United States’ Policy towards Iran after the Islamic Revolution / 267
United States’ Policy towards Iran after
the Islamic Revolution: An Iranian Perspective
Enayatollah Yazdani and Rizwan Hussain
The United States has pursued an antagonistic policy towards the Islamic Republic of Iran
ever since the fall of the pro-US monarchy. Even though subsequent US administrations since
1979 have been trying to restore earlier influence in that country, the disintegration of the
Soviet Union has reinforced the US resolve to regain political leverage in Iran. The realization
of this objective could remove a major impediment to the growing US hegemony in the region.
Thus, Iran forms part of the Bush administration’s so-called ‘axis of evil’. The Iranian Islamic
government’s autonomous foreign and domestic policies pose a challenge to the US-led Western
bloc’s preponderant political, military and economic influence in the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia. The ongoing pressure on Tehran to abandon its nuclear programme is an integral
component of a multifaceted strategy that seeks to isolate Iran both at the regional and
international levels. The US-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan in the aftermath of the
11 September events have facilitated the encirclement of Iran with US military power. Further,
the absence of a global counter-weight to check US interventionism in the region has increased
the chances of US political or even military interference in Iran. Consequently, the US has
enhanced its attempts to weaken and possibly overthrow the Islamic regime as part of its
plans to redraw the political and strategic maps of the region. In this regard, the US is using
various political and economic instruments to undermine the Iranian government.
Iran has been the focus of United States animosity in West Asia ever since the fall
of the US-backed monarchical regime of Muhammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979. The
Islamic revolution that brought about the end of the monarchical dictatorship
under the leadership of Ayatollah Syed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini dealt a body
blow to American interests in the region. Ayatollah Khomeini laid the foundation
of an Islamic government that sought to keep Iran free from the control of Western
powers led by the US. This was quite disturbing for the US as it not only threatened
Western control of West Asia’s oil resources but also gave an example to the
people of the region that a genuinely revolutionary Islamic leadership could
effectively confront a ‘super power’. In addition, the revolution challenged the
existing pro-Western regimes and posed a threat to the West’s political, economic
The authors are Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Isfahan, Iran
and Former Research Scholar, Australian National University, Australia respectively.
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 43, 3 (2006)
Sage Publications New Delhi/Thousand Oaks/London
DOI: 10.1177/002088170604300302
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268 / ENAYATOLLAH YAZDANI AND RIZWAN HUSSAIN
and strategic interests in this energy-rich region. In the post-Cold War era too, the
US has continued with its hostility towards the Islamic Republic of Iran and is
increasing its attempts to weaken the Iranian Islamic system through various political and economic means. In fact, the US occupation of Afghanistan (2001) and
Iraq (2003) has further increased US-led pressure on the Iranian government,
especially in relation to Tehran’s alleged efforts to develop a nuclear weapons
capability. This article makes an attempt to analyze Iranian-United States relations
over the last two decades within the context of the wider geopolitical changes in
West Asia since 1979.
US Policy towards Iran before the Revolution
The United States was the principal foreign power that sustained the regime of
Muhammad Reza Pahlavi (the ‘Shah’), who ruled Iran from 1941 until his overthrow in February 1979. A US State Department acknowledged in 1967 that
Washington had ‘replaced the former rivals, Russia and Britain’ as the most important power with influence ‘in both the internal and external affairs of Iran’
after 1950 (National Policy Paper 1999: 341). During the Cold War between the
Western bloc led by the US and the now defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republic
(USSR), Washington supported the corrupt and oppressive regime of the Shah.
The US viewed the Shah government as a bulwark against the expansion of Soviet
influence in the geopolitically important area extending from the shores of the
Caspian Sea to the Straits of Bab al Mandab in the Red Sea. In the bipolar structure
of world politics during the Cold War, keeping Iran within the mainly Westerncontrolled, oil-rich region of West Asia was a vital US objective. In 1953, the US
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and British intelligence services (MI 6) played
a major role in strengthening the Iranian monarchy by orchestrating the downfall
of the nationalist Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadeq, who not only challenged
Shah’s authoritarianism, but also was instrumental in the nationalization of the
Iranian oil industry, thereby greatly undermining the hold of Western oil companies
in the country. By removing Mossadeq from power, the US and Britain restored
and strengthened Shah’s dictatorship. The West ignored the widespread abuse of
human rights and suppression of democracy by the Shah as long as his regime
served Western imperialist interests in the region. The Shah’s secret police (Sazman
Amniat Va Attelaat Keshvar, SAVAK) was responsible for the murder of thousands
of Iranians opposed to monarchical dictatorship and yet the US continued to support
the Shah’s repressive police state by ‘enhancing the capabilities of the regime to
cope with potential insurgency situations’ (National Policy Paper 1999: 344).
By the early 1970s, the Shah became the West’s most important client in the region, regional gendarme. In fact, the US was transforming the Pahlavi dictatorship
as one of its main security ‘pillars’ in the region under the Nixon Doctrine, which
stressed that the US needed a local gendarme to protect its interests in the region.
Therefore, Iran was assigned the responsibility to protect US interests in the Persian
Gulf and subsequently, the Shah’s regime became one of the largest purchasers of
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United States’ Policy towards Iran after the Islamic Revolution / 269
US arms in West Asia by the mid-1970s. Taking advantage of this policy,
Muhammad Reza not only instigated the OPEC oil price hikes of the early 1970s,
but increased Iran’s defence budget from US $1.4 billion in 1972 to US $9.4
billion in 1977 (Bill 1988: 241). The massive increase in Iranian defence budget
led to the creation of a powerful military whose officer corps had been trained by
the US. According to a State Department confidential paper (FRUS 1967: 354)
Washington’s ‘military relationship with Iran’ was ‘fundamental to our (US) overall
relationship with the Shah’ and the paper rightly stressed that ‘the Shah’s regime
is still dependent in the final analysis on the (US trained) security forces which he
commands, and the opposition is still strictly controlled’. Even so, Washington
was apprehensive that increasing ‘oil revenues had given the Shah relative financial
independence’, which could enable Tehran to ‘exercise power over its own affairs
that is associated with full sovereignty’ (National Policy Paper 1999: 343).
However, the Shah’s policies had alienated large segments of the Iranian Muslim
population including the religious establishment, besides increasing greatly the
socio-economic disparities. The growing divide between a small section of USsupported Westernized political elite and a largely neglected lot of Islamic populace
became one of the prime factors for the massive upheavals of 1979 that culminated
in the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the Islamic Republic
of Iran (IRI).
US Attitude towards Post-Revolutionary Regime
The victory of the Iranian Islamic revolution marked a watershed in international
politics. The Islamic groups that took power after the overthrow of the monarchy
were made up of different factions, but nearly all of them recognized Ayatollah
Khomeini as the leader of the revolution, who sought to create a new society in
Iran based on Sharia (Islamic law). He based his teachings on the Quran and perceived the global system as being divided between the ‘oppressors’ (Mustakbarin)
and the oppressed (Mustazafin) (Khomeini 1984; Ramazani 1986: 23–24). Furthermore, he condemned the ‘imperialists and the tyrannical self seeking rulers’
who had ‘divided’ the Islamic world (Khomeini 1983: 41) and denounced the
United States as the ‘Great Satan’ (Shaitan-e-Bozorg) and a ‘terroristic government’ (Khomeini 1989: 4). He emphasized that Muslims should struggle for
independence from both Western and the then Soviet influence.
