Volume 4, No. 4 - December 2000
Volume 4, No. 4 - December 2000
Editor's
Summary: While
U.S. policy in the Gulf can claim many successes in the 1990s, it now needs to
be readjusted in light of changing conditions. Both Iran and Iraq are gradually
escaping the web of sanctions created in earlier years. Saudi Arabia and the
other Gulf Arab monarchies are increasingly using Iran to counter Iraq,
accepting Iraq's return to the Arab world, and returning to a more distant
posture regarding the United States, though still welcoming its protection. This
article discusses the recent history of U.S. policy, the current situation, and
options for the future.
U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf is once again in a period of transition.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the United States sided with Iran, in part to
contain Iraq. In the 1980s, the United States sided with Iraq in order to
contain Iran. In the 1990s, the United States implemented a policy of "dual
containment" to try to contain both
countries.
Yet at the dawn of the twenty-first century, American policies seem
better tailored to past challenges than future ones. While the United States
remains in a defensive crouch against Iran and Iraq in the Gulf, both Iran and
Iraq are reaching out to their neighbors and their gestures are being
reciprocated. There are two pitfalls here for the United States. The first is
that America's Gulf allies undermine the American position while at the same
time relying on it, leading to a strategic collapse. The second is that by
concentrating so heavily on military threats, U.S. policy may miss the
importance of internal political changes, which over the next decade could be
the principal factor affecting U.S. interests.
RECENT HISTORY
For decades, U.S. policy in the Middle East has been driven by three main
principles: energy security, Israeli security, and stability through the
protection of friendly regimes. Over the last 20 years, developments in the Gulf
have directly affected each of those principles.
The Iranian revolution of 1979 was a jolt to American strategy in the
region. In a short few months, the United States lost an important ally, its
designated policeman in the Gulf, and one of the two pillars of its Gulf
strategy (the other being Saudi Arabia). As the new government of the Islamic
Republic of Iran consolidated its power, it became increasingly vocal about its
anti-Americanism, its anti-Zionism, and its desire to foster Islamic revolution
throughout the Middle East. Words were followed by deeds. Iranian students, with the
government's support, overran the U.S. embassy in Tehran in November 1979 and
held U.S. diplomats hostage until January 1981. There was also a series of
internal purges, first of those loyal to the Shah, and then of those deemed
insufficiently committed to the goals of the Islamic revolution.
Saddam Hussein saw the Iranian revolution as a threat and an opportunity.
He was the avowedly secular leader of a neighboring country, the majority of
whose citizens shared the Shia Muslim faith of Iran rather than the Sunni Muslim
faith of most of the Iraqi leadership. Saddam feared that a spillover of Shiite
revolutionary fervor from Iran would not only threaten his grip on power, but
could also affect Iraq's character as a Sunni-led secular state. He elected to
go on the offensive, taking advantage of perceived disarray in Tehran to redress
old territorial claims and perhaps topple the ayatollahs from power. Striking
out across the border in September 1980, he rushed
to portray his battle in ethnic terms, defending Arab honor from the
encroachment of Persian invaders. In so doing, he sought (and gained) the
financial support of the Sunni Arab kingdoms in the Gulf, which felt just as
threatened by revolutionary Shiite republicanism as he did.
Despite his proclivity for appearing in uniform, Saddam Hussein's
background is strictly civilian. He came up through the security services of the
Iraqi Baath Party, not the military. In the war's early years, his lack of a
military background showed. The Iraqi army appeared to have no concrete
objectives, and its maneuvering was plodding. In July 1982, once the Iranians
had recovered from their initial shock and reconstituted their army, the
Iranians pushed the Iraqis back over the border and advanced deep into Iraqi
territory. Pressed against the wall, Saddam sought-and obtained - international
support for his battle against the Iranians, both from his Arab neighbors and
from the United States.
