Rehabilitating 'the Great Satan'

By Azadeh Moaveni
A recent political cartoon in a Tehran daily shows Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi peering out a window through a telescope; the caption quotes him as saying, "If American policy changes, we will adjust ours accordingly," while his thought balloon reads, "75 degrees to the right!" For a country that has made anti-Americanism a political value, rather than simply a policy, Iran has never been closer to dismantling its virulent animosity towards the United States.
Iranian clerics continue their two decades of overheated rhetoric, but they are more than ever contradicted by a pragmatic, private discussion on when, how and, most importantly, by whom ties will be re-established.
Both sides seem keen on dialogue, with US President George W Bush's new administration raising expectations of better chances for rapprochement. But this fresh optimism tends to overlook the obstacles facing a more flexible Bush: the American Congress has virtually institutionalised poor relations with Iran via a battery of executive orders and legal bans that will take time and consensus-building to dismantle.
For President Mohamed Khatami or his eventual successor, rapprochement requires a deft public rehabilitation of the "Great Satan" (the Iranian preferred term for the United States).
Iranian conventional wisdom saw former President Bill Clinton as a de facto Israeli, whose intimacy with, and obligations to, the Israeli lobby blinded him to even American interests. In contrast, Bush's status as son of an oil dynasty is seen as a plus and the Republicans are considered to be historically more hospitable to Iran. Bush's vice-president, Dick Cheney, was ambivalent enough about sanctions against Iran as head of oil-services giant Halliburton to allow it to open a Tehran office, in possible violation of American sanctions. In Iranian eyes, this is clearly a more auspicious team to be dealing with than that of Clinton, who naturalised an Australian Jew, Martin Indyk, then handed him the Middle East file.
But the optimism is neither conjectural nor one-sided. Bush's Secretary of State Colin Powell made one of his earliest policy statements on Iran, suggesting the possibility of increased dialogue. And there have been other murmurings that imply that sanctions as a policy weapon are being phased out.
Kharrazi himself was more blunt than Powell: "The transition of power in the White House has presented an opportunity for the new administration to make changes in the failed US policies toward Iran." While former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's virtual apology for the American role in the 1953 coup that overthrew Mohamed Mossadeq was brushed off by Iranian officials, the Bush team's tepid statement prompted Deputy Foreign Minister Ahani to say that "the new US administration seems to be taking effective measures to break the wall of mistrust." Even Iranian conservatives, wary of seeing President Khatami given sole credit for increased dialogue, declared their readiness. "We can have negotiations with Satan in the depths of hell if it benefits our national interests," said conservative power player Mohamed Javad Larijani recently.
Both sides stand to gain by making amends. Rapprochement would improve Washington's much-battered image in the region, and with Iraq at the top of the Bush team's agenda, Iran becomes perforce an issue. For its part, Iran badly needs access to technology and investment the US could provide, and with the burnish President Khatami contributed to the regime's legitimacy quickly fading, re-established ties could well re-energise the Islamic Republic at home.
But there remain the slew of long-standing American objections to Iran -- alleged sponsorship of global terrorism, opposition to the Middle East "peace process" and alleged building of weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, the new administration inherits from Bill Clinton the most comprehensive of these: the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act that applies secondary sanctions to countries doing business with Iran, and a law allowing journalist Terry Anderson and other former hostages in Lebanon to sue Tehran for compensation -- to be deducted from Iran's pre-1979 assets, still frozen by the US government.
Iran says it won't talk to Washington until those assets are released, while Washington insists that Iran must change its behaviour and begin a dialogue before sanctions can be lifted. But there has already been compromise: Washington exempted carpets, pistachios, and caviar from its import ban, and Speaker of Parliament Mehdi Karroubi chatted with American senators in New York last fall.
The Bush administration is likely to favour a gradualist approach, waiting to see what happens to Iran's reformers and Khatami before taking bolder steps forward. Iranian conservatives say they are confident that at least economic ties will be restored in the coming year, but they, too, are conscious of the need for time and sensitivity. "If everyone can keep silent for six months," confided a leading conservative last week, "things will be set on course."
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