BFRP
by: Heidi Suzanne Reimer, Seattle Pacific University
American Foreign Policy toward Iran: An Overview and Analysis
By: Heidi Reimer
American relations with Iran have been at the forefront of this country’s awareness since 2002, when President George W. Bush identified it as one of three states in the “Axis of Evil” he described in his State of the Union address. There is good reason for this. Iran is one of the leading state sponsors of terrorism, having supported familiar terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al Qaeda, as well as less well-known Shi’ite cells and Palestinian separatist organizations (Takeyh 190-191). Also, of concern is Iran’s growing nuclear program. Though they signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, their potential ability to make an atomic bomb has been a concern since the early 1970’s under the Shah (Takeyh 136). Behind these two frightening features is Iran’s possession of some of the world’s largest proven oil reserves during a time of rising fuel costs in the United States.
The history of US foreign policy regarding Iran has traveled a long and winding road with many bumps along the way. While we were once able to count the Iranian government among our closest supporters, we have since been deemed “The Great Satan” (Takeyh 24) and currently play opposite to a regime more stubborn than ever. Despite the fact that we do not currently have direct diplomatic relations with Iran—that is, we do not send ambassadors (US State Department)—we still actively create foreign policy toward Iran, and vigorously exercise various diplomatic tools. After I have addressed my particular perspective on foreign policy in general, I will expand upon the condition of American foreign relations with Iran over the years and offer my recommendations for future policy direction.
Part I:
A Global Servanthood Perspective
The United States is a large country, with a large population and a massive amount of wealth, which combined give the United States an enormous amount of power. With this in mind, it is my perspective that the United States has a great obligation to the rest of the world. Isolation is not an option. Our economic success, as well as our national security, is dependent upon the conditions in other countries, as we learned the hard way after WWI, and experienced the benefits of under the Marshall Plan after WWII. It is therefore my opinion that the United States should enact foreign policy in ways that have long-term benefits and that increase stability within the other countries of the world, in order that we may benefit from their subsequent activities.
One way to increase stability is to promote democracy. We have seen that the democracies of the world do not tend to go to war with each other, and an established political routine allows for continuity and the ability to concentrate on other aspects of governance besides holding onto power. However, it is not our place to undermine the sovereignty of another country by provoking a regime change as we have done several times over the years. Rather, it is more important that we do what we can to support the people of that country, by helping improve infrastructure and educational opportunities. Where these improvements can be made, there is potential for the government to be stable and sensitive to the needs of the citizens. For example, our ally, Saudi Arabia is a hereditary monarchy, and though they have policies that we may not like (especially towards women), we are able to work with them. If we really wanted to improve their human rights position, we might start on trying to get their women better educated by suggesting the creation of a new, all-female, Islamic college.
Where domestic improvements cannot be made, there a clearly other, more important, problems at hand, besides lack of democracy, which may warrant stronger policy. It’s difficult to think of a current example of an authoritarian regime that could not, in some small way, be guided by the proper incentives, but Pol Pot probably could not be dissuaded from his massacre of Cambodians by improved highways, and there’s no way that Saddam Hussein would have allowed the northern Kurdish farmers to learn new techniques. Kim Jong Il seems content enough to let his people starve, but he would probably not object to other forms of aid.
Where the United States needs to be most vigilant is in the protection of fledgling democracies, in which the general population has made a clear choice to become a democracy, but other forces stand in the way of the achievement of a successful, stable government. The best example would be Lebanon, which is a democracy, though terrorist groups tend to run the show. Lebanon needs some serious help, as was brought to light after their war this summer with Israel. While still respecting the nation’s sovereignty, the United States, preferably with the help of the rest of the world, needs to find a way to get the violent factions under control.
This brings me to another important facet of my foreign policy perspective—multilateralism. Is important for the United States to advance its interests within the bounds of international norms, and with the assistance of other powerful countries whenever possible. When we act alone, we isolate ourselves, as the current war in Iraq has clearly demonstrated. As I have already stated, we are too dependent on the rest of the world for any of our interests to take precedence over international co-operation. Who can we turn to when we have a truly important issue to take to task, if we have refused to work with our fellow countries in the past?
There needs to be a sense of branch co-operation within our own government as well. While the president is the natural face of foreign affairs because he can make quicker decisions, and because he has the intelligence community and foreign policy bureaucracy at his service, Congress should also have significant involvement in the decision making process. This power is not going to be automatically handed over, however. Congress needs to become more assertive with regard to its constitutional rights and set up protocol for presidential activity, as it attempted to do with the War Powers Act. Congressional involvement will hopefully bring an aspect of continuity to foreign policy, as many Congressmen and women outlast presidents.