The total
amount of Arab assistance to Iraq can reasonably be estimated as at least $30
billion.(1) The United States contributed, too, offering grain credits in 1983
as well as occasional satellite photographs of Iranian deployments. The American
embrace of Saddam was never enthusiastic, but American policymakers considered
it necessary to counter the Iranian threat. As the battle evened out in the
middle of the decade, American government officials took a more ambivalent role.
They continued courting Iraq, but they also made limited overtures to Iran.
First, they hoped to free American hostages held by Iran's Shiite clients in
Lebanon, and then they also sought cash with which to support anti-Communist
forces in Nicaragua, White House officials sold limited amounts of
weapons--mostly TOW and HAWK missiles--to Iran in the middle of the decade. The
collapse of the scheme was a major public embarrassment to the Reagan
Administration.
The American profile in the Gulf rose in the winter of 1986-1987 when Kuwait sought protection for
its tankers, and threatened to seek Soviet protection if the Americans were not
forthcoming. The Americans agreed to Kuwait's appeals, and the U.S. Navy
increased its presence in the Gulf, at times clashing with Iranian ships.
Had Iran ended the war in 1982 or 1983, it could have done so more on its
own terms. But the leadership in Tehran perceived a partial victory over the
Iraqis as a defeat, and continued to press for the fall of the regime in
Baghdad. Instead, the balance shifted toward Iraq, due to foreign assistance,
air power, and the tactical use of chemical weapons. The two parties battled to
a stalemate. Finally a formal cease-fire was signed in August 1989, two months
after Ayatollah Khomeini's death. The costs to both sides were enormous, yet the
war produced no discernable gains for either of them.
To American policymakers, the end of the war did not mean the end of the
Iranian threat. American officials continued to favor Iraq as a balance to Iran,
and hoped that the bloody conflict's end would induce Iraqi moderation. When
Democratic congressional staffers set out in 1989 to investigate Iraq's use of
chemical weapons against civilians in the Iraqi Kurdish village of Halabja, some
Capitol Hill Republicans began a whispering campaign suggesting that the
staffers were motivated by fealty to the pro-Israel lobby and not U.S.
interests. Money played a role as well. In Washington in the late 1980s, it
seemed that everyone from oil company and telecommunications executives to farmers sought export
markets in Iraq.(2)
One could argue that Washington's policy of engagement with Iraq left it
flat-footed when Iraq engaged in saber rattling in the summer of 1990. Pursuant
to State Department instructions, American Ambassador to Baghdad April Glaspie
sought to defuse the situation by delivering a message of partial accommodation
to Saddam Hussein. While Americans thought Saddam might limit himself to
occupying a small sliver of Kuwaiti territory, Saddam apparently took the
conciliatory message as a green light to invade the entire country.(3)
The American policy of rapprochement with Iraq came to a screeching halt
with Iraq's August 2, 1990 invasion of Kuwait. In crossing the border, Iraq
sought the redress of historical grievances, the control of more oil, and the
obliteration of tens of billions of dollars of debt that Iraq incurred while
fighting the Iranians. They also sought to punish the Kuwaitis for reportedly
exceeding their oil production quota, thereby dropping world prices and
diminishing Iraqi oil income.
By invading, the Iraqis also threatened all three pillars of American
policy in the Middle East. In at least one case, the threat was gratuitous.
Saddam's saber rattling and later his ineffective Scud attacks on Israel were
presumably intended to gain Arab support for his adventure. While he garnered
some support on the streets of the Arab world, the Arab League rejected the
attack. Saddam gained formal support only from parties with little power and
little to give (the PLO and Yemen, for example), all of whom paid dearly for
their flirtation with Saddam.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of troops from the United States, Europe
and the Arab world flooded into the Gulf to roll back the invasion. By the end
of the build- up, Iraq had succeeded in making unlikely allies of a disparate
group of more than 29 countries, including Afghanistan, Syria, Niger and Spain.
American forces shouldered much of the burden, with assists in some areas from
major European and Arab allies.
