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SPEAKING
FREELY
Bridging the
gap
By Maggie Mitchell Salem
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing.
As Time Magazine put
it, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is
"poised" - not guaranteed - to win a third term as
Iran's president in elections on Friday.
Given Rafsanjani's close relationship with
the Islamic Republic's founding spiritual leader
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a certain capital
might wince from some involuntary flashbacks.
Seared into the national conscious of
those over the age of 35 are scenes of the Shah's
hasty departure in 1979, and the Shi'ite tsunami
that followed the Islamic revolution. The clash of
opposing religious and political ideologies
sparked a sharp up-tick in harsh rhetoric and
threats of military confrontation.
Then
came the storming of the US Embassy in Tehran;
diplomatic relations severed. National pride
deeply wounded; national interests at home and in
the region jeopardized.
In the Iran-Iraq
war that raged for most of the 1980s, this capital
lent funds and military support to Iraq. Yet
despite the very obvious enmity, senior officials
took part in a secret dialogue with Tehran to free
hostages in Lebanon.
Divisions were again
exacerbated as both nations once again took
opposing sides - this time in the Middle East
peace process.
By the mid-1990s,
particularly after the 1997 election of moderate
Mohammad Khatami, Iran's current president, both
sides seemed weary of the fight and wary - but
willing - to consider a more constructive
relationship.
Of course, oil was a
critical factor in their tentative rapprochement.
But hardliners on either side remained
fiercely opposed to each other; in Iran,
infighting on the domestic political front spilled
over into the foreign-policy arena. For instance,
the 1996 Khobar bombing that killed 19 Americans.
If you've conjured up the long and
tortuous history of the "Great Satan's"
relationship with a charter member of the "axis of
evil", try again.
Think Riyadh.
After all, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has
more physical proximity to Iran than the US, and
even more compelling ideological reasons to fear
the fiery, infectious pulpit-pounding
export-oriented Shi'ite orthodoxy that Khomeini
championed. Iranian revolutionaries storming the
Saudis' oil-rich eastern province, inciting the
Shi'ite minority to revolt or cause mayhem (as in
Khobar), and undermining their authority as
custodians of the two holiest places to all
Muslims (as in the 1987 Iranian-instigated hajj
riot) pose a very credible threat to Saudi
national security.
The Wahhabis vs the
ayatollahs: an unprecedented religious showdown
with long-term international implications.
But today, Saudi-Iranian relations are
marked by trade delegations, cultural exchanges
and even direct flights.
While Khatemi
oversaw the bulk of the reconciliation process and
its deliverables, Rafsanjani (president from
1989-97) was a part of the initial, modest
transformation during his second term and in his
post-presidential political afterlife.
In
1998, six months after he finished his second
term, Rafsanjani visited Riyadh, the highest-level
official to do so since the 1979 revolution.
In 1996, the Khobar attack almost derailed
the nascent detente. Some experts believe
hardliners were responsible. Despite the opacity
of Tehran's domestic politics, that reasoning has
merit, particularly in light of Saudi behavior
afterward. Riyadh chose to stymie the Federal
Bureau of Investigation probe, which strained
normally closely guarded relations with
Washington.
Iran's ruling clerics have
counted on external enemies, particularly those
who directly threaten national security - like US
troop positions in neighboring countries - to
strangle internal reforms and maintain their
otherwise unpopular crackdown on civil liberties.
Washington has often played right into
their hands.
Some within and around the US
administration of President George W Bush conjure
up another Iranian revolution, this one to shake
off the hardliners. Bush openly calls for Iranians
to rise up and oppose their government.
Over a decade ago, Riyadh reluctantly
acknowledged the enduring power of Khomeini's
founding vision.
To sort out Iran's
internal scene requires omniscience - or an
embassy in Tehran. The US lacks both; but not the
Saudis.
Riyadh never closed their mission
- despite the revolution, Khomeini's constant
threats, and the Iran-Iraq war. Then in 1987 a mob
overran the compound, destroyed the embassy and
killed a Saudi diplomat. The mission reopened in
1991.
In the end, pragmatism won out.
Here again, the US played a role. Both
capitals, and peoples, opposed US military strikes
in Iraq during the late 1990s. American displays
of hard power remain wildly unpopular.
