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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 March 1999 Issue No. 421 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 March 1999 Issue No. 421
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Preemptive diplomacy
By Abdel-Azim Hammad
In Iran, extremists and moderates alike believe that the United States has decided to settle the score with their Islamic regime within a period not exceeding five years. To pre-empt the US plan, reformist Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami, embarked last week on a number of international visits which began in Italy and are scheduled to include Saudi Arabia and France later in March.
At the time of the Iranian leader's visit to Italy, the first to a Western country since the 1979 Islamic revolution, US Defence Secretary William Cohen was on a tour of the six member-states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). His mission was to get them all to sign agreements binding them to the US anti-missile defence system. Cohen did not dissimulate that the main objective of these agreements is the confrontation of what he called "the forthcoming threat posed by both Iran and Iraq." After US efforts to neutralise the Iraqi danger have succeeded to a large extent, Iran is expected to be considered the number one potential enemy of US interests in the oil-rich Gulf region.
During Khatami's visit to Rome, an official US spokesman announced that the United States believes its plan to overthrow the Iraqi president's regime will succeed before the end of President Clinton's term in office, meaning that Hussein will be gone within two years from now. This, to Iran, signifies that the US presence, with all of its political and military might, will extend over the entire length of its borders with Iraq. Unlike its borders with Turkey, a Washington ally in the first place, Iran's borders with Iraq are closer to its most densely-populated areas. In addition, any new Iraqi government friendly to the United States is bound to be too weak to oppose the launching of any US plan from Iraq against Iran.
US and Israeli insinuations regarding the importance of adopting all possible measures to prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons, after the success of its experiment with medium-range rockets and its promising efforts to produce long-range missiles, indicate that the pressures exerted by the two countries on both Russia and China have failed to put a stop to the Iranian missiles and nuclear armament programmes. The reason may be that the two programmes have progressed beyond the stage of relying on outside support.
American diplomatic movements in the region to the east of Iran are not any less dangerous than its similar activities to the west of the country. These movements have focused on Afghanistan, Pakistan and India in order to isolate Iran within its borders just like what the United States did to Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War.
However, it is unlikely that Washington would undertake any military strikes against Iran by itself, or in conjunction with Israel. This is not due to Washington lacking the desire to do so, but because the Iranian leaders are very keen not to commit any violation that may provide the United States with the required justification to launch such a strike, as Iraq did by its invasion of Kuwait.
This raises the question: What is Khatami seeking to achieve by undertaking the offensive of preventive diplomacy, both in the Gulf and in Europe? Not to mention the visit to Morocco by the deputy speaker of the Iranian parliament last week -- the first high-level political contact between Tehran and Rabat since the Islamic revolution.
First on the list of Khatami's objectives is the creation of an international environment to prevent the extremists in Iran from committing such breaches as may be expected by the United States. He also seeks to achieve regional as well as international consensus to support the Iranian moderate policy vis-à-vis the adverse claims perpetuated by Washington against Iran.
Apprehensive of a fate similar to that of North Korea or Cuba, Khatami's main concern is to take the initiative of arming his country's foreign policy with the required dynamism to break through the siege imposed by the United States.
The benefits of Iran's détente with the Gulf states are essentially of a psychological and political nature. A similar policy with Europe includes, in addition to those benefits, the economic returns of investment and import and export transactions. It is, therefore, no coincidence that Italy and France are the first two Western European countries to be visited by Khatami, only a few days after signing contracts for the development of new Iranian oil fields with two joint-liability companies, the French Elf Aquitaine and the Italian AGIP. The $540 million deal was concluded despite the US D'Amato Law imposing sanctions on foreign companies in Iran whose investments exceed $20 million.
The Iranians consider this deal sufficient evidence of the Europeans' will to work with them against US strategies. The Socialists' success in the German elections has certainly boosted Iranian hopes, since a German Socialist government will be less in agreement with US foreign policy than its conservative predecessor.
In light of the current situation, there is a big opportunity for the success of President Khatami's plan. But everything can change if US plans to overthrow the Iraqi regime should succeed.