The armed effort to liberate Kuwait and expel Iraqi forces began in
January 1991, after a long series of warnings and threats. Although many feared
that the Iraqi troops, and especially the vaunted Republican Guards, would prove
tough adversaries, the Iraqi army collapsed almost immediately. The American
decision to end the ground war after 100 hours was determined by coalition
pressure (especially from Arab coalition partners), the political benefits of
claiming a swift victory, and concern that occupying Baghdad
would turn into a morass that would destabilize Iraq and induce a wave of
anti-American sentiment. In addition, American planners assumed that the Saddam
Hussein's humiliating defeat would make the leader appear vulnerable and provoke
an uprising against him within Iraq. As a result, American leaders decided to
end the battle and accept Iraqi promises to disarm.
In the subsequent decade, the U.S. position in the Gulf has remained
consistent. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait demonstrated to the oil-rich
kingdoms, sheikhdoms, and emirates that their wealth provides little protection
from invading armies. Americans continue to perceive Iraq as a threat that must
be contained, and also express concern over Iranian designs on the Gulf. The
United States has prepositioned billions of dollars worth of supplies in the
region, although the U.S. military seeks, to the greatest degree possible, to
keep its troops "over the horizon" to minimize local opposition.
But the relative success of a Pax Americana in the Gulf creates a
challenge for the American position as well. While the American presence in the
Gulf has brought stability, that stability, in turn, has served to erode public
support in the Gulf for maintaining a significant U.S. presence there.
Nationalists in the Gulf countries and throughout the region have harped on the
American presence as an example of unbridled imperialism, while at the same time
benefiting from the presence of those troops. A Lebanese journalist often begins his discussions of the
Gulf by relating a Saudi's description of the desired American role: "We
want you to be like the wind. We want to feel you, but we don't want to see
you."(4)
Since May 1993, official U.S. policy in the Gulf has been one of
"dual containment." The strategy departed from Washington's
long-standing approach of siding with either Iran or Iraq to balance against
whichever of the two appeared more threatening. Instead, the U.S. would use its
own forces to balance against both countries simultaneously. The Cold War's end
made such a policy possible. As former national security adviser Anthony Lake
explained in an article: "We no longer have to fear Soviet efforts to gain
a foothold in the Persian Gulf by taking advantage of our support for one of
these states to build relations with the other. The strategic importance of both
Iraq and Iran has therefore been reduced dramatically, and their ability to play
the superpowers off each other has been eliminated."(5)
While dual containment does
not necessarily suggest equivalence between Iran and Iraq, it still relies on
rather blunt weapons such as sanctions, opposition to international loans, and a
heavy troop presence in the area. Of course, containment takes very different
forms against each of these countries since they present varied challenges and
the framework of international support differs in each case.
U.S. containment of Iran is primarily unilateral. American laws and
regulations prohibit various kinds of transactions with Iran by American
individuals and corporations. Current law also extends sanctions to non-American
companies making large investments in Iran, but such efforts cannot be
completely effective. In several cases, the U.S. government has issued waivers
under pressure from European governments. While some American sanctions against
have termination dates built into them, most are a consequence of Executive
Orders that have no clear date of expiry. Administration officials have
repeatedly stated that the sanctions are meant to change Iranian behavior in
three areas: support for terrorism, developing weapons of mass destruction, and
active subversion of Arab-Israeli peace processes.
In contrast, U.S. containment of Iraq relies primarily on multilateral
measures. The sanctions regime in place is primarily the one imposed by the UN
Security Council following the invasion of Kuwait. While the United States can
use its Security Council veto to prevent lifting the sanctions until all the
requirements of the original UN resolutions are met, the sanctions are
multilateral in terms of their effects and their implementation.
The extent to which U.S. policy toward Iraq is multilateral in its
conceptualization (if not always in its implementation) is almost unprecedented.
