To begin with, the
revolution
introduced an element of instability into a region on the Soviets' southern border, which increased the risk of U.
Revolution and War_nodrm
When the tide of battle turned in llran's favor, however, the U.
S.
State Department began a diplo- matic campaign to persuade other states to deny military equipment to Iran.
The United States began providing intelligence information to Iraq in 1982 and replenished the stockpiles of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait when they transferred U.
S.
-made weaponry to Baghdad.
The United States reestablished diplomatic relations with Iraq in 1984 and began covertly supporting Iranian exile groups during this period as well.
52
chaps. 9-15; Bill, Eagle and Lion, 293-304; Pierre Salinger, America Held Hostage: The Secret Negotiations (Garden City, N. Y. : Doubleday, 1981); Brzezinski, Power and Principle, chap. 13; and Hamilton Jordan, Crisis: The Last Year ofthe Carter Presidency (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1982).
51 As Rafsanjani remarked after the hostage settlement, "America continues to remain our enemy, and, accordingly, we are America's enemy. . . . This will continue for a long time. " Quoted in Menashri, Iran, 205; and see also Campbell and Darvich, "Global Implications of the Iranian Revolution," 49?
52 See Anthony Cordesman, The Iran-Iraq War and Western Security, 1 984-1987: Strategic Im- plications and Policy Options (London: Jane's, 1987), esp. 79; "U. S. Said to Aid Iranian Exiles in Combat and Political Units," and "U. S. Secretly Gave Aid to Iraq Early in Its War against Iran," New York Times, March 7, 1982, A1, A12; January 26, 1992, At, A4; Dilip Hiro, The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict (London: Routledge, 1991), 96; Ralph King, The Iran-Iraq War: The Political Implications, Adelphi Paper no. 219 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1982), 53?
? ? [226]
? The Iranian Revolution
The main departure from this policy was the notorious Iran-contra arms deal. 53 This initiative rested on the hope that supplying arms would strengthen "moderate forces" within the Islamic Republic, who would help obtain the release of the U. S. hostages in Lebanon and work to improve U. S. -Iranian relations. This goal also reflected U. S. concerns that Iran was in- creasingly vulnerable to Soviet pressure or subversion, as well as the expec- tation that the threat from Moscow would make Iran more receptive to U. S. overtures. 54
In the summer of 1985, U. S. and Israeli officials began negotiating to sell advanced weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of U. S. citizens held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon. Lacking both direct access to the revolu- tionary government and accurate information about internal developments within Iran, the U. S. government-or more precisely, the cabal within the National Security Council that conducted the negotiations-decided to use a shady Iranian arms merchant, Manucher Ghorbanifar, as their principal intermediary. The initiative was soon taken over by Oliver North, a marine officer assigned to the U. S. National Security Council, and he and former U. S. national security advisor Robert C. McFarlane eventually made a secret visit to Tehran in May 1986 in an unsuccessful venture to get the hostages released. The continuing power struggle between moderates and extremists in Iran brought the negotiations to an end in November 1986, but not before the U. S. had sent Iran nearly sixteen hundred antitank missiles, assorted spare parts, and valuable intelligence information on Iraqi military deploy- ments.
The attempt to trade arms for hostages improved neither the situation in Lebanon, the position of the Iranian "moderates," nor the state of U. S. -Iranian relations. Although the Shiites released one U. S. hostage in September 1985
53 The best account of the Iran-contra affair is Theodore Draper, A Very Thin Line: The Iran- Contra Affairs (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991). See also James A. Bill, "The U. S. Over- ture to Iran, 1985-86: An Analysis," in Keddie and Gasiorowski, Neither East Nor West, 166-7- 9;PeterKornbluhandMalcolmByrne,eds. ,TheIran-ContraScandal:TheDeclassifiedHis- tory (New York: New Press, 1993); and Samuel Segev, The Iranian Triangle: The Untold Story of Israel's Role in tlze Iran-Contra Affair (New York: Free Press, 1988).
54 At the request of the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency pre- pared a new intelligence estimate on Iran in May 1985. It predicted that "the Khomeini regime will face serious instability," warned that Tehran's leadership "seems to have con- cluded that improvement of relations with the Soviet Union is essential to Iranian interest," and recommended that the United States begin active efforts compete for influence in Iran. In response, a National Security Council memorandum suggested that U. S. allies be encouraged to provide Iran with "selected military equipment . . . on a case-i? y-case basis. " The texts of these memoranda are printed in the Report of the President's Special Review Board ("Tower Commission" ), February 26, 1987, B-6:7; B-7:8; and the Joint Hearings before the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran and the Senate Select Committee on Se- cret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition, 1ooth Congress, 1st sess. (Wash- ington, D. C. : U. S. Government Printing Office, 1988), vol. 100-10:512-18.
[227]
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and another in July 1986, they replaced them by kidnapping two more U. S. citizens in September 1986. The exposure of the secret arms shipments em- barrassed the Reagan administration and alarmed its Arab allies, who saw the initiative as a hypocritical departure that undercut efforts to contain Iran. Moreover, the revelation that Iranian government officials had held secret ne- gotiations with the "Great Satan" revived Iranian fears about U. S. influence and forced pragmatists such as Rafsanjani to revert to more hard-line posi- tions. In sum, the "arms for hostages" scheme was a fiasco from start to finish.
Rafsanjani made several cautious overtures to the United States early in 1987, but relations between the two countries deteriorated after the "arms for hostages" scheme unraveled. 55 In an attempt to cut Iraq's oil revenues and reduce Arab support for Baghdad, Iran had begun laying mines in the Persian Gulf and threatening to attack oil shipments from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. To restore its credibility with the gulf Arabs and bring additional pressure to bear on Iran, the U. S. eventually agreed to place Kuwaiti tankers under U. S. registry and provide a naval escort for tankers using Kuwaiti and Saudi ports. This decision led to repeated confrontations between the U. S. and Iranian forces: a U. S. fighter fired on an Iranian F-14 in August, and U. S. naval units sank an Iranian ship laying mines in the gulf the following month. In October, U. S. naval forces sank three Iranian gunboats after they fired on a U. S. helicopter and destroyed several Iranian oil platforms in re- taliation for missile attacks on two U. S. tankers. The Senate banned oil im- ports from Iran in September, and President Reagan announced a complete ban on Iranian imports and an embargo on "militarily useful" exports in October, while minor clashes between U. S. and Iranian forces continued into the following year. Finally, the U. S. destroyer Vincennes mistakenly shot
down an Iranian civilian airliner on July 2, killing all 290 people aboard.
The tragedy brought defiant protests from Tehran, but it also seems to have convinced Khomeini to end the war. Rafsanjani announced that con- cluding the war would allow Iran to follow a more "open" foreign policy, but in fact it did not lead to a significant improvement in U. S. -Iranian rela- tions. The hostages in Lebanon remained a sore point and U. S. officials were no longer willing to make concessions to hasten their release. The United States rejected an Iranian offer to mediate in exchange for the release of ad- ditional Iranian assets in August, and the Iranian government denounced a conciliatory letter from former president Carter to Khomeini and Rafsanjani as a "new trick. " Although Iran's deputy foreign minister hinted that rela- tions with the United States might be restored, Rafsanjani declared that
55 In April, Rafsanjani declared that normal relations with the United States would be pos- sible once it stopped threatening Iran. He later stated that Iran would help obtain the release of U. S. hostages in Lebanon if the Americans showed goodwill by releasing frozen Iranian as- sets, adding that relations need not remain poor "until doomsday. " "Chronology," MEJ 41, no. 4 (1987), 6o1.
