Why Reward Iran’s Zealots?

President Bush’s inclusion of Iran in an “axis of evil” is a bizarre and seemingly inexplicable expansion of his war on terrorism. It involves a disturbing--and major--policy shift: Iran is now a potential military target primarily because U.S. officials say it is developing weapons of mass destruction. Bush’s hostile rhetoric, furthermore, has strengthened the hands of Iran’s religious hard-liners at the expense of its reformers, who now have no alternative but to unite behind the conservative clerics’ virulent anti-Americanism. Recent administration statements explaining its position on Iran do not undo the effects of its threats. It is hard to imagine a more counterproductive policy.

The charges undergirding the policy shift are based on an exaggeratedly negative view of Iran, an unwarranted dismissal of the role reformists play and a misplaced belief that we can control change in Iran. For example, many states are working on processes and collecting materials that could lead to the production of nuclear weapons, but the U.S. does not threaten most of them militarily and, indeed, has good relations with two states that recently tested nuclear devices. We have been unable to stop any state from developing nuclear weapons, whatever we say or do.

Then there is the Karine-A incident, the ship loaded with Iranian-supplied armaments that was intercepted by Israelis before it reached the Palestinian Authority last month. Numerous articles in the European press and in the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz have cast grave doubts on the Israeli government’s official story. Some suggest that a militant Palestinian faction opposed to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat arranged the shipment to embarrass Arafat and scuttle any hopes of peace. Others have raised the possibility that all or part of the smuggling operation was stage-managed by some Israelis.

Iran, to be sure, opposes Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, an opposition widely shared outside of the U.S. But Iran’s support for Arafat and his Palestinian Authority is overwhelmingly rhetorical. The only thing likely to change Iran’s attitude toward Israel is a settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict that ends Israeli occupation and creates a Palestinian state.

The U.S. charges that Tehran has facilitated the escape of some members of Al Qaeda--its long-standing enemy--to Iran and is undermining the new Afghan government in Kabul by meddling in western Afghanistan politics are especially weak. For years, Iran has tried to seal its long border with Afghanistan, which is the source of unwanted drugs and millions of refugees, but cracks remain. And it seems strange to expect Iran not to have an interest in events in Afghan territory near its borders, given the anarchy and warlordism that continue there.

But even if one accepted the Bush administration’s charges against Iran, none would pose a threat to the U.S. to justify a move away from negotiations toward ultimatums. Besides its stated reasons, the administration appears to accept Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s view that Iraq and Iran must be threatened simultaneously. Most U.S. government officials want to bring down Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but that might weaken Iraq and strengthen Iran. A stronger Iran worries some in the administration, a danger they believe is best obviated by threatening military action against it. These officials also apparently think that reformers in Iran will back this policy. But a recent independent Iranian public opinion poll and last week’s huge anti-American demonstrations show that most Iranians oppose it.

Contrary to the alarmist and negative views held by Israel and by many in the Bush administration, Iran has undergone major changes in recent years. While further progress in politics may be blocked for now because conservative clerics control the main instruments of government, continuing changes in Iranian society are causes for hope.

In international relations, Iran’s government has encouraged the creation of numerous economic and political ties with Western Europe and Japan. Many officials, including Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, have taken steps to improve relations with the U.S. Several international conferences have been held in Iran, with the U.S. invited to participate. One recent project, sponsored by the Iranian Institute of Imam Khomeini and Islamic Revolution, involved the publication of the views, some of them controversial by Iran’s standards, of prominent U.S.-based Iran scholars. Regrettably, these trends toward better relations with the West, doggedly contested by conservatives, have been further undermined by Bush’s “axis of evil” rhetoric. Already, there have been consequences. Khatami and other reformers called for anti-American protests Feb. 11, and millions responded.

Hopeful long-term developments within Iran include the expansion of civil society, education, health and women’s roles. In four national elections since 1997, reformist candidates received a huge majority of votes, and the great majority of them took their seats. Despite crackdowns on the reformist press, book publishing remains remarkably open, including translations of controversial works about Iran. Education has expanded to include most boys and girls, and the curriculum is overwhelmingly modern. Women now constitute a slight majority of the students at Tehran University.

Women’s and reformists’ struggles have succeeded in restoring a number of legal rights for women nullified by Iran’s former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, though much more remains to be done. Women are prominent in nearly all professions. Proportionally, there are probably more women film directors in Iran than anywhere else, and Iranian films highlight social problems in ways impossible in more dictatorial countries. Conservative curbs on dress and behavior are increasingly flaunted with impunity. The government has also pursued one of the world’s most effective voluntary birth-control programs.

Newly educated and largely reformist Iranians dislike Iran’s clerical regime, are discouraged by the country’s bad economic situation and resist limits on their freedom, but they also reject U.S. threats against their country. Reformers in Iran differ about what to do to end conservative clerical control, but they overwhelmingly agree that U.S. threats to strike militarily at suspected nuclear-weapons factories can only reduce the possibilities for more open domestic and foreign policies.

Before greater harm is inflicted upon U.S.-Iran relations, the Bush administration should back off its counterproductive rhetoric and instead build on Iran’s underlying trend toward change and numerous recent helpful acts in the war on terrorism, such as allowing U.S. food relief to be unloaded at a gulf port. Continuing current U.S. policy can only give further aid and comfort to Iran’s hard-line clerics.

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Nikki R. Keddie, professor emerita of history at UCLA, is the author of “Roots of the Revolution: An Interpretive History of Modern Iran” and co-editor, with Rudi Matthee, of “Iran and the Surrounding War: Interactions in Culture and Cultural Politics.”