Immediately following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the Washington led the call
in the Security Council for tough sanctions to force an Iraqi withdrawal. Only
four days after Iraqi troops crossed the border, the Security Council passed
Resolution 661, placing an embargo on trade to or from Iraq or Iraqi-occupied
Kuwait. Through the late summer and fall of 1990, the Security Council passed no
fewer than 12 resolutions condemning Iraqi actions, insisting on their reversal,
and imposing penalties for non-compliance.(6)
The ceasefire ending the war was predicated on Iraq's acceptance of all
relevant UN resolutions, and was enshrined in Security Council Resolution 687.
That resolution remains the cornerstone of U.S. policy toward Iraq, as well as
the authority under which most
sanctions remain in place.
Resolution 687 formalized the ceasefire and affirmed the inviolability of
the international border between Iraq and Kuwait. In addition, reacting to fear
that Iraq would unleash chemical or biological weapons against allied troops in
the war to liberate Kuwait (as it had done against Iranian troops during the
Iran-Iraq War and against its own Kurdish citizens in a 1988 campaign), the
resolution demanded that Iraq end its programs to develop unconventional
weapons, declare the full extent of those programs, and submit to the supervised
destruction of all remaining such weapons. The UN created a special body called
the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM), to monitor Iraqi compliance with the arms
control provisions of the resolution.
What few anticipated in 1991 was that Saddam Hussein would last another
decade while so doggedly resisting compliance with the UN resolutions, even as
sanctions drove the Iraqi people into penury. Indeed, what has been so striking
about Iraqi policy is the apparent decision to avoid telling the truth at all
costs. The Iraqi government has made a long series of "full, final and
complete disclosures" to the international community, each time admitting
that--despite earlier protestations--the previous version was not full, final,
or complete. Explanations for incongruities or inconsistencies were often
fanciful. For example, Iraq imported tons of culture-growth media in amounts
that far exceeded its medical needs. By one estimate, imports for 1988
alone would have lasted Iraq for two centuries.(7) Iraqi officials insisted that
the medium had no nefarious purpose, such as biological weapons development.
Instead, they said, the problem was simply that overzealous supply clerks kept
upping the orders as they passed through the chain of command.(8)
Following up on information revealed by former weapons development chief
(and son-in-law to Saddam Hussein) Hussein Kamel after his defection in
1995, UN weapons inspectors not only gained a deeper understanding of Iraq's
weapons development systems, but also discovered how completely they had been
deceived. The cache of more than a half million documents recovered from Hussein
Kamel's chicken farm in Haidar shortly after he left Iraq was a revelation to
the Western inspectors.(9) Even so, reconnaissance photography indicated that
Iraqi officials appear to have systematically purged the files of the most
incriminating information.(10)
In response to persistent Iraqi deception, UN inspectors (buttressed by
the United States and other countries) engaged in an essentially legalistic
effort to build a case against Saddam Hussein. They pieced together intelligence
information, documentary evidence, and seemingly contradictory Iraqi statements
to reach an understanding of what the Iraqis were trying to do and how they were
doing it. Starting in 1997, UNSCOM devoted a good deal of its energy to trying
to understand Iraqi concealment mechanisms. Not surprisingly, they found that
much of the concealment effort came directly from Saddam Hussein's personal
office and involved elite security forces especially loyal to the Iraqi
president.
Reliance on a legalistic framework, however, may have been
counterproductive, since it created a complex argument that held little sway
over national leaders or public opinion. Meanwhile, the sanctions have turned
into as much of a trap for the international community as for Iraq. They have
not changed Iraq's behavior, while the suffering of ordinary Iraqis has
undermined the international community's resolve to keep the sanctions in place.
Pressure within the UN - especially from Russia, China, and France - has
steadily increased the amount of oil Iraq can export and loosened other
restrictions.
Further, Saddam's regime does not seem any weaker. On the contrary, the
regime itself has profited from the sanctions, skimming off money from smugglers
and black marketeers while ensuring elite loyalty through the resultant
patronage. On the one hand Iraq is being contained, but on the other, the Iraqi
regime is being preserved. There is little international appetite for an armed
strike against Iraq, but there is little else the international community can
do. The sanctions are already among the most stringent and intrusive in the
modern era, and there is little prospect for tightening them even further.
Since the Gulf War, the United States has fitfully worked for Saddam's
removal. In 1995 and 1996, the campaign took the form of a covert action program working with Iraqi exiles in Jordan. According to published accounts, in
late June 1996, Iraqi intelligence operatives broke up the operation and
arrested more than 120 people. The plotters were interrogated, tortured, and
executed.(11)
Usually, though, American policy has concentrated on statements more than
active subversion, due to doubts that subversion could work and misgivings about
the real power of the Iraqi opposition. Starting
in November 1998, American officials have stated that U.S. policy toward Iraq is
"containment plus regime change," thereby returning to a goal of the
late Bush administration. Just how regime change will be implemented is unclear.
A "Special Coordinator for the Transition in Iraq" sits in the State
Department and works on aiding a diverse group of often quarrelling Iraqi
opposition groups. Congress has authorized spending $97 million pursuant to the
"Iraq Liberation Act," but the Clinton administration has been loath
to spend the money. Most of the spending appears to cover office supplies and
travel for expatriate Iraqis, with little clear notion of how to change the
situation on the ground in Iraq.
The dilemma of current policy was revealed starkly in the second half of
1998. Throughout the late summer and early fall, Saddam Hussein provoked a
crisis with the UNSCOM inspectors, at various points restricting their movements
and indicating that he would not cooperate unless sanctions were lifted. After
several narrowly averted crises, inspectors returned to Iraq in mid-November with a promise of
full cooperation from the Iraqis. On December 16, UNSCOM chairman Richard Butler
announced to the Security Council that, in fact, the Iraqis had not cooperated
fully. Beginning the next day, American and British planes launched four days of
punishing air attacks on Iraqi installations. The end result has been that
sanctions remain in place, there are no inspectors in Iraq, and there appears to
be no provision either for removing Saddam Hussein from power or lifting
sanctions. The December 1999 decision to replace UNSCOM with a successor
organization, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission
(UNMOVIC) has not yet yielded any inspections, and the organization's ability to
alter the stalemate between the United States and Iraq appears weak.
The U.S.-Iraq stalemate differs dramatically from the U.S.-Iran
relationship. In the first place, American efforts to contain Iran are
fundamentally unilateral (although some of the congressionally imposed sanctions
have an extraterritorial aspect). UN resolutions do not govern the U.S.-Iranian
relationship, and there are no international sanctions in place against Iran.
Second, the political situation in Iran is in a state of flux. More than
a decade after the death of the leader of the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranians throughout the political spectrum are debating
Khomeini's legacy, and in some extreme cases, whether an Islamist regime should
govern Iran at all. Signs of political change are rife. In 1997, moderate
Mohammad Khatemi won a landslide victory in the presidential election over the
clear regime favorite, Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri. Reformists supporting Khatemi
trounced conservatives in parliamentary elections in the spring of 2000. Under
Khatemi's leadership, there has been an efflorescence of newspapers and
magazines, many of which criticize aspects of the regime. Iran has a collection
of crusading journalists and courageous publishers, who have recently played a
kind of cat-and-mouse game with their conservative opponents.
The current struggle in Iran is over how conservatives will be able to
maintain influence despite their clear renunciation by so much of the public.
The conservatives have allowed elections to take place with relatively little
meddling, but they have come down hard on the reformist press. The conservatives
have also blocked any serious change in the way Iran is governed. It is
difficult to predict the future, but the trends seem to indicate some form of
compromise between the factions--which may leave the public unsatisfied but powerless--rather than direct confrontation.
On the international scene, the scorecard is mixed. For the last decade,
Iran has been engaged in a broad-scale effort to "reduce tensions"
with the outside world, or at least with its neighbors and with Europe. This
policy has a number of causes. Attempts to export the revolution had been
unsuccessful, and also contributed to Iran's own international and regional
isolation. Iraq was and remains a constant worry, yet Iran's perceived hostility
to its neighbors left it bereft of allies. Economic problems on the one hand,
and an intense interest in influencing global petroleum prices on the other,
highlighted the need for Iran to coordinate its actions with other regional
powers. Whatever the priorities, reduced tensions with countries like Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait have opened the door to trade, cooperation on oil pricing, and
a host of other benefits.