? ? [228]
? The Iranian Revolution
public opinion was still not ready for such a step. Finally, the radical turn signaled by Khomeini's condemnation of author Salman Rushdie in Febru- ary ended any possibility of a rapprochement between the two states. 56
Khomeini's death began a brief period of moderation in Iran's foreign policy, but relations with the United States stayed chilly at best. In August, however, Rafsanjani made a public speech declaring that the hostage prob- lem could be solved peacefully, and Iran reportedly helped obtain the re- ? lease of two U. S. hostages later in the year. 57 Iran remained neutral in the 1991 Gulf War (though it did express concern about the enormous Western presence in tine Persian Gulf region) and Rafsanjani made several cautious overtures to frhe United States as part of his effort to resuscitate Iran's stag- nant economy and end its international isolation. 58
These veiled feelers failed to elicit a favorable response from Washington, however, and a radical resurgence in 1992 soon removed any possibility of a detente. Although Rafsanjani expressed his continued desire for improved! relations with the West and specifically requested "goodwill gestures" from the United States, his efforts were hamstrung by radical opposition within Iran and by U. S. concerns about Iran's support for international terrorism and the potential spread of Islamic fundamentalism. Indeed, the Clinton ad- ministration labeled Iran "an international outlaw" and a "pariah" in May
1993, as part of a policy of "dual containment" aimed equally at Baghdad and Tehran. 59 Despite the costs to both powers, in short, relations between
56 See Wright, In the Name ofGod, 256-57; "Iranian Dismisses Prospects of Thaw with Wash- ington," New York Times, February 6, 1989, At. Minister of the Interior Ali Akbar Mohtashemi blamed U. S. and British intelligence agencies for the publication of Rushdie's book and called it part of a "new war against Islam," and Khomeini declared that it was useless for Iran to act in a pragmatic manner thinking that the West would "humanely reciprocate. " "Chronology," MEJ 63, no. 3 (1989), 483.
57 The United States also paid Iran $287 million for military equipment ordered by the shah but never delivered, thereby resolving the last financial dispute stemming from the 1980 hostage crisis. See MECS 1991 (Boulder, Colo. : Westview, 1992), 32-33; Hunter, Iran after Khomeini, 123.
58 In April t9<)0, one of Rafsanjani's associates wrote an article calling for improved relations with the U. S. , all\d another advisor told a New York Times reporter that Washington and Tehran could enjoy a "marriage of convenience. " In March 1991, Rafsanjani declared that the U. S. presence in the Persian Gulf was "not useful" but also "not a threat to Iran," and he later sug- gested that Iran needed a "prudent policy" so it could "help people without being accused of engaging in terrorism, without anyone being able to call us fanatics. " The radical clerics were uncompromising, however, and even Rafsanjani suggested that the United States would have to make the first move in order to overcome Iranian suspicions. See MECS 1991, 384-86, 394-<)6; and Hooshang Amirahradi, "Iran and the Persian Gulf Crisis," in his and Nader Entessar's edited Iran and the Arab World (New York: St. Martin's, 1993), 10<)-tO, n8-19.
59 U. S. concerns increased after the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in February 1993 and were reinforced by Tehran's vocal support for the fundamentalist movements in Sudan, Egypt, and Algeria. See Middle East International, no. 444 (February 19, 1993), to; no. 452 Uune 1 1 , 1993), 3-4; . and no. 453 Uune 25, 1993), 12-13; "Fearing More Hos- tility from Iran, U. S. Considers Moves to Isolate It," New York Times, May 27, 1993, At, A4.
? ? ? Revolution and War
the United States and Iran remained estranged more than fifteen years after the fall of the shah. 60
The Soviet Union and Revolutionary Iran
The Soviet Union welcomed the Iranian Revolution at first, because it overthrew an important U. S. ally and gave the Soviets an opportunity to ex- pand their own influence. As the campaign to oust the shah gathered mo- mentum in the fall of 1978, Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev stated that the Soviet Union opposed "foreign interference by anyone. " The warning was reiterated in January 1980 and Brezhnev informed the Bazargan govern- ment that he hoped "good neighborly relations will develop fruitfully. "61 Iranian foreign minister Karim Sanjavi replied that Iran "genuinely wants friendly relations with the USSR," and the Soviet government subsequently vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for economic sanctions in response to the detention of the U. S. hostages. The Soviets condemned the
U. S. rescue mission in April, agreed that Iran could ship goods across Soviet territory in the event of a U. S. blockade, and issued frequent warnings about America's hostile intentions. The pro-Soviet Tudeh Party supported Kho- meini and the radical clergy against both Bazargan and Bani-Sadr, and the Soviets endorsed Iran's request for an investigation of the shah's rule by the UN Security Council. The Islamic Republic also established close ties with Soviet allies such as Libya, Syria, South Yemen, and the Palestine Liberation Organization, indicating that the fall of the shah had brought Moscow and Tehran closer together. 62
But it soon became apparent that the establishment of the Islamic Repub- lic had created as many problems for the Soviet Union as it had solved.
To begin with, the revolution introduced an element of instability into a region on the Soviets' southern border, which increased the risk of U. S. military in- volvement and raised concerns about the impact of Islamic fundamentalism
. on the Muslim population of the Soviet Union. Khomeini and his followers saw Soviet Communism as an atheistic ideology that was every bit as objec- tionable as Western capitalism, and Khomeini soon declared, "We are in con-
60 A useful guide to the present state of U. S. -Iranian relations is Geoffrey Kemp, Forever En- emies? American Policy and the Islamic Republic ofIran (Washington, D. C. : Carnegie Endow- ment for International Peace, 1994).
61 Quoted in Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 283. In 1981, Brezhnev termed the Iranian Rev- olution a "major international event" and said that, "for all its complications and contradic- tions, it is still fundamentally an anti-imperialist revolution. " Quoted in Karen Dawisha and Helene Carrerre d'Encausse, "Islam in the Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union: A Double- Edged Sword? " in Dawisha, Islam in Foreign Policy, 170.
? 62 See Menashri, Iran, 99; Hunter, Iran and the World, 85, and "Soviet-Iranian Relations in the Post-Revolution Period," in Iran's Revolution: The Searchfor Consensus, ed. R. K. Ramazani (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 86.
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? ? The Iranian Revolution
flict with international communism to the same extent as we are against the Western exploiters. . . . The danger of communist power is not less than that of America. "63 Iran's new leaders were well aware of earlier Soviet attempts to dominate Iran, and the new regime abrogated the 1921 Soviet-Persian friendship treaty in November 1980. Iran accused the Soviet Union of sup- plying arms to the Kurds and other rebellious ethnic minorities, and Presi-
dent Bani-Sadr warned that the Soviet Union "sought to divide Iran" in order to extend its control to theIndian Ocean. 64 The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was another source of tension, both because Afghanistan was a Muslim country and because the invasion reinforced Iranian fears about So- viet intentions. 65 Iran's fear of Communist subversion was another sore point, and as noted earlier, Iran eventually banned the Tudeh Party and ex- pelled eighteen Soviet diplomats in April 1983. 66 Finally, the Iraqi invasion in September 1980 posed a serious dilemma for the Soviet Union, as Iraq, a long-standing ally, was heavily dependent on Soviet weaponry. The Soviets declared they would remain neutral and offered to sell arms to Iran, but their
support for Iraq would remain a contentious issue for the rest of the decade. 67
By the mid-? . 98os, Soviet relations with Iran were much worse than they had been under the shah. Early hopes that the revolution might take on a "progressive" character had been dashed, and Iran's military successes against Iraq threatened to shift the regional balance of power and boost the ideological appeal of Islamic fundamentalism. 68 Cooperation between
63 Quoted in Menashri, Iran, 156. In 1980, then-foreign minister Sadeq Qotbzadeh told So- viet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, "Our Imam has described the United States as a great satan. Unfortunately, you too have proved in practice that you are no less satanic than the United States. " Quoted fu Yodfat, Soviet Union and Revolutionary Iran, 71.