The Iranian Islamic revolutionary leadership’s defiance of the United States
and its anti-imperialist policy became a matter of great concern for the US policy
makers. For the Muslims of the region, revolutionary Iran symbolized independence, honour and dignity that the region’s countries had lost during the two
centuries long colonial and neo-colonial rule. The new revolutionary government
condemned the role of the US backed West Asian regimes in supporting American
efforts to control the region. In addition, Iranian revolution’s emphasis on the implementation of Islam as a complete socio-political and economic ideology greatly
undermined Western socio-cultural domination in the region.
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270 / ENAYATOLLAH YAZDANI AND RIZWAN HUSSAIN
Ayatollah Khomeini had based his argument for the restructuring of Iran’s sociopolitical framework on the age-old concept of the just Imam in Shi’ism. He stressed
that, in the absence of the vanished twelfth Imam (Vali-e-Asr), the authority to
govern the community (Umma) should vest in an Islamic theologian (Faqih). It
was this notion of the ‘rule of the jurisconsult’ (Welayat-e-Faqih) that became
enshrined in the post-revolution Iranian constitution. Ayatollah Khomeini’s aim
was to reconstruct Islamic societies with the application of the Islamic law and,
thereby, challenging the Western politico-cultural influences over them. In his
vision, Islamic Iran could provide an example of a genuinely Islamic society for
other Muslim countries to emulate. In other words, the revolution’s spiritual
principles could be ‘exported’ to other Muslim societies. In this regard, the 1979
Iranian Constitution emphasizes Iran’s role in promoting Muslim unity by
proclaiming in Article 10 that, ‘All Muslims form a single nation’ and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has the duty to ‘exert continuous efforts in
order to realise the political, economic and cultural unity of the Islamic world’.
Most importantly, the Iranian government under Ayatollah Khomeini’s guidance
emphasized its independence from both the Western and Eastern blocs and during
his lifetime the Islamic Republic’s slogan ‘neither East, nor West’ (Na Sharqi na
Qarbi) remained the cornerstone of Iran’s foreign policy.
The essence of US policy regarding Iran over the past twenty-five years has
centred on regaining political and economic control over that country. The Iranian
revolution had disturbed the structure of politics in West Asia, which at that time
reflected the bipolar US–Soviet rivalry with nearly all the regional states siding
with either of the two Superpowers in the Cold War era. In this respect, the rise of
a revolutionary Islamic state proclaiming its autonomy from both the blocs was
completely a new development.
The US kept on interfering in Iran’s internal affairs even after the fall of the
Shah, which was one of the major factors for the seizure of the US Embassy in
Tehran on 4 November 1979, by students opposed to such interference. Indeed,
the US Embassy was serving as a centre for espionage. The hundreds of documents
seized by the students after the takeover later revealed that the Embassy had recruited several anti-government agents within the Iranian government and armed
forces (Documents from the US Spy Den 1982). The Embassy occupation prompted
the US to break off diplomatic relations with Iran in April 1980. America blamed the
Iranian government for the takeover, despite the fact that the hostage takers had
acted independently and without the knowledge of the Iranian authorities. The
Carter administration announced a series of punitive measures against Iran that
included economic embargo, seizure of Iranian assets in the US and cancellation
of visa facilities for Iranian visitors (Taheri 1988: 132). In addition, the US launched
a military mission ‘Operation Eagle Claw’ with the US Special Forces to strike at
the Embassy and airlift the diplomatic staff to an American Carrier Task Force in
the Arabian Sea. Nevertheless, the mission failed to achieve its goal.
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United States’ Policy towards Iran after the Islamic Revolution / 271
Despite the failure of the hostage rescue mission, the US government continued
its attempts to overthrow the Iranian Islamic government. The US, for instance,
established contacts with former senior military officers of the Shah’s regime and
through them, it planned to engineer a pro-Western coup in Iran. The CIA had
established contacts with senior generals of the Shah’s army like General Ghulam
Ali Oveissi in December 1979, to implement this scheme (Taheri 1988: 139).
Moreover, the US also forged links with the last Prime Minister during the Shah
regime, Shahpour Bakhtiar for similar purposes. In these attempts, the US enlisted
the support of the then Iraqi regime headed by Saddam Hussein to unsettle the
new government in Iran through the launch of a border war in September 1980.
Five months before the war, senior US officials had been in touch with Saddam’s
regime concerning possible Iraqi collaboration in the ‘destabilization’ process
of Iran.
However, the Islamic revolution of Iran was regarded as a threat by Saddam
Hussein and the Western-backed Persian Gulf regimes. Consequently, with the
assistance of former officials of the Shah’s regime and the cooperation of the proWestern Arab states such as Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the US coopted its major non-Arab Muslim
client states also such as Pakistan and Turkey. The Pakistani military regime under
General Zia-ul-Haq proclaimed its backing for the Iranian revolutionary government in public but covertly assisted its main patron, the US, to destabilize Iran
(Arif 1992).1 Similarly, Turkey, while recognizing the Iranian revolution, also
covertly allowed one of the former Shah’s senior generals, General Bahram Aryana,
to form the ‘The Front for Liberation of Iran’ on Turkish territory (the New York
Times, 7 March 1982).
Meanwhile, political and security situation in the region had already worsened
when the Soviet Union militarily intervened in December 1979, to set up a proSoviet regime in Afghanistan. After this event, the US openly backed the Pakistani
military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq to arm the anti-Soviet guerrillas operating
against the Soviet supported Kabul regime from bases in Pakistan. The US however,
was not distracted in its attempts to contain and try to overthrow Iran’s revolutionary government (Hussain 2005). The events in Iran and Afghanistan had
prompted the US to enunciate what became known as the Carter Doctrine, which
stressed that: ‘an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf
region ...[would] be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United
States and... [Would] be repelled by any means necessary, including military force’
(the Washington Post, 24 January 1980). As a matter of fact, a direct result of the
Carter Doctrine was the creation of a special US military command known as the
Central Command (CENTCOM) in 1983 to secure the flow of the Persian Gulf
1
The Zia regime had reportedly been conduit for the transfer of substantial CIA funding to the
oppositional groups headed by Shahpour Bakhtiar in 1980. A former Foreign Minister of Pakistan
revealed this information to the author. For the Pakistani military elite’s perception of the Iranian
revolution, see Arif 1992.
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272 / ENAYATOLLAH YAZDANI AND RIZWAN HUSSAIN
oil as a vital interest for that country. Although the CENTCOM’s ‘Area of Responsibility’ (AoR) stretched from Egypt in the east to Kyrgyzstan in the west, its
main strategic area of operations was to be the Persian Gulf basin that contained
two-thirds of the world’s known petroleum reserves. Further, five leading oil
producers—Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, were
located within this area.
The political changes in Iran and Afghanistan in the late 1970s had motivated the US to concentrate specifically on these two states that had gone out of
its dominated network of client states in south–western Asia. In the context of
Afghanistan, the US could easily muster support of the Muslim states in the region
based on solidarity against the so-called Soviet ‘expansionism’. However, in the
case of Iran, the US was faced with a dilemma, as it had to deal with a revolutionary
Islamic government that emphasized its independence from both the East and the
West. More significantly, the Iranian revolution threatened the regional status
quo in which the US exercised its politico-economic control by means of supporting
unpopular, repressive and corrupt regimes.
