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Maintain International Pressure and Sanctions on Iran

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Maintain International Pressure and Sanctions on Iran 1135 September 5, 1997 MAINTAIN INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE AND SANCTIONS ON IRAN James Phillips Senior Policy Analyst he August 4 installation of Mohammad Khatami as Iran’s president has raised hopes that Tehran will halt its export of terrorism and subversion and improve T relations with the West. This is the third time since Iran’s 1979 revolution that an incoming Iranian president has raised such hopes. Twice before, after Abol-Hassan Bani- Sadr’s election as Iran’s president in 1980 and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s election in 1989, these hopes have been dashed by Tehran’s ideological hostility and continued sup- port for terrorism. The United States cannot afford to make the same mistake with Presi- dent Khatami. Although he has been canonized as a liberal reformer by Western journalists, Khatami remains a stalwart apostle of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s revolutionary brand of Islamic radicalism. Moreover, while he has been praised by some for his relatively toler- ant stint as Iran’s Minister of Islamic Guidance (1982–1992), he also was instrumental in the creation of Iran’s terrorist apparatus. Khatami’s political career underscores the fact that in the realm of Iranian politics, domestic reforms are not incompatible with a revolu- tionary foreign policy. Even if Khatami should reverse course and seek to moderate Iran’s foreign policy, he faces a daunting task. As president, he is only Iran’s second-ranking leader. Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, who succeeded Khomeini as Iran’s supreme leader, continues to control Iran’s foreign policy. Khamanei, who remains implacably opposed to the “global arrogance” of the United States, is unlikely to permit Iran to deviate from Khomeini’s anti-American policies.1 1 For a concise summary of Iran’s hostile policies, see James Phillips, “The Challenge of Revolutionary Iran,” Heritage Foundation Committee Brief No. 24, March 29, 1996. Despite these indications, however, the Clinton Administration has signaled its willing- ness to improve relations with Iran. President Clinton welcomed Khatami’s May 23 elec- tion as “a reaffirmation of the democratic process” in Iran and said that he has “never been pleased about the estrangement between the people of the United States and the people of Iran.” In late July, the Administration made another gesture of reconciliation by giving a green light to Iran’s participation in its first major international energy project since the 1979 Iranian revolution: the construction of a 2,000-mile pipeline that will transport natu- ral gas from Turkmenistan through Iran to Turkey. This slackening of American efforts to pressure Iran economically has undermined the Administration’s campaign to persuade its European allies to join the unilateral U.S. trade embargo against Iran. This is not the time to relax the pressure on Iran to abandon its support of terrorism and subversion, its opposition to the Arab–Israeli peace negotiations, and its efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Such a relaxation would be premature and counterproduc- tive. It would let Iran off the hook just when Washington’s sanctions policy appears to be paying off. Although U.S. sanctions have not brought the Iranian economy to a standstill or compelled Tehran to cease its hostile policies, they have made Iran’s bad economic sit- uation worse. This has helped fuel discontent with the Islamic regime and made possible Khatami’s stunning upset victory at the polls. Easing up on Iran now sends the wrong signal—not only to Tehran, but also to Amer- ica’s allies—that Iran may conduct business as usual as it continues to launch terrorist attacks against a wide variety of targets. This would be especially poor timing, given that Iran and the European Union (EU) remain at a diplomatic impasse following the April 1997 conviction of Iranian-sponsored terrorists in Germany for the 1992 murder of four Iranian dissidents in Berlin. Moreover, the ongoing investigation into the June 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which claimed 19 American lives, has produced mounting evidence of Iranian involvement. Instead of undertaking a risky diplomatic rapprochement with Iran, the United States should stay the course on its containment policy and maintain relentless pressure on Tehran to stop its export of terrorism and subversion. Washington should adopt a cautious wait-and-see posture that requires the new Iranian regime to prove it truly is different from past regimes through concrete actions, not just words. Specifically, the U.S. should: • Maintain stringent economic sanctions against Iran. Rather than give Tehran the benefit of the doubt, as the Clinton Administration recently has done in the case of the Turkmenistan-to-Turkey pipeline, Washington should maximize the economic pressures on Iran to moderate its policies. • Take a hard line against Iranian terrorism. Despite its rhetoric, the Clinton Administration has compiled a weak record in fighting terrorism. Congress should press the Administration both to confront Iran’s terrorist activities firmly and to launch a devastating military reprisal—not just symbolic pinprick air strikes—in the event Iran is found to have orchestrated the terrorist bombing of the Khobar Towers. • Increase pressure on U.S. allies to join a united front against Iran. The EU’s “critical dialogue” with Iran clearly has failed. Washington should publicize this failure and raise the perceived costs of attempting to appease Iran by making the containment of Iran one of the highest priorities in American foreign policy. 