Iran-US Relations: The Bush era
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Since George W. Bush came to power in 2001, the relationship between Iran and the United States have plummeted to a new low. On January 29, 2002, President Bush gave his "Axis of evil' speech, describing Iran along with North Korea and Saddam Hussein of Iraq as an axis of evil and warning that the proliferation of long-range missiles developed by these countries were of great danger to the US and that it constituted terrorism. The speech caused outrage in Iran and was condemned by both reformists and conservatives. In 2003, Iran made a secret proposal to the US government with the help of American Iranian Council, for a 'Grand Bargain'. This 'Grand Bargain' would resolve all outstanding issues between Iran and the US, including Iran's alleged support for terrorism and nuclear program. Iran even offered to disarm Hezbullah and convert it into a political organization. Before the US invasion of Iraq, the Iranians had offered to help the US stabilize Iraq after invasion. Instead of negotiating with Iran, the Bush administration rebuffed Iran and decided to go on a confrontational approach. Trita Parsi in her article titled 'Treacherous alliance: The secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and United States' writes, " according to Lawrence Wilkerson, former secretary of state Colin Powell's chief of staff, it was Cheney and Rumsfeld who made sure that Washington dismissed Iran's May 2003 offer to open up its nuclear program, rein in Hezbullah and cooperate against al-Qaida." President Bush in his second term has become more obsessed with the Iran issue. The hoax of WMD (Weapons of mass destruction) was the prima facie of Iraq invasion. It seems that Bush is again looking for an excuse to enter Iran. The unmanned aerial flights to gather information on Iran's nuclear program have given very little information. In September 2005, the US refused visa for an Iranian delegation that were to travel to United Nations to participate in International parliamentary meeting. This is in total violation of the UN rules, which clearly lay down that the US has to grant visas to officials from UN member states to attend UN meetings, irrespective of their political views. The most alarming news is that the Bush administration has taken all necessary steps to launch an attack on Iran. There has been abundance of reports on this aspect. It has been revealed by journalists that in January 2005, US Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle-East region, was asked to revise the military's war plan, providing for a maximum ground and air invasion of Iran. It was again reported that in June 2005 Pentagon was told to prepare to launch a massive aerial attack against Iran to destroy her nuclear installations. At the same time it was also reported that the US military was preparing for a 'massive military presence' in Azerbaijan to launch a land invasion of Iran with a view to capture Tehran. In March 2005, the US revised its doctrine on when to use nuclear weapons to include preemptive or possibly preventive use on non-nuclear states. In August 2005, a former CIA officer claimed that the US Vice-President had instructed US Strategic Command (SRATCOM) "to prepare a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States…a large scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons…not conditional on Iran being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States." The dispute between the United States and Iran over Iran's nuclear program predates the Iranian revolution, even though in the current situation the issue threatens to become a crisis of potentially catastrophic consequences not only for the Iranian people but also for the entire world and specifically for the Gulf States. Since 2003, the United States has alleged that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Iran has consistently denied the allegation and stressed that their nuclear program is aimed only at generating electricity. The United States and Iran are both signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Article IV of the Treaty gives the non-nuclear signatory countries right to develop civilian nuclear energy program. Tensions between the US and Iran have been mounting even while International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of sensitive nuclear industry sites have continued. In March 2006, US and EU-3 (the UK, France and Germany) representatives noted that Iran has enough unenriched uranium hexaflouride gas to make up to ten atomic bombs if it were to be highly enriched. The unenriched uranium cannot be used either in the Bushehr reactor, which is a pressurized water reactor, nor in atomic bombs, unless it becomes enriched. It has been reported that the US has been backing bombings inside Iran by various oppositin groups. These had been undertaken by Iranian opposition groups Mujahideen e-Khalq (MEK or MKO), and the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK), a group closely linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). In November 2006, journalist Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker stated that the US military and the Israelis are giving these groups equipment, training, and targeting information in order to create internal pressures in Iran. The US armed forces raided the Iranian Consulate General located in Erbil, Iraq and kidnapped five staff members and confiscated some documents and certain objects, In August 2007, the Washington Post reported the U.S. government was considering labeling the Revolutionary Guard (IGRC) a "terrorist organization". Under international law, it could be challenged as illegal, and untenable, by isolating a branch of the Iranian government for selective targeting. This is contrary to the 1981 Algiers Accord's pledge of non-interference in Iran's internal affairs by the US government. President Karzai of Afganistan has argued that Iran is a 'helper', for Afganistan, while Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq has said that Iran has a 'positive and constructive role' in helping the Iraqi government improve security in Iraq. The US government imposed sanctions on an Iranian bank in September 2006, barring it from dealing with US financial institutions, even indirectly. While Iranian financial institutions were barred from directly accessing the U.S. financial system, they were permitted to do so indirectly through banks in other countries. The United States announced fresh harsh new penalties on the Iranian military and state-owned banking systems on 25 October 2007, raising pressure on the world financial system to cut ties with Iran. The sanctions on elements of Iran's vast armed forces and its largest bank are the most sweeping since 1979, when the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran ruptured diplomatic, business and military ties. The sanctions are the first of their type imposed by the United States specifically against the armed forces of another government. The latest sanctions will cut off more than 20 Iranian entities, including individuals and companies owned or controlled by the powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps, from the American financial system. State-owned Bank Melli, Bank Mellat and Bank Saderat were named supporters of global terrorist groups for their activities in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East. Any assets found in the United States belonging to the designated groups must be frozen. Americans are also prohibited from doing business with those designated organizations. This fresh announcement of far-reaching sanctions against Iran signified that President Bush has given up on multilateral diplomacy with Tehran. He's back to going his own way. This move is an obvious indication of lack of patience on the part of the US administration. That bolsters the theory that Bush is determined not to leave the Iranian nuclear issue unresolved when he leaves office in January 2009. For more than two years, the United States has insisted that the key to stopping Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program is maintaining unified international pressure on the Islamic Republic. But by this move the Bush administration signaled in no uncertain terms that it's prepared to go its own way in confronting what it considers to be a growing threat from Iran, even if doing so demolishes an increasingly shaky global consensus. The shift represents a tacit acknowledgment that the diplomatic strategy pressed most vigorously by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been ineffective. This is the second of the three-part article on Iran-US relations. The last part will be published in the next Strategic Issues. The author is a freelancer.
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