Iran Says U.S. Is Imperiling Move Toward Reconciliation

Four months after President Mohammad Khatami’s bold overture to the American people, senior Iranian officials are warning that recent U.S. actions have jeopardized prospects for an end to 20 years of hostility.

Iran asserts that a growing list of negative policy decisions in effect signals an American rejection of that initial step toward eventual rapprochement. The decisions include launching Radio Free Iran, blocking a proposed Caspian pipeline through Iran, refusing to certify the nation’s widely acclaimed anti-narcotics program, undermining participation in an Islamic summit in Tehran, humiliating Iranian visitors to the United States at a time when Americans are now welcome in Iran and citing the regime as the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism.

“The United States is losing an important opportunity by simply not being able to show in concrete terms that it is ready to crack the wall of mistrust,” Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said in an interview--one of the milder criticisms of the U.S. response.

“Despite a more pleasant facade in the U.S. administration’s words about Iran, we see the same policies and even new policies adopted,” Zarif added. “It’s ironic the wall of mistrust has actually thickened.”

In Washington, a State Department official rejected Tehran’s interpretation of U.S. actions and insisted that the administration wants improved relations.

“While not minimizing our concerns about specific Iranian actions, I should emphasize that the U.S. government is committed to pursuing enhanced exchanges with the Iranian people and achieving the goal of a new relationship between our two countries,” State Department Deputy spokesman James Foley declared.

Added another U.S. official, “We’d like to see additional people-to-people contacts leading to an official dialogue. We’d like to sit down and talk with the Iranians on a variety of issues. I’m sure the Iranians have a list of issues they would like to discuss with us. That’s the way diplomacy works.”

But from the corridors of power to Tehran streets, and from newsrooms to university classes, Iranians over the past week have expressed a mixture of disbelief, frustration and indignation about the Clinton administration’s response to Khatami’s groundbreaking interview with Cable News Network in January, when he called for cultural exchanges and expressed regret about past tensions.

Iranians Incredulous

“President Clinton has had some nice words--in a message to Iranians on our new year [in March],” a senior Iranian official said. “And in a message to Muslims after Ramadan, there was a section for Iranians. I’m not trying to belittle those gestures. But in all honesty, it looks like the United States is still trying to stab us--only now with a smile on its face.”

Asked a leading Iranian journalist: “Does the United States really grasp what’s going on here? And does it know what it’s doing?”

The U.S. response is important not only to whether the two countries proceed toward rapprochement but also to whether Khatami succeeds. His foreign policy regarding the West is based on a “dialogue among civilizations.” If the reformist government has nothing to show for its initiative, its early success in building a new national consensus behind a gradual thaw could lose ground to conservatives and remnants of the revolutionary left. Both have questioned or challenged restoring relations with the U.S.

Over the past week, American actions have almost totally diverted government and media focus from the recent 12-day detention of Tehran’s mayor--a case that consumed Iran in early April.

On Sunday, the nation’s powerful parliamentary speaker and conservative leader, Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, who was defeated by Khatami in a major election upset last year, angrily warned against new “American plots” and called for unity among Iran’s factions to foil U.S. efforts.

Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, chief of Iran’s judiciary and one of the revolution’s most enduring voices, told worshipers at Friday prayers last week that Radio Free Iran is a U.S. scheme to “undermine public confidence in Iran’s government.”

Because of the 70% support shown Khatami at the polls, both officials had been widely believed to represent a minority viewpoint. But the U.S. decision last month to approve Radio Free Iran has provided ammunition for a new challenge from them.

“If the U.S. remains very consistent in its anti-Iran practices, then President Khatami is going to be hurt. He took the courageous first step and was not rewarded by the U.S., so further steps would then have been possible,” said Rejaie Khorasani, a former U.N. ambassador and member of parliament now at the Foreign Ministry. “Now he can’t keep on repeating the same positive peaceful words because of internal pressure, which will gain legitimacy because he has nothing to show for them.”

The release last week of the State Department’s annual terrorism survey, which listed Iran as the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 1997, added to frustration among officials. They say the report reflected both a time lag and a misrepresentation of new Iranian policy.