64 See Menashri, Iran, 99; "Chronology," ME/ 34, no. 2 (1980), 171; and Richard K. Herr- mann, "The Role of Iran in Soviet Perceptions and Policy, 1946-1988," in Keddie and Gasiorowski, Neither East Nor West, 78-8o.
65 Foreign Minister Qotbzadeh called the invasion of Afghanistan "a hostile measure . . . against all Muslims of the world. " Quoted in Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 284. Similarly, Khomeini condemned "the savage occupation of Afghanistan by the aggressive plunderers of the East" and hoped that "the noble Muslim people of Afghanistan will achieve victory . . . and be delivered from the clutches of the so-called champions of the working class. " Quoted in Zalmay Khalilzad, "Soviet Dilemmas in Khomeini's Iran," in Rosen, Iran since the Revolu- tion, 121.
66 Rafsanjani called the Tudeh Party a "disreputable party with a filthy record" in Novem- ber 1982, and Radio Tehran announced in May 1983 that "the mercenary leaders of that party . . . were laying the foundations of a . . . creeping coup d'etat so that they could . . . drag the country in the direction they wished. " "Chronology," ME] 37, no. 2 (1983), 246; and Yodfat, Soviet Union and Revolutionary Iran, 132, 142-44.
67 An Iranian mob attacked the Soviet embassy in Tehran in December 19Bo, and the Sovi- ets suspended arms shipments to Iraq for a year. Shipments resumed after a series of Iranian victories in 1982. See Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 287; Yodfat, Soviet Union and Revolution- ary Iran, 81, 134-36; Menashri, Iran, 207; "Chronology," ME/ 37, no. 2 (1983), 246; and 42, no. 2 (1988), 466.
68 See Hunter, "Soviet-Iranian Relations," 90. [231]
? ? ? Revolution and War
Moscow and Tehran was confined to economic affairs, as the Soviet Union had become an increasingly important avenue for Iranian foreign trade once Iran's major ports were damaged in the war with Iraq. The two states even- tually signed a major economic agreement, in February 1982, and subse- quent trade deals helped compensate for the loss of trade between Iran and the West. 69 Rafsanjani described relations as "somewhat improved" in 1985; Prime Minister Musavi called the Soviet approach to the Iran-Iraq war
"more realistic. " Tensions reemerged after Iraqi president Saddam Hussein visited Moscow in December and got a renewed pledge of Soviet arms. Musavi now accused the Soviets of having "long desired access to southern waters through Iran," while Foreign Minister Velayati declared that "Iran will never accept Soviet domination. "70
Both Iran's refusal to end the war with Iraq and the continued Soviet presence in Afghanistan remained major sources of strain, and talks be- tween Velayati and Soviet president Andrei Gromyko in February 1987 were described as "businesslike. " Khomeini repeated his condemnation of Soviet support for Iraq; President Khamenei called Soviet policy in the gulf a "grave enor" in April, and Iranian gunboats attacked a Soviet tanker in May. The U. S. reflagging operation and the resulting confrontation between
the U. S. and Iran brought Moscow and Tehran closer together in the sum- mer, however, and Rafsanjani accepted an invitation to visit the Soviet Union at some point in the future. The Soviets also persuaded the UN Secu- rity Council to delay imposition of an arms embargo against Iran in the fall, but Iran's continued suspicions and the Soviets' reluctance to jeopardize their opening to the West kept the emerging detente from developing fur- ther. 71
Relations improved sharply following the Iranian ceasefire with Iraq and the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Soviets offered to aid Iran's postwar reconstruction, and Deputy Foreign Minister Vorontsov admitted that "mistakes had been made" in Moscow's earlier dealings with Iran. n An- other series of economic agreements was completed in the fall of 1988, and Khomeini called for improved relations between the two countries in a per- sonal message to Gorbachev in January 1989. Soviet foreign minister Eduard ? Shevardnadze met with Khomeini during a visit to Iran in February, when
69 There were also reports that Soviet intelligence officials were advising the Revolutionary Guards and that the Soviet Union and Iran had signed a secret military agreement in May 1982, but these stories were probably fabrications by exile groups hoping to obtain more sup- port from the West. See Yodfat, Soviet Union and Revolutionary Iran, 98--99, 101, 132; and Menashri, Iran, 249.
70 Quoted in Menashri, Iran, 363--64; and Hunter, "Soviet-Iranian Relations," 94?
71 On these events, see MECS 1987 (Boulder, Colo. : Westview, 1989), 414-15; Hunter, Iran and the World, 9()-()2; and Robert 0. Freedman, "Gorbachev, Iran, and the Iran-Iraq War," in Keddie and Gasiorowski, Neither East Nor West, 122-28.
72 Quoted in Hunter, "Soviet-Iranian Relations," 97--99?
[232]
? The Iranian Revolution
the Soviets reportedly passed on intelligence information about a U. S. spy ring within the Iranian armed forces. The rift with the West occasioned by the Rushdie affair in February 1989 pushed Iran even closer to the Soviet Union, and Khomeini endorsed Shevardnadze's call for improved ties by saying that Iran wanted better relations in order to resist the "devilish acts of the West. " Rafsanjani visited the Soviet Union three weeks after Khomeini's death, and Gorbachev told him, "Our country supports your anti-imperial- ist revolution. . . . We are ready to go as far as Iran is ready to meet us. " The two states signed a series of agreements for technical, cultural, scientific, and economic cooperation, and their subsequent joint declaration referred to "strengthening Iran's defense capability," suggesting that Iran was preparing to obtain weapons directly from the Soviet Union. Foreign Minister Velayati praised the policy of glasnost then underway in the Soviet Union, and Raf- sanjani declared that the Soviets now "comprehended the reality of the [Is- lamic] revolution. "73 Thus, despite the ideological differences that still survived, relations between Iran and the Soviet Union were assuming a more normal footing as the Soviet Union itself began to come apart.
Relations with Medium Powers
Iran had enjoyed good political relations with Western Europe and Japan under the shah, based largely on Iran's importance as an oil supplier. The revolution damaged Iran's relations with each of these states, but the effects were generally not as severe as in the case of the United States.
GreatBritain. GreatBritain'searlierinvolvementinIranhadleftalegacy of suspicion. Attacks on the British embassy and several representatives of the Anglican Church led London to withdraw most of its diplomatic per- sonnel in 1980. 74 Britain supported the imposition of economic sanctions after the seizure of the U. S. embassy and reluctantly joined the U. S. -led em- bargo in June 1980. 75 The arrest of a group of Iranian students following a vi-
73 Khomeini's message also described Communism as an obsolete ideology and suggested that Gorbachev should embrace Islam instead. For these quotations, see Manshour Varasteh, "The Soviet Union and Iran, 1979-89,'' in Ehteshami and Varasteh, fran and the International Community, 57-59; "Chronology," MEJ 43, no. 3 (1989), 483; Hunter, Iran and the World, 94; Carol R. Saivetz, "The Soviet Union and Iran: Changing Relations in the Gorbachev Era," in Iran at the Crossroads: Global Relations in a Turbulent Decade, ed. Miron Rezun (Boulder, Colo. : Westview, 1990), 195--96; MECS 1989, 365; and Herrmann, "Role of Iran in Soviet Percep- tions," 8g.
74 Khomeini once termed Britain "the aged wolf of imperialism. " Quoted in Geoffrey Par- sons, "Iran and Western Europe," in Ramazani, Iran's Revolution, 71.
