The welcome announcement this week by the Clinton administration that it will waive certain economic sanctions against countries that trade or invest in Iran, Libya or Cuba effectively defuses a potentially damaging, and pointless, confrontation with European allies of the U.S.
It’s also a measured but tangible acknowledgement by the U.S. of the conciliatory gestures during the past several months by President Mohammad Khatami, which suggest Iran may be ready for a rapprochement with the Great Satan after a 20-year standoff.
These waivers are temporary. Congress should make them permanent by repealing the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act and the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Acts, two blundering and counterproductive legislative incursions into the executive branch’s authority to conduct foreign policy that were passed in 1996.
The waivers allow a French, Russian and Malaysian consortium to invest $2 billion in a natural gas project in Iran that had been stalled for fear of U.S. retaliation. President Clinton also waived the obnoxious provision in the Cuban sanctions package–more commonly known as the Helms-Burton Act–that denied entry visas to officers of multinationals that made investments in Cuba that involved the use of property or assets previously owned by U.S. citizens.
Both initiatives by Republicans in Congress sought to asphyxiate the repressive regimes of Iran, Libya and Cuba by cutting off foreign investment and trade. But such unprecedented bullying–in effect telling other countries with whom they could trade–created a furor among the U.S.’s closest trading and political allies in Europe and in this hemisphere.
Instead of rallying international support for a concerted stand against these three regimes, the U.S. has isolated itself and sabotaged any collective stance to begin settling these long-standing disputes.
In exchange for waiving the U.S. trade sanctions and allowing the Iran deal to proceed, the European partners have agreed to tighten controls on exports of military technology to Iran and to refrain from doing business on property or using other assets expropriated from the rightful owners.
Reversing both of these laws won’t bring democracy to Iran, Libya or Cuba overnight. But it will open the door to concerted diplomatic efforts with our allies to normalize relations or prevent tensions–particularly with Iran, a major player in a very tough corner of the world.
Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), two of the chief advocates of the sanctions strategy, already are harrumphing about the Clinton initiative.
They ought to reconsider. A multilateral approach that engages our closest economic and political allies is far more promising than the present course, which has done nothing if not freeze the status quo.
