Strengthening Links With Iran

A new start in U.S.-Iran relations seemed possible earlier this year when President Mohammad Khatami expressed regret for the nearly 20 years of tensions between the two countries and suggested renewed cultural contacts. The Clinton administration responded cautiously but positively, and soon American and Iranian wrestling teams were exchanging visits. That, unfortunately, has pretty much been the high water mark of this new relationship. Iranian moderates complain bitterly that subsequent U.S. actions have undercut what Khatami had hoped to accomplish, while State Department officials call attention to Iranian policies--including sponsorship of terrorism--that continue to be inimical to U.S. interests.

A major problem is, of course, that without diplomatic relations the two sides have no ready forum in which to discuss and try to resolve their differences. But this is the kind of problem that can be surmounted, as it was when Washington opened high-level channels of communication with China in the early 1970s. Dialogue does not wash away all differences between countries, but it often can clarify positions and head off frictions.

Iranian moderates complain that the boldness of Khatami’s gesture has been both under-appreciated in Washington and hampered by a series of insensitive U.S. actions, ranging from opposition to an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea across Iran to rude treatment of Iranian visitors to the United States. Some of Iran’s grievances may have merit. Others fail to gauge the importance to the United States of the principles underlying its policies.

Khatami was elected president last year by nearly 70% of Iranian voters in an unmistakable expression of support for instituting changes in Iran’s domestic and foreign policies. A more constructive relationship with Iran is clearly in this country’s long-term interest. The opportunity to seek that relationship should not be squandered.