US Hard-Line Policies Helped Bring About Reformists' Demise in Iran - Expert

In the aftermath of last month's parliamentary elections in Iran, political experts in Tehran are busy analyzing the causes of the decline and fall of the reformist movement. A major contributing factor to the reformists' demise, some Iranian analysts say, was the Bush administration's reluctance to engage President Mohammad Khatami and other reform-minded leaders.

The ascendancy of Iranian conservatives, who recaptured control of the Iranian parliament in the February 20 election, is closely tied to the hard-line policies pursued by the Bush administration, asserted one Iranian international relations expert, who has served as an adviser to both the Iranian parliament and the Foreign Ministry, and who is currently a university professor. The expert spoke to EurasiaNet on condition of anonymity.

The expert noted that US President George W. Bush's decision to include Iran in the so-called "Axis of Evil" energized Iranian conservatives and infused a sense of urgency into their efforts to regain power. The conservatives, many observers point out, helped secure their newly won parliamentary majority by rigging the election process. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. At the same time, most experts in Tehran agree that reformists squandered their opportunities to promote domestic reforms, thereby fueling the public apathy that helped make conservative election-manipulation possible. Still, some believe, had the United States done more to support reformists in Iran, they might have been able to retain power, and, down the road, to prove more amenable to cooperating with the United States in a number of crucial foreign policy areas, including the reconstruction of Iraq.

"The period stretching from September 11 to George Bush's Axis-of-Evil speech [during his State of the Union address in January 2002] could be said to have constituted a window of opportunity for US-Iran relations; one that if successful, could have also strengthened the hand of reformists in their power struggle," insisted the foreign affairs expert. "The Americans were never serious in supporting the reformist priorities in Iran."

A widely held view in US policy-making circles is that there are no substantive foreign policy differences between Iranian reformists and conservatives. Gary Sick, an Iran expert who was a US National Security Council adviser during the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations, described Iran's inclusion in the Axis of Evil as "harmful" and "unproductive." He nevertheless felt that Iranian conservatives and reformists had managed to find consensus in some key foreign policy areas. "In the two most crucial areas where both [reformist and conservative] factions tend to converge, namely oil and national security," he told EurasiaNet, "both sides tend to present a common face to the outsiders."

The Iranian analyst vigorously disputed the notion that there is little to differentiate reformists from conservatives in foreign policy. He contended that the United States missed numerous signals sent by Khatami's administration that would have confirmed that a difference did exist.

Following the September 11 tragedy, Khatami advocated vigorously in the Iranian policy-making establishment for a more open policy towards the United States, warning that any actions taken by Tehran to antagonize the Bush administration could be "suicidal," the expert said. "He [Khatami] proposed a policy of conciliation and limited engagement. Apparently, the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] and some others [conservative leaders] were initially willing to give the go-ahead to him, basically taking a wait-and-see attitude," the expert said.

During this wait-and-see period, Iran undertook a number of goodwill gestures, including some limited behind-the-scenes cooperation with the US-led blitz to oust the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, and deporting the Islamic radical Afghan warlord Gulbudin Hekmatyar from Iran. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In addition, according to several sources, Khatami aides and reform-minded envoys conveyed messages to foreign diplomats that if Washington made a reciprocal gesture -- such as toning down its anti-Iranian rhetoric, or a willingness to reconsider the US embargo – Tehran would be prepared to explore cooperation on more substantive issues, including the Middle East peace process.

Khatami's overtures "were, in fact, major departures from past Iranian behavior and foreign policy doctrine," the expert said. "However, instead of reciprocating any of these measures or understanding Khatami's difficulties in dealing with his rivals, the Americans kept increasing the pressure, for example asking him to curtail the activities of the Revolutionary Guards, over which he [Khatami] had very little influence."

Khatami's window of opportunity slammed shut following Bush's "Axis of Evil" reference in his State-of-the-Union address. Iranian conservatives quickly came to the conclusion that Khatami's efforts to foster a rapprochement were being interpreted in Washington as signs of weakness. "Several Revolutionary Guard commanders were openly contemptuous of Khatami," recalled the international affairs specialist.

Hardliners were especially critical of what they felt was Khatami's bungling of Iran's Afghan policy. In Afghanistan, Iran saw its considerable influence eclipsed by the United States following the Taliban's ouster. Iranian conservatives fumed that Iran had spent enormous sums on supporting the Afghan mujahedeen during the Soviet occupation, as well as struggled to accommodate over 2 million Afghan refugees, and, following the arrival of US forces in Afghanistan, had little to show for it.

"Today Tehran scarcely commands any influence in Kabul, and even Iran's supposedly staunch ally in Afghanistan, Herat's governor Ismail Khan, openly defies and ridicules his erstwhile sponsors," the Iranian expert said. "This plus the Axis of Evil speech basically spelled the end of the reformists' brief ascendancy in the foreign policy arena."

From this point on, reformists, including the president himself, have been largely excluded from the foreign-policy decision-making process, "Practically all the decisions having to do with national security matters are made by hardliners," the Iranian analysts said.

The US failure to recognize the rapprochement opportunity that Khatami presented is making itself felt in neighboring Iraq these days. The perception that the Bush administration is Iran's irreconcilable enemy is pushing Iranian conservatives to strengthen connections between Iranian and Iraqi sh'ias. Most of what goes for Iran's policy on Iraq is conducted by the so-called Quds Brigade, which is a special division of the Revolutionary Guards specializing in covert operations, the Iranian expert alleged. As the recent delay in the signing of Iraq's provisional constitution shows, Iraqi sh'ias are becoming increasingly assertive, thereby significantly complicating the US reconstruction challenges in Iraq.

A bogged down US reconstruction effort in Iraq heightens Iran security because it discourages Washington from promoting regime change elsewhere, Iranian conservatives maintain. They now like to cite the fact that the Bush administration in recent months has both toned down its criticism of Tehran, and has largely abandoned its regime-change rhetoric, as proof that they are following the proper foreign policy course.

With conservatives now holding a monopoly on Iranian foreign policy, several diplomats in the faction-ridden Foreign Ministry who previously leaned towards the reformists -- including Iran's United Nations representative, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and the Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi – are aligning now with the conservative side, the Iranian political observer claimed.

"Perhaps the Americans are happy to see the decline of reformists influence in Iranian politics since that makes the government more streamlined, but this certainly does not serve the interest of democracy for our part of world," the expert said.