The United States is not the great “world police,” nor should it try to be, because that somehow seems to infer that we have some sort of authority in the world. Rather, our resource base and domestic stability gives us the unique opportunity to be an effective global servant. While this does not seem glamorous, or fitting of our position as a superpower, I have outlined its advantages. It is with this understanding that I asses the foreign policy situation between the US and Iran.
Part II:
An Overview of American Foreign Relations with Iran
American foreign relations with Iran began during WWII, as the strength of our ally, Britain, began to tire from many years of war (Goode, 6). Before this point, a handful of missionaries were the only Americans representing our interests in the country (Goode, 5). We played a minor role in the forced abdication of Reza Shah in 1941, when the Allies worried he might side with Nazi Germany (Goode, 2), but we were reluctant too take on much responsibility in the Middle East, as we still saw the majority of our interests as resting in Europe (Goode, 5). More serious involvement became in our interest as tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union began to escalate.
During the war, a supply line had run to the Soviet Union through Iran, and when the war ended, the Soviets desired to maintain this special relationship. Similar to its infamous goal of acquiring Afghanistan, the USSR wanted to use Iran as a buffer state between its southern borders and Iraq, which was still a seat of American, though more so British, power. The Iranian government eventually rejected Soviets in 1946 (Goode, 7), but an Iranian communist party did develop and gained parliamentary seats the economically failing country (Bill, 52). The Tudeh, as the party is known, became permanently handicapped in 1953, when the United States made a bold containment move that to this day mars the face of US-Iranian Relations.
Operation Ajax was a project undertaken by the CIA under President Eisenhower to overthrow the popular Iranian Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadeq, officially as a means of containing communism. However, Mossadeq’s key role in the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later BP—British Petroleum) in 1951, is widely acknowledged as the chief motivation (Bill 65). Since Britain was too weakened by the war to defend Western interest in the region, the United States took this responsibility instead (Goode, 6). The pro-western Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (the son of Reza Shah), was restored complete control in 1953, and where Iranians once saw a morally upright, docile United States, they now saw a global hegemon (Takeyh 94).
Aside from the disdain for the United States festering among the populace in Iran, the years under the Shah were positive ones for international relations. The desire of the US was to maintain Iran as the top power in the region to counteract the increasingly aggressive behavior in countries like Iraq (Takeyh). To this end, we, along with West Germany, France and South Africa, started Iran on a nuclear power program in the early 1970’s (Takeyh 136). The United States and the rest of the Western world saw Iran as the gleaming gem of stability in the Middle East, as oil revenue allowed for grand modernization programs to be put in place (David 53).
A large portion of the oil wealth, however, continued to find its way into the pocket of the Shah, a trend that the citizens of Iran were not blind to. Year after year, they watched as their leader and his family went on extravagant European vacations and bought luxury cars, while they suffered inflation and rampant unemployment (David 52). The people were also not pleased with the modernization plans which largely required secularization (David 52-53). Despite the US government’s best effort to ignore the signs of unrest, in 1978, under the Carter administration, a revolution began.
In January 1978, riots began when it was reported that Ayatollah Ruholluah Komeini, an important religious leader, had been attacked by the Shah’s forces. Several people were killed in these riots, including two religious teachers, which made them martyrs. Mourning for this tragedy resulted in more rioting, which the Shah’s notorious Secret Police, the SAVAK, tried to put down. Every effort to stifle the riots, however, resulted in the creation of more martyrs and more violence (David 54). On September 8, 1978, “Black Friday,” government troops opened fire on a religious rally, and revolution began in earnest (David 55). By February, 1979, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Komeini returned from exile and claimed control of Iran, as the Shah was away in the United States for medical treatment (David, 56).
November in the same year as the Revolution was the Iranian hostage crisis, in which several US embassy employees were taken hostage by a radical group of students in Tehran (Takeyh 95). While the provisional government was not pleased, Komeini put his support behind the student’s actions, and their impulsive theatrics became a Nationalist rallying point (Takeyh 97-99). The embassy employees were held captive for 444 days, as the United States tried and failed several times to negotiate their release and send rescue missions. In the end, they were released because Iran had moved to bigger and better problems, specifically, the Iran-Iraq war, which broke out in September, 1980 (Takeyh 101).