The report cited 13 assassinations linked to Tehran, the majority of which killed Iranian dissidents based in Iraq and most of which occurred before Khatami took office in August. Most of the victims were also trying to undermine the Iranian government, Iranian officials say.

“Given American problems with Iraq and given the strong U.S. posture about its own security even thousands of miles from its own shores, you’d think Washington would be a bit smarter or more sensitive about the difference between defending yourself and terrorism,” another Iranian official said. “It is more understanding of the difference when it comes to its allies in the region.”

But Foley of the State Department said of the terrorism report: “We are obligated to assess facts as we see them; we cannot adjust them for policy considerations. In fact, continued support by authorities in Iran for terrorist activities remains a paramount concern to the U.S. government and, until reversed, will be a major stumbling block in the normalization of Iran’s ties with the U.S. and the West in general. President Khatami has vigorously and unconditionally condemned terrorism and we welcome that. We want to see that commitment, which mirrors changes that he is pursuing internally, translated into a change in Iranian policies in this regard.”

Still, Foley acknowledged it will take time to detect whether Iran has changed its policies in support of terrorist activities in line with Khatami’s statements.

Pressing Issues

Of greater concern to Iranians, however, are the other issues, including:

* Creating Radio Free Iran, which Iran charges is offensive not only because its original mandate was to beam anti-government material into Iran. It is also a violation of the Algiers accord, which settled the 1979-81 Tehran hostage ordeal and which stipulates that the United States will not interfere in Iranian domestic politics. Iran intends to take the issue to the World Court in The Hague, Zarif said.

* Blocking a Caspian pipeline via Iran, which Tehran charges hurts the fragile former Soviet republics around the Caspian Sea even more than Iran. The alternative “Eurasian corridor” will be costlier--up to three times the $1 billion for an Iran pipeline--and environmentally hazardous, some analysts say. Until mid-1997, U.S. officials said they had no legal authority to block the Iran pipeline. But last fall, Washington decided to oppose outlets in Iran for some of the world’s largest untapped oil and gas reserves. Given congressional restrictions, the most positive signal the United States could send Iran would be ending opposition to the project. “The pipeline would certainly show that the U.S. is interested in adopting more realistic policies and in adapting itself to the realities of the world in 1998,” Zarif said.

* Refusing to certify Iran’s anti-drug program, despite the heavy price Iran pays to fortify its border to limit transit of narcotics from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Europe. The program is widely recognized as one of the most extensive and effective anti-drug efforts in the region.

* Undermining participation at the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit in Tehran, which Iran will head for the next three years. That deeply embarrassed the Khatami government, Iranian officials say. “The U.S. did everything it could to prevent countries from participating,” Zarif said. Still, Iran’s leadership proposed a resolution accepting the 1993 Oslo accords as the basis for the Mideast peace process, a major departure from its previous total rejection. It was approved. “Iran will not take any action to impede the process,” Zarif said.

* Subjecting Iranian visitors to the United States to humiliating treatment, which Tehran charges is inconsistent with support for cultural exchanges. Visas take weeks and involve at least one stop in a third country between Iran and the United States. All nonofficial Iranians must be fingerprinted and photographed by U.S. immigration authorities, while Iran’s top tourist official has pledged to shorten the visa process for Americans to two to three days.

No Welcome Mat

The issue of U.S. treatment of Iranians arose, in particular, with the handling of a delegation of wrestlers. Foley also noted that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was less than pleased with the treatment of the visiting athletes. “She instructed the department, together with other agencies, to see whether we could ensure that future Iranian visitors coming to the United States in the context of the kinds of exchanges we are encouraging--as proposed by President Khatami--can be conducted in a more befitting manner,” he noted.

* Failing to credit Iran for other steps it has taken to address mutual concerns, such as the clampdown on Iraq’s sanctions-busting oil smuggling, which had reached 100,000 barrels a day. “What we are doing there comes at a high cost to Iran. Our territorial waters are vast. It means increasing our coast guard and naval patrols to make sure that smuggling does not take place--at the risk of relations with [Iraq],” Zarif said.

Under Khatami, Iran has also repaired frayed relations with neighbors, including the Saudi monarchy. “Iran has followed a very constructive policy of confidence building and moving toward better relations with everybody,” the deputy foreign minister said.