There has even been some reduction in tensions with the United States,
especially with regard to the American troop presence in the Persian Gulf.
Although Iranian officials continue to complain bitterly about American ships
and sailors in Gulf waters, the Iranian navy is careful to avoid confrontations
with American ships.
Iran's relations with some neighboring states, however, are still
tenuous, and it is still engaged in actions that the U.S. government finds
objectionable. In the Gulf itself, Iran continues to dispute ownership of three islands that it occupied in
1971 and are also claimed by the United Arab Emirates. The border with
Afghanistan remains tense, in part because of drug smuggling into Iran and in
part because of animosity between the Afghanistan's Taliban regime and Iran's
own Afghan clients. True rapprochement with Iraq seems quite far off, although
there have been some official visits and Iran apparently allows some Iraqi oil
to be smuggling through Iranian waters.
Farther afield, Iran continues to provide support for groups that use violence to
oppose resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, including Palestinian Islamic
Jihad and Hamas. Tehran reportedly supplies these organizations with money,
weapons, and training. Iran also appears to many to be pursuing the acquisition
of nuclear weapons, both via domestic development efforts and buying technology
from other countries. From a U.S. perspective, Iranian acquisition of such
weapons would be deeply destabilizing, because it could set off a vigorous arms
race throughout the Middle East.
The Iranian government is also a source of some extraordinarily vitriolic
attacks on Israel. In a widely noted speech on the occasion of Jerusalem Day in
December 1999, Iran's powerful spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i stated:
"There is only one solution to the Middle East problem; namely, the
annihilation and destruction of the Zionist state."(12) On that and other
occasions, Iranian leaders have accused the Palestinian leadership of treason
for its efforts to make peace with Israel, and they have
virulently criticized other governments for similar gestures. While mere speech
is just that, Iranian statements are accompanied by support for violent groups,
as outlined above. Such talk and actions, as well as bitter verbal attacks on the United States makes it difficult for Americans who wish to
improve relations with Iran to do so, since Iranian officials themselves seem so antagonistic to the idea.
American sanctions against Iran concern two different aspects of Iranian
behavior. Some target Iran as a "state sponsor of terrorism," both for
its support for armed militant groups and its own alleged actions against
Iranian dissidents abroad. A second set target Iranian weapons development
programs, especially nuclear weapons. The restrictions are of three kinds:
Executive Orders, government regulations, and laws. The first two can be lifted
unilaterally by the president, while the last requires the consent of Congress
or the expiration of the laws themselves.(13)
Obstacles notwithstanding, the present question in U.S.-Iranian relations
seems to be less about whether relations will improve, but rather when and under
what conditions. Washington has declared its willingness to engage in whatever
sort of "authoritative" dialogue the Iranians favor, without any
preconditions. By stressing that the dialogue must be authoritative, the
Americans are opening the door to a dialogue involving non-government officials,
but closing the door to dialogue with any official or intermediary who
represents merely a faction of the Iranian government. For its own part, the
government of Iran refuses to enter into a dialogue as long as punitive
sanctions against Iran remain in place. Iran is hoping that business-to-business
contacts will pave the way for government-to-government contacts; Americans take
the opposite approach.
Both sides insist that the initiative lies with the other party.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright attempted to move things forward by
announcing on March 17, 2000, that the U.S. government would no longer bar
imports of Iranian food products and carpets, and hinting at American contrition
for its past relations with Iran. Iranian intermediaries had explicitly
requested both gestures as confidence-building measures.
