We have ‘interests,’ not ‘friends,’ and so it is with Iran
In a memorable moment during my 22 years in the State Department, I stepped up to the plate and wrote the Pistachio Memo, well before it was requested. I was working in the sanctions office in 2004. We reviewed any deals between countries such as Iran, Cuba or Libya on whom the United States had imposed trade sanctions. I had just walked into my boss’s office when C-Span showed a congressman grilling our assistant secretary about U.S. imports of Iranian pistachios and carpets.
Expecting imminent orders to draft a response, I based my melive mo on established U.S. government policy. For humanitarian reasons, food, agricultural goods and scientific and medical exchanges receive exceptions from sanctions rules. The producers of pistachios and carpets, Iran’s lower and middle classes, had no connection to the power structure and did not profit from Iran’s oil. This trade gave us a link and good will to build on in the event of a change in relations.
I had had similar dealings with Iran at State, especially the week of the 2003 Bam Earthquake, which killed 26,271 people, injuring 30,000. The Bush administration offered direct humanitar- ian assistance in return for Iran’s agreement to comply with increased nuclear monitoring. This became a turning point, as the Iranian government cooperated with international organizations to rebuild the city.
I had earlier received clearances — just in time for spring flowering — for a team of UCLA botanists to go to Iran, as well as some zoologists helping to save the rare Iranian cheetah. Work in international environmental meetings with Iranian and Cuban experts was cordial, as international groups discussed common problems.
Useful memos in government long lives, with continual updates, revisions and re-applications. This one stayed in service as long as I was involved with State. I like to think it contributed to the process finished in the recent nuclear negotiations.
It also showed me that occasionally the U.S. government gets diplomacy right. U.S. diplomacy often tends to be based on “our man,” such as the Shah or Chiang
Kai-shek. We also tend to demonize our opponents, occasionally going from one to the other, as we did with Haiti’s Jean-Bertrand Aristide or Panama’s Manuel Noriega.
Rather, we need to look at the economic, demographic and environmental trends, and build policies around them. Any type of government, to survive, at some point needs to meet the needs of its people — and the Iranian people have had enough of revolution-induced poverty and international isolation. Further, the majority of the population is too young to identify firsthand with the revolution, craves contact with the outside world — and is overwhelmingly pro-American. Iran’s leaders know that and needed the agreement, presenting the U.S. with a major opportunity.
I do not defend Iran’s Revolution. As a retired foreign service officer, I spent years varying my route, checking my peephole and keeping my car dirty to more easily discern smudges indicating that it might have a bomb under it. I have four friends whose names are engraved in State’s C Street lobby. One of my closest friends — who agreed to review this article for me — was among the U.S. Embassy hostages in Iran for 444 days.
But governments change and revolutions institutionalize. Eventually, a population wants normalcy and a better life. Iran’s leaders face this pressure at home, and need to show their people that they can produce. According to Lord Palmerston, a nation does not have friends, it has interests. Likewise with enemies. At this point, both Iran and the United States have an interest in cooperation.
Governments don’t change all at once — dangerous elements remain in the Iranian government, so we must watch them. President Richard Nixon knew of Mao’s support for the Viet Cong when he opened relations with China. However, he changed the world for the better. So did President Ronald Reagan when he worked with Mikhail Gorbachev. We can watch Iran’s bad factions as well as its nuclear development. The International Atomic Energy Agency was right when it said the Iraqi government did not have nuclear weapons. We disregarded them, and have now been fighting for 13 years.
Ironically, U.S. policy in various parts of the world since Sept. 11 strengthened Iran’s radicals. It allowed Iran to establish powerful Shiite proxies in Iraq, broadening Iranian influence beyond Lebanon. The vendetta between the second Bush administration and Hugo Chavez helped open the relationship between Iran and Venezuela, while Iran also has become active in Somalia and Yemen.
This demonization led to missed opportunities. The first was Mohamed Khatani’s election in 1997. Khatani, a moderate, was ready for better relations with the U.S. Next came the Afghan war, where Iran shared our fear of a Taliban government. Finally, there was the 2003 Bam Earthquake where, at least, we reached the abovementioned accord.
At present, we share with Iran a common enemy in ISIS and common interests in Syria and Afghanistan. We also have a common interest in Iran’s population, many of whom have close family ties to the large Iranian-American community in the U.S.
A middle class engaged with the international community will not likely want to pursue military ventures. Meanwhile, if President Hassan Rouhani improves Iran’s economy he can stay in power. Iran has traditionally seen the Persian Gulf, where the regional order has now collapsed — as its sphere of influence. Engagement with Iran will allow us to better influence its conduct in rebuilding it.
Dangerous? Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, in his sermon for the end of Ramadan, praised those who chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” promising not to change Iran’s policy toward the United States. However, in 2013, he had called for “heroic flexibility,” thereby supporting Iran’s negotiating team, while hailing them as “sons of the Revolution.”
Most Iran experts hold that in order to maintain power, Khamenei must placate both extremes in his country. He would not have supported negotiations if he did not know how much Iran needed sanction relief. Thus, according to veteran Iran watchers, he must cover both sides, at least until some benefits to the population can swing the balance firmly in one direction or the other.
Iran and the U.S., ironically, mirror each other in their extreme political divisions. If the progressives in either country want an agreement, they must assure the conservatives that they will be tough about it. Finally, we must recognize that, sooner or later, many more countries will have nuclear capacity. It is thus more logical to weave them into the international community, thus diminishing the incentive to build nuclear weapons.
We must remain vigilant. However, 13 years of war in the region has won little and lost a lot. The economy is Iran’s main priority — as celebrations in Tehran’s streets demonstrated. The promise of easing sanctions got Rouhani elected. A satisfied population will be less likely to want foreign adventures and more likely to keep a moderate in power and thus sway the supreme leadership.