75 British participation in the embargo was limited to contracts signed after June 1980. See Robert Carswell and Richard Davis, "The Economic and Financial Pressures: Freeze and Sanctions,"inChristopheretal. ,AmericanHostagesinIran,198-9-9.
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olent demonstration at the Iranian embassy in London was a further source of tension, leading Rafsanjani to warn of an "appropriate reaction" unless the students were released. 76
Subsequent efforts to improve relations foundered over Iran's extreme sensitivity to any sign of British opposition. The trade embargo was lifted after the release of the U. S. hostages, and Britain adopted a carefully neutral position in the Iran-Iraq war. Britain allowed an "Iranian Purchasing Office" to remain in london, where it conducted some of Iran's dealings in the pri- vate arms markets, and a visit by a British trade mission in May 1983 fueled expectations of a rapid increase in Anglo-Iranian trade. 77 Yet relations be- tween the two countries remained fragile; Britain refused to accept the cre- dentials of an Iranian envoy in 1986, and Iran responded by rejecting a British diplomat's credentials shortly thereafter. The arrest of an Iranian diplomat for shoplifting in May 1987 led to the arrest and beating of a British diplomat in Tehran, triggering a series of tit-for-tat expulsions that ended with the two states breaking diplomatic relations. British naval forces participated in the multinational effort to escort merchant shipping in the Persian GuH in 1987, and the British government shut down the Iranian Purchasing Office in London after a British vessel was fired upon by Iranian forces. The British supported the UN effort to impose an arms embargo on Iran in order to force acceptance of Resolution 598, and Foreign Minister Geoffrey Howe declared that although "the door was ajar" to improved re- lations, "the ball was in the Iranian hand. "78
Movement toward detente between Britain and Iran resumed in June 1988, beginning with an agreement on compensation for the damage to their respective embassies. A decision to restore diplomatic relations was an- nounced in September, and relations were formally reestablished two months later. The Rushdie affair reversed this positive trend, however; Rushdie went into hiding in Great Britain, Iran severed relations once again, and the Majlis voted to suspend commercial ties as well. Although Rafsan- jani and the moderates resumed efforts to normalize relations in the early 1990s, the reaffirmation of thefatwa against Rushdie and the radical resur- gence at the end of 1992 blocked any significant improvement in Anglo- Iranian relations.
France. Unlike the United States, Great Britain, or the Soviet Union, France had no prior imperial role in Iran. In addition, the French govern- ment had granted Khomeini political asylum following his deportation from Iraq in 1978, and one might have expected Franco-Iranian ties to have
76 "Chronology," ME] 35, no. 1 (1981), 46.
77 Parsons, "Iran and Western Europe," So.
78 See MECS 1987, 413-14; and "Chronology," MEJ 41, no. 4 (1987), 6o2.
? [2341
? The Iranian Revolution
profited from this favorable historical legacy. Yet relations between France and revolutionary Iran were still strained, despite several well-intentioned efforts to establish a cordial relationship.
Tensions between France and Iran arose from several separate issues.
France had become the preferred haven for the anti-Khomeini opposition, including former prime minister Bakhtiar, former president Bani-Sadr, Is- lamic Mujahedin leader Masoud Rajavi, and several members of the Pahlavi family. The revolutionary government accused France of providing asylum to "criminal leaders" and held it responsible for "attacks against the clergy. " A congratulatory message from President Fran\ois Mitterand following Rajai's election in 1981 was denounced as a lie, and the assassination of a number of exile leaders on French soil both angered and alarmed the French. 79 Relations were strained further when a group of Iranian exiles seized a French-built missile boat previously ordered by the shah. French of- ficials recovered the ship and transferred it to Iran but refused to tum over the hijackers despite strong Iranian protests. In Lebanon, Iran's support for radical Shiite groups clashed with France's traditional support for the Lebanese Christians; pro-Iranian factions kidnapped several French citi- zens; and a terrorist truck bomb killed fifty-eight French soldiers in the UN peacekeeping force. 80 A final issue was French military support for Iraq: in addition to selling billions of dollars of weapons to the Iraqis, France also leased them five warplanes equipped with Exocet antiship missiles, which greatly enhanced their ability to attack Iran's oil and shipping facilities. 81
France sought to normalize relations with the Islamic Republic in 1986 in an attempt to obtain the release of its Lebanese hostages. A French parlia- mentary delegation visited Tehran in January, middle-level officials ex- changed visits in May and September, and France subsequently agreed to repay $330 million of a $1 billion loan provided by the Pahlavi regime, in ex- change for the release of two French hostages. It also agreed to expel a num- ber of members of the Mujahedin as a goodwill gesture. This detente evaporated the following year, however, after the French tried to interrogate Vahid Gordji, an Iranian translator whom they suspected of participating nn a series of terrorist bombings. Gordji took refuge in the Iranian embassy, which the French promptly blockaded, leading Iran to surround the French
79 "Chronology," ME/ 36, no. 4 (1982), 72. The shah's nephew was assassinated in Paris in 1979, former prime minister Bakhtiar narrowly escaped an attack in 1980 (a subsequent at? tempt in August 1991 succeeded) and General Ghulam Ovaisi, commander-in-chief of the army under the shah, was murdered in Paris in February 1984. See Parsons, "Iran and West- ern Europe," 75; Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 267; and "Killing Off Iranian Dissenters: Bloody Trail Back to Tehran," Washington Post, November 21, 1993, A t .
80 See Hunter, Iran and the World, 150; and George Joffee, "Iran, the Southern Mediter- ranean, and Europe," in Ehteshemi and Varasteh, Iran and the International Community, 87-88. 81 See Hiro, Longest War, 82, 1 23-27; Mark Heller, The Iran-Iraq War: Implications for Third
Parties (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, 1984), JCf-40; and MECS 1987, 412.
? ? ? Revolution and War
embassy in Tehran and arrest a French diplomat on various fabricated charges. France broke diplomatic relations, imposed an embargo on Iranian oil, and sent French warships to join the U. S. -led flotilla in the Persian Gu1f. s2
Gordji was finally deported in December 1987, and the end of the Iran- Iraq war paved the way for a slightly more durable detente. 83 Diplomatic re- lations were restored in June 1988 after France expelled fourteen members of the Islamic Mujahedin and agreed to repay another $300 million of the Iranian loan. The oil embargo was soon lifted, and French foreign minister Roland Dumas visited Tehran in February 1989. Khomeini's campaign against Salman Rushdie slowed the process of normalization at this point, but diplomatic ties were not cut off. Both sides seemed interested in estab- lishing a less acrimonious relationship (though the French decision to try two Iranian citizens for the murder of former prime minister Bakhtiar had cast yet another shadow over Franco-Iranian relations at the end of 1994). 84
OtherMediumPowers. IncontrasttoitsrelationswithBritainandFrance, Iran's dealings with other medium powers were fairly benign. West Ger- many joined the Western appeal for release of the U. S. hostages and sup- ported the economic embargo but did not take a strong position. The West German government served as an intermediary during the hostage crisis; Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher became the first Western leader to visit the Islamic Republic in July 1984. 85 Germany had become one of Iran's largest trading partners by 1986, and a brief rift following a West German television broadcast mocking Khomeini healed quickly. 86 Germany helped dilute UN Resolution 598 to make it more palatable to Iran, and Tehran re- turned the favor by facilitating the release of two German hostages in Lebanon in September 1988. The German government responded with un- characteristic sharpness to the death threat against Salman Rushdie, recall- ing their ambassador for "consultations" and hinting of economic sanctions, but a complete rift was avoided and German-Iranian relations resumed their generally cordial nature after Khomeini's death. Iran remained Ger- many's largest Middle Eastern trading partner, and an Iranian diplomat ad-
82 See "Chronology," ME] 42, no. 1 (1988), 94-95; MECS 1987, 412-13.
83 President Khamenei remarked that France had given up its bullying and was trying to normalize relations, while Prime Minister Musavi stated that recent progress in relations had been "very good" and he hoped "this tendency will continue and expand.
chaps. 9-15; Bill, Eagle and Lion, 293-304; Pierre Salinger, America Held Hostage: The Secret Negotiations (Garden City, N. Y. : Doubleday, 1981); Brzezinski, Power and Principle, chap. 13; and Hamilton Jordan, Crisis: The Last Year ofthe Carter Presidency (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1982).