Strategy during Iraq–Iran War
Iraq, with a Shia majority population, particularly felt threatened by revolution in
Iran as the Iranian revolution’s ideological appeal undermined the legitimacy of
the secular Iraqi Baath Party (Helms 1984: 15). Encouraged by the anti-Iranian
stance of the pro-US Arab regimes and increasingly apprehensive of the appeal of
the Iranian revolution in the wider Arab world, Iraq launched an unprovoked fullscale military invasion of Iran on 22 September 1980. Iraq accused Iran of violating
the 1975 Algiers Agreement, which committed both Iraq and Iran to the thalweg
principle to determine the boundary line between the two countries.2
The US government failed to denounce the Iraqi aggression. In fact, during
the Reagan administration, US–Iraqi ties were deepened. Newly declassified
US government papers indicated that the then special US envoy to Iraq, Donald
Rumsfeld, conveyed to Saddam in March 1984, Washington’s criticism of the
latter’s use of chemical weapons (which are regarded as Weapons of Mass Destruction—WMD) against Iran, which was not meant to be a pro-Iranian gesture
(The National Security Archive 2005). The Reagan administration’s ‘tilt’ towards
Iraq led other Western powers and even the Soviet Union to provide massive
material, especially military aid to Iraq through the 1980s. This aid was given
notwithstanding the appalling violation of human rights by the Iraqi regime. The
State Department removed Iraq from the list of nations that sponsored ‘terrorism’.
The US National Security Agency (NSA) regularly provided Iraq with top-secret
2
According to the thalweg principle, the midpoint of a waterway could be considered as the
boundary between two states having riparian borders. Iraq had two main objectives in starting the
war: to capture the Iranian province of Khuzestan and to topple the government in Tehran. But it
failed to achieve either of the objective. Iraq’s aggression however, led to a long and bloody conflict
that lasted for eight years.
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United States’ Policy towards Iran after the Islamic Revolution / 273
Iranian military communication intercepts and satellite images of Iranian troop
deployment. This intelligence greatly helped the Iraqi army to withstand Iranian
military offensives in 1986 and 1987.3 In the later stages of the war, the US Navy
directly intervened against Iranian naval and military units to assist Iraq in the
Persian Gulf. Furthermore, in July 1988, a US Navy warship, USS Vincennes
shot down in international airspace, an Iranian passenger plane killing all 290
people onboard. Direct US military intervention against Iran in 1988 indicated
that Washington was not prepared to allow an Iranian victory in the Iran–Iraq
War. Earlier the US had even fitted Kuwaiti oil tankers with American flags in
order to warn Iran that an attack on these tankers would be considered an assault
on US vessels.
Besides Western assistance, Saddam’s regime was also the beneficiary of largescale assistance from its Arab neighbours. On the other hand, Iran was subjected
to arms embargo by nearly all the Western countries and their allies in the Muslim
world. The military support given by Jordan, North Yemen and Egypt to the Iraqi
armed forces was crucial in stemming Iranian military advances. Moreover, the
conservative Persian Gulf states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
and UAE collectively assisted Iraq in its war with Iran. These states had formed
the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in 1981 essentially to protect their regimes
from the Iranian challenge (Kechichian 1989: 45–58). It was an irony that the
regional Arab governments perceived Iran as a ‘threat’, despite the fact that it was
Iraq that had launched a full-scale invasion against Iran with the total support of
these governments. The reason for this support was fairly obvious. The US and
its allies backed Iraq to contain revolutionary Iran, but the war also served longterm US objective to weaken both Iran and Iraq—the two most powerful West
Asian states. In total, the war brought over one million Iranian and Iraqi deaths.
The US and its Western allies had never intended that Iraq or Iran should have
an outright victory in the war because that could upset the regional power balance.
The former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, openly expressed his view
that it was ‘too bad they [Iran and Iraq] can’t both lose’ (Time, 12 January 1987).
In the pursuance of this objective, the US and its allies worked to prevent either
Iran or Iraq from gaining a victory. Hence, during the mid-1980s, the Reagan administration was not averse to covertly supplying Iran with small consignments
of weaponry. Overtly, the US claimed that its arms supply was to entice Iran to
force the pro-Iranian Lebanese Hezbollah to free some US hostages. However,
this arms sale was a part of a larger US geostrategic goal of not only prolonging
3
Iran used devices built by Crypto AG of Switzerland for its secret communications. However,
knowledgeable sources indicate that the Crypto AG enciphering process developed in cooperation
with the US NSA and the German company Siemens, involved secretly embedding the decryption
key in the cipher text. Those who knew where to look could monitor the encrypted communication,
then extract the decryption key that was also the part of the transmission and recover the plain text
message. Thus, it is claimed that the US NSA could easily decipher Iranian communications. See
J. Orlin Grabbe, ‘NSA, Crypto AG, and the Iraq-Iran Conflict’, http://www.aci.net/kalliste/speccoll.
htm. (Accessed on 2 March 2005)
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274 / ENAYATOLLAH YAZDANI AND RIZWAN HUSSAIN
the Iran–Iraq conflict but also keeping Soviet influence out of Iran. A US National
Security Advisor, Robert Macfarlane, provided the rationale for arms transfer to
Iran by stating that ‘our primary short-term challenge must be to block Moscow’s
efforts to increase Soviet influence’ in Iran (US Policy Toward Iran 1985).
The protracted War, which came to an end in August 1988 after Ayatollah
Khomeini agreed to a UN mediated ceasefire, caused tremendous economic, material and human loss to Iran. Even according to conservative estimates by the US
government, damage from the war to the Iranian economy was around US $450
billion (Ansari 2003: 49). Also severely diminished was the ideological fervour
of the Islamic revolution. The Iranian revolutionary leadership’s earlier espousal
of ‘exporting’ their revolution to the rest of the West Asian region had sufficiently
mellowed down by then. Furthermore, the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in June
1989 virtually signalled the end of the revolutionary phase of Iranian foreign
policy. This event coincided with dramatic international changes propelled by
the end of the East–West Cold War.
Dominance Over Energy Resources
By 1990, the US foreign policy priorities primarily centred around the Soviet
Union due to the momentous changes taking place within the USSR and the larger
Soviet bloc under the impact of the policy changes initiated by the Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev. In Iran itself, indications of a thaw in trade relations with the
US emerged after the pragmatic leadership under President Hashemi Rafsanjani
tried to improve Iran’s ties with its pro-US neighbours especially the Persian
Gulf Sheikhdoms that had backed Iraq. Even the US President George W. Bush
had indicated Washington’s intention to improve ties with Tehran (Pollack 2004:
239). However, in practice the US continued to view Iran with hostility and kept
on pressing its allies to restrict transfer of technology and armament to Tehran
until the Iranian government changed its policy to the liking of Washington.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990, drastically altered the regional geostrategic situation. Although misled by the hint about the US neutrality,
(Hassan 1999: 37), Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussain clearly misread the American
game plan. Iraq thus inadvertently provided the US and its allies an opportunity
to dominate the Persian Gulf. For, the US authorities had already made it known
that ‘access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key friendly states in the area
are vital to US national security. The United States remains committed to defend
its vital interests in the region, if necessary and appropriate through the use of
U.S. military force, against...any other regional power with interests inimical to
our own’ (National Security Directive 26 1989). Most significantly, the US could
not allow Iraq to control over 25 per cent of the world’s petroleum reserves (Klare
2004: 41). In fact, the 1990–91 US assault on Iraq reinvigorated the West’s neoimperial influence vis-à-vis West Asia. This was difficult to achieve during the
Cold War due to the support of the Soviet Union to the nationalist and often antiimperialist socialist regimes of the region like that of Egypt (before Sadat’s switch
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United States’ Policy towards Iran after the Islamic Revolution / 275
to the West in 1974), Iraq (since the overthrow of the British imposed monarchy
in 1958) and Syria. Taking advantage of the new post-Cold War climate, the US
and its allies mounted a full-scale attack on Iraq in early 1991. The US succeeded
in not only ousting Iraq from Kuwait but also in effect, destroying the infrastructure
and the military capability of Iraq. Furthermore, the US also achieved a central
objective of its military intervention—it enhanced its indirect control over the
vast oil resources of the region.
