Seeing Iran Through Rose-Colored Glasses

For a quarter-century, U.S. policy was one of unconditional support for the shah of Iran. Iran became one of our “pillars of defense” in the Middle East. Our diplomats, our intelligence agencies and indeed our presidents were so beguiled by the shah that they were blind to unmistakable signs that his people had turned against him. In 1978, the CIA reported that Iran was “not in a revolutionary or even a prerevolutionary stage.”

The shah fled the country two months later. After a brutal internal struggle, secular opponents of the monarchy were killed or driven out of the country and a theocracy was established, opposing the West and all liberal thought. The United States was characterized as the font of all evil, the embodiment of the “Great Satan” himself.

One year ago Iran had its first relatively free presidential election. Of four approved candidates, the government’s favorite, Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, was a dour conservative of the Khomeini model; two others were nonentities; the fourth was Mohammad Khatami, an obscure cleric who had been minister of Islamic guidance in the 1980s.

To the world’s surprise and the consternation of the ruling mullahs, Khatami won 70% of the votes, not so much because he was reputed to be a “moderate” but because he most certainly was not favored by the government. He was installed as president and he survives.

Some U.S. policymakers and businessmen have attached much importance to his implied promises of reform and change. While some are no doubt sincere, others who argue for a softening of American sanctions on Iran may have colored their judgment by prospects of lucrative contracts for new oil and gas pipelines from the former Soviet Union through Iran to Turkey or the Persian Gulf.

The State Department is clearly divided. In an admitted effort to curry favor with the mullahs. one branch of the State Department branded as a “terrorist organization” the Moujahedeen Khalq, the largest of the Iranian opposition movements and the prime target of official Iranian terrorism at home and abroad. The mullahs welcomed the announcement as a triumph of their regime but did not answer it with any changes in internal or external policies. Not much later, another branch of the State Department ranked Iran as the “most active state sponsor of terrorism.”

But isn’t there some evidence of change? Well, a few restrictions on social life have been relaxed in the last few years; the Revolutionary Guard has lost some of its fervor and can usually be bribed not to break into private homes where “immoral activities” are suspected. Visitors to Tehran--but no place else--notice that the all-encompassing chadors prescribed for women are not quite as concealing as they had been. The state-run press is free to criticize certain actions of government officials, mostly those of rival factions. And Khatami has spoken of “opening up informal contacts” with the United States.

But the basic reforms in theocratic rule, which most Iranians want, have not been implemented. Questioning the religious basis of the ruling theocracy is dangerous. In the year of Khatami’s presidency, tens of thousands of “enemies of the people”--usually accused of “drug use,” “adultery” or general “corruption”--have been arrested and often tortured. According to official figures, 199 have been executed; Iranians believe the true figure is much higher. Moderate religious leaders, including the highly respected Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who have questioned the actions of the ruling mullahs, are imprisoned or kept under house arrest.

Critics of the regime continue to be assassinated abroad. In the first year of the Khatami presidency, 24 have been killed, a sharp increase compared with the previous year.

Iran, whose natural gas reserves are the second largest in the world, could enjoy exceedingly cheap electricity. Yet electricity remains in short supply and the regime continues the fiction that the nuclear reactors under construction are exclusively for production of domestic electricity. It imports missile technology from China, North Korea and Pakistan and has recently tested missiles with a range of 1,400 kilometers.

The “opening to America” that Khatami seemed to favor was dismissed contemptuously by Ayatollah Khamenei. Khatami then quickly explained that he had been misinterpreted. The United States remains the “Great Satan” and the anniversary of the capture of the “Nest of Spies,” the American Embassy, is still celebrated.

Khatami does not have the ability--even assuming the will--to make significant changes. His title of “president” implies authority, when he has little; he is outranked and frequently overruled by Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the Council of Expediency and by the “supreme guide” himself, the Ayatollah Khamenei.

Iranians revolted against the shah not to turn the clock back to the Middle Ages but because they were sickened by the corruption of his court and his government, by the lack freedom and by the excesses of the shah’s secret police. Ayatollah Khomeini promised them a “government of God on earth,” but he and his successor have given them a government whose corruption exceeds that of the shah and whose human rights abuses are an order of magnitude worse. In the 20 years of the rule of mullahs, 120,000 Iranians have been sentenced to death after quasi-legal proceedings--some 40 times the number of those executed during the entire reign of the late shah.

Nonetheless, the election of Khatami was of great importance. The Iranian people showed that they wanted an end to corruption and oppression. They hoped Khatami could bring it about, but he has shown he can do little. Now, after a year, all illusions about the new president have vanished and the mass of Iranians must look elsewhere for radical change. In almost daily demonstrations in Tehran and in all provincial capitals, the mullahs’ favorite old chant, “Death to the Israel and America,” has given way to shouts of “Death to Despotism.”

The leader of the Iranian resistance, Massoud Rajavi, may well be right when he said recently, “The government of the mullahs is entering its final stage; the time to prepare for its overthrow has arrived.”

My enduring nightmare is that one of our major foreign policy blunders in the Middle East is about to be repeated in the same country. The United States supported the shah long after it was clear to every objective observer that almost all Iranians had turned against him. It would be ironic and tragic if we were to open relations with the Iranian theocracy just as the Iranian people have concluded that it must go.