51 As Rafsanjani remarked after the hostage settlement, "America continues to remain our enemy, and, accordingly, we are America's enemy. . . . This will continue for a long time. " Quoted in Menashri, Iran, 205; and see also Campbell and Darvich, "Global Implications of the Iranian Revolution," 49?
52 See Anthony Cordesman, The Iran-Iraq War and Western Security, 1 984-1987: Strategic Im- plications and Policy Options (London: Jane's, 1987), esp. 79; "U. S. Said to Aid Iranian Exiles in Combat and Political Units," and "U. S. Secretly Gave Aid to Iraq Early in Its War against Iran," New York Times, March 7, 1982, A1, A12; January 26, 1992, At, A4; Dilip Hiro, The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict (London: Routledge, 1991), 96; Ralph King, The Iran-Iraq War: The Political Implications, Adelphi Paper no. 219 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1982), 53?
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The main departure from this policy was the notorious Iran-contra arms deal. 53 This initiative rested on the hope that supplying arms would strengthen "moderate forces" within the Islamic Republic, who would help obtain the release of the U. S. hostages in Lebanon and work to improve U. S. -Iranian relations. This goal also reflected U. S. concerns that Iran was in- creasingly vulnerable to Soviet pressure or subversion, as well as the expec- tation that the threat from Moscow would make Iran more receptive to U. S. overtures. 54
In the summer of 1985, U. S. and Israeli officials began negotiating to sell advanced weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of U. S. citizens held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon. Lacking both direct access to the revolu- tionary government and accurate information about internal developments within Iran, the U. S. government-or more precisely, the cabal within the National Security Council that conducted the negotiations-decided to use a shady Iranian arms merchant, Manucher Ghorbanifar, as their principal intermediary. The initiative was soon taken over by Oliver North, a marine officer assigned to the U. S. National Security Council, and he and former U. S. national security advisor Robert C. McFarlane eventually made a secret visit to Tehran in May 1986 in an unsuccessful venture to get the hostages released. The continuing power struggle between moderates and extremists in Iran brought the negotiations to an end in November 1986, but not before the U. S. had sent Iran nearly sixteen hundred antitank missiles, assorted spare parts, and valuable intelligence information on Iraqi military deploy- ments.
The attempt to trade arms for hostages improved neither the situation in Lebanon, the position of the Iranian "moderates," nor the state of U. S. -Iranian relations. Although the Shiites released one U. S. hostage in September 1985
53 The best account of the Iran-contra affair is Theodore Draper, A Very Thin Line: The Iran- Contra Affairs (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991). See also James A. Bill, "The U. S. Over- ture to Iran, 1985-86: An Analysis," in Keddie and Gasiorowski, Neither East Nor West, 166-7- 9;PeterKornbluhandMalcolmByrne,eds. ,TheIran-ContraScandal:TheDeclassifiedHis- tory (New York: New Press, 1993); and Samuel Segev, The Iranian Triangle: The Untold Story of Israel's Role in tlze Iran-Contra Affair (New York: Free Press, 1988).
54 At the request of the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency pre- pared a new intelligence estimate on Iran in May 1985. It predicted that "the Khomeini regime will face serious instability," warned that Tehran's leadership "seems to have con- cluded that improvement of relations with the Soviet Union is essential to Iranian interest," and recommended that the United States begin active efforts compete for influence in Iran. In response, a National Security Council memorandum suggested that U. S. allies be encouraged to provide Iran with "selected military equipment . . . on a case-i? y-case basis. " The texts of these memoranda are printed in the Report of the President's Special Review Board ("Tower Commission" ), February 26, 1987, B-6:7; B-7:8; and the Joint Hearings before the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran and the Senate Select Committee on Se- cret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition, 1ooth Congress, 1st sess. (Wash- ington, D. C. : U. S. Government Printing Office, 1988), vol. 100-10:512-18.
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and another in July 1986, they replaced them by kidnapping two more U. S. citizens in September 1986. The exposure of the secret arms shipments em- barrassed the Reagan administration and alarmed its Arab allies, who saw the initiative as a hypocritical departure that undercut efforts to contain Iran. Moreover, the revelation that Iranian government officials had held secret ne- gotiations with the "Great Satan" revived Iranian fears about U. S. influence and forced pragmatists such as Rafsanjani to revert to more hard-line posi- tions. In sum, the "arms for hostages" scheme was a fiasco from start to finish.
Rafsanjani made several cautious overtures to the United States early in 1987, but relations between the two countries deteriorated after the "arms for hostages" scheme unraveled. 55 In an attempt to cut Iraq's oil revenues and reduce Arab support for Baghdad, Iran had begun laying mines in the Persian Gulf and threatening to attack oil shipments from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. To restore its credibility with the gulf Arabs and bring additional pressure to bear on Iran, the U. S. eventually agreed to place Kuwaiti tankers under U. S. registry and provide a naval escort for tankers using Kuwaiti and Saudi ports. This decision led to repeated confrontations between the U. S. and Iranian forces: a U. S. fighter fired on an Iranian F-14 in August, and U. S. naval units sank an Iranian ship laying mines in the gulf the following month. In October, U. S. naval forces sank three Iranian gunboats after they fired on a U. S. helicopter and destroyed several Iranian oil platforms in re- taliation for missile attacks on two U. S. tankers. The Senate banned oil im- ports from Iran in September, and President Reagan announced a complete ban on Iranian imports and an embargo on "militarily useful" exports in October, while minor clashes between U. S. and Iranian forces continued into the following year. Finally, the U. S. destroyer Vincennes mistakenly shot
down an Iranian civilian airliner on July 2, killing all 290 people aboard.
The tragedy brought defiant protests from Tehran, but it also seems to have convinced Khomeini to end the war. Rafsanjani announced that con- cluding the war would allow Iran to follow a more "open" foreign policy, but in fact it did not lead to a significant improvement in U. S. -Iranian rela- tions. The hostages in Lebanon remained a sore point and U. S. officials were no longer willing to make concessions to hasten their release. The United States rejected an Iranian offer to mediate in exchange for the release of ad- ditional Iranian assets in August, and the Iranian government denounced a conciliatory letter from former president Carter to Khomeini and Rafsanjani as a "new trick. " Although Iran's deputy foreign minister hinted that rela- tions with the United States might be restored, Rafsanjani declared that
55 In April, Rafsanjani declared that normal relations with the United States would be pos- sible once it stopped threatening Iran. He later stated that Iran would help obtain the release of U. S. hostages in Lebanon if the Americans showed goodwill by releasing frozen Iranian as- sets, adding that relations need not remain poor "until doomsday. " "Chronology," MEJ 41, no. 4 (1987), 6o1.
