DUBAI - Iran has the right to attack Iranian "terrorist" opposition groups in Iraq, Tehran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said in remarks published on Sunday.

"This is a right to self-defense," Kharrazi told the Saudi-owned newspaper al-Hayat when asked whether Tehran planned to renew raids on Iraqi territory.

A Mujahideen statement faxed to Reuters said two of its members were killed in a surprise attack by Iranian "agents" on September 27 in northern Iraq near the Iranian border.

It said the group's leader Massoud Rajavi had sent a letter to the U.N. secretary-general and member states of the Security Council blaming "the silence and inaction of the international community" for allowing Iran to "escalate the flagrant violations of human rights and export terrorism."

U.S. Dispatches Carrier Group to Persian Gulf, The Washington Post, October 4 

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen yesterday ordered a carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf ahead of schedule as a warning to Iran and Iraq to stop incursions into the U.S.-enforced "no-fly" zone in southern Iraq, Pentagon officials said.

"This is an indication of our ability to quickly respond to potential threats to the security of our friends in the region," said Capt. Michael Doubleday, a Pentagon spokesman.

On Monday Iranian warplanes bombed two bases in southern Iraq held by Iranian rebel groups, reportedly wounding several Iraqi civilians. Iraqi MiG-21 and MiG-23 jets responded several hours later at night, but the Iranian jets had returned to their bases…

Iran Says Total Deal Blow to U.S., Reuter, October 5

TEHRAN - Iran's $2 billion gas deal with French firm Total has plunged U.S. sanctions against foreign firms dealing with Tehran "into an abyss," Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi was quoted as saying.

The official Iranian news agency IRNA said Kharrazi was speaking on Saturday in Tehran after returning from attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

"...The inking of the $2 billion gas deal sent the d'Amato extra-territorial law and unilateral sanctions into an abyss," IRNA quoted Kharrazi as saying.

"The inking of the deal by Total was telling a big 'no' to the United States for its unilateral unacceptable norms of practice in the world trade arena," Kharrazi said.

"The agreement was a great triumph for both Europe and Islamic Republic of Iran," he added. Kharrazi said the deal heralds "greater contracts to be signed in the near future." He did not elaborate.

Commentary 

Perhaps we ought to change tactics and urge our allies and trading partners to do business with Iran. That may be the only way they are ever going to end their lucrative relationship with the Mullahs of Tehran...

But that of, course, is not the way it actually is. In the real world, the United States has a policy called dual-containment... One of the tools of that policy is the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act signed into law by President Clinton some 14 months ago, designed to stop foreign companies from doing business with these two American enemies and terrorist states. It has the Europeans seeing absolutely red, whining about the outrage of extra-territoriality...

At least the Russians and the Chinese have decent hypocrisy to deny the evidence of their technological involvement with Iranians...

The Europeans are another matter. This week the French company Total, along with the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom and a Malaysian consortium, signed a $2 billion deal to develop Iran’s huge natural gas field, the single largest foreign investment in Iran since 1979… As Sir Leon Britain, the union’s trade commissioner, commented, should the United States impose sanctions on these companies, "a chain of events" could be set in motion "which would seriously damage the wider relationship."

Perhaps, but so be it. Imaging the consequences if we do nothing, and if President Clinton decides to waive the Iran-Libya Act for the sake of neighborly relations with the Europeans. The world and his wife will be in Iran doing business, filling the coffers of a dangerous, unpredictable and aggressive regime. The Clinton administration must take a hard stand here, and impress on the French, the Russians and the Chinese the price of what they are doing, in terms of sanctions, lost US aid and, in the case of China, lost imports of American nuclear power technology. We simply cannot afford not to.

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