At the beginning of the war, the United States was committed to remaining neutral. Despite the newly created antipathy between the United States and Iran, the United States was more concerned that supporting Iraq against Iran would cause the Soviet Union to throw its weight behind Iran in order to protect its own borders (Cordesman). Eventually, the United States was sucked into the conflict when the Iraqis were pushed back unto their own soil. Despite the fact that it had been Iraq that started the war for its expansionist purposes, the United States feared the spread of Komeini-style Islamic revolution and increased Iranian power in the Gulf region (Cordesman 84). Consequently, the Reagan administration started by providing the Iraqis with aerial photos of Iranian troop deployments and escalated to selling weapons to them (Little 249).
Interestingly enough, the United States appears on the dubious list of countries that supplied both belligerents during the war. The Reagan administration, interested in improving its relations with the Iran and gaining the release of American hostages held by Iranian funded Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as earning money for its projects with the Nicaraguan Contras, decided to sell spare parts and weapons to Iran through Israeli middle-men, who were supporting Iran in order to keep Iraqi power in check (Cordesman). The United States started by sending 500 missiles, but only one hostage was returned. Similar exchanges continued until 1986, when the deals were made public and the Reagan administration was obligated to recant and take a hard swing to the right in order to save face in the eyes of our Gulf trading partners, such as Saudi Arabia (Cordesman).
By the time the war ended in 1988, there was next to no communication between the United States and Iran. This would not change until the mid-nineties when Iran elected Muhammad Khatami as its next president. The Iranian voters, especially the women, supported Khatami, because they believed he would bring about domestic liberalization. Where he proved to be most progressive, however, was in the arena of international affairs (Takeyh 110). He renounced the violence and expansionism that had characterized Iranian foreign relations in the past, and praised the United States on CNN, calling for a “Dialogue of Civilizations” (Takeyh 111-112). The Clinton administration, however, was more concerned about brokering peace between Israel and Palestine, an area in which Iranian-sponsored terrorism frequently cropped up. The United States chose to largely ignore Iran’s overtures until three years into Khatami’s presidency, when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright offered a much-criticized apology for American involvement in the 1953 coup and a lifting of certain sanctions (Takeyh 115-116). The window for rapprochement had been missed however, and the new Bush administration started a new conservative backlash against Iran (Takeyh 118).
After September 11th, another great chance was missed to normalize relations with Iran. Khatami was still president, so there remained an air of progressiveness within the regime (Takeyh 121). Iran stood quietly by as the United States invaded its neighbor, Afghanistan, even allowing the Northern Alliance forces cross its territory and helping execute rescue missions (Takeyh 122-123). However, another unfortunately timed hostage crisis in Lebanon in December 2001, renewed the United States stance against Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, and thus, the country landed itself in the “Axis of Evil” described in Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address (Takeyh 130). The eventual result of this souring of relations was the defeat of Khatami in the 2005 presidential election by a hard-line conservative ideologue, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Today, the United States has no formal diplomatic relations with Iran. It has been our policy that until that government’s behavior improves, we will not engage in direct negotiations with them or set up another embassy in the country (Burns, 2006). In the early days of May, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke briefly with a foreign minister from Iran at a hotly anticipated conference on Iraq in Egypt (Semple). The United States has indicated that it is open to more such talks, though at the initiation of Iran.
It has also been our policy to work with other countries to completely isolate Iran, and thus give it no choice but to halt its nuclear ambitions and stop sponsoring terrorism (Burns, 2004). We frequently engage China and Russia in discussion, as they are major importers of Iranian oil, and have supplied Iran with materials for their nuclear program (Berman 2004, 2; Burns 2007. One of our main goals is to convince the major European powers such as Germany and France to take a harder stance against Iran’s nuclear program, and impose sanctions similar to those in the United States.
As far as trade goes, we continue to have many sanctions on Iran. Only under the Clinton administration were items other than oil allowed to be imported from Iran (O’Sullivan). Oil has its own unique tale, as the United States requires that oil imported from Iranian sources must be refined in a third-party country (Takeyh). When we don’t like what Iran is doing, our habit has been to sanction them. However, this has only had very limited success, as we have not imported much of anything form Iran since the revolution. It is also ineffective because the government in Tehran would rather not trade with “The Great Satan,” if it would mean compromising their policy (O’Sullivan).
Formulating the Ideal Foreign Policy for Today
There are three important things to understand about Iran when thinking about the best possible course for foreign policy action: its geographical complications, its place as an ancient civilization, and its population dynamics. Iran is a culturally isolated country with many hostile and unstable neighbors, which has lead to a “siege mentality” (Hoveyda 16). Iran is also the current manifestation of a very old and proud heritage, which leads it to chafe under the sometimes condescending nature of American foreign relations, and causes Iran to see itself as the natural leader of the region (Taheri). Finally, the majority of Iran’s population is under 25, and these young people with no personal connection to the revolution are much better educated than their parents, which naturally creates affinity between them and the United States (Hoveya 17).