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public opinion was still not ready for such a step. Finally, the radical turn signaled by Khomeini's condemnation of author Salman Rushdie in Febru- ary ended any possibility of a rapprochement between the two states. 56
Khomeini's death began a brief period of moderation in Iran's foreign policy, but relations with the United States stayed chilly at best. In August, however, Rafsanjani made a public speech declaring that the hostage prob- lem could be solved peacefully, and Iran reportedly helped obtain the re- ? lease of two U. S. hostages later in the year. 57 Iran remained neutral in the 1991 Gulf War (though it did express concern about the enormous Western presence in tine Persian Gulf region) and Rafsanjani made several cautious overtures to frhe United States as part of his effort to resuscitate Iran's stag- nant economy and end its international isolation. 58
These veiled feelers failed to elicit a favorable response from Washington, however, and a radical resurgence in 1992 soon removed any possibility of a detente. Although Rafsanjani expressed his continued desire for improved! relations with the West and specifically requested "goodwill gestures" from the United States, his efforts were hamstrung by radical opposition within Iran and by U. S. concerns about Iran's support for international terrorism and the potential spread of Islamic fundamentalism. Indeed, the Clinton ad- ministration labeled Iran "an international outlaw" and a "pariah" in May
1993, as part of a policy of "dual containment" aimed equally at Baghdad and Tehran. 59 Despite the costs to both powers, in short, relations between
56 See Wright, In the Name ofGod, 256-57; "Iranian Dismisses Prospects of Thaw with Wash- ington," New York Times, February 6, 1989, At. Minister of the Interior Ali Akbar Mohtashemi blamed U. S. and British intelligence agencies for the publication of Rushdie's book and called it part of a "new war against Islam," and Khomeini declared that it was useless for Iran to act in a pragmatic manner thinking that the West would "humanely reciprocate. " "Chronology," MEJ 63, no. 3 (1989), 483.
57 The United States also paid Iran $287 million for military equipment ordered by the shah but never delivered, thereby resolving the last financial dispute stemming from the 1980 hostage crisis. See MECS 1991 (Boulder, Colo. : Westview, 1992), 32-33; Hunter, Iran after Khomeini, 123.
58 In April t9<)0, one of Rafsanjani's associates wrote an article calling for improved relations with the U. S. , all\d another advisor told a New York Times reporter that Washington and Tehran could enjoy a "marriage of convenience. " In March 1991, Rafsanjani declared that the U. S. presence in the Persian Gulf was "not useful" but also "not a threat to Iran," and he later sug- gested that Iran needed a "prudent policy" so it could "help people without being accused of engaging in terrorism, without anyone being able to call us fanatics. " The radical clerics were uncompromising, however, and even Rafsanjani suggested that the United States would have to make the first move in order to overcome Iranian suspicions. See MECS 1991, 384-86, 394-<)6; and Hooshang Amirahradi, "Iran and the Persian Gulf Crisis," in his and Nader Entessar's edited Iran and the Arab World (New York: St. Martin's, 1993), 10<)-tO, n8-19.
59 U. S. concerns increased after the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in February 1993 and were reinforced by Tehran's vocal support for the fundamentalist movements in Sudan, Egypt, and Algeria. See Middle East International, no. 444 (February 19, 1993), to; no. 452 Uune 1 1 , 1993), 3-4; . and no. 453 Uune 25, 1993), 12-13; "Fearing More Hos- tility from Iran, U. S. Considers Moves to Isolate It," New York Times, May 27, 1993, At, A4.
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the United States and Iran remained estranged more than fifteen years after the fall of the shah. 60
The Soviet Union and Revolutionary Iran
The Soviet Union welcomed the Iranian Revolution at first, because it overthrew an important U. S. ally and gave the Soviets an opportunity to ex- pand their own influence. As the campaign to oust the shah gathered mo- mentum in the fall of 1978, Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev stated that the Soviet Union opposed "foreign interference by anyone. " The warning was reiterated in January 1980 and Brezhnev informed the Bazargan govern- ment that he hoped "good neighborly relations will develop fruitfully. "61 Iranian foreign minister Karim Sanjavi replied that Iran "genuinely wants friendly relations with the USSR," and the Soviet government subsequently vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for economic sanctions in response to the detention of the U. S. hostages. The Soviets condemned the
U. S. rescue mission in April, agreed that Iran could ship goods across Soviet territory in the event of a U. S. blockade, and issued frequent warnings about America's hostile intentions. The pro-Soviet Tudeh Party supported Kho- meini and the radical clergy against both Bazargan and Bani-Sadr, and the Soviets endorsed Iran's request for an investigation of the shah's rule by the UN Security Council. The Islamic Republic also established close ties with Soviet allies such as Libya, Syria, South Yemen, and the Palestine Liberation Organization, indicating that the fall of the shah had brought Moscow and Tehran closer together. 62
But it soon became apparent that the establishment of the Islamic Repub- lic had created as many problems for the Soviet Union as it had solved.
To begin with, the revolution introduced an element of instability into a region on the Soviets' southern border, which increased the risk of U. S. military in- volvement and raised concerns about the impact of Islamic fundamentalism
. on the Muslim population of the Soviet Union. Khomeini and his followers saw Soviet Communism as an atheistic ideology that was every bit as objec- tionable as Western capitalism, and Khomeini soon declared, "We are in con-
60 A useful guide to the present state of U. S. -Iranian relations is Geoffrey Kemp, Forever En- emies? American Policy and the Islamic Republic ofIran (Washington, D. C. : Carnegie Endow- ment for International Peace, 1994).
61 Quoted in Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 283. In 1981, Brezhnev termed the Iranian Rev- olution a "major international event" and said that, "for all its complications and contradic- tions, it is still fundamentally an anti-imperialist revolution. " Quoted in Karen Dawisha and Helene Carrerre d'Encausse, "Islam in the Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union: A Double- Edged Sword? " in Dawisha, Islam in Foreign Policy, 170.
? 62 See Menashri, Iran, 99; Hunter, Iran and the World, 85, and "Soviet-Iranian Relations in the Post-Revolution Period," in Iran's Revolution: The Searchfor Consensus, ed. R. K. Ramazani (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 86.
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flict with international communism to the same extent as we are against the Western exploiters. . . . The danger of communist power is not less than that of America. "63 Iran's new leaders were well aware of earlier Soviet attempts to dominate Iran, and the new regime abrogated the 1921 Soviet-Persian friendship treaty in November 1980. Iran accused the Soviet Union of sup- plying arms to the Kurds and other rebellious ethnic minorities, and Presi-
dent Bani-Sadr warned that the Soviet Union "sought to divide Iran" in order to extend its control to theIndian Ocean. 64 The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was another source of tension, both because Afghanistan was a Muslim country and because the invasion reinforced Iranian fears about So- viet intentions. 65 Iran's fear of Communist subversion was another sore point, and as noted earlier, Iran eventually banned the Tudeh Party and ex- pelled eighteen Soviet diplomats in April 1983. 66 Finally, the Iraqi invasion in September 1980 posed a serious dilemma for the Soviet Union, as Iraq, a long-standing ally, was heavily dependent on Soviet weaponry. The Soviets declared they would remain neutral and offered to sell arms to Iran, but their
support for Iraq would remain a contentious issue for the rest of the decade. 67
By the mid-? . 98os, Soviet relations with Iran were much worse than they had been under the shah. Early hopes that the revolution might take on a "progressive" character had been dashed, and Iran's military successes against Iraq threatened to shift the regional balance of power and boost the ideological appeal of Islamic fundamentalism. 68 Cooperation between
63 Quoted in Menashri, Iran, 156. In 1980, then-foreign minister Sadeq Qotbzadeh told So- viet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, "Our Imam has described the United States as a great satan. Unfortunately, you too have proved in practice that you are no less satanic than the United States. " Quoted fu Yodfat, Soviet Union and Revolutionary Iran, 71.