The Iraq–Kuwait crisis occurring in the backdrop of US–Russian cooperation
facilitated Washington’s desire to create a ‘New World Order’. President Bush in
his speeches to the US Congress and the United Nations pointed out that the end
of the Cold War could usher in an era of ‘international cooperation’, ‘democracy’
and ‘the rule of law’. However, behind these high ideals, was the motivation to
promote various political and economic objectives of the West. The end of bipolar
confrontation meant that the West led by the US could justifiably claim the victory
of the capitalist system over Soviet socialism. The New World Order was essentially an euphemism for the spread of free market capitalist system globally. The
absence of a rival socio-economic system meant that the West could now undermine
the various socialist regimes that had emerged in the so-called ‘Third World’ during
the years of the Cold War.4 The Western political elites, by advocating liberal
democracy and free market system as the most desirable model for the entire
globe, were basically signalling that they could not tolerate the existence of any
rival ideological system internationally.
Regime Change in ‘Rogue States’
The end of the Cold War and the advent of the 1990s witnessed the unprecedented
influence of the US and its Western allies in international affairs. The US-led
West had ‘won’ the Cold War and thus it sought to impose its economic, political
and cultural values on the ‘Third World’ without any significant countervailing
ideological challenge. Nevertheless, the US foreign policy agenda continued to
an extent, to view ‘national security’ interests in terms of a Cold War zero-sum
game worldview, despite the absence of a visible enemy. The Clinton administration persisted in maintaining the United States’ position as the world’s ‘dominant
power’ with a strong emphasis on a ‘strategy of enlargement of the World’s free
community of market democracies’ (Lake 1993: 660, 1994: 767). In relation to
For the purposes of this paper, the term ‘Third World’ refers to those states that do not belong in
the category of developed Western capitalist states like the United States, Canada, countries of the
European Union, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Traditionally, the term ‘Third World’ was used
to refer to the less industrialized and under developed states of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The
use of this term has increasingly become problematic, as many countries outside the select group of
Western states have exhibited a high degree of industrialization and technological development.
These include China, the two Koreas, India, Brazil, Taiwan and so on. Therefore, the label ‘Third
World’ is becoming irrelevant to an extent.
4
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276 / ENAYATOLLAH YAZDANI AND RIZWAN HUSSAIN
the post-Soviet Southwest and Central Asian region, the US policy revolved around
three main goals:
1. Facilitating the transition of the former Soviet Central Asian republics
towards capitalist democracy and market-oriented economic systems.
2. Encouraging the Middle Eastern states (like Yemen, Libya and Syria) and
the newly independent Central Asian states in the direction of the West to
steer them away from the Russian orbit.
3. Exploring avenues for the commercial involvement of its petroleum companies in the oil and gas sectors of the Middle Eastern and Central Asian
economies. In this connection, the existence of large oil and gas reserves in
Central Asia could provide the United States an opportunity to reduce its
dependence on Persian Gulf oil (Forsythe 1996: 17–18).
In addition to these goals, Washington strived to reduce the influence of those
states in the region that it perceived as hostile to its strategic and economic aims.
Amongst these states, Iran and to a lesser degree, the Russian Federation figured
prominently. In fact, in West and Southwest Asia, the US no longer needed to
balance any major regional power through the creation of balance of power architecture as it had done by strengthening Iraq against Iran in the 1980s. In an increasingly ‘unipolar’ global system of the early 1990s, the US sought to ‘contain’
its opponent through military and economic means by branding them as ‘Roguestates’.
A major goal of making a big issue about the ‘rogue-state’ was to weaken
and eventually eliminate the rising ‘Third World’ powers that were asserting their
independence and sovereignty by pursuing autonomous external and internal
policies. Most importantly, these states were aspiring to develop an indigenous
military and industrial capability, which had the potential in the long-run to
challenge the West’s intrusive policies. Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and the Democratic
Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) were identified as the leading ‘roguestates’ as they sought to defy US hegemony. The US therefore, conducted a sophisticated propaganda against their alleged involvement in the development of nuclear
weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In fact, such claims
were contrary to the facts; in the case of Iran, the government had cut down military spending after the Iran–Iraq war because of economic difficulties. Iran slashed
its military budget from US $5 billion in 1991 to US $2 billion in 1997 (Klare
1995). Even then, the US since the early 1990s, remained adament in blocking
Iranian access to vital technology and finances. Moreover, the Iranian armed forces
remained equipped with ageing military equipment bought by the Shah. Western
arms embargoes and the war with Iraq had adversely affected the upkeep of this
largely US supplied weaponry. The US policy was clearly identified by President
Clinton’s advisor for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, Martin Indyk, in June
1993. Indyk stressed the necessity for the ‘dual containment’ of regimes in power,
in Iran and Iraq until they modified their behaviour. He elaborated:
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United States’ Policy towards Iran after the Islamic Revolution / 277
Dual containment derives from an assessment that the current Iraqi and Iranian
regimes are both hostile to American interests in the region. Accordingly, we
do not accept the argument that we should continue the old balance of power
game...we reject it because we do not need it...as long as we are able to maintain
our military presence in the region, as long as we succeed in restricting the
ambitions of both Iraq and Iran, and as long as we can rely on our regional
allies—Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and GCC and Turkey—to preserve the
balance of power in our favour in the wider Middle East region, we will have
the means to counter the Iraqi and Iranian regimes (Indyk 1993: 3–4).
In West Asia, Iran’s Islamic system of governance was seen as an anathema by
most Western governments. This was in spite of the fact that the government of
President Rafsanjani maintained a policy of scrupulous neutrality during the 1990–
91 Gulf War. Iran refrained from undermining the US-led coalition’s actions against
Iraq. In the early 1990s, Iran pursued a pro-active regional foreign policy by improving ties with nearly all of its neighbours. It also improved relations with
China and India in order to offset the country’s rather unstable relations with the
West European states allied with the US. The conduct of post-Ayatollah Khomeini
foreign policy increasingly reflected a rational calculation of national interest
rather than the dictates of the Islamic revolutionary ideology. However, the United
States continued to charge Iran of ‘subversive activities’ and sponsoring ‘international terrorism’ regardless of the fact that the Iranian government itself had
been a target of various anti-government elements operating from the US and
West European states (US National Security Directive 26, 1989).