There are also three main issues that US needs to deal with: Iran’s nuclear program, it’s sponsorship of terrorism, and it’s oil. With regard to Iran’s nuclear program, there are two schools of foreign policy thought (American Foreign Policy Interests 160). Some believe in the carrot method, by which the betterment of relations between Iran and its neighbors will cool their desire for the bomb, as occurred with Brazil and South Africa when the world feared they might gain nuclear weapons (Takeyh). Then there are those who believe that only active intervention will be able to fulfill American interests (Berman, 2006).
What both of these philosophies assume is that Iran’s nuclear program needs to be stopped. While it is not clearly in the United States’ interest to allow another country to possess nuclear weaponry, especially one that is not friendly to the United States, the argument could be made that it is not worth it to invest US resources in trying to dissuade Iran. If Iran gets the bomb, it is not likely to pass it on to terrorist organizations, nor is it likely to use it, in for fear of American retaliation (Takeyh).
It is my recommendation, in light of the issues I have previously laid out, that the United States needs to allow Iran to progress its nuclear program as far as it sees fit, up until the point that it threatens to violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty signed by Iran. Iran has the right, under the treaty, to complete the fuel cycle, despite the United State’s objection to this deed (Takeyh). Therefore, it is in our best interest to show Iran that we wish to treat it fairly, and that we do not wish to infringe upon its rights as a fellow sovereign. It is this type of micro-managing behavior that has caused our relationship to deteriorate so badly, and has caused Iran to feel that it needs nuclear weaponry in order to gain respect.
However, the United States has no reason to trust that the current government in Iran will not try to violate the treaty, and therefore, while we should not take action to halt Iran’s nuclear program, we need to improve our intelligence capabilities in the country so that we can have the best idea of how their program is progressing. If Iran is able to complete the fuel cycle, we will need to be extremely vigilant, and a polite reminder that they have reached their limits under the Non-Proliferation Treaty would not be out of order. Also, the United States will need to collaborate with Iran’s neighbors to cover any intelligence gaps, and have a network established for immediate response should Iran chose to cross the line. Russia especially will need to be involved, as it is the country that has been supplying nuclear necessities to Iran.
More directly important to the interests of the United States than Iran’s nuclear program, I believe, is the Iranian government’s sponsorship of terrorism. As is clear, looking back through the history of relations between the United States and Iran, terrorism has been the problem that most directly affects American citizens, and our close ally, Israel. Fortunately, this may be the area with the most hope for a peaceful solution. Of the groups that Iran sponsors—Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al Qaeda, among others—the majority are Sunni (Wahabism is an off-shoot of Sunni Islam). This seems strange, since Iran is an almost exclusively Shi’ite state, but it also makes sense considering how few options Iran has. If we were to extend a friendlier hand to Iran, and help it air its grievances in other ways, terrorist would probably seem like a less viable solution (Takeyh).
While we do not always like to admit it, oil resources are also important to consider in out formulation of foreign policy. If we were friendlier with Iran, and helped it improve its pipelines and refineries, we would have a good source of oil, as China and Russia have already found out (Burns 2006). Improved extraction capabilities under the technological prowess of the United States would also improve the Iranian economy and help foster goodwill with the younger generation.
Over the past two decades the United States and Iran have been like two ships passing in the night: when one regime seeks rapprochement, the other spurns it. We can never again return to the innocence of relations before Operation Ajax, nor can we afford to be ignorant and optimistic as during the Carter Administration, but it is crucial that we work towards bettering our relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. We must do this in order to stop state funding of terrorism, and avoid if possible the entrance of another country into the realm of nuclear weapons capability. If we are able to improve relations, we may also receive the added benefit of being able to import more oil from Iran and restoring diplomatic relations.
Our current policy of isolating Iran does not work. This only proves to the radical leadership in Iran that they are following the correct path by supporting terrorist cells and seeking nuclear weapons. Iran does not see economic co-operation with the US to be necessary. Therefore, expanded sanctioning is ineffective as well.
The young people of Iran are ready to be engaged by the United States. Programs that encourage Iranian students to study in the United States and bolster American media outlets in Iran should be continued and expanded. Iran is a democracy, though a weak one, and as the older Khomeini followers fall away, changes will occur in the government. We need to be sure that when those changes occur, they are in favor of the United States.