64 See Menashri, Iran, 99; "Chronology," ME/ 34, no. 2 (1980), 171; and Richard K. Herr- mann, "The Role of Iran in Soviet Perceptions and Policy, 1946-1988," in Keddie and Gasiorowski, Neither East Nor West, 78-8o.
65 Foreign Minister Qotbzadeh called the invasion of Afghanistan "a hostile measure . . . against all Muslims of the world. " Quoted in Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 284. Similarly, Khomeini condemned "the savage occupation of Afghanistan by the aggressive plunderers of the East" and hoped that "the noble Muslim people of Afghanistan will achieve victory . . . and be delivered from the clutches of the so-called champions of the working class. " Quoted in Zalmay Khalilzad, "Soviet Dilemmas in Khomeini's Iran," in Rosen, Iran since the Revolu- tion, 121.
66 Rafsanjani called the Tudeh Party a "disreputable party with a filthy record" in Novem- ber 1982, and Radio Tehran announced in May 1983 that "the mercenary leaders of that party . . . were laying the foundations of a . . . creeping coup d'etat so that they could . . . drag the country in the direction they wished. " "Chronology," ME] 37, no. 2 (1983), 246; and Yodfat, Soviet Union and Revolutionary Iran, 132, 142-44.
67 An Iranian mob attacked the Soviet embassy in Tehran in December 19Bo, and the Sovi- ets suspended arms shipments to Iraq for a year. Shipments resumed after a series of Iranian victories in 1982. See Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 287; Yodfat, Soviet Union and Revolution- ary Iran, 81, 134-36; Menashri, Iran, 207; "Chronology," ME/ 37, no. 2 (1983), 246; and 42, no. 2 (1988), 466.
68 See Hunter, "Soviet-Iranian Relations," 90. [231]
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Moscow and Tehran was confined to economic affairs, as the Soviet Union had become an increasingly important avenue for Iranian foreign trade once Iran's major ports were damaged in the war with Iraq. The two states even- tually signed a major economic agreement, in February 1982, and subse- quent trade deals helped compensate for the loss of trade between Iran and the West. 69 Rafsanjani described relations as "somewhat improved" in 1985; Prime Minister Musavi called the Soviet approach to the Iran-Iraq war
"more realistic. " Tensions reemerged after Iraqi president Saddam Hussein visited Moscow in December and got a renewed pledge of Soviet arms. Musavi now accused the Soviets of having "long desired access to southern waters through Iran," while Foreign Minister Velayati declared that "Iran will never accept Soviet domination. "70
Both Iran's refusal to end the war with Iraq and the continued Soviet presence in Afghanistan remained major sources of strain, and talks be- tween Velayati and Soviet president Andrei Gromyko in February 1987 were described as "businesslike. " Khomeini repeated his condemnation of Soviet support for Iraq; President Khamenei called Soviet policy in the gulf a "grave enor" in April, and Iranian gunboats attacked a Soviet tanker in May. The U. S. reflagging operation and the resulting confrontation between
the U. S. and Iran brought Moscow and Tehran closer together in the sum- mer, however, and Rafsanjani accepted an invitation to visit the Soviet Union at some point in the future. The Soviets also persuaded the UN Secu- rity Council to delay imposition of an arms embargo against Iran in the fall, but Iran's continued suspicions and the Soviets' reluctance to jeopardize their opening to the West kept the emerging detente from developing fur- ther. 71
Relations improved sharply following the Iranian ceasefire with Iraq and the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Soviets offered to aid Iran's postwar reconstruction, and Deputy Foreign Minister Vorontsov admitted that "mistakes had been made" in Moscow's earlier dealings with Iran. n An- other series of economic agreements was completed in the fall of 1988, and Khomeini called for improved relations between the two countries in a per- sonal message to Gorbachev in January 1989. Soviet foreign minister Eduard ? Shevardnadze met with Khomeini during a visit to Iran in February, when
69 There were also reports that Soviet intelligence officials were advising the Revolutionary Guards and that the Soviet Union and Iran had signed a secret military agreement in May 1982, but these stories were probably fabrications by exile groups hoping to obtain more sup- port from the West. See Yodfat, Soviet Union and Revolutionary Iran, 98--99, 101, 132; and Menashri, Iran, 249.
70 Quoted in Menashri, Iran, 363--64; and Hunter, "Soviet-Iranian Relations," 94?
71 On these events, see MECS 1987 (Boulder, Colo. : Westview, 1989), 414-15; Hunter, Iran and the World, 9()-()2; and Robert 0. Freedman, "Gorbachev, Iran, and the Iran-Iraq War," in Keddie and Gasiorowski, Neither East Nor West, 122-28.
72 Quoted in Hunter, "Soviet-Iranian Relations," 97--99?
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the Soviets reportedly passed on intelligence information about a U. S. spy ring within the Iranian armed forces. The rift with the West occasioned by the Rushdie affair in February 1989 pushed Iran even closer to the Soviet Union, and Khomeini endorsed Shevardnadze's call for improved ties by saying that Iran wanted better relations in order to resist the "devilish acts of the West. " Rafsanjani visited the Soviet Union three weeks after Khomeini's death, and Gorbachev told him, "Our country supports your anti-imperial- ist revolution. . . . We are ready to go as far as Iran is ready to meet us. " The two states signed a series of agreements for technical, cultural, scientific, and economic cooperation, and their subsequent joint declaration referred to "strengthening Iran's defense capability," suggesting that Iran was preparing to obtain weapons directly from the Soviet Union. Foreign Minister Velayati praised the policy of glasnost then underway in the Soviet Union, and Raf- sanjani declared that the Soviets now "comprehended the reality of the [Is- lamic] revolution. "73 Thus, despite the ideological differences that still survived, relations between Iran and the Soviet Union were assuming a more normal footing as the Soviet Union itself began to come apart.
Relations with Medium Powers
Iran had enjoyed good political relations with Western Europe and Japan under the shah, based largely on Iran's importance as an oil supplier. The revolution damaged Iran's relations with each of these states, but the effects were generally not as severe as in the case of the United States.
GreatBritain. GreatBritain'searlierinvolvementinIranhadleftalegacy of suspicion. Attacks on the British embassy and several representatives of the Anglican Church led London to withdraw most of its diplomatic per- sonnel in 1980. 74 Britain supported the imposition of economic sanctions after the seizure of the U. S. embassy and reluctantly joined the U. S. -led em- bargo in June 1980. 75 The arrest of a group of Iranian students following a vi-
73 Khomeini's message also described Communism as an obsolete ideology and suggested that Gorbachev should embrace Islam instead. For these quotations, see Manshour Varasteh, "The Soviet Union and Iran, 1979-89,'' in Ehteshami and Varasteh, fran and the International Community, 57-59; "Chronology," MEJ 43, no. 3 (1989), 483; Hunter, Iran and the World, 94; Carol R. Saivetz, "The Soviet Union and Iran: Changing Relations in the Gorbachev Era," in Iran at the Crossroads: Global Relations in a Turbulent Decade, ed. Miron Rezun (Boulder, Colo. : Westview, 1990), 195--96; MECS 1989, 365; and Herrmann, "Role of Iran in Soviet Percep- tions," 8g.
74 Khomeini once termed Britain "the aged wolf of imperialism. " Quoted in Geoffrey Par- sons, "Iran and Western Europe," in Ramazani, Iran's Revolution, 71.
75 British participation in the embargo was limited to contracts signed after June 1980. See Robert Carswell and Richard Davis, "The Economic and Financial Pressures: Freeze and Sanctions,"inChristopheretal. ,AmericanHostagesinIran,198-9-9.
