormous benefits to both nations.

“I was quite encouraged by Mr. Khatami’s statement,” President Clinton said Monday in response to Khatami’s call the day before for talks between the U.S. and Iran. “I would like nothing better than to have a dialogue with Iran, as long as we can have an honest discussion of all the relevant issues.”

His comments reflected a broader sense of surprise among Clinton administration foreign policy specialists at Khatami’s overture. At a news conference Sunday in Tehran, Khatami, while criticizing the U.S. government, praised “the great American people” and said he hoped that a dialogue might begin “in the not-too-distant future.”

The U.S. stands to gain substantially from meaningful revival of ties with Iran, a country that has worked actively--and often effectively--to undermine American policy in one of the world’s most strategic regions. Tehran has tried to undermine the Middle East peace process, American officials say. They also say it sponsors terrorism and is actively engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction.

Foreign affairs specialists believe that many members of Congress who favored recent efforts to toughen sanctions on Iran are receptive to a new relationship, especially since the initiative appears to have come from Tehran.

“There’s a lot of baggage that has to be unloaded, but what happened yesterday is pretty extraordinary,” said a Senate Democratic staff member. “I think we’ve moved beyond the ‘crazy mullah’ syndrome. It’s been 18 years.”

He was referring to the 444-day crisis, from late 1979 to 1981, when Iranian revolutionaries held 52 American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. That was the nadir in a relationship that has shown little improvement despite the intervening years.

But earlier this year, shortly after Khatami’s surprise election in May, the U.S. reportedly signaled through intermediaries that it was interested in repairing its shattered ties with Iran. Yet few believed the moderate leader would act so swiftly, given the political tightrope he must walk in his country, where hard-liners, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are staunch critics of the United States.

“Experts always said Khatami would move domestically first, because they believed foreign policy was in the hands of hard-liners,” said Kenneth M. Pollack, a Persian Gulf analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

He and others cautioned that the extent of Khatami’s power remains unclear. “He’s done more than most thought he could do, but this battle” between moderates and hard-liners “is far from over,” Pollack said.

Clinton on Monday repeated U.S. concern about Iranian sponsorship of terrorism and development of mass-destruction weapons. But several important factors give the White House reason to test Iran’s interest in rapprochement.

Khatami’s remarks, for example, come as the U.S. policy to isolate Iran politically and economically is increasingly viewed as ineffective and counterproductive. The policy has reduced American influence with Arab states that were supportive of the Arab-Israeli peace process and were among the leaders in the U.S.-led Persian Gulf War coalition against Iraq.

U.S. policy toward Iran also has hampered American interests in the rich new Caspian Sea oil basin, where the administration has found itself at odds with North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally Turkey and with the energy-rich Caspian republic of Turkmenistan, which want to conclude a major natural gas deal that would include a pipeline across Iran to Turkey.

Most important, America’s policy to isolate Iran simply hasn’t worked. When Clinton ordered the U.S. oil company Conoco to pull out of a $2-billion deal last spring to help develop Iran’s giant South Pars oil and gas fields, the withdrawal left a void quickly filled by a consortium that includes France, one of America’s closest allies, and Russia.

Shell, an Anglo-Dutch oil company, has shown interest in building a pipeline across Iran from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf.

The administration has also failed to stop Russia from cooperating with Iran on the development of a medium-range missile that would bring cities such as Tel Aviv within range.

“You can’t isolate a country if you can’t bring your allies along with you,” said James A. Baker III, who served as secretary of State in the Bush administration.

Geoffrey Kemp, a Middle East specialist at the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom, a Washington-based political think tank, noted that the administration is working at the United Nations “to keep a fragile coalition together on Iraq and finds itself going in the exact opposite direction, threatening secondary sanctions against our closest allies because of Iran.”

For Iran, improved relations with the U.S. offer the prospect of ending an isolation that, despite recent progress with U.S. allies, has severely hampered the country’s development. A long-term relationship with the U.S. and its allies could lead to other benefits as well, including help in dealing with Iraq.

But some analysts cautioned that the administration must move carefully. Embracing Khatami too quickly “might hurt him domestically because it could put backs up among the hard-liners,” Pollack said. “Also, the administration doesn’t want to go too fast” in case he fails.