The gestures, however, came at a time of political uncertainty in Iran. A
month before, the first round of parliamentary elections had given a large
majority to reformist candidates aligned with the president. Conservatives were
planning their strategies for the second round in May 2000 (in which the
reformists also captured a significant majority), and both sides were stepping
gingerly around the domestic political scene. In addition, the spring 2000 trial
of 13 Iranian Jews in Shiraz accused of spying for Israel damaged relations
between Iran and the outside world. In July 2000, the court convicted 10 and
sentenced them to prison terms ranging from 4 to 13 years. The closed trial and
the confessions of beleaguered defendants did little to build confidence that
justice would be served.
It is important to note that it has been political constraints, rather
than strategic ones that have stymied a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement. The United
States and Iran share broad interests in the region. Both are alarmed by the
actions of the Taliban in Afghanistan and by high levels of drug smuggling over
the Afghan-Iranian border. Both strongly believe that Iraq must be contained,
although both sides seek to check the other's influence in a post-Saddam Iraq.
Essentially, Iran has taken a free ride on the U.S.
containment of Iraq, while at the same time criticizing the American role in the
region. Both countries desire stable oil prices and freedom of navigation in the
Persian Gulf. American oil companies have a deep interest in developing Iranian
petroleum reserves, and Iranian Oil Company officials have a great desire to tap
into American expertise and technology.
But anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism remain among the last standing
pillars of the Iranian revolution, and they will not go away easily. In
addition, many Iranians fear that American hegemony--both political and
cultural--will sweep over Iran and destroy thousands of years of Persian and
Islamic civilization. Entrenched financial interests have a stake in the
continuance of American sanctions, since they profit so handsomely from the
resultant smuggling operations. And finally, conservatives wish to ensure that
any opening to the United States does not strengthen their reformist rivals.
On the American side, few politicians see political
benefits to be gained from an opening to Iran. As long as the image of Iran in
American minds is of angry, fist-shaking mobs, hostile clerics, and supporters
of terrorism, it will be hard for American officials to move forward. Iranian
statements on Israel have a doubly negative effect, on the one hand threatening
America's premier ally in the Middle East, and on the other reminding Americans
of an Iran that does not play by international rules. Continued Iranian support
for groups that use violence against civilians deepens Americans' hesitancy, as does
Iran's apparent interest in developing nuclear warheads and long-range ballistic
missiles. Finally, Iran's working with Russia and China to develop its weapons
capabilities raise deep concern in the U.S. government.
Earlier attempts at dialogue also ran aground on the shoals of political
opposition. In 1995, then-president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani struck a $1
billion deal with Conoco, an American petroleum company, to develop the Sirri
gas field in the Persian Gulf. On the Iranian side, the deal could be viewed as
a courageous attempt by Rafsanjani to open the door to the United States, or a
cynical one to take American capital while continuing to undermine U.S.
interests in the region. Although the deal was permissible under American law,
it set off alarm bells for Americans who were trying to establish a tougher
policy toward Iran. The Clinton White House quickly drafted two executive orders
restricting business between Americans and Iran.(14) For its own part, Congress
passed the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which barred investment in Iran's petroleum
sector.(15) The deal collapsed.
Much of the recent impetus toward rapprochement with Iran was said to be
driven by President Clinton himself, who reportedly took a personal interest in
this effort and who made remarks expressing understanding for Iranian
grievances.(16) President Khatemi also appears to have a direct interest in
improving his country's relationship with the United States, as witnessed by his
January 1998 interview on CNN calling for an improved relationship between the
two countries.(17) Still, looking ahead, there will need to be political movement in
both countries in order for satisfactory relations to resume. Given the current
state of politics in both countries, and given President Clinton's departure
from office in January 2001, progress will likely be incremental.
The last two decades of U.S. policy in the Gulf have been driven by
military threats, the next two decades may be dominated by political challenges
in the Gulf monarchies. Up to now, most U.S. efforts to promote political reform
in the Gulf have been tentative, and they have been greeted coolly by most
regional governments. Regimes such as Saudi Arabia have bitterly protested when
U.S. officials met with opposition figures, and in at least one case in the late
1980s, requested the removal of the American ambassador for doing so. Because
relations are primarily government-to-government, the tendency has been to
accede to official requests to downplay calls for democratization and to shun
extensive contacts with those working against the ruling governments. The United
States has also implored the Gulf monarchies to support the Arab-Israeli peace
process, with varying degrees of success.