In 1995 and 1996, the Clinton administration and the US Congress added even
more sanctions on Iran in response to allegations about its development of weapons
of mass destruction and its support for ‘terrorist’ groups. The hypocrisy of US
policy was evident as it continued to back Israel’s oppressive polices against the
Palestinians and refused to condemn Israeli development of advanced nuclear
weapons. Moreover, the US itself was tacitly supporting the emergence of various
armed anti-Shiite ‘Islamic’ militia’s in Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to assist
in the ‘containment’ of Iran.
Iran’s eastern neighbour Afghanistan had virtually ceased to function as a viable
state after the collapse of the pro-Soviet government of Muhammad Najibullah in
April 1992. The Pakistani military that had been instrumental in organizing the
US sponsored, anti-Soviet guerrilla war in Afghanistan continued to maintain
extensive intelligence cooperation with the United States while the latter sought
to enhance its influence over Central Asia and considered that a Pakistani shadow
over Afghanistan could serve as a gateway for US entry into Central Asia. Furthermore, a pro-Pakistan regime in Afghanistan could serve the US goal of containing
Iranian influence in the region. This objective was shared by both Pakistan and
the United States. In early 1994, it became clear to the Pakistani establishment
that the Persian speaking Tajik-dominated Rabbani administration, which was
reasserting Afghanistan’s sovereignty by adopting an independent and non-aligned
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278 / ENAYATOLLAH YAZDANI AND RIZWAN HUSSAIN
foreign policy since it came to power in 1992, would not serve Pakistan’s interests. In these circumstances, its military-bureaucratic establishment decided to
set up the Wahhabi influenced Taliban militia against the increasingly defiant
Rabbani administration. Thousands of Afghan Pashtuns, Pakistanis and even Arabs
(many belonging to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda grouping) studying in Deobandi
madrassas (Islamic schools) in Pakistan were allowed to join the Taliban militia
by the Pakistani military.5
At the regional level, Pakistan’s creation of the Taliban was supported by its
close Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These countries felt some ideological affinity with the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam, and
strategically they regarded this militia as a counter to their regional rival, Iran.
The United States also initially gave its acquiescence to Pakistan’s backing of
this group for similar reasons (Hussain 2005).
In 1996, while the Clinton Administration was envisaging the creation of the
Taliban as a strategic instrument to put pressure on Iran’s eastern borders, the US
Congress also passed the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), which sanctioned any
company that invested US $40 million or more in oil and gas projects in Iran or
Libya. Such measures by the US reflected that Washington’s main priorities continued to revolve around oil and establishing its dominance over the region extending from Central Asia to the Horn of Africa. Iran was regarded an obstacle in
achieving this geostrategic objective.
The election of the ‘reformist’ Mohammad Khatami as the President of Iran in
June 1997 was initially welcomed by the US. Khatami advocated easing of Iran’s
relations with the West and domestically his government aimed to liberalize Iranian
society within the framework of Islamic laws by ensuring more freedom of press
and individual liberties. Taking advantage of these measures, many anti-regime
elements joined the Khatami ‘reformist’ camp. Even US sources acknowledged
this and hence they initially supported Khatami’s election as the fifth President of
Iran (Pollack 2004: 300–16).
The US hoped that with Khatami’s election, it would be able to bring about a
gradual change in Iran that would ultimately weaken the latter’s Islamic government and lead to the emergence of a Western style political order controlled by
it. A recently published work by a senior US official working for the National
Security Council of the United States claimed that many senior Iranian officials working for President Khatami exhibited a pro-US leaning and reportedly
told American officials that President Khatami ‘understood’ US concerns about
5
The Deobandis are influenced by the strict ‘Wahhabi’ doctrine that emerged in eighteenth century
Arabia. The Wahhabis reject the use of reason to create innovations in Islamic law and regard other
Islamic sects as heretical. Apparently, the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Omar was a product of a
Deobandi madrassas in Karachi. The madrassas taught a very sectarian and biased form of Wahhabi
interpretation of Islam that emphasised Jihad and killing of infidels and even Muslims belonging to
other sects particularly Shiites. The Pakistani military intelligence encouraged Pakistani sectarian
groups such as the Sipah-e-Sahabah and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which were offshoots of the Deobandi
parties to bolster the Taliban. These groups were specifically anti-Iranian and were involved in the
killings of hundreds of Pakistani Shiite Muslims.
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United States’ Policy towards Iran after the Islamic Revolution / 279
Iran’s WMD programmes and was ready to accommodate US ‘needs’ (Pollack
2004: 318).
Under President Khatami, Iran certainly pursued a very moderate foreign policy.
During this period, it aimed to befriend US client states in the region such as
Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf, Emirates and even Pakistan, which were backing
the anti-Iran Taliban group, while at the same time, some of these states continued
to covertly support anti-Iran groups in Afghanistan until the terrorist attacks against
the US on 11 September 2001. However, Saudi Arabia began to serve as an intermediary between Iran and the US with its Crown Prince conveying various messages to pro-US Iranian ‘moderates’ within the Khatami administration (Pollack
2004: 320). The temporary thaw in US–Iran relations during the first term of
President Khatami witnessed numerous other US moves to support the ‘reformist’
camp in the Iranian government. These included easing of US sanctions on the
export of food and medical items, sending of earthquake disaster relief to Iran
and Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s 1998 remarks on the need for improvement in Tehran–Washington ties. Most significantly, Iran abandoned some of the
‘hardline’ ideologically influenced planks of its foreign policy which it had inherited from Ayatollah Khomeini’s period. To send a symbolic message of reconciliation to the West, the Khatami administration clearly indicated that Ayatollah
Khomeini’s life-threatening fatwa (religious decree) against the British author
Salman Rushdie for defaming Islam and the Prophet Muhammad was no longer
valid. President Khatami personally stated that ‘we consider the Salman Rushdie
issue as completely finished’ (the New York Times, 1998). This paved the way for
Iran’s improvement in relations with Britain and the European Union.
The ‘liberalization’ of Iranian society offered the US greater opportunity to
penetrate Iranian political and social circles. The US and the West increasingly
portrayed Iran as a country in which the majority of population, especially the
youth and the women were pro-Western, but ruled by an authoritarian ‘hardline’
clergy controlled by Ayatollah Khomeini’s successor—the Rahbar (Leader) of
the country. On the other hand, the Iranian Presidency under the control of the
‘reformists’ was seen as a ‘hope’ for the Western-oriented sections of the Iranian
population. In fact, these assessments were simplistic and misleading. The conservative (hardline) faction was in fact, represented by those elements in Iran that
wanted to retain at least the semblance of Iran’s revolutionary heritage. Moreover,
they also supported a more independent foreign policy that aimed at protecting
Iranian sovereignty and Islamic cultural values. Because of these political views,
the hardliners, who were generally allied with the Rahbar’s Office, the Council
of Guardians and the judiciary were usually painted in a negative light by the
West. Therefore, the so-called hardliners’ insistence on resisting Western attempts
to control Iran became the major reason for the propaganda against them in the
Western media.
