Even though modern Iran with its 70 million people has never attacked
another country, its geopolitical situation and the political excesses
of its leaders have embroiled them in troublesome conflicts time and
again.
It was the U.S.-backed creation of Israel in 1948, the oil riches of the region,
and the expansionist Soviet Union that made America a major force in the Middle
East, 6000 miles away from home. From 1941 to 1979, the pro-American Shah brought
economic and social change to Iran but met with growing opposition from the powerful
Shi’ite clergy. He countered by increasing repression and sending Ayatollah
Khomeini into exile. By the time violent protests forced the Shah himself to
leave his country, most Iranians saw the U.S. as major backer of the Shah’s
reactionary regime.
Upon Khomeini’s triumphant return, an anti-American crowd seized the U.S.
embassy and its 62 employees in Tehran and kept them in captivity for 444 days.
Only the release of Iranian assets frozen in America ended the hostage drama
on November 20, 1981.
Deeply hurt by Iran’s outlaw behavior, the U.S. has not only refused for
the past 26 years to re-establish diplomatic ties with Iran, it also decided
to supply Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein with conventional and chemical weapons
in his eight-year war of aggression against Iran. Saddam later used those chemicals
as poisoned gas against Iranians and Kurds. U.S. presidential envoy Donald Rumsfeld
twice consulted with Saddam in Baghdad while corporations such as Mobil, Bechtel,
and British Petroleum were encouraged to do business in Iraq but not Iran.
In 1988 the Iranians again became enraged when the U.S. cruiser Vincennes mistakenly
shot down an Iranian airliner killing all 290 aboard. Eventually, the U.S. paid
compensation but never apologized.
As had to be expected, Shi’ite Iran bitterly opposes the Israeli occupation
of the Palestinian territories and supported Hezbollah, the Shi’ite resistance
movement against the Israeli invasions of Lebanon. Here again, the U.S. and Iran
were on opposite sides of the conflict. When Israelis killed Muslims, we called
it self-defense. When Hezbollah retaliated, we called it terrorism.
A window for a rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran opened up when in 1997
Mohammad Khatami, a moderate Shi’ite cleric, was elected president with
a 70 percent majority. Hardliners in both countries, however, stymied the opportunity
to re-establish diplomatic ties.
When the U.S. went on the offensive against Afghanistan’s reactionary Sunnis,
the Taliban, Iran’s Shi’ite leaders cautiously applauded the American
move. President Bush, however, embraced the neoconservative assertion that Shi’ite
Iran harbors Sunni terrorists of al-Qaeda. The President’s lumping of Iran,
Iraq, and North Korea together in what he called an “axis of evil” made
no sense and served no useful purpose.
As if there was not enough bad blood between Washington and Tehran, the Bush
administration and its NATO allies persist in claiming that Iran is developing
nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has found no such
evidence as yet but did criticize the Iranians for their failure to cooperate
with IAEA inspections.
The Iranian government correctly claims that, as a signer of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NNPT), it is entitled to enrich uranium for the commercial development
of nuclear energy. The Iranians protest, moreover, that Israel maintains a large
arsenal of nuclear arms and refuses any IAEA inspection.
The latest dispute with Iran arose over the arrest of five Iranian officials
in northern Iraq on January 11. When they were not released, Iran retaliated
by seizing a boat with 15 British sailors in the Shatt al-Arab waterway, only
to return them after 13 days “to the people of Britain as a gift.” Such
tit-for-tat confrontations obviously achieve nothing.
As the strongest Shi’ite state, Iran could greatly help in restraining
Iraq’s Shi’ite majority in its bloody feuds with the Sunni minority.
That, however, requires that we stop threatening and begin talking with Iran’s
leaders--even if we don’t like them.