2 • Seek to slow Iran’s military buildup by restricting its access to foreign technol- ogy. The United States should spare no effort to drive a wedge between Iran and its principal suppliers of dangerous military technology: Russia, China, and North Korea. Since the Clinton Administration keeps waiving the provisions of legislation designed to cut foreign aid and penalize these countries, Congress should take steps to remove these loopholes. • Give greater support to Iranian opposition forces. Although Iranian opposition forces currently are weak and divided, Iran’s falling standard of living, limping economy, and rising social problems make it a fertile ground for political discon- tent. The United States should give greater support to Iran’s democratic opposition forces. Congress should fund the establishment of a Radio Free Iran to underscore the high price that Iranians pay for the ill-advised policies of their country’s radical Islamic regime. KHATAMI’S ASCENT: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE UNITED STATES Khatami’s landslide victory in the May 23 elections was an unmistakable sign that the Iranian people are dissatisfied with the status quo and hungry for change. For the first time since the 1979 revolution, Iranians rejected the presidential candidate favored by the rul- ing clerical establishment, and they did so in a dramatic fashion. Khatami garnered 69 per- cent of the vote in a four-man field, decisively defeating Speaker of the Majlis (parliament) Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, a protégé of supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, by a three-to-one margin. Khatami campaigned as an agent of change without putting forth a comprehensive reform program, thereby attracting protest votes from a wide spectrum of discontented Iranians. He won primarily on the basis of social issues. His call for the loosening of restrictions on social behavior, such as the requirement that women cover their hair in public, earned him strong political support from Iran’s women, youth, middle class, and intelligentsia. Part of his appeal lies in the fact that he was ousted as Minister of Islamic Guidance and Culture in 1992, after ten years of service, because hard-line ideologues in the Majlis saw him as too permissive. Although he ran against the clerical establishment, he is very much part of that estab- lishment. The son of a prominent ayatollah who was close to Ayatollah Khomeini, Khatami also is a cleric. He remains a close friend of Khomeini’s son Ahmed, and his brother is married to Khomeini’s daughter. These family ties and his own history as a rev- olutionary activist and long-time government official make it unlikely that he will make a clean break from Khomeini’s virulently anti-Western legacy. Khatami has been dubbed “Ayatollah Gorbachev” by the Western media, but it would be more accurate to describe him as Iran’s Khrushchev. Like the former Soviet premier, he probably will tinker with domestic reforms while continuing the broad outlines of his pre- decessor’s foreign policy. He is likely to trim some of the worst excesses of Iran’s political system without substantially reforming the system itself. Khatami’s reputation as a liberal reformer has been vastly overstated. While he did reduce censorship as Minister of Cul- ture, he also repeatedly defended the 1989 fatwa (religious edict) issued by Ayatollah Khomeini that called for the killing of British author Salman Rushdie as punishment for writing The Satanic Verses, a book which Khomeini judged to be blasphemous. 3 Even more disturbing, Khatami reportedly was a prime mover in setting up Iran’s over- seas terrorist apparatus. In 1984, he was instrumental in creating a special military unit to recruit and train suicide squads for foreign operations.2 This terrorist force, the “Indepen- dent Guerrilla Warfare Unit Inside the Enemy’s Territory,” was directed initially to target Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain; Jordan, France, and “other nations that might rise against the Islamic Republic” were to be attacked in later stages.3 This past involvement in setting up Iran’s terrorist infrastructure suggests that Khatami may not be willing to end Iran’s covert war of terrorism and subversion. Nor were there any concrete indications in Khatami’s election campaign that he has softened his personal views on the usefulness of terrorism as an adjunct of Iran’s foreign policy.
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