Despite the US support for some groups aligned with the ‘reformist’ movement,
Khatami’s liberal supporters could not break the hold of the factions aligned with
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280 / ENAYATOLLAH YAZDANI AND RIZWAN HUSSAIN
‘hardline’ groups on the Iranian government much to the disappointment of
Washington. Thus, the US continued to maintain its hostility towards Iran by
pressurizing it on its human rights record, its support to ‘terrorism’ and its pursual
of WMD capability. The US considered these issues as obstacles to the improvement of ties between the two countries. This was indeed, ironical as Iran had a
much better human rights record in comparison to the US supported dictatorial
regimes in Morocco, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, UAE and Jordan. In
addition, the Zionist state of Israel continuously made a mockery of the UN resolutions and persisted in violating the rights of the Palestinians. The US ignored
these, but blamed the terrorist bombings carried out by some Palestinian factions.
Neo-Conservative Doctrine of Pre-emption
The election of George W Bush as the US President in 2001 signalled the rise to
prominence of an extreme rightwing neo-conservative faction of the Republican
Party in the realms of US foreign policy making. These elements who enjoyed the
support of large American corporations, oil companies and financial capital envisaged a militaristic global agenda, in which the US should use its overwhelming
military power to establish its political, economic and cultural domination over
the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. An important part of
this policy was to bring about a ‘regime change’ in those states that did not accept
American diktat. Since 1945, subsequent US governments had overtly and covertly
tried to overthrow various ‘Third World’ regimes which sought to strive for any
kind of economic independence or to create a public sector that benefited the vast
majority of people.
Therefore the Bush administration’s policy of ‘regime change’ targeting governments not amenable to Washington was not an entirely new phenomenon.
Nevertheless, in an international order in which the US retained its unquestioned
supremacy such policies could now be implemented with ease.
In order to meet America’s ever-growing energy demand, the neo-conservatives
aim to establish US strategic control over the vast oil and gas resources of West
and Central Asia as well as over other mineral resources in different continents.
The primary US objective is to establish a neo-imperial hold over various resource
rich nations under the guise of promoting ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’. The reality
however, is that instead of promoting ‘democracy,’ human rights’ and ‘freedom,’
the US and its Western partners intend to create a sort of an empire in which the
privatized economies of the countries brought under US hegemony would serve
to transfer capital and resources to the West with the help of the pro-Western
elites installed in these societies by Western states themselves. A glaring example of this policy is the imposition of puppet ‘democratic’ regimes in Iraq and
Afghanistan by the US occupation forces after the invasions of these countries in
October 2001 and March 2003 respectively. By using terms such as ‘democracy’
and ‘freedom’, the Bush administration is hiding its real intentions. The new ‘democratic’ Iraq has been made into an American colony with the US administering
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United States’ Policy towards Iran after the Islamic Revolution / 281
the Iraqi oil industry. The country’s oil revenues will be deposited in the USdominated ‘Development Fund for Iraq’. The Iraqi puppet government will have
no authority to allocate any contracts or implement any social and economic
development plans for the country without the approval of the US and its allies.
The US strategy for West Asia is closely linked to Washington’s economic and
security agendas. In this context, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC)
conducted by a think-tank having close links with the Bush administration had
released a report titled ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and
Resources for a New Century’ in 2000. This report clearly indicated that ‘America’s
grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend’ its ‘advantageous’ strategic
position globally.
After coming to power, the Bush administration continued with the general
thrust of the Clinton administration’s policy towards Iran. It tried to weaken the
Iranian government by encouraging factionalism and division within the ruling
circles while at the same time trying to limit Iran’s military, technological and
scientific capability through economic sanctions. However, this policy underwent
a dramatic transformation after the 11 September attacks on the US. The Bush
administration claimed that the one-time CIA collaborator, Osama Bin Laden,
organized these attacks. As is well known, Osama’s Al Qaeda organization had
been operating from Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan. Subsequently, the
US launched ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ in October 2001 and in a swift and
well coordinated campaign succeeded in removing the Taliban regime. Iran
distanced itself from US actions in Afghanistan and practically remained neutral.
However, the Bush administration continued to identify Iran’s effort to develop
nuclear weapons and its support for groups such as the Hezbollah in Lebanon as
a threat to US national security (Congressional Research Service 2002). Iran’s
alleged support for what the US government termed as ‘terrorism’ led the State
Department to brand the former as a leading ‘state sponsor of terrorism’ in 2001.
Most significantly, President Bush in his January 2002 State of the Union address
labelled Iran as part of a so-called ‘axis of evil’ along with Iraq and North Korea.
From then onwards, the US through its influence over various Western-dominated
international organizations and agencies has been putting increasing pressure on
Iran especially in the context of Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Between 2001 and 2003, the Bush administration consistently worked with
its allies to prevent arms and advanced technology sale to Iran. In order to affect
a regime change in Iran, the Bush administration enhanced its funding to antiIranian government groups (Congressional Research Service Report 2004: 21).
The CIA persisted in conducting anti-Iranian government propaganda by supporting various Radio and Television stations.6 These overt attempts to overthrow
the democratically elected government of Iran amounted to gross violations of
international law and the norms of conduct between sovereign states. In essence,
6
The State Department provided an initial US $4 million for a Radio Free Iran to be run by the
CIA operated Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. This station began its operations from Prague, Czech
Republic in December 2002. A US government sponsored TV broadcast service to Iran, run by Voice
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282 / ENAYATOLLAH YAZDANI AND RIZWAN HUSSAIN
these attempts to destabilize Iran reflected the Bush administration’s disappointment with the failure of Iranian ‘reformists’ to change the system from within.
Hence, the Bush administration adopted a more pro-active policy to subvert Iran’s
Islamic government. It also encouraged the son of the late Shah of Iran to organize
a movement against the Iranian government. Reza Pahlavi urged the Bush administration to impose an Iraq style economic and political boycott of Iran in order to
undercut the Iranian government. Being a loyal supporter of US policy, he even
stated that Iran had no need for modern nuclear technology (Stanton 2005). On
his urging, Republican Senator Sam Brownback introduced an amendment in the
US Senate on 2 April 2003, that would provide US $50 million to an ‘Iran Democracy Foundation’ (Stanton, 2003). According to a report, the language in Brownback amendment was almost the same which was used in the ‘Iraqi Liberation
Act’ that the Congress approved in 1998. On 16 July 2004, Senator Santorum
introduced another bill in the Congress that authorized an initial funding of US $10
million assistance to pro-democracy groups opposed to the Iranian government.
A similar legislation (H.R 5193) was introduced by Representative Ros Lehtinen
on 30 September 2004, although without stipulating a specific level of US aid to
the so-called pro-democracy groups. The interest of the US Congress in facilitating
a regime change in Iran became evident in the numerous Iran specific foreign aid
appropriations sanctioned by the Congress in Fiscal Years (FY) 2004 and 2005
(Katzman 2004).
The Bush administration’s imperial goals were already manifest before the
invasion of Iraq as the administration proclaimed the new strategic doctrine that
asserted the legitimacy of ‘pre-emptive’ strikes. The Bush administration had outlined this policy in a National Security Strategy (NSS) paper in September 2002,
which clearly spelt out that the US would, from now on conduct a strategy of
launching pre-emptive military strike on any state or group that Washington considered was inimical to US security. The so-called pre-emptive strategy was specifically aimed at two categories of enemies, ‘rogue states’ and ‘Islamic terrorists’.
