Iran`s offer Monday to mediate a cease-fire in the Persian Gulf war left Bush administration officials both intrigued and concerned over Tehran`s intentions.
In public, the administration reacted coolly.
”What`s to mediate?” said State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler. ”The only mediation, in our opinion, that would be appropriate would be for the people who communicate with Saddam Hussein to convince him to comply with the 12 United Nations resolutions” and leave Kuwait.
Despite that almost cavalier dismissal, some officials privately voiced cautious optimism that the Iranian proposal may have signaled a major move by President Hashemi Rafsanjani to nudge his war-ravaged, impoverished nation toward the West.
President Bush, in his inaugural address in 1989, offered to hold direct talks with Iran. But bitter memories of the Iran-contra affair and the hostage debacle under President Jimmy Carter prompted the Bush administration to demand an end to Iran`s support for terrorists and its help in the release of American hostages in Lebanon before any rapprochement.
In part, the administration rushed to rebuff the Iranian mediation offer because of concern that international pressure would mount for a cease-fire and a negotiated settlement. Adding to that was the favorable reception the proposal received in the United Nations as well as from Moscow, France, Algeria and other nations.
”I think we`re seeing Iran trying to move into the international postwar orbit,” said one official closely monitoring the situation in the gulf. ”If they want to move toward the West, it`s better to get in on the ground floor as a building block rather than stay a stumbling block.”
Robert Hunter, director of Middle East affairs at the National Security Council under Carter from 1979 to 1981, called the Iranian mediation bid a potentially historic breakthrough for the West.
”It is of profound importance for us,” said Hunter, now a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ”The Iranian president said they are prepared to resume official contacts with Washington. That is a major departure for their politics. It took tremendous courage for him to do that.”
The Iranian offer, coming on the heels of the still-unexplained flight to Tehran last week of about 90 Iraqi warplanes, was the latest surprise move by a bitter American adversary that repeatedly has proclaimed its neutrality in the war.
So far Iran has been evenhanded in its opprobrium, condemning Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein`s occupation of Kuwait as well as the U.S.-led military campaign to dislodge him.
On Monday, Rafsanjani reaffirmed that neutrality. He denied again that the Iraqi planes flew to Iran as part of a deal and pledged they would be impounded for the rest of the war.
Cautioning that the U.S. and the West have a long and painful history of failure in trying to analyze Iran`s internal political machinations, some administration officials said Rafsanjani`s policy appeared to reflect several competing currents in Tehran, some welcome and some ominous.
Tehran appears, they said, to be playing a complicated double game with Iraq, its traditional enemy, and with the U.S., the nation denounced as the
”Great Satan” since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
On one level, the Iranian offer reflects a desire to return to an enhanced-if not dominant-postwar role in the gulf. Once the region`s pre-eminent power, Iran suffered severe military and economic damage during its own eight-year conflict with Iraq.
Despite Tehran`s proclaimed neutrality, nothing would better serve this Iranian aspiration than a massive and humiliating defeat for Hussein, officials said.
To that end, one U.S. intelligence source said, Tehran recently has stepped up efforts to organize Iraq`s Shiite Muslims, a majority of the population, to seek power if Hussein is toppled.
That had been Ayatollah Khomeini`s goal throughout the war with Iraq:
militant fundamentalist Shiite Muslim regimes ruling the two main gulf powers, confronting the West and extending their influence south and west through the Middle East.
This is being watched with concern in Washington, where some officials fear the current war places Iran in a ”win-win” situation.
But at the same time, Rafsanjani and other Iranian leaders have tempered their deep hatred of Hussein for the sake of reaffirming Tehran`s ties with the rest of the Muslim world, where the U.S.-led aerial bombardment of fellow Muslims in Iraq has evoked widespread sympathy for Baghdad.
Iran polished those Muslim and humanitarian credentials by receiving the Iraqi warplanes and by sending a caravan of food, medicine and baby formula to Iraq last week. It also assumed the mantle of mediator by playing host to a procession of diplomatic delegations from France, Iraq, Algeria and even Kuwait over the past few days.
Envoys from the Soviet Union and Turkey are expected in Tehran on Tuesday.
Even if Iran really does not want the war to end leaving Hussein in power, those contacts are helpful for the future as Tehran tries to rebuild. Kuwait alone is reported to have offered billions of dollars in assistance.
Hunter and other analysts said the Iranian feelers toward the West also appear intended to help Rafsanjani ease the transition away from the strict Islamic society favored by his radical rivals.
For political cover, he said his offer to open talks with Washington must be approved by Iran`s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Rafsanjani also appealed Monday for greater freedom for Muslim women, saying they are repressed by ”prejudice and wrong tradition.”
Some analysts in the U.S. saw that as part of his overall message of wanting to move Iran toward the West. But if so, it also may be part of a huge gamble.
”Iran`s economy is shattered. It is even more in Iran`s interest to come back into the world and get economic help from the West than it is for the Soviet Union,” Hunter said. ”But if the U.S. does nothing, if we do not respond, the result could extend as far as getting him (Rafsanjani)
overthrown. He`s got to show the mullahs that he can get something out of reaching out toward the West, that there are some tangible benefits.”