For
the kingdom, the bombing and sanctioning of Iraq
raised, yet again, the specter of a double
standard: if you're Saddam Hussein, UN resolutions
apply to you; if you're Israeli prime minister
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, they don't.
For
Iran, not only were the strikes morally offensive,
they were a potential military threat.
American muscle flexing in the region -
including the basing of troops in Saudi Arabia -
caused considerable angst in Iran long before the
advent of Bush's policy of unilateral
intervention. Then, there was the other factor:
oil.
Both sought to end the slump in oil
prices. Remember oil at $15 a barrel? Analysts at
the time thought a second dip was probable. Such
an outcome would have spelled economic ruin for
both Riyadh and Tehran.
Core national
interests thawed the ideological freeze. That's a
valuable lesson.
During the past decade,
Washington and Tehran have shown tantalizing signs
that the vast void between them could indeed be
bridged if both put their interests before
ideology.
"Crisis communication" - from
the USS Vincennes felling of an Iranian airbus to
the September 11, 2001, terror attacks to
stabilizing Afghanistan to the Bam earthquake -
all were opportunities to bypass hardliners and
sustain dialogue.
Former president Bill
Clinton began his first term with "dual
containment" and ended his second with an
appearance at Khatami's UN speech. Khatami was not
authorized to shake Clinton's hand.
The
handshake came in November 2001, between former
secretary of state Colin Powell and Iran's foreign
minister.
After September 11, Iran
provided substantial assistance to the US to
defeat their common enemy - the Taliban and
al-Qaeda.
Then, in January 2002, Iran's
international adventurism once again
short-circuited constructive engagement. Israeli
forces seized a ship loaded with 50 tons of arms
bound for the Palestinian Authority. Both
Washington and Tel Aviv accused Iran of funneling
the weapons to Islamic militants.
Less
than a month later, Bush identified Iran as part
of the triple crown of evil. The relationship has
failed to recover.
The slowly escalating
conflict over Iran's nuclear program is just the
latest installment in an unnecessarily tortuous
relationship.
What's next? There is no
reason to believe that Rafsanjani will shake off
the hardliners. Some will be eager to hem him in.
The question remains: will Washington stop
rewarding the hardliners' bad behavior by engaging
in direct, if carefully calibrated dialogue with
Tehran. Gary Sick, a former national security
adviser who covered Iran during the revolution and
hostage crisis, had this to say in January 2004:
"I don't see any immediate or miraculous
breakthrough, where Iran and the United States
embrace or set up formal diplomatic relations. On
the other hand, all it would really take for a
very rapid movement in that direction would be an
expression of will on the part of an Iranian or
American leader. Up to now, that has not been
present."
Unfortunately, the deficit of
determined leadership remains more than 18 months
later.
There are ample reasons to do
better, roughly 34 million of them.
American values - not necessarily policies
- are popular among Iran's under 35 set, a
majority of the country. Bush is right to reach
out to them. But phony broadcasting and White
House entreaties are only tactics, and weak ones
at that. He could start by formulating a strategy
that pushes the right buttons in Tehran - and
doesn't push likely allies into the arms of
hardliners.
Rafsanjani, a seasoned veteran
of infighting and related international intrigue,
may be looking to take the revolution he helped
install and sustain to the next level: Islamic
Iran as a full member of the international
community. He can't do that without Bush's
consent. And both Bush and Rafsanjani may find
good reason to come together to stabilize Iraq -
most recently, the bombings in the neighboring,
oil-rich Iranian province of Khuzestan.
But each has to overcome enormous
ideological hurdles, prolonged historical
hysteria, and deeply ingrained suspicion.
Riyadh's royal court could offer up some
sober advice to Bush's inner circle. That is, if
anyone were willing to listen.
Maggie Mitchell Salem is a
former special assistant to US secretary of state
Madeleine K Albright; a former career foreign
service officer; former director of communications
and outreach at the Middle East Institute in
Washington, DC; she now provides Middle East
analysis to private and public sector clients in
the US and the region, including a number of
dailies in Arabic and English.
(Copyright 2005 Maggie Mitchell Salem)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing. |
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