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olent demonstration at the Iranian embassy in London was a further source of tension, leading Rafsanjani to warn of an "appropriate reaction" unless the students were released. 76
Subsequent efforts to improve relations foundered over Iran's extreme sensitivity to any sign of British opposition. The trade embargo was lifted after the release of the U. S. hostages, and Britain adopted a carefully neutral position in the Iran-Iraq war. Britain allowed an "Iranian Purchasing Office" to remain in london, where it conducted some of Iran's dealings in the pri- vate arms markets, and a visit by a British trade mission in May 1983 fueled expectations of a rapid increase in Anglo-Iranian trade. 77 Yet relations be- tween the two countries remained fragile; Britain refused to accept the cre- dentials of an Iranian envoy in 1986, and Iran responded by rejecting a British diplomat's credentials shortly thereafter. The arrest of an Iranian diplomat for shoplifting in May 1987 led to the arrest and beating of a British diplomat in Tehran, triggering a series of tit-for-tat expulsions that ended with the two states breaking diplomatic relations. British naval forces participated in the multinational effort to escort merchant shipping in the Persian GuH in 1987, and the British government shut down the Iranian Purchasing Office in London after a British vessel was fired upon by Iranian forces. The British supported the UN effort to impose an arms embargo on Iran in order to force acceptance of Resolution 598, and Foreign Minister Geoffrey Howe declared that although "the door was ajar" to improved re- lations, "the ball was in the Iranian hand. "78
Movement toward detente between Britain and Iran resumed in June 1988, beginning with an agreement on compensation for the damage to their respective embassies. A decision to restore diplomatic relations was an- nounced in September, and relations were formally reestablished two months later. The Rushdie affair reversed this positive trend, however; Rushdie went into hiding in Great Britain, Iran severed relations once again, and the Majlis voted to suspend commercial ties as well. Although Rafsan- jani and the moderates resumed efforts to normalize relations in the early 1990s, the reaffirmation of thefatwa against Rushdie and the radical resur- gence at the end of 1992 blocked any significant improvement in Anglo- Iranian relations.
France. Unlike the United States, Great Britain, or the Soviet Union, France had no prior imperial role in Iran. In addition, the French govern- ment had granted Khomeini political asylum following his deportation from Iraq in 1978, and one might have expected Franco-Iranian ties to have
76 "Chronology," ME] 35, no. 1 (1981), 46.
77 Parsons, "Iran and Western Europe," So.
78 See MECS 1987, 413-14; and "Chronology," MEJ 41, no. 4 (1987), 6o2.
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? The Iranian Revolution
profited from this favorable historical legacy. Yet relations between France and revolutionary Iran were still strained, despite several well-intentioned efforts to establish a cordial relationship.
Tensions between France and Iran arose from several separate issues.
France had become the preferred haven for the anti-Khomeini opposition, including former prime minister Bakhtiar, former president Bani-Sadr, Is- lamic Mujahedin leader Masoud Rajavi, and several members of the Pahlavi family. The revolutionary government accused France of providing asylum to "criminal leaders" and held it responsible for "attacks against the clergy. " A congratulatory message from President Fran\ois Mitterand following Rajai's election in 1981 was denounced as a lie, and the assassination of a number of exile leaders on French soil both angered and alarmed the French. 79 Relations were strained further when a group of Iranian exiles seized a French-built missile boat previously ordered by the shah. French of- ficials recovered the ship and transferred it to Iran but refused to tum over the hijackers despite strong Iranian protests. In Lebanon, Iran's support for radical Shiite groups clashed with France's traditional support for the Lebanese Christians; pro-Iranian factions kidnapped several French citi- zens; and a terrorist truck bomb killed fifty-eight French soldiers in the UN peacekeeping force. 80 A final issue was French military support for Iraq: in addition to selling billions of dollars of weapons to the Iraqis, France also leased them five warplanes equipped with Exocet antiship missiles, which greatly enhanced their ability to attack Iran's oil and shipping facilities. 81
France sought to normalize relations with the Islamic Republic in 1986 in an attempt to obtain the release of its Lebanese hostages. A French parlia- mentary delegation visited Tehran in January, middle-level officials ex- changed visits in May and September, and France subsequently agreed to repay $330 million of a $1 billion loan provided by the Pahlavi regime, in ex- change for the release of two French hostages. It also agreed to expel a num- ber of members of the Mujahedin as a goodwill gesture. This detente evaporated the following year, however, after the French tried to interrogate Vahid Gordji, an Iranian translator whom they suspected of participating nn a series of terrorist bombings. Gordji took refuge in the Iranian embassy, which the French promptly blockaded, leading Iran to surround the French
79 "Chronology," ME/ 36, no. 4 (1982), 72. The shah's nephew was assassinated in Paris in 1979, former prime minister Bakhtiar narrowly escaped an attack in 1980 (a subsequent at? tempt in August 1991 succeeded) and General Ghulam Ovaisi, commander-in-chief of the army under the shah, was murdered in Paris in February 1984. See Parsons, "Iran and West- ern Europe," 75; Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 267; and "Killing Off Iranian Dissenters: Bloody Trail Back to Tehran," Washington Post, November 21, 1993, A t .
80 See Hunter, Iran and the World, 150; and George Joffee, "Iran, the Southern Mediter- ranean, and Europe," in Ehteshemi and Varasteh, Iran and the International Community, 87-88. 81 See Hiro, Longest War, 82, 1 23-27; Mark Heller, The Iran-Iraq War: Implications for Third
Parties (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, 1984), JCf-40; and MECS 1987, 412.
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embassy in Tehran and arrest a French diplomat on various fabricated charges. France broke diplomatic relations, imposed an embargo on Iranian oil, and sent French warships to join the U. S. -led flotilla in the Persian Gu1f. s2
Gordji was finally deported in December 1987, and the end of the Iran- Iraq war paved the way for a slightly more durable detente. 83 Diplomatic re- lations were restored in June 1988 after France expelled fourteen members of the Islamic Mujahedin and agreed to repay another $300 million of the Iranian loan. The oil embargo was soon lifted, and French foreign minister Roland Dumas visited Tehran in February 1989. Khomeini's campaign against Salman Rushdie slowed the process of normalization at this point, but diplomatic ties were not cut off. Both sides seemed interested in estab- lishing a less acrimonious relationship (though the French decision to try two Iranian citizens for the murder of former prime minister Bakhtiar had cast yet another shadow over Franco-Iranian relations at the end of 1994). 84
OtherMediumPowers. IncontrasttoitsrelationswithBritainandFrance, Iran's dealings with other medium powers were fairly benign. West Ger- many joined the Western appeal for release of the U. S. hostages and sup- ported the economic embargo but did not take a strong position. The West German government served as an intermediary during the hostage crisis; Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher became the first Western leader to visit the Islamic Republic in July 1984. 85 Germany had become one of Iran's largest trading partners by 1986, and a brief rift following a West German television broadcast mocking Khomeini healed quickly. 86 Germany helped dilute UN Resolution 598 to make it more palatable to Iran, and Tehran re- turned the favor by facilitating the release of two German hostages in Lebanon in September 1988. The German government responded with un- characteristic sharpness to the death threat against Salman Rushdie, recall- ing their ambassador for "consultations" and hinting of economic sanctions, but a complete rift was avoided and German-Iranian relations resumed their generally cordial nature after Khomeini's death. Iran remained Ger- many's largest Middle Eastern trading partner, and an Iranian diplomat ad-
82 See "Chronology," ME] 42, no. 1 (1988), 94-95; MECS 1987, 412-13.
83 President Khamenei remarked that France had given up its bullying and was trying to normalize relations, while Prime Minister Musavi stated that recent progress in relations had been "very good" and he hoped "this tendency will continue and expand.