According to this document, ‘the war against terrorists of global reach is a global
enterprise of uncertain duration. America will act against such emerging threats
before they are fully formed’ (National Security Strategy 2002). Furthermore,
the pro-Israeli officials in the Bush administration such as Deputy Secretary of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and many other
senior figures in the Pentagon also played a role in formulating the anti-Iran policy
of the US.
The Bush administration embarked upon a military invasion of Iraq in March
2003 by accusing Iraq of building WMD capabilities. This unprovoked and illegal
invasion by the American and British forces is an event that will certainly have a
profound impact on the conduct of international relations in the twenty-first
century. The planners of this war have violated nearly all the laws and conventions
of America also began operations on 3 July 2003. On 2 July 2002, President Bush had personally
issued a statement supporting those Iranians who were attempting to overthrow the Iranian government.
The US President also inaugurated a new US based radio broadcast to Iran, Radio Farda (Tomorrow).
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United States’ Policy towards Iran after the Islamic Revolution / 283
devised in the post-Second World War era to maintain international peace and
security. The fundamental principle in international law regarding warfare is based
on the notion that no nation has the right to wage an unprovoked war of aggression against another. It is this principle that evolved out of the two disastrous
world wars of the twentieth century and was codified in the founding charter of
the United Nations—an organization whose founders were the US and the United
Kingdom. However, the US in a way, secured UN endorsement for its occupation
of Iraq after the removal of Saddam Hussein.
Washington’s unilateral application of force in resolving international disputes
has even led to some prominent US scholars such as the advocate of the ‘clash of
civilizations’ thesis, Samuel Huntington, to dub the US as a ‘rogue superpower’
(Kolko 2002: 142). To an extent, this may be a correct appellation in the context
of the current US foreign policy. The real US objectives in launching ‘Operation
Iraqi Freedom’ revolved around reshaping the economic and geopolitical order
of the region. As mentioned earlier, these motives were held in check by the then
Soviet Union from the early 1950s to 1991. However, in the beginning of the
twenty-first century the neo-conservatives who presently control the Pentagon
and the White House, could reasonably believe that it could finally control West
Asia without significant opposition.
The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have dramatically altered Iran’s
geopolitical landscape and strategic calculus. Between 2001 and 2004, the United
States and its NATO allies established military bases in nearly all states in Iran’s
neighbourhood. The US has established military or intelligence presence in
Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey (NATO member), Pakistan (major non-NATO ally
of the US), the Persian Gulf Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.
Geostrategically, Iran is surrounded by US-occupied or US-controlled states.
Moreover, the US is constructing major military bases in Afghanistan, especially
in Herat and Kandahar, cites close to the Iranian border. Pentagon has reportedly
established large military and intelligence facilities in Pakistani Baluchistan
that borders the Iranian Sistan o Baluchistan province. The regimes in Iraq, Pakistan
and Afghanistan remain subservient to US pressure and are likely to back Washington
if the Bush administration decides to militarily strike at Iranian nuclear facilities.
In this geopolitical environment, the government of Iran has an increasingly
difficult task to maintain its independence and territorial integrity. Hence, the
Iranian response to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan has been very low-key.
Contrary to Western and US opinion, Iran has pursued a cautious foreign policy
in the region in order to avoid any direct conflict of interests with the West. While
morally committed to the need for the removal of US and British occupation force
from Iraq, Tehran has restrained itself from interfering in the internal affairs of
post-Saddam Iraq, although several elements in the US-appointed regime have had
links with Iran in the past. Most of these Shiite personalities, such as Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari were against Saddam’s dictatorship and had sought refuge
in Iran. This trend in Iranian foreign policy clearly reveals that strategic compulsions arising out of the preponderance of Western power in the region have
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284 / ENAYATOLLAH YAZDANI AND RIZWAN HUSSAIN
compelled Tehran to pursue a policy guided by a pragmatic calculation of its
national interests. As a result, the role of ideology in the realm of Iranian foreign
policy has substantially been diluted.
Thus, Iran’s current foreign policy is governed by the dictates of realpolitik.
The only consistent ideologically inspired part of Iranian foreign policy is Tehran’s
opposition to Israeli policies in the region. Even in this case, Iran’s rhetoric seems
more ferocious than in practice. Apart from this factor, Iran has exhibited extreme
pragmatism in dealing with various regional issues. In fact, it has backed some
figures in Iraq who are known to be close intelligence operatives or have links
with the Anglo-American occupying powers. These figures include Abdul Aziz al
Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Furthermore, members of the US installed Iraqi government continue to visit Tehran and
sign various meaningless agreements on trade, security, etc. In Afghanistan, the
Iranian leadership has given legitimacy to the Karzai regime knowing that this
entity hardly controls that fragmented country. Despite this ‘moderation’ in Iranian
regional policies, the Bush administration’s ultimate goal in Iran remains the same
as it was in Iraq: a change in regime. This is despite the fact that in December
2003, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage indicated that regime change
was no longer the official policy of the US government as far as Iran was concerned
(Phillips 2004).
In February 2005, the US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice openly condemned
the Iranian government as ‘loathsome’ (BBC World News 2005). In addition, during
a Congressional hearing, she included Iran as one of the six ‘outposts of tyranny’
in the world in which US would like a ‘regime change’ that target Cuba, Belarus,
Zimbabwe, Myanmar (Burma), North Korea and Iran (ibid.). This is sheer hypocrisy and double standard on the part of the US keeping in mind Bush administration’s support to far more authoritarian and undemocratic regimes in the world as
compared to the legal and democratic government in Iran. Such states include
outright military dictatorships, such as Pakistan and authoritarian elitist dictatorships like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait and so on. In addition, these countries are under US political and economic control and their ruling elite is subservient
to US diktat.
Thus, with regard to Iran, the Bush administration is committed to the application
of a multipronged strategy, which was aptly described by US Ambassador to
Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad. According to him, the administration’s ‘dual track
policy’ would combine economic and diplomatic pressure on the Iranian regime
with active support for anti-government forces within the country.7 The US remains
committed to support anti-Iranian government opposition within and outside the
country. According to a May 2003 report in the Washington Post, Pentagon officials
favoured a covert alliance with the Iranian opposition Mujahidin-e-Khalq terrorist
7
For text of Zalmay Khalilzad’s speech see US Department of State, ‘Senior US official spells out
Dual-track U.S. Policy toward Iran’, 2 August 2002, electronic document accessed at usinfo.state.gov/
regional/nea/text/0802klzd.htm on 23 November 2004. [Accessed 12/03/2005]
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United States’ Policy towards Iran after the Islamic Revolution / 285
grouping, based in Iraq (Kessler 2003). Paradoxically, the US Government labelled
the MeK a terrorist organization in 1997.
Since the 1979 revolution, Israel remained strongly opposed to the Iranian
government. The annual 2004 intelligence assessment presented to the Israeli
parliament (Knesset) had noted Iran’s nuclear programme as the biggest ‘threat’
facing Israel (Ma’ariv; Yediot Aharonot 22 July 2004). Thus, the Zionist state’s
hostility towards Iran led many senior Iranian leaders to believe, with some
justification, that the Zionist interests in the United States dictated the US policies
towards Iran.
Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Owing to its multifaceted political and economic interests in Iran, the US is using
the alleged Iranian attempts to build nuclear weapons as a pretext to internationally
isolate the Iranian government. Through a concerted effort in cooperation with its
Western European partners, the Bush administration is putting increasing pressure
on Iran to dismantle its entire nuclear energy programme. After the US occupation
of Iraq, President Bush had explicitly stated that Washington would not ‘tolerate
the construction of a nuclear weapon’ by Iran (BBC World News 2004). The problem is that Iran’s nuclear policy has not received explicit support of any big power,
unlike North Korea, whose policies have the tacit consent of the Peoples Republic
of China (PRC). Actually, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea—all had a ‘Great
Power’ to back their stance during the development of their nuclear weapons programme. In the case of Israel, it was the West while Pakistan was supported by
United States.
The Iranian government’s talks with Germany, France and Britain—the EU3—
on the nuclear issue have not been conclusive, as this grouping has generally
backed the American objectives that are aimed at more intrusive International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of Iran’s nuclear industry. The White
House has acknowledged that ‘there is a convergence of views between the
EU-3 and the United States on this issue. The US believes that Iran’s nuclear
activities are threatening and that they need to... work together to ensure that
whatever Iran does, it is in compliance with international obligations, it is transparent and it does not pose a threat to any of us’ (Daily Press Briefing 2005). In
fact, the Iranian media has highlighted the efforts of Britain and the US to remove
Director-General of the IAEA, Mohammad Al Baradei, an Egyptian, for supposedly
being lenient in dealing with Iran (Tehran Times 2 January 2005).
In September 2004, President Bush openly proclaimed that ‘all options are on
the table’ regarding Iran and he did not exclude the possibility of a US attack to
destroy Iran’s nuclear installations (China Daily 2004). Moreover, the disclosures
made by the US columnist, Seymour Hersh in the influential New Yorker magazine
on 17 January 2005, that the Pakistani military was assisting the United States
Special Forces in targeting Iranian military and defence installations for a possible
military strike on Iran further indicated the US interest in psychological warfare
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286 / ENAYATOLLAH YAZDANI AND RIZWAN HUSSAIN
against Iran (Hersh 2005). The Pakistani leadership openly criticized Iran in 2004
for giving ‘the names of nuclear operatives’ linked to Pakistan to the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Instead of supporting, the President of Pakistan
tried to blame Iran for its problems with the IAEA (Musharraf 2004). It needs to
be underlined here that the Pakistani military backed the illegal Anglo-American
occupation of Iraq and has an intelligence-sharing arrangement with the US
on Iran (the Nation 12 February 2004). In March 2004, the Bush administration
rewarded the Musharraf regime for its cooperation with the US against Iraq, Iran
and Afghanistan by making Pakistan a ‘major non-NATO ally (MNNA). Others
with similar status in the region include, Israel, Egypt, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
The level of co-operation between the US and Pakistan is so intense that on 10
March 2005, the Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed publicly
disclosed that the Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr A.Q. Khan8 provided Iran with
centrifuges for uranium enrichment. Such disclosures could be used to further
weaken Iran’s case (BBC World News 2005).
The neo-conservative elements in the US administration are committed to reshape West Asia and in the ensuing process completely dominate the resources
and the geopolitical landscape of the region. Consequently, Iran would remain a
primary target of the increasingly unilateralist US policy in the near future, despite
the indications by the Bush administration in March 2005 that it was prepared to
support the EU-3 diplomatic initiatives vis-à-vis Iran. The US has shown its willingness to make a major policy shift on Iran and to join EU-3 in offering Iran
‘economic incentives’ to abandon its nuclear ‘ambitions’ (the New York Times
2005; Reuters 12 March 2005). The Iranian leadership faces a stark choice: either
completely abandon the country’s nuclear programme as desired by the West or
remain defiant and continue to assert Iran’s sovereign right to acquire nuclear
technology for peaceful uses whatever the long-term consequences might be.
However, one cannot underestimate the pragmatism of Iranian policymakers who
have historically shown great flexibility in changing the course of Iran’s policies
when faced with a powerful external threat. Nevertheless, even if Iran’s political
elite shows signs of accommodating the US demands, it remains to be seen whether
the Bush administration would alter its stated goal of imposing a secular Western
type political and cultural order throughout the region including, of course, Iran.
In sum, the US would continue to put pressure on the Iranian government or at
least on those elements within Iran, which are still determined to keep their country’s independence and sovereignty irrespective of the pressures. The US and its
Western allies could pursue a variety of options to systematically weaken the
Iranian establishment especially the ‘hardline’ groups which are more ideologically
inclined to pursue an autonomous agenda which is counter to American interests.
This could be done through:
Dr A.Q. Khan was Pakistan’s leading nuclear scientist. Under American pressure, the Musharraf
regime put him under house arrest for allegedly supplying nuclear technology to Iran.
8
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United States’ Policy towards Iran after the Islamic Revolution / 287
1. Economic Sanctions—At this stage the US does not have enough support
in the UN Security Council to impose internationally coordinated economic
sanctions against Iran.
2. Proliferation Sanctions—It can sanction those countries, which supply Iran
with ‘dual use’ technology that can be used to manufacture weapons. The
US has lately put sanctions on several Russian, Chinese and Indian companies for supplying Iran with material for nuclear, and missile technology.
3. The threat of the use of military strikes to dismantle Iranian nuclear and
weapons manufacturing capabilities.
4. Supporting anti-government secular, pro-Western forces within Iran while
at the same time formulating an aggressive posture on Iranian ‘violation’ of
human rights. Moreover, the Bush administration would also exploit the
differences between the ‘reformist’ and the ‘hardline’ groups in an attempt
to paralyse the Iranian governmental system. Most importantly, it would
seek to provoke the younger generation of Iranians, who are influenced by
Western culture, against the Islamic system.
Some of these options have been used against Iraq in the past and the Iranian
leadership would be making a mistake if they underestimate US resolve to carry
out its threats.
Conclusion
During the past two centuries, Iran had retained its relative internal autonomy by
using its critical geopolitical location to play one great power against the other.
The overthrow of the pro-US Iranian monarchy and its replacement by an Islamic
government altered Iran’s ties with the West. Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has
faced successive hostile US administrations that sought to overthrow the Islamic
revolutionary government. Iran’s regional political influence was further undermined in the post-Cold War era, as the Western bloc, led by the US, rapidly established its preponderant influence over the wider West Asian region extending
from eastern borders of Iran to the Arabic-speaking states of North Africa. There
has been no effective counterbalance to this development owing to the weakness
of powers like Russia and China.
The US-led military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan after the 11 September
attacks have heightened Iran’s insecurity as it fears to be encircled geopolitically.
Despite the pragmatic policy pursued by Iran that essentially seeks to placate the
US and its Western allies, the government of Iran will continue to face hostility
from the US and its regional and extra-regional allies on account of the fact that
Iran is still pursuing independent domestic and foreign policies. This stance does
not comply with the plans of the Bush administration regarding the creation of a
neo-colonial political-economic order in West Asia, which will be pro-Western,
secular, and allow unbridled access for the exploitation of the region’s resources
by foreign capital. Therefore, it is certain that the future course of an increasingly
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288 / ENAYATOLLAH YAZDANI AND RIZWAN HUSSAIN
unpredictable US–Iran relationship would be a major determining factor in the
success of the US agenda for constructing a new order in West Asia at the dawn of
the twenty-first Century.
October 2005
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