U.S. Blocks a Key Iran Arms Route

The United States has closed off the primary supply route Iran has used for almost 20 years to fly weaponry and other material support to Syria for extremist groups in Lebanon, according to U.S. and Mideast officials.

That success, however, has been countered by Iran’s escalating involvement with extremist groups--primarily Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah--determined to destroy the U.S.-brokered Mideast peace process. Iran’s role during the past seven months has grown to levels not witnessed in a decade, U.S. officials say.

The increasingly intense competition between the United States and Iran for influence in the Mideast has in effect ended, at least for now, the diplomatic thaw begun three years ago by President Mohammad Khatami and pursued by the Clinton administration, the officials add.

In an attempt to curtail Iran’s activities, the United States persuaded Turkey to revoke permission for Iran to fly planes to Syria over Turkish airspace. Since 1982, when Iran first deployed its Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon after Israel invaded the south of the country, Tehran had supplied its troops and allies by flying goods to Syria and transporting them by road into Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley.

At a peak in the mid-1990s, Iran flew 747 jumbo jets with weapons and other materiel to Damascus, the Syrian capital, as many as three times a week, although the number of flights had diminished in recent years to once a week, U.S. officials say.

Turkey’s decision, which officials disclosed only reluctantly last week, has left Iran with difficult or costly alternatives. Iraq is off limits because of the Western-imposed “no-fly” zones in the north and south, while most Persian Gulf states and Jordan do not want to become regular routes.

Turkey agreed to revoke Iran’s air rights last fall after Israel withdrew in May from Lebanon--a juncture when many countries in the region hoped the last militias operating in Lebanon would end their militant activities, U.S. officials say. The Turkish government is also not enthusiastic about Hezbollah’s wide reach outside Lebanon and its support for other militant Islamic groups.

Since the cutoff, some Iranian supplies have managed to reach Syria via other land, sea and circuitous air routes. However, Tehran has been unable to find a regular new air corridor, U.S. officials say.

Washington has been pressing other countries besides Turkey to not cooperate with Iran, also with some success.

“It was a huge victory for us to get Turkey to shut off access in a political sense too. Turks were no longer willing to turn a blind eye on Iran’s terrorism,” said a U.S. source involved in the issue who asked to remain anonymous because of diplomatic sensitivity. “Iran has managed to smuggle materiel in through other routes, but they’ve lost the easiest and fastest way.”

At the same time, though, Tehran has been stepping up its assistance to extremists bent on ending any progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Tehran’s role as the top state sponsor of terrorism was noted in the annual State Department report on terrorism for 2000 released last week. But U.S. officials claim that the role has increased further in recent months.

“Iran has become more active since late last fall. The increase has been pretty steady and pretty intense,” said a well-placed U.S. official who also asked to remain anonymous for diplomatic reasons.

Iran’s heightened operational role has both fueled Islamic militancy and undermined progress achieved by the United States in the Arab-Israeli peace process since 1993. Iran also has escalated its involvement with militant groups in politically fragile Jordan to alarming levels, Arab officials say.

Although its foreign policy review is still far from complete, the Bush administration is now essentially back in the business of trying to contain Iran.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell predicted Friday that the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which is due to expire Aug. 5, will be renewed by Congress, implying that the White House would not object--an about-face from what many oil industry analysts had expected from the Bush administration.

“Iran’s behavior has taken a nasty turn for the worse,” said one of the U.S. officials.

That shift has coincided with the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in September. And it reflects the renewed ascendancy of hard-liners in Iran.

Iran is now the largest financier of the three main Islamic extremist groups, according to U.S. intelligence. At an international conference on the Palestinian issue in Tehran last month, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for even greater aid for the so-called rejectionist front. “They need financial assistance, and we must together offer them help,” he said April 24.

Khamenei, a hard-liner, also said the Palestinian cause should be the primary one for Muslims, even if greater involvement leads to retaliation by the United States and Israel.

“The Islamic uprising or awakening began in Iran after the victory of the Islamic Revolution and has appeared with great force in other Islamic regions. Today, this movement predominantly revolves around the question of Palestine,” he said.

In the past, Iran tried to limit direct links to extremist operations. Even with Hezbollah, its closest ally, Tehran provided primarily arms and training but left the choice, style and timing of operations largely to the group’s leaders in Lebanon. Now, the Revolutionary Guards deployed in Lebanon are providing more operational support, U.S. officials say.

“Rather than being two different groups pursuing the same goal, they’re now working together, talking about operational kinds of issues and sharing equipment and knowledge,” said the U.S. source involved in the issue.

Iran is also now more tightly coordinating the various groups and facilitating smuggling of arms and funds by both land and sea into the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, U.S. officials say.

Gaza and the Jordanian frontiers are the biggest problems, despite intense efforts by Jordan to prevent illegal crossings.

The Jordanian government is sufficiently concerned about Iran’s heightened profile that King Abdullah II raised the issue during his visit to Washington last month, according to Arab and U.S. sources.

“It’s a change because in recent years, Jordan had witnessed a drop in Iran’s activities, and then they went back up again last fall. It’s become very worrisome, as we’d tried to open up to Tehran in trade and diplomacy,” said a prominent Arab official.

Abdullah has deferred plans to visit Tehran, the official said, adding, “Jordan is now more worried about Iran than Iraq in the long term.”