Back to Brief on Iran
[Excerpts from an article by William Taylor, the senior vice president of international security affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Ethan Glick, a research analyst there.]
U.S. foreign policy toward Iran has our government divided—within the State Department, between State and the Departments of Defense and Commerce, within Congress, and between the government and the U.S. business community, especially large oil corporations.
Equally disturbing, the U.S. policy of sanctions against Iran is driving our allies and friends —France, Germany, Russia, and China— crazy….
…Just three weeks ago the Ayatollah Khamenei was repeating his invective against "The Great Satan," the United States of America. In their "good cop/bad cop" routine, Iran has devised a brilliant strategy —designed to further evaporate any consensus that would ensure effective policy…. And it is working — by creating a political vacuum which provides Iran latitude to seek foreign investment, to continue receiving foreign assistance for its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles which by next year will be able to strike Israel and most other nations in the Middle East.
This vacuum is aided by several months of surging debate over how and whether to alter U.S. policy toward Iran…. The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mohammad Khatami, the new, supposedly moderate president of Iran, have seen this strategic opportunity and are acting on…. Now it is Iran seeking to use the instrument of American public opinion to constrain policy options. Our basic arguments with the Iranian regime remain — their support for international terrorism, acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, and proven hostility toward Israel and the United States. In Iran, the powerful lure of massive international investor interest in oil fields and pipeline routes have created an opening for Ayatollah Khatami's new overtures. Iran wants to have its cake and eat it too, by remaining a pure Islamic state while at the same time engaging the West. Why else the continued unabashed statements of hostility from the spiritual leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Khamenei?
Iran remains an authoritarian state
where human rights as we know them do not exist and where policy is mandated
from the unequivocal leadership of the ayatollahs…. a U.S. policy that
seeks to foster true dissent in Iran would be welcome. Iranian policy that
fosters further dissent in the United States and among our allies and friends
is not welcome….
Iran's Missile Deal with Russia, The Associated Press, January 15
WASHINGTON—Iran's purchase of Russian missile technology is giving Iran an opportunity to "leap ahead" in developing new weapons, a senior Clinton administration official said Thursday.
The official, Steven Sestanovich, said Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, among others, were opposed to missile technology deals with Iran and that they posed a threat to Russia as well in the Persian Gulf and Middle East regions.
Sestanovich, who heads the State Department's
office on Russia and other former Soviet republics, said the Russian government
had assured U.S. diplomats it intended to "correct" the situation. The
State Department official declined to provide any details or say how Iran
was able to purchase technology if the Russian government disapproved….
Mullahs Are "The Most Ominous Danger to The Region", Reuter, January 15
Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai has set up a team to assess the threat posed by arch-foe Iran following remarks by its new president attacking the Jewish state, Ha'aretz newspaper said on Thursday….
"Iran under the ayatollahs now poses the most ominous danger to our region and to the world," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.
Netanyahu pointed to what he said were Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles….