U.S. Reaches Out to Iran for Help Against Terror

The United States publicly reached out Sunday to Iran, its long-standing nemesis, to play a role in the global coalition to fight terrorism. And despite two decades of hostility, Iran has sent unprecedented symbols of support on the issue of terrorism.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said recent Iranian statements are “worth exploring” to determine the scope of Tehran’s potential role. Iran’s position on the U.S. initiative will be critical because it shares a 560-mile border with Afghanistan, the second-longest after Pakistan’s. Iran also shares a long frontier with Pakistan.

Iran announced Saturday it was closing off the Afghan border, in part to avoid a flood of refugees who fear U.S. retaliation but also to close a possible escape route for those close to Osama bin Laden. Iranian cooperation, overt or covert, would amount to a quantum change in Iranian policy and could lay the groundwork for eventual rapprochement, according to U.S. analysts. Iran has been on the State Department’s list of countries supporting terrorism since the 1980s.

“We have serious differences with the government of Iran because of their support of terrorism, but they have made a statement and it seems to me a statement that is worth exploring to see whether or not they now recognize that this is a curse [on] the face of the Earth. And of course Iran has always had difficulty with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan,” Powell said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Some Seek Proof of Iran’s Intentions

The gap on terrorism is still wide and Iran should prove itself before the U.S. embraces Tehran--or offers a quid pro quo, such as lifting sanctions, say current and former U.S. lawmakers. On “Fox News Sunday,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) warned that allowing the current sponsors of terrorism into the coalition without insisting they root out the cells in their own countries or end sponsorship of extremists elsewhere, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, would “make a mockery” of American efforts.

In Iran, both reformers and conservatives in the deeply divided government condemned the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. President Mohammad Khatami said last week that he spoke for the entire Islamic world in expressing outrage. “No Muslim can be pleased about such a human catastrophe,” he said. “Terrorism is condemned and the international community should take effective measures to eradicate it.”

Tehran’s mayor and the chairman of its city council jointly sent a message of condolence to New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, which was widely publicized in Iran’s media Sunday.

“The news about the recent terrorist acts which took many innocent lives in New York cause deep grief and sorrow. Undoubtedly, this act is not just against New Yorkers, but all humanity,” wrote Mayor Morteza Alviri and council president Mohammad Atrianfar.

But Iran sat out the last major U.S. coalition in the region, put together by President Bush’s father, then-President George Bush, during the Persian Gulf War. Iraq, like the Taliban, is a longtime foe of Iran.

Still, the reaction across Iran also has been striking. In a country where “Death to America” was often the national mantra, Iranians have held candlelight vigils for the thousands of victims, while attendants at a World Cup qualifying soccer match observed a moment of silence.

And when some worshipers at last week’s Friday prayers, the gathering place for hard-liners, began chanting “Death to America,” guards signaled them immediately to stop.

Iran has several reasons to welcome this U.S. initiative. Along with Russia, India, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Tehran has been a major supporter of the opposition Northern Alliance, a coalition of Afghan groups that lost control of the country to the Taliban in the mid-1990s. Iran has particularly aided the Hezb-i-Wahdat, the major Shiite Muslim group in the alliance fighting the Taliban.

Iran Disapproves of Some Taliban Policies

With the assassination last week of Northern Alliance guerrilla chief Ahmed Shah Masoud, who was buried Sunday, the opposition will need a major boost to hold together--and to hold on to--the 5% of the land it controls. Religious differences also are a factor between predominantly Shiite Muslim Iran and the predominantly Sunni Taliban.

Although both governments are theocracies, Iran also strongly disapproves of many Taliban practices and policies, from allowing cultivation of the world’s largest poppy crop for opium and heroin to its treatment of women and its ban on most forms of cultural expression, including television, cinema and music.

The list of victims from some three dozen nations also may include Iranians working in New York, according to the Iranian diplomatic mission to the United Nations.

Dialogue between Iran and the United States on Afghanistan would not be unprecedented. Both are members of the so-called “four-plus-two” U.N. working group of nations that includes Afghanistan’s four major neighbors, and the United States and Russia, which meets sporadically. The Clinton administration long hoped that Afghanistan and counter-narcotics efforts would be subjects that would gradually spawn a rapprochement.

The Bush administration, which is currently in the midst of a policy review on Iran, had already been exploring the possibilities of jump-starting the process, according to U.S. officials.

But prospects for cooperation also should not be exaggerated, added Geoffrey Kemp, a Reagan administration National Security Council staffer.

“The administration is right to look at this as an opportunity for a dramatic reappraisal of priorities in the region, and rapprochement would be a fundamental shift in policy that could lead to further isolation of Iraq and extremist groups in Afghanistan,” he said.

But short-term, the best the United States may be able to hope for is that the Iranians behave as they did during the 1991 Gulf War when they were neutral and did not aid neighboring Iraq.