But the Gulf countries (including Iran and Iraq) have young, rapidly
growing populations, and mostly declining standards of living. Unemployment or
under-employment are widespread problems. At the same time, expectations in the
region are high. Those currently coming on the job market grew up in times of
relative plenty, yet they find their own options more limited. In addition,
satellite television and the Internet provide them with a steady diet of images
of prosperity and social openness that many find attractive.
Some respond by closing themselves off to the West and its messages, and others
by embracing it. In countries such as Kuwait, therefore, we can see a widening
gulf within society, as neo-traditionalists do battle with secular modernists.
The task of managing these divisions and putting Gulf societies on a
sustainable track for the future lies primarily with the governments of the
region, not Washington. However, U.S. interests are clearly at stake, and U.S.
policy may soon have to respond to dramatic developments stemming from social
unrest.
Despite two decades of U.S. efforts, the Gulf remains an area of
significant instability. Iraq is not an immediate threat to its neighbors, but
multilateral efforts to contain Iraq appear to be unraveling. There have been
encouraging signs from Iran, but change is slow and not inevitable. A period of
violence and prolonged internal struggle is possible. The smaller Gulf states
have remained relatively stable throughout this period, but a generation of
experienced leaders are about to pass from the scene and their successors are
untested. Whether the primary threats to U.S. interests in the region will
emerge from weapons proliferation, backlash against the Arab-Israeli peace
process, economic and demographic change, or some combination of them is
unclear, but challenges seem certain in the coming decade.
NOTES
1.
Shahram Chubin and Charles Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War(Boulder: Westview, 1988),
p. 154.
2. In
the words of one enthusiast of rapprochement in that period, "Iraq and the
United States need each other." See Laurie Mylroie, "The Baghdad
Alternative," Orbis Vol. 32, No. 3 (Summer 1988), p. 351.
3. The
account printed in Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf (eds.)The Gulf War Reader
(New York: Times Books, 1991), pp. 122-133 has not been disputed by the State
Department.
4.
Hisham Melhem, conversation with author.
5.
Anthony Lake, "Confronting Backlash States," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 73,
No. 2 (March/April 1994), p. 48.
6. UN
Security Council Resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674,
677, and 678.
7. Tim
Trevan, Saddam's Secrets: The Hunt for Iraq's Hidden Weapons (London: Harper
Collins, 1999), p. 288
8.
Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The resurrection of
Saddam Hussein (New York: Harper Collins, 1999), p. 199.
9.
According to Trevan, who was an UNSCOM inspector, the documents appeared to have
been newly delivered to the site where they were disclosed, and Hussein Kamel
denied having kept such a store of documents.
Trevan, (1999), p. 331-2.10.
See Cockburn and Cockburn, (1999), p. 236.
11.
Ibid, p. 228.
12.
IRNA (in English), transcribed in FBIS Document ID FTS19991231000386 (December
31, 1999).
13.
The relevant laws and regulations can be found in Kenneth Katzman (ed.),
U.S.-Iranian Relations: An analytic compendium of U.S. policies, laws and
regulations (Washington: The Atlantic Council of the United States, 1999)
14.
Executive Order 12957 of March 15, 1995, and Executive Order 12959 of May 6,
1995. They can be found in Ibid, pp. 40-41.
15. 50 USC 1701. The law expires on August 5, 2001.
16.
For a copy of the President's comments at a White House Millennium Evening, see
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/generalspeeches/1999/19990412.html>.
17. An
edited transcript is printed in Robert S. Litwak, Rogue States and U.S. Foreign
Policy: Containment after the Cold War (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press,
2000), pp. 265-270.
*Jon
B. Alterman is a program officer in the Research and Studies Program at the
United States Institute of Peace.